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

6. Because as the Gospel first reveals Christ to the Mind, and then offers him to the Will; so Faith which runs Parallel with the Gospel, first sees Christ, (there the Mind, one Part of the Soul, goes out) then receives Christ gladly, (there the other Part, the Will, goes out) and so the whole Soul comes to Christ. The Gospel comes to all the Elect, first in great Clearness and Evidence of the Truth of it, 1 Thes. 1.5. to which the Understanding assents, and is persuaded of; secondly, in great Grace and Goodness, surpassing Beauty and Sweetness, Lam. 3.24. with which the Will is drawn, and so the whole Soul comes unto Christ: For the Gospel is not only true, but glad Tidings to all the Elect, especially when humbled at God's Feet, 1 Tim. 1.15. in whom saith the Apostle, Eph. 1.12, 13. you believed, after that ye heard the Word of Truth, (there is the Object of the Understanding) the Gospel of your Salvation, (there is the Goodness of it, the Object of the Will) so that the whole Soul is drawn to Christ in the Work of Faith. He that understands how liberum arbitrium may be in two Faculties, must not wonder, if one Grace be seated in both Faculties of Understanding and Will; no Grace can be completely seated in divers Faculties, but gradually, and imperfectly it may; the Work of Faith is not complete, when the Understanding is opened only to see and wonder at ⟨p. 141⟩the Mystery of Mercy in the Gospel; but when the Will adheres and clasps about that infinite and surpassing Good it sees, then it is perfected and not before, John 6.40. And this is the Reason, why saving Faith (as it is called) doth not look only to a bare Testimony and Assent unto it, as human Faith doth; because in the Gospel not only divine Truth is propounded to the Mind to assent unto; but an infinite and eternal Good is offered to the Heart and Will of Man to embrace, and thence it is that it is not sufficient for a Christian to believe God or to believe Christ, but he must also believe in him, or else he cannot be saved; the Object of believing of him being verum, or Truth; the Object of the second, bonum, or Good: Take heed therefore a poor lost Sinner, undone in its own Eyes for ever, not knowing what to do, unless it be to lie down, and lie still at God's Feet as worthy of nothing but Hell; what doth the Lord now do?