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A44499 The life of faith in death, in expectation of the resurrection from the dead opened in a sermon at the funerall of the right worshipfull Mr. Thomas Slany late maior of the famous town and corporation of King-Lynn in the county of Norfolk : who deceased in the year of his maioralty, Jan. 10. 1649 / preached there by John Horn ... Horn, John, 1614-1676. 1649 (1649) Wing H2804; ESTC R19330 35,460 36

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these had faith and kept it to the death and yet as the Apostle here witnesseth they all notwithstanding that died how is it then that Christ saith If any man keep my sayings he shall never see death Oh how mysterious is the word of God Answ and what a riddle to fleshly wisedom and humane ●nse It 's to be believed and held for true by faith not to be judged of as true or false by the verdict of our sense certainly both Christ and his Apostles said the truth he that keeps his sayings shall not see death and yet these that kept his sayings for before A●●ah●m was Christ was and his sayings they were that he received did all die yea the Apostle here hints a solution to that doubt of the appearing contradiction in them when he saies these all d●d in faith for in this very thing that they died in faith they were so preseryed that they did not see death for this very fa●h in which they died carried them above sense and took their eye off from death and set it upon life so that they saw sou●d felt experimented life in death even when they d●ed according to the fl●●h yet the then lived in their spirits their bodies did but sleep in death while their sp●its lived above death being made partakers of Jesus Christ as he word of God to be made flesh who is the resurrection and the life and the very death of death putting it to death they passed through the shadow of it but they saw not felt not found 〈…〉 of it they saw God in their death and the sight of him ●o ●ook up and filled their eye that they could not see death Or 2. they saw not that death that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for ever for indeed that is death and worthy the name of death the second death the other the first death Rom 3.12 the condemnation that came by the first man upon all men that spent it sell upon Christ being by the wise and mercifull God ●a slated upon him 2 Tim. 1.10 and he hath abolished it so in and by himself that nothing but the carcasse and shadow of it abideth for us to see or grapple with so that he that sees but it sees not death properly but only the shadow and shell of it Its life power and proper vigour is by the death of Christ swallowed up abolished and gone he then that never sees the second death sees not death for there is no other death by way of punishment of man for his sinne that 's prope●y death but it remaming and that hath no power upon Christ or any in him the just shall live by faith in the midst of the shadow of the other death and he shall live out of the way and danger of this second death he shall never be hurt of it either by the bearing it or fearing it his faith shall keep him from the first and being exercised carry him through and above the second and he shall never be overcome or over-powred by it thence blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection Rev. 20.6 that hath part in Christ the first begotten from the dead the resurrection and the life that in their spirits are raised with him and shall have their bodies raised with the just at his glorious appearing Seeing then that we must all needs die Appli● and that 's our portion in the flesh and there is a way by which we may so die as not to see death viz. to die in faith what wisedom is it to take that course that we may so die that we may see no death when we die feel no sting in death finde it but a shadow that hath no deadly substance in it nay rather finde it lighted with the glory of eternall life seen and tasted through it that we may see life in death a life beyond above and without death Oh how terrible is death to men when they see death in it when they experiment and feel a sting in it the sting of a self-condemning conscience and the pricks of the second death in the first death When they see death and nothing but death when life is hid from their eyes and so their hearts and thoughts die within them together with or before their bodies when they die full of despair strangers from and hopelesse of ever finding the life of God that will be a black griesly day to a soul that sees not life in it what need then to cry to God here so to teach us to number our daies that we may apply our hearts to Wisedom the wisedom of God in its sayings reproofs counsels cals that it powring out its spirit upon us and opening its precious words to us we may be filled with faith and courage and be in such a state as in which to see no death that we may so believe and live in and by faith in the power and exercise of it that in all our dying conditions yea when we come to breath out our souls we may die in faith die according to faith and not according to sense Even some believers not living and dying in an exercise of faith are many times filled with sorrow fears faintings especially in their dying cases because they judge not and so die not according to faith they judge according to sense they feeling pain and feeling temptations and seeing griesly things represented to them by