Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

Thus far of Mortification as a fruit of Faith. I now proceed to Vivification, being the other part of Sanctification. In which the holy Spirit comes down with its Divine Graces into the Soul, and quickens it to a Spiritual Life. These Graces may be considered either in their production into being, or in their actual exercise; and both ways they are fruits of Faith. As to their production into being, Divines differ about the order; some Divines, as Mr. Pemble, conceive, That all Graces are infused at once, coming into us as light doth into the air, or as the Soul did into the body of Lazarus, not piece-meal or by degrees, but all at once and together. Other set down this order, Vocation which worketh Faith and Repentance, is in order of nature before Justification, and Justification before Sanctification. Bishop Downham ⟨p. 284⟩distinguishes between our Spiritual conception of the incorruptible seed, and our new-birth in which Christ is formed in us in all his Graces; the former is done in our Vocation, and the latter in our Sanctification. I conceive that Faith, at least in order of Nature, is first, and then all other Graces follow upon it. The Ancient Fathers, as Bishop Downham hath observed, speak to the same purpose: In Clemens Alexandrinus, Faith is called [Greek or Hebrew], the first inclination to Salvation: In the so-called Ignatius Epistles, it is [Greek or Hebrew], the beginning of life; as it were the Punctum Saliens in the New Creature, in which the first motion and course of Spiritual life begins. Vita sancta à fide sumit initium, saith Fulgentius. And Fides prima datur, ex quá extera impotrantur, saith St. Augustine: All other Graces are the fruits of Faith, not as if Faith did produce them radically or fontally out of it self, or its own virtue; but that it unites to Christ, and so derives the Spirit with its Graces unto the Believer. That Faith is, at least in nature, before other Graces, will appear very probable upon divers Congruities: