The works of Joseph Bellamy, D.D. : first pastor of the church in Bethlem, Conn., with a memoir of his life and character

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v. 1: True religion delineated in two discourses

True religion consists in a conformity to the law, and a compliance with the gospel

The law requires supreme love to God, and impartial love to men

Love to God implies a true knowledge of God

No genuine love to God without right apprehensions of him

Right principles the foundation of right practice

Love to God implies a sense of his beauty and glory

Love to God implies esteem

Love to God implies benevolence

Love to God results in devotion to his service

Love to God implies delight in God

This love lays a sure foundation for holy obedience

The motives involved in true love to God

God's natural perfections

His perfections discovered by his works

His perfections more eminently displayed in his moral government of intelligent creatures

in God's moral government are seen his perfections

God exhibits his perfections in his Word

God imparts a sense of his glory by the influence of the Holy Spirit

A view of the greatness and glory of God lays the foundation for love

Obligation to love God is binding antecedently to any selfish considerations, and prior to any consideration of the positive will and law of God

This obligation is infinitely binding

This obligation is eternally binding

This obligation is unchangeably binding

The guilt and punishment of the damned will increase to all eternity

The divine law, as a rule of duty, unalterable

The divine law in its threatenings, incapable of any repeal or abatement Sinners under conviction see and feel that they are under the wrath and curse of the Law

The law before the gospel, in the operations of the Holy Spirit upon the elect

Our obligations to love God derive their strength and binding power from the infinite excellency of the divine nature

The first and chief motive of genuine love to God a sense of his infinite excellence

Additional obligations to love God

Obligation increased by several considerations

The different influence of God's mercies upon saints and sinners

True love distinguished from all counterfeits

Sources of counterfeit love

The measure of love to God required by the divine law

The law makes no allowance for disinclination

The law is just and equal, as it requires only according to natural capacity

All mankind are capable of perfect conformity to God's law

All our inability to perfect obedience arises from disinclination of wrong temper of heart

This wrong temper wholly inexcusable

For sinners are voluntary in their wrong temper

If sinners were unable to exercise a right temper, then the more sinful the less guilty

Our impotency, being not natural but moral instead of extenuating only enhances our guilt

There is not reason why the law should be abated

Voluntary aversion to God is all that renders the influences of the Holy Spirit necessary to convert men

All men wholly to blame for not perfectly obeying God's law

The heathen without excuse

Much more inexcusable are those who enjoy the light of divine revelation

God is under no obligation to grant renewing grace, but might consistently leave all mankind to perish

God acts as a sovereign in the dispensations of his grace

Love to our neighbor

This love implies an upright, impartial, and benevolent temper

This love is right and fit in its nature

This love enjoined by the authority and example of God

This love should be regulated agreeably to a true self-love

This love always implies true love to God, which removes selfishness and all narrow, envious, and revengeful feelings

This love is different from natural compassion and good humor

This love is different from natural affection, and from everything self-love prompts

Love to God and our neighbor is a radical conformity to the whole law

Love to God and our neighbor lays the foundation for true obedience

In this all religion consists

This marks the difference between true religion and all its counterfeits All false religions arise from self-love

Right views of the divine law useful in clearing up difficulties

We hereby learn what that image of God was, in which Adam was created

The moral image of God is a temper of heart answerable to the moral law

man is born entirely destitute of the moral image of God

Man is naturally opposed to the law of God

All are naturally under the influence of aversion to God and his law

This native bent of the heart is the root of all sin

All that men do while unregenerate is sin

Our best doings give no title to any promise of God's grace

Nature of saving conversion

It is a change from a selfish to a benevolent temper, wrought by the Spirit of God

The sinner is naturally disposed to resist the Spirit of God

Converting grace is irresistible

God acts as a sovereign in bestowing special or converting grace

Where God begins this work, he will carry it on

Those truly converted will persevere

Believers may be infallibly certain that they have true grace

The way for a man to know that he has true grace

Doubts of the Christian considered

The law of God not abated

If the law is abated or altered, the whole gospel is undermined

Natural ability to obey God's law, but moral inability

Obligation arising from self-interest considered and shown to be false

The Pelagian and Arminian scheme destroys the ill desert of the sinner, and subverts the gospel plan

God does not require his creatures to love him merely because it makes them happy, nor does he punish sin merely because it tends to make them miserable

Rules of trial

The nature and grounds of our love to God

Does love to God and our neighbor govern our thoughts, affections, and actions?

Does our experience show that our religion is something different from any thing that can arise from self-love?