Satan they are affrighted and rerrified at them though they be false illusions whereas exercising faith and so judging according to it they are carried above and get the victory over sense and temptation Let us therefore so follow on after wisedom that her words may dwell richly in us that her spirit may be a spirit of faith in us that we may live in faith and have a living exercise of faith in all conditions so shall we also dying have our hearts born up by faith and shall be enabled to lay down our tabernacle with peace and joy as that will leade us and not with trouble as sense would carry us and unbelief affright us while we judge of God and Christ life and death sinne and righteousnesse according to faith and not according to carnall sense and philosophicall speculations we shall be from seeing death when we die yea shall finde and feel life in the shadow of death according to that Joh. 5.24 He that heareth my Word and believeth on him that sent me hath eternall life and shall not come into judgement but is passed from death to life and that Joh. 11.25 26. I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and he that liveth and believeth shall never die Those all died in faith Faith Ay but what is faith and how may a man come by it Object The Apostle in this Chapter Heb. 11.1 tels us what it is Answ It 's 〈◊〉
shall but briesly note things and not bound up my discourse unto the unfolding of some one only proposition That no dignity or priviledge though very great will exempt us from dying Note 1. Death is a due debt to nature Omne quod generatur corrumpitur whatsoever hath a naturall generation is also subject to corruption death is in the present principles of every earthly living being and that as by mans sinne meritoriously so by Gods just sentence upon mans sinning judicially Heb. 9.27 Statutum est c. It s enacted resolved upon and ordained for man once to die and that once though for time uncertain to us yet that it shall finde a time nothing more sure yea many a time it seems very near us and we are in a tendency to it from our birth to our last gasp By many waies diseases infirmities or providentiall accidents we may and by some or other of them we are sure to arrive at death we reade of none exempted save Enoch and Elias the first changed the other assumed for as for the Virgin Mary we have not such authentick authority or warrant to beleeve it those two did God exempt from the common way of flesh to shew in them his power over all flesh over nature and naturall principles and inclinations and that we might the more readily be induced to believe the benefit of Christ in the resurrection of the dead when we hear that he preserved some from death and made them as pledges to us of the certainty of that glory and immortality that is the promised portion of all that believe in him through his death And yet surely even they underwent a change equivalent to death though they slept not in death as the Apostle saies 1 Cor. 15.51 We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed though we lie not in death yet we must passe through it we must put off this mortality these innate principles of death we shall not be as now we are when we come to inherit what now we believe for But for us and the rest of mankinde death in a more proper way is to be expected by us and will come upon us except the coming of Christ should suddenly prevent us and then such a change might be allotted us It 's not the being great or gracious that exempts from that event These all died many have lived many years yet as the longest day hath its night so this hath been the constant Catastrophe and winding up of them all in their genealogies They all died Jared lived nine hundred and sixty two years and then he died Methuselah lived nine hundred sixty and nine years but then it follows too he also died so Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob all gracious and holy men and found righteous in the● generations and yet these all died It 's that that David propounds to all Psa 49.1 2. high and low rich and poor one and other because its the lot of all that death will overtake them all none can shift from it None can give a ransome to God for his brother that he should live alwaies and never di● the price is too great and it ceaseth for ever We see wise men die as well as fools righteous men as well as sinners Magistrates as well as Subjects rich as well as poor one as well as another there is no escape of any in this battel nay men as well as the bruit beasts for as to this common condition of flesh there is one event to them both though not as to the spirits of both nor as to the supernaturall work of the resurrection of the body but as to death one thing happeneth to both both are of the dust and both go to the dust 2 Sa●● 14.14 Not only they but we also must needs all die and our strength is as Water spilt upon the ground neither is there any respect of persons with God Serius aut●citius c. sooner or later we must all stoop to death in the flesh These all died A truth known to all and to be experimented by us all and yet a truth as little though of as almost any and as little made use of well might David cry out as he did when he was about to speak thereof Audite hoe omnes populi c. Psa 19.1 Hear this all ye people for though we all see it and shall feel it yet we minde it not few incline their ears to hear what God saies to us in it but hear this all ye people rich and