made the Children of God Gal. 3. 26. Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Iesus Joh. 1. 12 13. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to those that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God Now to be born of God or which is the same to be made the Child of God is to have ones Nature restored to the likeness of God in which Man was first made and is the same thing with that wich is called Regeneration and a being born again and a new Creature Which new Creature or the nature of Man renewed by Faith is also called the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes. 4. 24. To be born again is to have the faculties of Mans Nature restored to a rectitude in their motions and operations in reference both to God and Man to be restored to their proper moral use for which they were made It is in a word that which is called a being made partakers of a Divine Nature For those which are begotten of God are begotten in or to his likeness Men can adopt those which are not their natural Children to inherit their Estates but they cannot adopt them to a participation of their Moral Endowments But God adopts his Children to a participation with him in the Inheritance by adopting them to a participation of the Moral perfections of his Nature that is to a consimilitude to him in them And this we say is done by Faith that is by Faith in God and by Faith in his Word For in order of Nature God is first believed to be a God of Truth before his Word is believed to be the Word of Truth And the creditableness of his Word depends upon the knowledge or belief of the fidelity of his Nature And this Truth of God and of his Word is the immediate Object of Faith By Faith a Man believes that to be true which God reveals or declares as his Mind and Will let the Import of it be what it will But then this Faith operates upon the Will and Affections according to the Tenour and Import of that which is revealed If it be matter of sad import it works a hatred to him that threatens it and a fear of the thing threatned if it be apprehended to proceed from an enemy And this is the effect of the Faith of Devils who believe and hate God who believe and tremble Iam. 2. 19. But if that which is revealed by God and believed by Man betoken unspeakable love good will in God to Man and matter of the greatest benefit to him as a proof of such love then it worketh love to him that expresseth such love for Faith worketh by Love Gal. 5. 6. and a longing desire after the promised benefit And as the Soul grows more and more in love with God because of his love in love with his blessed Nature and Divine Perfections such as are his Love and Goodness Truth and Faithfulness Purity and Patience Mercifulness and readiness to forgive which render him altogether lovely so it contracts a likeness to God in these upon the Soul and so changes and renews the Moral habit and constitution of the Soul and consequently of the whole Life There is an aptness and promptness in men to imitate that in others and so in God for which they love them And frequent imitating Acts beget habits Custom changing Nature And hence it is that through Faith we are made partakers of a Divine Nature We all with open face beholding as in a Glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3. 18. This beholding the glory of the Lord is by Faith For we walk by Faith and not by sight 2 Cor. 5. 7. and by it Moses saw him who is invisible Heb. 11. 27. And the medium by which this Prospect is taken is the Gospel by which the Lord in his lovely Perfections is now openly revealed And Faith being from time to time busied in beholding of and conversing with these Perfections it transforms the Soul into the same Image or likeness from glory to glory that is gradually as by the Spirit of the Lord that is through the co-operation of God's Spirit with Mans Faith To comprehend the breadth length depth and heighth and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge is the way to be filled with all the fulness of God by transcribing all his imitable perfections upon the Soul Ephes. 3. 18 19. And it is by virtue of their Relation to Christ and being thus begotten and born of God and made partakers of a new Nature conformable to God's that Men can with confidence call God Father This blessed effect of God's Spirit is the Spirit of Adoption by which they cry Abba Father And it is this new Nature that is the Spring and Fountain of a good Life of all Pious and Virtuous Actions As it is said of God Thou art good and dost good so it is true of all those that are born of him A good Man out of the good treasure of his heart thus renewed bringeth forth good fruit The Tree being good the Fruit will be good And as this new Creature groweth up to strength and maturity so doing of good and acting worthily will become natural and pleasant to him in whom it is To such an one the Commandments of God are not grievous but he will be able in some good measure to say I delight to do thy will O God yea thy Law is in my heart And for sin it being contrary to this new Nature there is a kind of Moral Impotency in him in whom it is to commit sin He cannot sin because he is born of God 1 Joh. 3. 9. Or if such an one be overtaken in a fault it will work a disturbance in the Soul just as that will in the stomach which a Man hath eaten against which he hath an antipathy in Nature But as for such as perform Religious Duties and do things materially good only by the strength of Extrinsecal Motives and not froman inward Principle of this new Nature or love to the things themselves to such those actions being unnatural become grievous and burdensome and will be continued in no longer than those Motives continue in their strength Sect. 8. The last thing I proposed to consider about God's Promise to Abraham is What we are to understand by God's counting Abrahams Faith to him for righteousness And I take it to signifie thus much That God in a way of special grace or by virtue of a new Law of grace and favour which was established by God in Christ Gal. 3. 17. that is in reference to what Christ was to do suffer in time then to come did reckon his Practical