The cause we have to be humble and thankful, and to live entirely devoted to God

A sight of the demands of the law discourages hypocrites and kills their religion

A belief in the Trinity necessary to a right apprehension of the gospel

The gospel considers all mankind in a perishing condition

Adam constituted our public head

This constitution holy, just, and good, as it relates to Adam and his posterity

God's right to constitute Adam our public head

Men in a perishing condition because destitute of the divine image

Man in a perishing condition because they are enemies to God Men in a perishing condition because they are averse to a reconciliation

Men in a perishing condition because if left to themselves, no wickedness too bad for them

Men in a perishing condition because so averse to a knowledge of their true state as to hate the light and resist all means of conviction

The origin of God's designs of mercy

The gospel scheme of mercy was not designed because the constitution with Adam was too severe

Nor because the law of nature was too severe

Nor from any inability of men to yield perfect obedience

Nor from any expectation that men would be thankful for it

But from God's own infinite and sovereign grace

God was under no obligations to recover man from ruin

Wretched state of man by the fall

An estimate of the rich grace of God derived from a view of man's ruined state

Conviction of one's ruined and justly condemned state necessary to a right understanding of the gospel, or of his need of its provisions

The nature and necessity of satisfaction for sin

An atonement necessary on God's account

The necessity of atonement argued from the Scriptures

The temper of heart needful to a genuine acceptance of Christ

The necessity of the law's being obeyed

What Christ has done

Christ was fit for the mediatorial office and work

What Christ has done is perfectly suited to answer the ends proposed

The divine law is magnified and made honorable

The honor of God's government is secured

The way is opened for the free exercise of mercy to the penitent

The gospel, as well as the law, a transcript of the divine nature

The excellence of the gospel, as also the law, shows it to be from God

The atonement does not take away the ill desert of sin

Antinomianism arise from wrong notions of the nature of satisfaction for sin

A way opened so that God can consistently pardon all who believe

If sinners perish, it is their own choice

The ground on which the penitent sinner may venture all upon Christ

God may use what methods he pleases to recover rebellious sinners

Christ's merits sufficient for all the world

None pardoned and saved without faith

Christ did not purchase eternal life but upon condition of faith

The non-elect have the same offer and the same ability as the elect, and are lost only by their own perverseness

God never designed to bring the non-elect to glory by the atonement

God designed only to remove the obstacle in their way, on condition of faith

A view of the methods of divine grace with mankind from the beginning of the world A general reprieve granted

A competency of the good things of this life given

A general resurrection from the dead

God has set before men their ruin and way of recovery

God, by the influence of his Spirit, recovers sinners to himself

God, in the earliest ages, entered upon these methods of grace

Man as early began to show aversion to God

This aversion manifested in all possible ways

This aversion overcome only by the influences of the Spirit

The duty of sinners to repent and turn to God through Christ

The madness and folly of using the means of grace to pacify conscience, to make amends for past sins, or to recommend themselves to God

The nature of a genuine compliance with the gospel

It results from divine light

Spiritual light the foundation for a new belief

Regeneration, faith, and conversion connected

Spiritual light and true faith are in proportion

Humiliation and true faith are in proportion

What encourages the sinner to trust in Christ

Faith defined

faith and holiness in proportion

True faith habitual, growing and persevering

The faith of the legal and evangelical hypocrite

The everlasting life promised to believers

Spirit of adoption

Seal and witness of the Spirit

The marvelous change made by true conversion

Faith interests us in Christ, and entitles us to life

Faith a uniting act

Faith imputed to us for righteousness

Secret infidelity in the hearts of unregenerate men

All unregenerate men are entirely destitute of true faith, and opposite to it in the temper of their hearts

God is at perfect liberty to have mercy on whom he will

The true believer must feel himself to be under the strongest possible obligations to an entire devotedness to God, and a life of universal holiness The law our schoolmaster

The law preparatory to Christianity

Prejudices of early converts

Justification not by the law

The design of the law

Shedding of blood the only way of pardon

The law discovers the necessity of an atonement

The law required sinless perfection

Perfect obedience the condition on which the law promised life

The curse threatened in Moses's law implied eternal damnation

The Jewish dispensation a shadow of spiritual things

The law must be approved by all

Approbation of the law necessary to faith in Christ

Right views of the law prepare the way for the reception of the gospel

The law in its moral precepts a republication of the law of nature

Right apprehensions of the law removes objections

Insensibility to the infinite greatness and glory of God the source of objections

The law, and Paul's reasoning upon it, inconsistent with the Armenian scheme

Repentance necessary to the forgiveness of sins

Good works necessary

Perseverance necessary to gain admittance in Heaven

Justification by faith, not for faith

Views and feelings which are necessary to the exercise of faith

There must be a hearty approbation of the law, and a conviction of just condemnation The nature of justifying faith