poor high and low one and other All must die Ye that are rich and wealthy and have seraped much together and laid it up for posterity ye must die and leave all this that ye have gotten and ye know not who shall possesse it after you Hear this all ye gallants of the world that are fine and fashionable and delight to deck up your selves in costly apparell Quid ita colitis escam vermibus you must die and leave these bodies which you so dresse up for the worms to feed upon Hear this ye that addict your selves to pleasures and rejoice in a thing of nought and make your selves merry with meer vanities ye must all die and death will put an end to your mirth and jollity to your pleasure and voluptuousnesse chambering and wantonnesse and nothing but the guilt of these things shall descend with you Hear this ye that are poor and pincht with want and bitten with sorrow that fill your selves with cares and pine away with grief ye must die too and then your poverty and afflictions here shall have an end ye shall then have no more need of what now ye murmure or grieve or turmoil your selves for want of It 's but a momentany condition that you are here afflicted with ye must die and death will put an end to it yea death will put an end to all these things weal and woe sorrow and mirth riches and pleasures and whatever here we have as to us Surely man in his best estate here is altogether vanity Psal 39.6 like a bubble full of winde and emptiness easily broken and blown away with a blast and then that that was sweld up into a great appearing magnitude proves as nothing makes no further shew or appearance that we should look after it Oh! why then do ye pursue after vain things why sport ye your selves so eagerly in voluptuousnesse or spend so much cost on dust and ashes and pride your selves of that ye have no hold on or care so much for that that strangers or victors may devour up when you are gone why labour ye for that that perisheth and delight in that that will not endure Sure the very thought of death might instruct us all to sobriety in all conditions Sobriety in earthly delights for we must leave them Sobriety in honours and preferments for we must leave them Sobriety in apparell for we must leave it Sobriety in
caring for and getting in the things of this world 1 Tim. 6.7 for we must leave them As we brought nothing into this World With us so we are sure We can carry nothing out With us Sobriety in all things for we must die to them Sobriety in fears of growing enemies Psa 49.17 18. Be not thou afraid When one is made rich and the glory of his house is encreased yea though he be one that b●tes thee and so hath more power visibly to harm thee for his day will come he also is but mortall and death will overtake him and bring down his excellency and when he dies he shall not take any thing with him nor shall his glory and pomp descend after him Isa 57.12 who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die and of the Son of man that shall be made as grasse though here enemies be strong and potent and use their power wickedly to persecute the innocent and oppresse them yet this their state is but for a moment they also shall die and goe down to the dust and then where is their fury in the grave we shall be quiet and they have no power to harm us Job 3.17 18 19. There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest there the prisoners rest together and they hear not the voice of the oppressour the small and great are there and the servant is free from his master yea the thought of death might further us in taking of our Saviours counsell Joh. 6.29 Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that that will endure to life eternall Set not we our hearts on these things whereof death will surely deprive us and we know not how near that is unto us but look we after those things that will abide with us after death and carry us through death which it hath no power over nor can take from us the favour of God the light of his countenance faith and a good conference assurance of eternal happinesse when thou hast these things thou must rejoice indeed and thy joy nor men nor death can take away from thee These all died But wherefore died they There might be many reasons given but I will not insist upon them they died that they might be removed from the evil of the world and not alwaies therewith burthened Isa 57 1. The righteous is taken away from the evil to come and they died that they might rest from their labour Rev. 14.13 that having done their work and served their generation as is said of David Act. 13.36 they might go to bed and sleep 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall enter into rest or peace they shall rest in their beds each one walking in his uprightnesse Isa 57.2 thence death is usually in Scripture called a sleep such a one fell asleep and such a one slept with his fathers thence the heathen Poets have also called sleep Placidissima mortis imago and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the pleasant image resemblance and as it were the premeditation of death But I passe from these things and goe forward with the text for this is not the businesse that the Apostle here mainly propounds though very usefull for us to consider and at this time also very seasonable and sutable with our present occasion that we also might be stirred up with earnestnesse to pray as that good man of God Psa 90.12 So teach us O Lord to number