Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

If faith were in a measure explicit in those early Saints, who had but the twilight of the holy types, and cock-crowing of the Prophets; how much more should it be so in us, who live in the noon-day of the Gospel, and as it were directly under the Sun of righteousness, in such a Church-state, wherein the least is greater then John Baptist, we should expand ⟨p. 45⟩and spread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effusions of the holy spirit.

If faith were in a measure explicite in those early Saints, who had but the twilight of the holy types, and cock-crowing of the Prophets; how much more should it be so in us, who live in the noon-day of the Gospel, and as it were directly under the Sun of righteousness, in such a Church-state, wherein the least is greater then John Baptist, we should expand ⟨p. 45⟩and spread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effusions of the holy spirit.

Secondly, Faith, unless explicit, cannot arrive at those ends for which it is ordained; viz. to raise up the heart to a reliance on the free grace of God in Christ, to inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things, to sanctify the heart through the truth, and to overcome the world with its lusts: A mere implicit faith cannot reach these, it cannot raise the heart up to a reliance on Gods grace in Christ: to that reliance is prerequired not only a belief that God is true in the Scriptures in general, but also a belief that God is true in the precious promises in special: We are like Jacob, not believing in the mercies of God till we see the chariots, the gracious promises, which he hath sent down from heaven to carry up our faith to himself. They that know thy name, will put their trust in thee, Psal. 9.10. they and they only. Neither can it inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things: light and heat ever go together: Implicit faith is a dark and cold thing, affording no spiritual warmth at all; he that hath no more, is but a Nabal, a fool in religion, and his heart as dead and cold as a stone within him, till the love of God in the explicit notion of it shine into the soul; it will not, like the disciples at Emmaus, burn within us with love to God and his ways: neither can it sanctify the heart through the truth, the word did not profit them not being mixed or tempered with faith saith the Apostle,