A discourse of the true nature of the Gospel demonstrating that it is no…

Let not your Heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. If we regard too the other Act of Faith, which is a firm Reliance of the Soul upon God, and heartily trusting of him, and cheerfully committing all our ⟨p. 46⟩Concernments, our Life, our Happiness, all we enjoy or hope for, to his faithful Love and Care; this was certainly our first Father's Duty, and given in Precept to him in the Law, as well as the other of assenting to all that God declared as undoubtedly true. And indeed, if it was Adam's Duty in his Primitive Condition to believe in God, it was commanded by the Law; for that only could make it become so. And what! can we ever wildly imagine, that our first Father was not bound to act Faith on God his Creator, and constant Benefactor, and upon whom he was to have a perpetual Dependence, or he could not live a moment? What! can we think, that to have rejected God's Word as of suspected Truth, to have refused, or but to have suspended his Assent to it when proposed, had been no fault in him? That to have distrusted God, to have renounced Dependence on him, would not have been a Crime the greatest as could be committed by him? But all this is the unavoidable Consequence of this Assertion, That the Precept of Faith is not in the Law; for neither would Faith have been a Duty, nor Unbelief a Sin to Adam, had not the Law, which was the only Rule of his Obedience, commanded the one and forbidden the other. Were it not for this, he might have been a stubborn obstinate Unbeliever without being a Sinner; when on the contrary, it appears from the short Relation of his Apostasy, that Unbelief was his very first Sin. For what is Faith, but to trust in God upon his Word and Promise for all our Life and Happiness? and what is Unbelief but to distrust him? And was not Adam, while flourishing in his State Innocence, a real and sincere Believer? and so long as he persisted in acting Faith, did he not continue to be happy? And was it not the Neglect of the due Exercise of Faith, which at last plunged him into the Depths of Misery and Despair? As long as he believed God, and entirely confided in him; as long as he lived in constant Dependence upon the Love and Care of his Creator; as long as he thankfully acknowledged, that he received all the Blessings of Life as the Fruits of his Bounty;

Let not your Heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. If we regard too the other Act of Faith, which is a firm Reliance of the Soul upon God, and heartily trusting of him, and chearfully committing all our