our daies that we may apply our hearts unto wisedom but the Apostle adds These all died 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or according to faith Secundum fidem after the faith What Did they die in faith Did their faith die Verily no they did not cast away their faith when they died but exercised it their act of dying too was done in faith and according to their faith they died in an exercise of faith that it might be further manifest according to the first proposition and prime intent of the Apostle here that they did live by faith as they did believe in God while they lived so when they came to die they yeelded up themselves to God in that belief and were not shaken from it no not by death they feared not in the valley of the shadow of death Psa 23.3 nor fainted in the hour of death Gen. 49.18 even then also they waited for Gods salvation though death ceised on their bodies yet they retained and let not goe their confidence though the day of their lives here was expired yet died not their hopes and hearts within them but were supported by faith with the expectation of another day in which the promises should be enjoyed and here we may further note the excellency of faith They that live by faith die in faith the just by saith fi●de life through their faith even in the midst of death These all died in faith In this these righteous ones diff●r f●m others All die but die not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becometh fa●th or with an experiment of the power of faith all die passively they s●ffer the pains of death and have their lives fe●●hed from them but all are not active in death willingly and believingly to resign up their spirits to God and cast themselves into his arms with confidence that he will keep and restore them and notwithstanding death intervene their receit of his word and the performance of his promise yet he will not fail of his word but perform every jot and tittle of it to them This is the carriage and priviledge of those that have the word of God abiding in and united by faith with them These all died in faith these die in the Lord 1 Th. 4.16 Rev. 14.3 Through faith they close with and are enclosed in the power strength and vertue of the Lord Jesus Christ by which their souls are acted and carried with lively hope and expectation of good from God through him and as they live in him so they die in him too as they walk in his vertue and power while alive in the body so in the same vertue power putting forth it self in yea encompassing their souls through faith they depart out of the body unto God and depo●e themselves with God till the time in which he shall restore them These hold fast their faith to the death and in death that they mighthe examples and encouragem ●s to us also to hold ●sast● that we may have the like use and bene●●● of it in our deaths But may some object But how do these things stand together Object Faith and Death When Christ hath said that if a man keep his saying he shall never see death Joh. 8.51 What is it to keep his saying but to believe his sayings and hold fast that belief and did not Abraham keep his sayings and the Prophets keep his sayings might not we be offended at Christ as the Jews were and say with them All
and to uncircumcised gentile the body and generality of them not so proselyted The second is the common pro●hannesse of superficiall Christians and turners of the grace and Gospel ●f Christ into wantonness that rest in a name and notion of Christianity but deny the power of it of which sort there are every where too many The third is the sect of the Sadduces that deny the resurrection the visible coming of Christ personally again and the glorious performance of the promises at that his appearing a too too spreading generation May God make it usefull to you to leade you besides all these tocks in the true ancient Scripture-doctrine and faith formerly also attested to in the Church in England so to embrace and love the promised salvation and so to follow the steps of this good man and of other Worthies that have gone before him in the belief of and hearty love to closing with an entertainment of the Word of God that it may produce like fruits in you as in them unto death and in death that you with them also may partake of the glorious resurrection unto life and happinesse I shall have cause of much rejoicing The fountain of mercy and wisedom flow down upon you sill you with truth with peace and righteousnesse direct and blesse you and make you blessings in your places and generations So praieth Your Worships Servant to his ability J. H. Vpon the subject of this Book An INSTRUCTION and HYMN REader see here how great a mystery Lies cropped up in Christianity Strange Paradoxes h●r●'s a bush o● flame Burning yet no● consumed by the same By Coll●quintida death in the set And yet so healed that it his teth not Drink from a rock in gravell w●●●some feed In darknesse light in midst of eval good In sicknesse health the sweetest case in pain In weaknesse strength in losse the greatest gain Yea life in death and in absurdities The depth of wisdom bassling all the wise The tell how men by falling rise and how By lesing what they have they richer grow How by dishonour m●n may mount on high By being overcome have victory Here hast thou meat out of the eater here Sweet from he strong holdnesse in greatest fear A dying man sild full of life and breath Conquer'd and yet triumphing over death