and all his salvation. If the ship was honoured that carried Cæsar, O what must be the excellency of scripture! which carries Christ, so to speak, to the children of men. And what happy shores are these of ours, where the celestial vessel has landed! What a blessed wind that wafted it to us! Paul and Silas had the honour to be rowers, and to offer the precious cargo to whatever port they came. Hence, they said to the poor jailor," Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." This was offering him all at once: the richest offer indeed that ever was, or can be made to the sons of men. It was heaven come down to earth.

2dly. See the excellency of true faith. It is the reception of the celestial cargo. It is to receive Christ with all his fulness. It is a throwing open the doors of the soul, that the Son of God, the king of glory may enter in. And therefore, it is the most pleasing thing to God that a sinner can do. Who could be persuaded, did not the experience of every day attest it, that thousands and ten thousands shut their doors against heaven's highest Ambassador? Though he should not have where to lay his head, they will give him no access. If this be the most heaven-daring offence, surely true faith must be precious indeed, 2 Pet. i. 1. It is that which gives the highest honour to the Son, and therefore must be pleasing to the Father. Numbers in their ignorance and enmity, can traduce it in such a way as we tremble to mention. They are not ashamed to declare, that if ever they enter heaven, it will not be by faith. Their works, their faithless works, are their only hope and boast. Had they been to speak to the trembling jailor, their address would have been very different from that of the apostles. They would have mentioned morality, but not a word of faith in Christ Jesus. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men, 1 Cor. i. 25. That faith which he enjoins on all, and works in some, is not a mere fancy, or some groundless imagination. No:. It is the substance of things

hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1. If the word of the living God be not a mere chimera, that faith which rests on it, cannot be an airy, an unsubstantial, or unmeaning thing. It stands related to the truth of God, and what so precious to him as his truth? It gives him the glory of his truth in believing what he has said, and that because he has said it. It opens a door in the sinner's heart to receive ALL the word. Hence, we read of the door of faith, Acts xiv. 27. It asks no more but a "Thus saith the Lord," and having got that, it can go through the darkest labyrinths, and conquer the united powers of earth and hell. The believer having ascended the mount of revelation, can see far and wide, can look backward and forward. He can see what was done before he existed, Hab. iii. 7. And what shall be done when he is laid in dust, John viii. 56. Heb. xi. 13. Like the eastern sages, he is led by the star of scripture-light to the babe of Bethlehem, lying in the manger. Nor does he leave him there. He follows him to Calvary and the eross, and turns aside to the grave to see where the Lord lay. He sees him risen, keeps his eye upon him as seated at God's right hand, and looks for his appear. ing the second time, without sin, unto salvation, Heb. ix. 28. So eagle-eyed is true faith.

According to holy scripture, by faith we are united unto Christ, Eph. iii. 17.; by faith we are justified, Rom. v. I.; by faith we are adopted, John i. 12. Gal. iii. 26.; by faith we are sanctified, Acts xv. 9. xxvi. 18.; by faith we stand, 2 Cor. i. 24.; by faith we walk, 2. Cor. v. 7.; by faith we fight, Eph. vi. 16. 1 Tim. vi. 11.; by faith we overcome, 1 John v. 4.; by faith we live, Gal. ii. 20.; and in faith we die, Heb. xi. 13. Thus faith is the first and the last, as an instrument, in the spiritual warfare. It begins, it ends, and it runs through the whole of the campaign.

3dly. We may see that the great object of faith is a person, a divine person. So our text intimates, "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." Jehovah Jesus is he

