9. This acting of faith on Christ, through the promise of the gospel, for pardon, righteousness, and salvation, is inseparably accompanied with, and that faith is the root and infallible cause of, a universal engagement of heart unto all holy obedience to God in Christ, with a relinquishment of all known sin, necessarily producing a thorough change and reformation of life and fruitfulness in obedience: for as, upon a discovery of the love of God in Christ, the promises whereby it is exhibited unto us being mixed with faith, the soul of a poor sinner will be filled with godly sorrow and shame for its former sins, and will be deeply humbled for them ; so all the faculties of it being now renewed and inwardly changed, it can no more refrain from the love of holiness and from an engagement into a watchful course of universal obedience unto God, by such free actings as are proper unto it, than one that is new born can refrain from all acts of life natural, in motion, desire of food, and the like. Vain and foolish, therefore, are the reproaches of some, who, in a high course of a worldly life and profane, do charge others with preaching a justification by faith alone in Christ Jesus, unto a neglect of holiness, righteousness, and obedience to God, which such scoffers and fierce despisers of all that are good do so earnestly plead for. Those whom they openly reflect upon do unanimously teach that the faith which doth not purify the heart and reform the life, which is not fruitful in good
CHAP, VI.] IN THE INSTANCE OF AUGUSTINE. S65
works, which is not an effectual cause and means of repentance and newness of hfe, is not genuine nor pleadable unto justification, but empty, dead, and that which, if trusted unto, will eternally deceive the souls of men. They do all of them press the indispensable neces- sity of universal holiness, godliness, righteousness, or obedience to all the commands of God, on surer principles, with more cogent argu- ments, in a more clear compliance with the will, grace, and love of God in Christ, than any they pretend unto who ignorantly and falsely traduce them as those who regard them not. And as they urge an obediential holiness which is not defective in any duty, either towards God or man, which they either plead for or pretend unto, so it con- tains that in it which is more sublime, spiritual, and heavenly than what they are either acquainted with or do regard; which in its proper place shall be made more fully to appear.
10. Those who were thus converted imto God in the primitive times of the church were, upon their confession or profession hereof, admitted into church-society and to a participation of all the m^ysteries thereof And this being the common way whereby any were added unto the fellowship of the faithful, it was an effectual means of in- tense love witliout dissimulation among them all, on the account of their joint interest in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I shall shut up this discourse with one instance hereof, given us by Austin, in the conversion and admission into church-society of Vic- torinus, a Platonical philosopher, as he received the story from Sim- plicianus, by whom he was baptized : " Ut ventum est ad horam profitendge fidei quoe verbis certis conceptis retentisque memoriter, de loco eminentiore, in conspectu populi fidelis, Romse reddi solet ab eis qui accessuri sunt ad gratiam tuam, oblatum esse dicebat Vic- . torino a presbyteris, ut secretins redderet, sicut nonnullis qui vere- cundia trepidaturi videbantur, offerri mos erat ; ilium autem maluisse salutem suam in conspectu sanct« multitudinis profiteri. Non enim erat salus, quam docebat in rhetorica, et tamen eam publice professus erat. Quanto minus ergo vereri debuit mansuetum gregem tuum pronuncians verbum tuum, qui non verebatur in verbis suis turbas insanorum! Itaque ubi ascendit ut redderet, omnes sibimet invi- cem quisque ut eum noverant, instrepuerunt nomen ejus strepitu gratulationis, (quis autem ibi eum non noverat?) et sonuit presso sonitu per ora cunctorum collsetantium, Victorinus, Victorinus. Cito sonuerunt exultation e quia videbant eum, et cito siluerunt intentione ut audirent eum. Pronunciavit ille fidem veracem praeclara fiducia, et volebant eum omnes rapere intro in cor suum ; et rapiebant amando et gaudendo. Hse rapientium manus erant," lib. viii. cap. 2. Not a few things concerning the order, discipline, and fervent love of the primitive Christians in their church-societies are intimated and re- presented in these words, which I shall not here reflect upon.
366 THE NATURE OF SANCTIFICATION [BOOK IV.
And this is the second great work of the Spirit of God in the new creation. This is a summary description of his forming and creating the members of that mystical body, whose head is Christ Jesus. The latter part of our discourse, concerning the external manner of regeneration or conversion unto God, with the gradual preparation for it and accomplishment of it in the souls of men, is that subject which many practical divines of this nation have in their preaching and writings much insisted on and improved, to the great profit and edification of the church of God. But this whole doctrine, with all the declarations and applications of it, is now, by some among our- selves, derided and exposed to scorn, although it be known to have been the constant doctrine of the most learned prelates of the church of England. And as the doctrine is exploded, so all experience of the work itself in the souls of men is decried as fanatical and enthusiastical.