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

Direct. 8. By Faith deliver up your selves to God, as your Sovereign Ruler, with an absolute Resolution to learn, and love, and obey his Laws.

Direct. 8. By Faith deliver up your selves to God, as your Soveraign Ruler, with an absolute Resolution to learn, and love, and obey his Laws.

Though I have often and more largely spoken of these duties in other Treatises, I must not here totally omit them, where I speak of that Faith in God, which essentially consisteth in them. It is a narrow, and foolish, and pernicious conceit of Faith, which thinketh it hath no object but promises ⟨p. 176⟩and pardon; and that it hath nothing to do with God as our Sovereign Governor: And it is too large a description of faith, which maketh actual and formal obedience to be a part of it: As Marriage is not conjugal fidelity and duty, but it is a Covenant which obligeth to it; and as the Oath of Allegiance is not a formal obedience to the Laws, but it is a covenanting to obey them; and as the hiring or covenant of a servant, is not doing service, but it is an entering into an obligation and state of service: So Faith and our first Christianity, is not strictly formal obedience to him that we believe in, as such: But it is an entering of our selves by covenant into an obligation and state of future obedience. Faith hath Gods precepts for its objects as truly as his promises: But his own Relation as our King or Ruler is its primary object, before his precepts, Hos. 13.10. Psal. 2.6. & 5.2. & 10.16. & 24.7, 8, 10. & 47.6, 7