GOSPEL GROUNDS AND EVIDENCES
THE FAITH OF GOD'S ELECT;
THE NATURE OF TRUE SAVING FAITH, IN SECUEINGOF THE SPIRITUAL COMFORT OF RELIEVERS IN THIS LIFE, IS OF THE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE.
II.
THE WAY WHEREIN TRUE FAITH DOTU EVIDENCE ITSELF IN THE SOULS AND CONSCIENCES OF
BELIEVERS, UNTO THEIR SUPPORTMENT AND COMFORT, UNDER ALL THEIR
CONFLICTS WITH SIN, IN ALL THEIR TRIALS AND TEMPTATIONS.
III.
FAITH WILL EVIDENCE ITSELF BY A DILIGENT, CONSTANT ENDEAVOUR TO KEEP ITSELF AND
ALL GRACE IN DUE EXERCISE, IN ALL ORDINANCES OF DIVINE
WORSHIP, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC.
IV.
A PECULIAR WAY WHEREBY TRUE FAITH WILL E'VaDENCE ITSELF, BY BRINGING THE SOUL INTO A STATE OF REPENTANCE.
' Examine yotirselvee n lieHiPr yp hp in the faith ; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that jL-sua Christ is io you. except ye be rei^rubatea?"— 2 Cuk xiu. d.
VOL V. ~C)
PREFATORY NOTE.
This treatise, entitled "Gospel Grounds and Evidences of the Faith of God's Elect," was given to the world in 1695. The remainder of the title is scarcely applicable as a correct desiG;nation of the leading divisions of the work, and may, perhaps, have been added by those who had the charge of publishing it. In the preface by Isaac Chauucey, the reader is assured that the treatise is the produc- tion of Dr Owen. It bears internal evidence of the fact, and that he wrote it with a view to publication. When he waives the formal discussion of some topics connected with his subject, on tlie ground that he had attempted the discussion of them " in other writings" it seems a just inference that it had been his intention to publish the treatise, though no explanation has transpired why it was withheld from the press for a period of twelve years after his death. The circumstance is of some moment, as showing that the work, though posthumous, may be held to contain the deliberate and matured judgment of the author on the question of which it treats.
His object is not to illustrate the common evidences of genuine religion, or the grounds on which we may conclude a man to be sincere in his religious profes- sion. It is an inquiry rather into the evidences on which the elect of God, in any process of self-scrutiny, may ascertain the reality of their own faith. Ascribing to faith all the importance which is due to it as the instrumental cause of jus- tification, the author suspends the entire question of tlie genuineness of con- version upon the existence of a fourfold development or operation of that gracious principle in the hearts of all who may be anxious to discover whether they have been really quickened and born of God.
After stating the nature of saving faith, and after a brief exhibition of the gospel as the divine metliod for the salvation of sinners through the merits of Christ, he proceeds to " the trial of faith," as the main object of the treatise. In the first place, he shows that faith, if genuine, includes or denotes implicit appro- bation of " God's way of saving sinners," in opposition to all schemes of merely human invention for our spiritual deliverance. This approbation of the divine plan for our redemption, in which he holds that the very essence and life of faith consist, is founded on the conviction, — first, That the salvation revealed in the gospel is in harmony with the perfections and majesty of the divine character; secondly. That it is suited to the views, desires, and aspirations of a soul enlight- ened by grace; and, thirdly, That it as effectually honours the moral law as if it liad been completely fulfilled in the personal obedience of the saints.
Secondly, Faith is shown to imply an approbation of the will of God in requiring of us holiness and obedience, to the full measure of the perfection and spirituality demanded of us in the moral law. He appeals, in illustration of the obedience required, to the light of nature, and to the knowledge of good and evil which men enjoy through the law; but proves that without the light of saving faith there can be no adequate conception of the holiness required by the divine will, urging an acute distinction, which might rank as a separate contribution to the doctrine of conscience, and according to which its authoiity in determining the moral cha- racter of an action by no means implies the love of what is good, and the hatred of what is evil. The function of conscience he views as exclusively judicial, and shows that the motive wJiich prompts to action must spring from other conside- I'atious. Two grounds are assigned on which faith approves of the holiness re- quired of us; — the consistency of such a demand with the perfection of the divine
PREFATORY NOTE. 403
nature; and its fitness, when full com2)liance is yielded with it, to advance us to the utmost perfection of which our own nature is capable.
Thirdly, Evidence of genuine faith is also afforded when the mind endeavours to keep itself in the due exercise of the grace of faith, in the public and private ordinances of divine worship. If faith is not cultivated in the worship of God, all devotion is corrupted into the empty forms of superstition, as in the ritual of Popery; or becomes the mere wildfire of fanaticism, or degenerates into the rationalism which ignores all worship instituted by the authority of revelation. Judicious dii-ections follow as to the best method of preserving faith in vivid ex- ercise while we are engaged in the various acts of devotion.