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

as long as he trusted in God upon his Word, that he would not only continue them unto him, but bestow greater to come, which by the Promise he had reason to hope for and expect; all this time he lived by Faith, and his Days were clear and happy, and it was Unbelief made all his Glories set in a gloomy Evening. It was this begun his Apostasy, not exercising Faith any longer, he would throw off his Dependence upon God, and seek to be blessed in some new and fond Way of his own. He indulged a surmising Thought, that God, whose solemn Promise he had so freshly heard, either could not, or was not willing to make him so happy as he aspired to be, and that he refused to advance him to those degrees of Bliss, of which he fancied himself capable: And thus he ceased acting that Faith in God, on which depended his Life and Blessedness; he disbelieved God, and believed the Devil his greatest Enemy, and sinned, and died. And I know not but that he deserved the Execution of the Sentence and Curse pronounced against him, more by his Unbelief than by Eating the Apple: And ⟨p. 47⟩that even the Law of Works condemned him as much for that Sin, as for the outward Act of his Disobedience. Ay, but it will be said, All this doth not prove that Faith in Christ was commanded by the Law, and required of him as his Duty. No, it is enough that Faith in God was so, to prove that the Precept belongs to the Law. For if it is sufficient to argue from the Law's not directing this its own commanded Act, to such an Object as Christ the Redeemer, that therefore it gives no Precept and Command of Believing, but that it is the peculiar Office of the Gospel to do so; that because this particular Kind of Faith is not specified, and this Way of Acting it on Christ particularly expressed, that therefore the Duty of Believing comes not within the Limits of its Commands: I might at this rate of Arguing, prove that the Act of Eating the fatal Fruit was no Sin, because not expressly forbidden by the Law; for that regarded it as a thing indifferent, as indeed it was before the Prohibition: and yet this destroying Act of his was a Sin, and forbidden by the Law, tho not in a particular Precept, yet as involved in that great One, which commanded him to obey God in whatever he should require.

as long as he trusted in God upon his Word, that he would not only continue them unto him, but bestow greater to come, which by the Promise he had reason to hope for and expect; all this time he liv'd by Faith, and his Days were clear and happy, and it was Unbelief made all his Glories set in a gloomy Evening. It was this begun his Apostacy, not exercising Faith any longer, he would throw off his Dependance upon God, and seek to be bless'd in some new and fond Way of his own. He indulg'd a surmizing Thought, that God, whose solemn Promise he had so freshly heard, either could not, or was not willing to make him so happy as he aspir'd to be, and that he refused to advance him to those degrees of Bliss, of which he fancied himself capable: And thus he ceas'd acting that Faith in God, on which depended his Life and Blessedness; he disbelieved God, and believed the Devil his greatest Enemy, and sinned, and died. And I know not but that he deserved the Execution of the Sentence and Curse pronounced against him, more by his Unbelief than by Eating the Apple: And