xi. 20. "Well, because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear." John xv. 7. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' Heb. iii. 14. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end." Chap. v. 12. "Be ye followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises." So that not only the first act of faith, but subsequent acts of faith, and perseverance in faith, do justify the sinner: although salvation is in itself sure and certain after the first act. For the way in which the first act of faith justifies, is not by making the futurition of salvation certain in itself; for that is as certain in itself by the divine decree, before the first act of faith, as afterwards. Salvation is in some sense the sinner's right, before he believes, It was given him in Christ, before the world was.. But before a sinner believes, he has not any thing from God that he can lay hold of, so as to either challenge it, or on good grounds hope for it. He cannot be said to have any right, because he has no congruity; and as to the promise made to Christ, he has no hold of that, because that is not revealed to him. If God had declared and promised to the angels that such a man should be saved; that would not give him any right of his own, or any ground of challenge. A promise is a manifestation of a person's design of doing some good to another, to the end that he may depend on it, and rest in it. The cer tainty in him arises from the manifestation; and the obligation in justice to him arises from the manifestation being made to him, to the effect that he might depend on it. And therefore subsequent acts of faith may be said to give a sinner a title to salvation, as well as the first. For, from what has been said, it appears that the congruity arises from them, as well as the first; they in like manner containing the nature of unition to Christ as mediator; and they may have as great, nay, a greater band in the manifestation of the futurition of salvation to us for our dependence, than the first act. For our knowledge of this may proceed mainly from after-acts, and from a course of acts. The scripture speaks of after-acts of faith in both Abraham and Noah, as giving a title to the righteousness which is the matter of justification. See Rom. iv. 3; Heb. xi. 7.

§ 11. The doctrine of perseverance is manifest from the nature of the mediation of Christ. For as Christ is a mediator to reconcile God to man, and man to God, and as he is a middle person between both, and has the nature of both, so he undertakes for each, and, in some respect becomes surety for each with the other. He undertakes and becomes a surety for man to God. He engages for him, that the law, that was

given him, shall be answered; and that justice, with respect to him, shall be satisfied, and the honour of God's majesty vindicated. So he undertakes and engages for the Father with man, in order to his being reconciled to God, and induced to come to him, to love him, and trust confidently in him, and rest quietly in him. He undertakes for the Father's acceptance and favour, John xiv. 21. "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father." He undertakes that the Father shall hear and answer their prayers. He becomes surety to see that their prayers are answered; John xiv. 13. "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." He undertakes that they shall have all necessary supplies of grace from the Father; and he engages for the continuance of God's presence with them, and the continuance of his favour, and of the supplies of grace necessary to uphold and preserve them, and keep them from finally perishing; John xiv. 16. "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you for ever." And ver. 23. "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him." Christ does not only declare that God will give us needed grace, but he himself undertakes to see it done. He promises that he will bestow it from the Father; John xv. 26. "But when the comforter is come, whom I will send you from the Father." It was necessary that some one should thus undertake for God with man, for the continuance of his pardoning and sanctifying grace, in order to the sinner's being fully reconciled to God, and brought fully and quietly to rest in him as his God: otherwise the sinner, conscious of his own weakness and sinfulness, could have no quiet rest in God, for fear of the union being broken between God and him, and for fear of incurring God's displeasure and wrath, and so having God an enemy for ever. He is in a capacity to undertake for us, and be surety for us, with the Father, because he puts himself in our stead, He also is in a capacity to undertake for the Father, and be surety for him with us, because the Father hath put him in his stead. He puts himself in our stead as priest, and answers for us, and does and suffers in that office what we should have done and suffered; and God puts him in his stead as king.— He is appointed to the government of the world, as God's vicegerent, and so, in that office, answers for God to us, and does, and orders and bestows, that which we need from God. He undertakes for us in things that are expected of us as subjects, because he puts himself into our subjection. He appears in the form of a servant for us. So he undertakes for the Father, in that which is desired and hoped for of him as king: for the Father hath put him into his kingdom and dominion, and has

committed all authority and power unto him. He is in a capacity to undertake for the Father with us, because he can say, as in John xvi. 15. “All things that the Father hath are mine.”

§ 12. The first covenant failed of bringing man to the glory of God, through man's instability, whereby he failed of. perseverance. Man's changeableness was the thing wherein it was weak. It was weak through the flesh.* But God had made a second covenant in mercy to fallen man, that in the way of this covenant he might be brought to the glory of God, which he failed of under the other. But it is God's manner, in things that he appoints and constitutes, when one thing fails of its proper end, he appoints another to succeed in the room of it; to introduce that the second time, in which the weaknesses and defects of the former are supplied, and which never shall fail, but shall surely reach its end, and so shall remain as that which needs no other to succeed it. So God removed the first dispensation by Moses, Heb. viii. 7-13. "For if the first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second," &c. So the priesthood of the order of Aaron ceases, because of the weakness and insufficiency of it to answer the ends of priesthood, which are, to reconcile God to man. Therefore God introduces another priesthood, of the order of Melchizedec, that is sufficient, and cannot fail, and remains for ever. Heb. vii. So Moses, the first leader of Israel, failed of bringing them into Canaan; but Joshua, the second leader, did not fail. The kingdom of Saul, the first anointed of the Lord, did not continue; but the kingdom of the second anointed remains for ever. The first sanctuary, that was built in Israel, was a moveable tabernacle, and therefore ready to vanish away, or be removed finally :-and God forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh. But the second sanctuary was a firm building, an immoyeable temple, which was typically an everlasting sanctuary, and that which God would never forsake; 2 Sam. vii. 10, 11. So the first covenant, that God made with Adam, failed, because it was weak through the weakness of human nature, to whose strength and stability the keeping was entrusted. Therefore God introduces another better covenant, committed not to his strength, but to the strength of one that was mighty and stable, and therefore is a sure and everlasting covenant. God entrusted the affair of man's happiness on a weak foundation at first, to shew man that the foundation was weak, and not to be trusted to, that he might trust in God alone. The first was only to make way for the second. God lighted up a divine light in man's soul