repents through his grace and assistance And therefore God's grace and Man's indeavours in working this change are very consistent Phil. 2. 12 13. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure If Man do but what he can do through the assistance of God's common Providence in whom we live and move and have our being God is most ready through his good pleasure or out of the goodness of his will and pleasure to work in him both to will and to do savingly to carry the work quite thorow Otherwise if there were nothing that Man could do in a way of common Providence towards his salvation why should he be exhorted and perswaded to do that which yet will not be done to effect and quite thorow without the assistance of God's Grace and good Spirit The co-operation of God's grace with Man's endeavours in this change in the nature of Man which is necessary to his salvation is a Doctrine that lies very fair and plain in the Scriptures And therefore men are called upon to make themselves new hearts Ezek. 18. 31. Make you a new Heart and a new Spirit for why will ye dye O house of Israel And God is said to make them new hearts also Ezek. 36. 26. A new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you Men are called upon to circumcise their own hearts Deut. 10. 16. And God is said to circumcise the heart Deut. 30. 6. Men are required to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and Spirit 2 Cor. 7. 1. And they are also said to be washed and sanctified by the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 6. 11. Men are commanded to repent Acts 17. 30. And God is said to give them repentance 2 Tim. 2. 35. Acts 5. 31. It is by reason of this co-operation of God's assistance and Man's endeavours that St. Paul expresseth himself as he doth once and again Gal. 2. 20 I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me 1 Cor. 15. 10. I laboured more abundantly than they all Yet not I but the grace of God which was with me He doth not by these last words so deny what he had said in the former as if he had not spoke true for he speaks the same thing in effect in another place without any such correcting himself as here he useth 1 Cor. 3. 9. For we are labourers together with God And therefore by his so correcting himself saying Not I but the grace of God which was with me he only intends to magnifie Gods grace as having the principal stroke in the work It is a phrase of like import with that 2 Cor. 3. 10. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth So mans indeavour though it be somewhat in it self considered yet comparatively and in respect of the work of Gods grace by his Spirit which excels it is nothing Therefore in fine as men are said through the Spirit to mortifie the deeds of the body Rom. 8. 13. So they may be said through the same Spirit to believe repent obey that is through the assistance of the Spirit who is said to help our infirmities Rom. 8. 26. Considering then that there is promise of Divine assistance to Man using his endeavours in doing what he may and can do towards the performing the condition of the Covenant we may well conclude that there is no Man under the Gospel doth perish but through his own fault and neglect It is true God doth sometimes for special reasons meet with and convert sinners with a high hand of grace whil'st they are pursuing their sins in a full career and using no indeavours at all towards their own salvation as he did Saul before he was Paul But such extraordinary instances are no Rules to us by which to judge of God's ordinary proceedings in converting men Nor hath the Lord put men in expectation by any promise of his of their being converted after that manner and upon such terms And therefore it will in no wise be safe for any man to expect to be converted by such extraordinary workings of grace and to neglect to do what he can do and what God requires he should do towards his own conversion There are many things which men may and can believe and do without any supernatural grace and by vertue of God's common grace It is no Supernatural Act to believe the Being of God and the Immortality of the Soul or future state Or to know that we are â—inners against God and consequently that we stand in need of his mercy Nor is it a Supernatural Act for a man to desire the future happiness of his own Nature or Being or to hear the Word of God which directs the way to that happiness no more than it is to hear any other Doctrine that only pretends to do so Nor is it a Supernatural Act to consider the Doctrine of the Scriptures with as much seriousness as men do or may the contents of any other Books Nor is it a Supernatural Act to consider how we are concerned in the Doctrine of the Scriptures in case it should prove true No more is it a Supernatural Act seriously to consider the strength and force of those Reasons that tend to perswade men to believe that Doctrine to be true Nor under the natural desires which men have to be happy in another world is it a Supernatural Act for them to pray to God to direct and assist them in the use of means that they may be happy These I take to be no Supernatural Acts in men For though the depraved wil of Man needs special or Supernatural grace to do these so seriously and effectually as is needful to true Sanctification yet in some sort and measure they may be done by common help And if men would but go thus far as they can out of a real desire to be happy I should make no question but that the Spirit of God would yield them his assistance to carry them quite through in the work of conversion And whether our Saviour doth not by the hearers resembled by the good ground mean such men as before their conversion have some such working of heart about their future state as doth incline them to hear and consider what with any fair probability may be said about the way to be happy in that state and not to hear out of curiosity or for fashion-sake or to carp I submit to consideration It is doubtless then mens inconsideration carelesness and negligence in those things which they do believe and which they can do that undoes them It is because seeing they see not and hearing they hear not which is the reason why more is not given but rather that taken away from them which they had That is The reason