The mere belief that our sins are pardoned no evidence of justification

How doubts may be resolved, and hope decided

The true state of the Christless sinner

Feelings which are indispensable to becoming a real Christian

A treatise on the divinity of Christ

The Millennium

The great evil of sin as committed against God

A sense of the great evil of sin essential to true repentance

The evil of every sin consists in its being committed against God

Sin is contrary to the nature of God

Sin is against the law, authority, and government of God

Sin is against the being of God

SIn is against the honor of God

Sin a different thing from what the world imagine

The patience of God toward a rebellious world amazing

The miserable state of the sinner when God's patience shall end

The sinner no capacity to make amends for the least sin

It was necessary that the Redeemer should be God

The great goodness of God in giving his Son to die

Practical questions

A blow at the root of refined Antinomianism

Difference between justification in the sight of God, and a persuasion that we are justified

Assurance is not of the essence of faith

Assurance of faith considered

The absurdity of saying that in justifying faith we believe that to be true which is not true before we believe it

Early piety recommended

Family religion recommended

An election sermon: Righteousness exalteth a nation

A letter to Scripturista on creeds v. 2: The wisdom of God in the permission of sin

Four sermons

A vindication of the wisdom of God in the permission of sin, in answer to a pamphlet entitled "An attempt"

Particulars wherein both writers agree

The grand point in the controversy stated

God always acts agreeably to his own perfections in the most wise, holy, and perfect manner

A dialogue between A, and the author of the Attempt, and B, the author of the sermons on the Wisdom of God

Theron, Paulinus, and Aspasio; or letters and dialogues upon the nature of love to God, faith in Christ, assurance of a title to eternal life, containing some remarks on the sentiments of the Rev. Messrs. Hervey and Marshall, on these subjects

An essay on the nature and glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, designed as a supplement to the author's letters and dialogues on the nature of love to God, faith in Jesus Christ, and assurance of a title to eternal life : A general view of the nature of the gospel ; A general view of the glory of the gospel ; The divine law holy, just, and good, a glorious law antecedent to a consideration of the gift of Christ, and work of redemption by him ; The design of the mediatorial office and work of Christ, was to do honor to the divine law ; Sin an infinite evil ; Vindicative justice an amiable perfection in the Deity; a beauty in the divine character ; God, who is the supreme, all-sufficient good, can, consistently with his honor, and is willing to become a God, and Father, and everlasting portion to all who return to him through Jesus Christ ; Repentances is before forgiveness ; The nature and effects, the cause and cure, of a self-righteous spirit ; The nature and consequences of spiritual blindness; and how the god of this world blinds the minds of them that believe not ; The nature of divine illumination ; The effects of divine illumination ; There is no consistent medium between ancient apostolical Christianity and infidelity There is but one covenant, proved from the word of God; and the doctrine of an external graceless covenant, shown to be unscriptural : The nature of Mr. Mather's external graceless covenant, its difference from the covenant of grace, and a general view of the subject ; The covenant with Abraham was a holy covenant, and count not be complied with but in the exercise of holiness ; The covenant with the Israelites in the wilderness was a holy covenant, and could not be complied with but in the exercise of holiness ; The gospel of Christ essentially different from Mr. M's external graceless covenant ; Baptism and the Lord's supper are seals of the covenant of grace, and of no other covenant ; It cannot be determined what Mr. M's external covenant requires, and wherein a real compliance with it doth consist ; various distinctions stated to render the subject more easy to be understood ; Mr. M;s scheme inconsistent with itself

A careful and strict examination of the external covenant, and of the principles by which it is suppose; a reply to the Rev. Mr. Mather's piece, entitled, "The visible church in covenant with God, further illustrated," a vindication of the plan on which the churches in New England were originally formed : The nature of Mr. Mr's external covenant, as stated by himself, under the notion of a conditional covenant ; Mr. Mrs external covenant represented by him as unconditional, examined in the view of it ; the perfection of the divine law, and total depravity, inconsistent with the notion of an external covenant appointed by God for the unregenerate, as such, to enter into, requiring graceless qualifications, and nothing else, as the conditions of its blessings ; A view of the exhortations and promises of the gospel; and the true reason pointed out why the doings of the unregenerate do not entitle to the blessings promised ; Impenitent, self-righteous, Christless sinners, are under the curse of the law of god. But his is inconsistent with their being in covenant with God, in good standing in his sight, by any works which they do, while such ; The nature of the enmity of the carnal mind against God, and whether it remains, notwithstanding the revelation of Go's readiness to be reconciled to men ; Whether the gospel calls fallen men to be reconciled to that character of God against which they are at enmity ; How it was possible for Adam, before the fall, to love that character of God which was exhibited to him in the law, consistently with the love of his own happiness ; The Christian creed, the Arminian creed, and Mr. M's creed; remarks on each ; Mr. M's scheme inconsistent with itself ; The extraordinary methods Mr. M. takes to support his own scheme, and the keep himself in countenance

The half-way covenant; a dialogue between a minister and his parishoner