Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

First, Faith experiments it by the impresses and holy inclinations in the Believers heart, answering, truly though not perfectly, to the Law. A Progressive Believer finds by reflection, That the Law is written in his heart; That his Heart is the very Epistle of Christ written by the holy Spirit: And withal he knows, that it was not always so; Time was, when there were ⟨p. 338⟩no such characters or holy inclinations there, his Heart was worse than a mere empty Table: And hence he surely gathers, that those characters or imprinted propensities are the writing of God himself; and so comes experimentally to know the Epistle of God in Scripture by that in his Heart, and the outward literal Edition of the Law by the inward Spiritual one, which is a counterpane thereof, and answers thereunto as the stamp to the Seal, or one Tally to another. The mutual agreement between them once discerned is a practical proof, that both are of God, and written by one and the same holy hand. But you will say, there needs no Faith to make this experiment; the very Gentiles have the Law written in their Heart, their natural implanted Principles comprise both Tables; the first in that they tell us, that there is a God to be worshipped and reverenced; The second in that they tell us, That we must do as we would be done to; which Alexander Severus much delighted in. Unto which I answer, That there is a vast difference between the natural Writing the Law in the Heart, and the gracious; The first is a relic or broken fragment of the Divine Image; its only or at least chief seat is in the Understanding, and there it stands in the dark in an abyss of black Ignorance; and in the mean while there is an hellish enmity in the carnal will against the Law of God. But the other is a pure perfect thing which stands in both faculties, being as an holy lamp in the ⟨p. 339⟩Understanding, and as a Divine inclination in the will to do the Commends of God. Hence it appears, That there is not that foundation for this experiment in the Natural Inscription of the Law, as in the Gracious; the Natural being to the Gracious but as a little glimmering is to splendour; or as the broken pieces of a Picture are to the entire Image. It is with a Believer in this case as it was with Bezalceel;

First, Faith experiments it by the impresses and holy inclinations in the Believers heart, answering, truly though not persectly, to the Law. A Progressive Believer finds by reflection, That the Law is written in his heart; That his Heart is the very Epistle of Christ written by the holy Spirit: And withal he knows, that it was not always so; Time was, when there were