But whence all thu or how can these things be Shall Paradoxes be Divinity Behold here 's God with ma● Emmanuel That only word 〈…〉 d●th unspell In God is good light 〈…〉 strength case and gain In man all darknesse sickn●sse weaknesse pain Yea sorrow lesse and misery and death God fountain is of blesse jor life and breath In Christ these 〈◊〉 Behold the mystery Manhead united with the Deity Yea all those properties and consequents Of each found place in him a battell thence In him was fought while sin on righteousnesse Death on eternall life and curse on blesse Made their assault for these on him did seise Cause God to bruise his precious soul did please Death with us train could finde but small alode Though the humanity did yeeld thereto The Deity soon resoued is therefro And since our evils in that death did meet The eater yeelded meat and the strong sweet God shen'd himself in man in weaknesse strength In darknesse glortom light in shortnesse length Even length of daies and immortality Death being swallowed up in victory Of which mans nature being dispessest Is now become in him Gods endlesse rest Yea men is there the seat of blessings all As●e●ded and captivity made thrall Which treastored are in him for us from thence Blessing of every kinde God doth ●●spense Christy his ho●y Word and Spirit by which He peace and pardon in 〈◊〉 Name doth preach● By these he worketh saith and that the 〈◊〉 'Twixt us and Christ bringing to unitie With him from which doth such communion slow That he and we no longer are as two ●oyn'd in one spirit as he took our flesh So he gives us his Spirit which doth refresh And fill our hearts with joy Gods power he is Conquering death and its accomplices In us as once in Christ with whom joyn'd thus He writes his Name upon us God with us He is our life in death hope in despair Our strength in weak●sse and he doth repair Our breaches all while he doth make us see That we shall r●st and reign as well as he Oh glorious death by which our life appears Oh glorious Spirit that our hearts no bears Oh gloricus Word that doth this tidings bring Oh glorious Cha● where our heavenly King Comes riding to 〈…〉 precious Faith That such a spring and such an issue hath Oh precious Lord that bar●st to us such love Try self so to abase ●ll to remove From 〈…〉 whom it lay and would have wrought Our and esse ruine Thou to is hast brought Life yea immortall life Thou art the day That lightnest our night Thou art the way By which God comes to 〈◊〉 in he great night By which he give to 〈◊〉 his holy Spirit By which we come to him and finde his power Infusing life into us in deaths hour Th●●s art the Word on thee the Spirit is put To open eyes that blinde are and unshut The stepped ears from bondage to set free And to get over d●●th full victory Oh shew thy self to us be thou our life Fill us with peece and joy end all our strife Be thou our All open our hearts to see And fill us with●ly glory so shall we Triumph in midst of death and sing thy praise Full well assured that thou then●e wilt raise Vs up again and set us on thy Throne For evermore with God to be at one THE LIFE OF FAITH IN DEATH The Text. HEBREWS 11.13 14. All these died 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or according to faith not having received the promises but seeing them afar off they were perswaded and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and sojourners in the earth For they that say such things manifest that they seek a Countrey THe custome of a solemn interring of the dead bodies of deceased friends and of making lamentations over them is very ancient and laudable the mention of it is as old as Abrahams time we finde it was then a custome usuall in the Eastern countries as we reade in the book of Genesis of the Patriarchs and Egyptians and surely in its original it was tessera fidei amoris a pledge and testimony both of their faith and love fidei a witnesse of their faith that they beleeved and looked for the resurrection of the body and therefore would decently bestow cost upon and interre the body amoris of their love to the deceased whose reliques therefore they so sarre honoured and whose losse or absence rather they lamented as in their presence formerly they had been delighted thus I might shew you Abraham himself the father of the faithfull Gen. 23.2 burying the Corps of his deceased Sarah and
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as the paraphrase hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the argument and demonstration of things not seen of invisible things that are not the objects of sense but that are declared in the word of God such is the vertue and power of faith that it gives as great a certainty of those unseen things to the soul or minde as can be made over by any scientificall demonstration for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a demonstration to the minde not a presentation to the bodily essence as the Greek Scholiast upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Faith presents invisible things as visible how to the minde and hope which hope also springeth from it and is upheld by it as it there follows it 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too the basis or subsistence of things hoped for It so presents divine things to the minde that it also draws in the soul to trust in God and hope for good from him and the good things it hopes for faith gives bottom to and enables the soul to