Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

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, Heb. 4.2. ⟨p. 46⟩Where there is only an implicit faith, the word lies upon the heart all in a lump, whole and undigested, affording no blood or spirits of sanctity to the soul: it is explicit faith only which breaks the truth in the heart, and mixes and tempers every holy particle therewith, from whence the soul comes to be changed and assimilated into the truth, receiving a divine likeness from it, according to the measure of its faith, more or less digesting the same truth in the heart; neither can it lastly overcome the world and the lusts thereof, this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, saith the Apostle, 1 Joh. 5.4. And this Faith doth, by putting a right estimate of things into the heart: whereby it manifestly appears, that heavenly things do infinitely outweigh earthly in themselves, and should do so in the minds of men.