Not properly through the flesh, but through that passive power, that cause of liability to fail, that want of essential perfection (the only ground of infallibility) which belonged to the whole man, prior to any moral defect.-W.

at the first; but it remained on such a foundation, that Satan found means to extinguish it; and therefore, when God lights it up a second time, it is, that it may never be extinguished.

§ 13. Some things may yet remain, that are properly the conditions of salvation; on which salvation may be suspended, that it may well excite to the utmost caution, lest we should come short of eternal life, and should perish for the want of them, after it is already become impossible that we should fail of salvation. For the condition on which the man Christ Jesus was to obtain eternal life, was his doing the work which God had given him to do; his performing perfect per severing obedience, and his therein conquering Satan and the world, and all opposition, and enduring all sufferings that he met with. Therefore Christ used the utmost diligence to do this work, and used the utmost caution lest he should fail of it; and prayed with strong crying, and tears, and wrestled with God in a bloody sweat, that he might not fail, but might have God's help to go through. Yet it was impossible he should fail of eternal life, and the whole reward that had been promised him. The joy that was set before him, was not only certain to him, but he had a proper title to it as God's heir, by reason of his relation to God the Father, as being his only begotten. Son. It was impossible that he should fail in the work to which be was appointed, as God had promised him sufficient and effectual grace and help to persevere, and already had made known his election: Psal. cx. 7. "He shall drink of the brook in the way, therefore shall he lift up the head."Isaiah xlii. 1. "Behold my Servant whom I uphold; mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my Spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." Verse 4. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged." And verse 6. "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness: I will hold thine hand and keep thee." So it was in effect promised in the revelations that were made to Mary and Joseph, Zechariah, &c. and so to himself in answer to his prayers, by a voice from heaven. "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." It appears that all was certain beforehand, by God's actually saving great numbers beforehand, on the ground of his future perseverance in his work.

§14. Grace is that which God implants in the heart against great opposition of enemies, great opposition from the corruption of the heart, and from Satan and the world. Great are the efforts of all these against the implantation of it, and they all labour to the utmost to keep it out. Seeing therefore that God manifests his all-conquering power in giving grace a place in the heart in spite of those enemies, he will doubtless maintain it there against their united efforts to root it out. He

that has so gloriously conquered them in bringing in grace, will not at last suffer himself to be conquered, by their expelling that which he has so brought in by his mighty power.He that gloriously subdued those enemies under his feet, by bringing this image of his into the soul, will not suffer this image of his finally to be trampled under their feet. God alone could introduce it. It was what he undertook; and it was wholly his work, and doubtless he will maintain it. He will not forsake the work of his own hands. Where he has begun a good work, he will carry it on to the day of Christ. Grace shall endure all things, and shall remain under all things; as the expression waνra voμɛve literally signifies, in 1 Cor. xiii. 7.

§ 15. The Spirit of God was given at first, but was lost. God gives it a second time, never to be utterly lost. The Spirit is now given in another manner than it was then. Then indeed it was communicated, and dwelt in their hearts. But this communication was made without conveying at the same time any proper right or sure title to it. But when God.communicates it the second time, as he does to a true convert, he withal gives it to him to be his own; he finally makes it over to him in a sure covenant. He is their purchased and promised possession. Man, in his first estate, had no benefit at all properly made over to him: for God makes over benefits only by covenant: And then the condition of the covenant had not been fulfilled. But how, man, at his first conversion, is justified and adopted: he is received as a child and an heir, as a joint heir with Christ. His fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. God is theirs, and Christ is theirs; and the Holy Ghost is theirs; and all things are theirs. The Holy Spirit, who is the sum of all good, is their inheritance; and that little of it that they have in this life, is the earnest of their future inheritance, till the redemption of the purchased possession. Heaven is theirs: their conversation is there. They are citizens of that city, and of the household of God. Christians are represented as being come already to heaven, to Mount Zion, the city of the living God; to an innumerable company of angels, &c.Heaven is the proper country of the church. They are raised up together by Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places: Eph. ii. 6. "They are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places." The whole tenor of the gospel shews, that Christians have actually a full and final right made over to them, to spiritual and heavenly blessings.

§ 16. That the saints should be earnestly exhorted and