Circumcision if the great benefits of the Covenant of which Justification was one were suspended upon that as a necessary condition And yet that hâ— was justified when not Circumcised there is the express Authority of Scripture for This he asserts Rom. 4. 9 10. For we say that Faith was reckoned to Abraham for Righteousness How was it then reckoned when he was in Circumcision or in Vncircumcision Not in Circumcision but in Vncircumcision Afterwards he proceeds to undeceive them in the apprehension they had that the benefits of the Covenant were entailed upon Abraham's Natural Seed as such or at least as such with the addition of a literal observation of Circumcision and the Law without respect to the Spiritual and new Birth Rom. 9. 6 7 8. They are not all Israel which are of Israel as they thought they were neither because they are the Seed of Abraham are they all Children But in Isaac shall thy Seed be called That is those shall be called Abraham's Seed which are born as Isaac was by Faith in the Promise which are therefore called Children of the Promise For so the Apostle expounds it saying They which are the Children of the flesh these are not the Children of God but the Children of the Promise are counted for the Seed to wit such as are born after the Spirit as it is explained Gal. 4. 28 29. And this agrees to what he had said before Rom. 2. 28. He is not a Iew which is one outwardly c. Against which corrupt Opinion Iohn the Baptist did oppose himself when he admonished the Pharisees to bring forth Fruit meet for Repentance and think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3. 7 8. The Apostle labours to cure this grand Error about Literal Circumcision as disjoyned from Spiritual in many other places and shews how that Circumcision availeth nothing but a new creature such as Spiritual Cirâ—umcision makes a man to be Gal 6. 15. Not Circumcision but Faith Gal. 5. 6. Not Circumcision but keeping the Commandments is that which would only reach those great ends which they sought after in Literal Circumcision 1 Cor. 7. 19. But I shall have occasion to improve these Scriptures further upon another Head of this Discourse And by the way we may observe that those who build their hopes of future happiness upon their having been Baptized and their being of the Church without the inward Grace signified by Baptism which is the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost they are much a-kin to those miserable mistaken Iews 2. They not understanding the Typical and Spiritual use of the Legal Sacrifices as they did prefigure the death and suffering of Christ and the general Atonement which was to be made thereby nor yet the Predictions of the Prophets touching his death they ran into another gross Error and that was That the promised Messias should not by suffering death become a Sacrifice for sin And therefore they said to him when he spoke to them of his death We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever and how sayest thou the Son of Man must be lift up Joh. 12. 34. They did not dream of his dying but of his Reigning visibly as a mighty Monarch among them and subduing all Nations under them Because they knew him not nor yet the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath day they have fulfilled them in condemning him Acts 13. 27. Their ignorance in the meaning of the Types and Predictions touching the death of the Messias would have been the more excusable if they had not wilfully and obstinately persisted in that Error after those Types and Prophecies were fulfilled and explained to them Ignorance in this matter was found in Christ's own Disciples a great while but their slowness to believe those Types and Prophecies after they were fulfilled was a thing which our Saviour rebuked them for saying O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luke 24. 25 26. But the unbelieving Iews were tenacious of this Opinion after they had sufficient means to have been convinc'd of their Error in it In opposition to which Opinion the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews argues at large the necessity of Christ's suffering by death As first he argues it from his Priesthood For having proved him according to Prophecy to be a Priest not after the Order of Aaron but of Melchizedeck and so a Priest of greater Dignity Chap. 5. and 7. He infers Chap. 8. that as a Priest he must have something to offer in Sacrifice and that of greater value than what was offered by Priests under the Law that were but of an inferiour Order and that he shews to have been himself and his own Blood as the Antitype of all those Legal Sacrifices Chap. 9. Secondly He proves his death necessary for the confirmation of the second and new Covenant as he was Mediatour of it As the first Testament was not dedicated without Blood so neither is the second For where a Testament is saith he there of necessity must also be the death of the Testator Chap. 9. 15 23. Thirdly His death was necessary for the obtaining of Remission of Sins a Benefit promised in the new Covenant For without shedding of Blood saith he there is no Remission of Sin Chap. 9. 22. with Chap. 10. 5 18. And indeed it was a good part of the Apostle's work to beat down this Opinion that the Messias was not to dye Acts 17. 3. St. Paul as his manner was went into them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures opening and alledging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead Yea this Opinion had so generally obtained among them in our Saviours time that it seems the Apostles of Christ at first were not free from it For when our Saviour told them that at Ierusalem he should be delivered to the Gentiles and that they should scourge him and put him to death and that the third day he should rise again it 's said they understood none of these things and that this saying was â—id from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Though they were spoken plainly and in no Parable Luke 18. 32 33 34. Christ his being crucified became a stumbling-block to the Iews through this Error of theirs and that which they insisted upon as a Reason why they would not receive him as the Christ of God 1 Cor. 1. 23. 3. They held another Error which probably was Mother or Daughter of the former and that was That the Legal Sacrifices did expiate and take away Sin not only so as to free them from Legal penalties and temporal punishments as in many Cases they did but so also as to free them from all Obligation to Eternal punishment And so they did attribute to