act towards them as if they had a reall existence as was before noted Rom. 10.17 And for the way to come by this faith the Apostle tels us Fides ex auditu c. Faith is by hearing by that means God ●fi●ct●th it whence that in Isa 55.3 Hear and your souls shall live 〈◊〉 but it 's not every hearing that produces this faith but that which i● by the word of God the hearing of the Gospel or word of faith that 's both mother and nurse of it from that it springs and by that it 's nourished in listening to that God puts forth his mighty arm and enables the soul to believe as sometimes he did to the Israelites by the brazen Serpent and to Naaman in the waters of Jordan to heal them He that hears my Words and believes on him that sent me c. Joh. 5.24 Hearing the Word is the way to believe in God First God declareth the truth which is truth when declared by him not made truth by our believing this truth heard perswades the soul by the divine power and spirit which is therewith ministred to close with what it hears and closing with what it hears the same power and spirit doth therethrough further while therein are opened excellent things as the hatred and justice of God against sin and yet his love mercy and good will in Christ toward the sinfull soul● c. p●swade the soul to embrace and close with Christ himself of whom the truth witnesseth and unto whom as its proper body and fountain as God is in him and he is God it leadeth and so the soul is by th● Word heard and through the divine power of God therein brought unto Christ and in and through Christ unto God by the beam to the body of the Sun and in that to all that fountain fullnesse of glorious light that sils that body and makes it so glorious But indeed the nature of this saith in which these holy men of God died and which is of so glorious use in life and death is in the text it self by ●cts and operations notably laid forth and described I shall briesly and but briesly touch upon them These all died in faith not having received the promises faith stands not in mens having in possession o● actuall fruition the things promised for then faith and sense should be confounded but 1. they see them the promises afar off That 's the first act of this faith though alone of it self it is not faith for it 's said of some they have seen and hated Joh. 15.24 yet this is I say the first act of this faith or the first act tending to this faith through which the following acts are also generated where this is rightly seated and the abiding in this and of this is that in and through which the other acts are carried on too and perpetuated this act being the first product of the Word heard and that which most immediatly springeth from it for while God speaketh he presents in his speakings truth to the soul and the soul hearing and receiving in the word spoken findes therein and therewith a divine power illuminating and giving light to it and power of discerning that light as if the light of the Sun coming to a blinde man in a dungeon should both present light to him and in the same moment give him a faculty and power of seeing thus in Psa 119.130 the entrance of thy word giveth light and giveth understanding to the simple the soul receiving or looking upon divine word sees things set before it that it never so saw before as his own vilenesse and filthinesse and Gods goodnesse and compassions and the great and glorious things in his way his Son to be met with and enjoied But these are said to have seen them afarre of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isa 46.10 God shews the end from the beginning things to be done never so long time hence yet being revealed in the word and there presented are by faith seen indeed men not hearkning to the word misse of much light and knowledge therein held forth and see not many things which in wist viewing or diligent attention they might come to see things afar off the things promised which were not of a long time to be performed whence neither had they so full and clear a sight of them as those that see them in nearer times as things seen afar off at a great distance are not so fully and clearly seen as when they are seen nearer hand Now they are brought near to us these being the last times yea some of these promises that they saw through the word at a distance are already in part performed and are become Gospel declarations to us as the coming and resurrection of Christ of the former whereof Mary could in her time say much more may we now He hath holpen his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spake to our forefathers to Abraham and to his seed for ever Luk. 1.25 And the Apostle Paul declares the latter as another step of the performance of these promises saying we declare unto you good tidings how that the promise that was made unto the fathers God hath fullfilled the same unto us their children in that he hath raised up Jesus from the dead We believing see them by faith as things already done and they are the grounds of our believing in him for those further things contained in those promises which are yet unfullfilled and which we are to expect the performance of in his season but then there must be with this seeing a further act even that that follows in the next place of them viz. 2. They were perswaded That 's the second act in this divine faith it 's not a bare speculation of truths in the proposition without a perswasion that they are truths and worthy to be heeded