to whom the believer cleaves, Acts xi. 23. It is true, that besides the person, there is also a word and a thing, which the empty but eager hand of faith, doth The apprehend, Rom. x. 8. Eph. i. 13. Phil. iii. 9. word brings the person near us, and the person brings the thing, viz. his surety-righteousness, Isa. iv. 6, 13. The person is in the word, and the thing in the person. By believing the promise we get him, and being interested in him, he spreads his skirt over us, and covers our nakedness, Ezek. xvi. 8. Thus these three, though distinct, are undivided. He who has one has all; and he who has not all, has none of them. But you will observe, Jesus the person is in the midst betwixt the word and the thing, the promise and the righteousness. And it is He, it is He alone, who gives dignity to both. The word is his, and the righteousness is his. Hence, that is the word of God, and this is the righteousness of God; that the word of his lips, and this the work of his hands. That is, what he says to us; this, what he wrought for us. And therefore with the fullest confidence we can cast ourselves on both, as certain that they can bear our weight, as that he is a divine person. They derive all their value from him only. The one is, Thus saith the Lord, and therefore cannot but be true. The other, Thus did the Lord, and therefore cannot but be perfect. They are his rod and his staff, I may say, wherewith we are comforted, Psalm xxiii. 4. His, and hence all their efficacy. The one is the breath of his lips, the other the blood of his cross. That the word of God, this the blood of God, Acts xx. 28, 32. So true is it that the person gives all their dignity to beth. To the word on this side, and to the righteousness on that. We rest on the word, because it is his; and on the righteousness, because it is his.

4thly. See a vast distinction betwixt the promises made concerning the elect, and these made to them as believers. Or, if ye will, betwixt the promises as made to Christ the elect's representative, and as made to us in the dispensation of the gospel. Not distin

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guishing duty between these, has occasioned great confusion of ideas, and no little wrangling amongst the godly. The promises concerning us were made to Christ before the world began, Tit. i. 2. These to us are revealed in the word, and suppose our personal existence. In the one there is a promise of faith, but in the other the promise is to faith. In those we are spoken of, the promise being directed to our representative. "I will put my laws in their minds, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more,” Heb. viii. 10, 12. In these we are spoken to in our own persons, "Ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." The new heart and faith itself are included in the promises made concerning us, Jer. xxxii. 39. Psalm xxii. 30, 31. cx. 3. but not in these made to us in our own persons. Though we find these promises running as in the second person, Ezek. xxxvi. 25-28. "A new heart also will I give you;" yet these cannot be extended unto all, but to the elect only. Neither do they constitute a part of the gospel-offer. No man before conversion can have any warrant to say that the new heart is promised to him in particular. For if so, then he would be warranted to trust or believe in the promise for the new heart: which is absurd. To believe is an act of the new heart, and therefore cannot properly speaking, be a trusting for it. We get faith from Christ, but not by faith. We are purely passive in the reception of power to believe. Christ, by uniting himself unto us, gives us faith, that thereby we may join ourselves unto him. He gives 1:3 one gift, that thereby we may be enabled actively to receive many. He gives faith, that thereby we may receive himself. We must be passive in the reception of the first grace. Active we cannot be, till God make us so. Our existence and activity in grace, as well as in nature, are entirely owing to him. As we cannot actively receive animal food, without a previous principle of animal life; no more can

we be active in receiving Christ, without a previous principle of spiritual life. But can we be active in receiving either of these lives? No. It would be a contradiction to say so. For if active, then living. If active in receiving life (of whatever kind) we should have life before we had it: which is a manifest absurdity. But say, for argument's sake, that we are active in re. ceiving spiritual life. Whence had we that activity? From some previous life surely. And whence had we that life? If we were passive in receiving it, the question is in effect given up. If active, the question still recurs, whence got we that activity? and so on in an endless chain. Therefore it must either be confessed that we are passive somewhere, or we must in effect deny a First Cause. As we cannot be, so we cannot be active, till God the first cause make us so. Self-active is as great an absurdity as self created.

The new heart is a part of the absolute promise made concerning us to Christ. Christ himself together with justification, sanctification, and eternal glory are offered to us. Now though every offer be a promise, yet every promise is not an offer. Whatever is offered to us, must be actively received by us. But none will say that we can be active in receiving the new heart, no more than the body can be active in receiving the soul. Corrupt nature cannot actively receive supernatural grace, nor the old and stony heart give welcome to the new. In that we are nothing but mere recipients. But though nature cannot be active in receiving grace, yet grace can be, and is, active in receiving more and more grace. Thus the man with the new heart gives ten thousand welcomes to the Christ of God and all his fulness, whereby his life is nourished, and carried on to perfection. The new heart is promised not to all, but primarily to Christ in behalf of his elect. Salvation through Christ is promised to all that believe. That therefore, is ab solute: this conditional. That is a secret: this open unto all without exception. Neither will it follow from this, that sinners are not warranted to believe the