The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…

III. The Form of Faith.

This is the third Thing in the Description of Faith; the coming of the whole Soul out of itself unto Christ is the Form of Faith, and that wherein the Life and Essence of it consists, and which doth difference it from all other Graces of the Spirit. The first Act of Faith, as it unites us to Christ, is not Assurance that ⟨p. 134⟩he is mine, but a coming to him with Assurance that hereby he is become mine. Come unto the Waters, and so buy Wine and Milk, Isai. 55.1, 2. i. e. now make them your own. The weary and heavy laden shall not have rest, unless they come to Christ for it, Matth. 11.28. Faith doth nothing for Life, (for that is the Law of Works) it only receives him who hath done all for it, it comes out of all it hath or doth, (like Abraham that left his Servants behind him, when he went up to God in the Mount) unto Christ for Life. Conceive it thus; Adam had a Principle and Stock of Life in himself, in his own Hand, and therefore was to live by this, to live of himself, and from himself, and therefore had no Need nor Use of Faith; he lived by the Law of Works; which the Apostle sets in a direct Opposition to the Law of Faith; but Adam being now fallen, hath lost his Life, and became not like the Man that fell among Thieves betwixt Jerusalem and Jericho, stripped, wounded, and half dead, but wholly dead, Eph. 2.1. so that let any Man seek Life from himself, it's impossible he should live: For if there had been a Law that could have given Life, our Righteousness should have been thereby, Gal. 3.21. Hence it follows, if any Man will have Life, he must go out of himself to another, viz. the Lord of Life for it, John 5.40