A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

That faith is an assent to divine revelation, that it is in the understanding, and that the act of faith is to understand, no man denieth: but it is assent conjoined with affiance, not a bare, but fiducial assent: which is referred to God as h•e is faithful in performing promises, as hope is referred to him, as he hath power and authority: to perform whatsoever he hath promised. The Apostle saith,¹ We have boldness and access, with confidence by the faith of Christ: which passage doth rather prove faith to be confidence, then otherwise: for confidence may be joined to faith as his proper passion. A man is said to work by reason, becau•e he is reasonable: so faith to come unto God with confidence, because it is fiducial. Nothing can make another thing hot, which hath not heat in it self; nor could faith in gender confidence in the believer, if in its own nature it did not contain the same. God is love essentially and originally, and yet he worketh love in us,² another kind of love, which is an Image and effect of his love. Love in which we observe the Commandments, is the •ormall effect of love, the effects of love flow from love. ⟨p. 32⟩As the effect is, so is the cause. Can the waters be sweet, if the fountain be bitter? Confidence accompanying faith respecteth all the promises of God, and is the store-house of all particular confidence: the confidence wrought by faith, is the particular application of this general confidence. Confidence considered as it doth embrace Christ with a certain affiance, is the form of faith: as it begetteth in us quietness of conscience, and confidence of liberty it is an effect of faith. The meaning of the Apostle seemeth to be this; Because we are reconciled unto God by faith in Christ,³ therefore in confidence or confidently we come unto God, neither distrusting, nor doubting that we have access unto him. So that by confidence in Christ, we have confidence in God to obtain those things that we stand in need of. Moreover confidence is opposed to doubting, when the