The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

It is not once or twice reading, or hearing, or thinking on such a great and difficult matter, that will make it your own, for the stablishing of your faith. He that will understand the art of a Sea-man, a Soldier, a Musician, a Physician, &c. so as to practise it; must study it hard, and understand it clearly, and comprehensively, and have all the whole frame of it printed on his mind; and not only here and there a scrap. Faith is a practical knowledge: We must have the heart and life directed and commanded by it: We must live by it, both in the intention of our end, and in the choice and use of all the means: Whilst the Gospel, and the Reasons of our Religion, are strange to people, like a lesson but half learned, who can expect that they should be settled against all temptations which assault their faith, and able to confute the tempter? We lay together the proofs of our Religion, and you read them twice or thrice, and then think that if after that you have any doubting, the fault is in the want of evidence, and not in your want of understanding: But the life of faith ⟨p. 140⟩must cost you more labour than so; study it till you clearly understand it, and remember the whole method of the evidence together, and have it all as at your fingers ends, and then you may have a confirmed faith to live by.

It is not once or twice reading, or hearing, or thinking on such a great and difficult matter, that will make it your own, for the stablishing of your faith. He that will understand the art of a Sea-man, a Souldier, a Musician, a Physician, &c. so as to practise it; must study it hard, and understand it clearly, and comprehensively, and have all the whole frame of it printed on his mind; and not only here and there a scrap. Faith is a practical knowledge: We must have the heart and life directed and commanded by it: We must live by it, both in the intention of our end, and in the choice and use of all the means: Whilest the Gospel, and the Reasons of our Religion, are strange to people, like a lesson but half learned, who can expect that they should be settled against all temptations which assault their faith, and able to confute the tempter? We lay together the proofs of our Religion, and you read them twice or thrice, and then think that if after that you have any doubting, the fault is in the want of evidence, and not in your want of understanding: But the life of faith ⟨p. 140⟩