such as were injudicious concerning the Faith that will save and under mistakes of the Apostles Doctrine about it All this will easily appear to any that shall but with a competent measure of understanding view and consider the Scope and Contents of that Epistle And thus you see how plainly it appears by the Epistles of the Apostles that the Doctrine of Justification by Faith without Works in the sence in which the Apostles asserted it was misunderstood by many Gnosticks carnal Gospellers or Solifidians The sense in which the Apostles did assert it was that Faith justifies without Works Antecedent to believing and without Works as the Works of a literal observation of Moses Law which was opposed by the Iews to Faith as having Christ crucified for its Object and Repentance Regeneration and sincere Obedience in a holy Life for its inseparable Effects But these deceived Souls that deceived their own Hearts seem to have understood the Apostles as if they had taught Justification by Faith considered only as having the Death of Christ and the Atonement made thereby for its Object without respect to Regeneration and new Obedience as any part of the Condition And it had been much better for the Christian World if those corrupt Notions about the Doctrine of Faith as justifying had dyed with those Men which in the first Ages of the Christian-Church were infected with them But alas it is too apparent that the same or much of the same dangerous and destructive mistakes have been transmitted to or revived in these latter Ages of the Church For we find by experience in this present Age that very many of those who are called Christians presume themselves to be Christians indeed and such as shall be saved by Christ though their lives declare them to be far from being new Creatures from â—eing renewed in the Spirit of their Minds Wills Affections and Conversations as those are that have been taught as the Truth is in Iesus Ephes. 4. 21 24. For they are confident they believe all the Articles of their Creed and in doing so they are confident they shall be saved and so they would if that belief of theirs were but so effectual and operative as to produce such a change in Heart and Life as would denominate them new Creatures But the mischief is they deceive themselves in the nature of their Faith it being but an Opinionative inoperative and dead assent to the truth of the Gospel such as is only an act of the mind or understanding and doth not powerfully influence the Will and so it is not a believing with all the Heart but is the act only of one faculty of the Soul A Belief its probable may be found in the Devil himself And such a Belief was found in some who were so convinced by the power of Christ's Miracles in concurrence with his Doctrine and Life that they could not choose but believe him to be an extraordinary Person sent from God though their carnal interest prevailed so much in them as that it would not suffer them to confess him openly because they loved the praise of Men more than the praise of God Joh. 12. 42 43. And besides these Men deceive themselves about their Faith in this also that they do not heartily believe the whole Doctrine of the Gospel but are partial in their Faith They in a sort believe Christ to be the Son of God and that he came into the World to save sinners and that he dyed for our sins and the like But then they do not heartily believe his Doctrine touching the necessity of Repentance of being born again of denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts of living righteously godly and soberly in this present world Or else they frame such Notions of these things unto themselves of Repentance and Regeneration as that they think they believe Christ's Doctrine touching them when they believe only the lying imagination of their own brains And there is too much ground to fear that many Mens ill managing the Doctrine of Justification by Faith hath not a little strengthened Men in this vain confidence For while Evangelical Obedience it self under the Notion of those Works to which Faith is opposed hath been decryed as Popish when interessed in Justification and Justification asserted to be by Faith alone in opposition to all works whatsoever inward and outward as well Evangelical as Legal as well those after Conversion as those before yea and the disposition thereunto the Flesh and the Devil to help it hath got great advantage thereby to perswade men against the necessity of a holy Life in such a sense of a holy Life as the Scripture makes absolutely necessary to Salvation For though its true that good Works have been acknowledged and pressed too as necessary to Salvation yet when withall they have been denyed to be necessary to Justification and Men have been taught that when once they are Justified they can never fall away from a state of Justification they have easily been drawn to believe that good Works are not absolutely necessary to Salvation no more than to Justification but Faith only And upon supposition that the other 2 Points of Doctrine are true it would be but rational for them so to believe For if good Works be not necessary to Justification at all And if it is impossible but that those who are once justified should be saved how should Men chuse but infer from hence that good Works are not absolutely necessary to Salvation unless it shall be said that Men are not put into an immediate capacity of Salvation by being justified Which to affirm would be to say Men are not freed from Condemnation by being freed from Condemnation which would be a contradiction in terms For to be justified is to be freed from condemnation Rom. 8. 33 34. 5. 16 18. and therefore Justification must needs put Men into an immediate capacity of being saved And as there is great reason to think that the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone in opposition to the works of Evangelical Obedience hath been a stumbling-stone unto many and a back-friend to the power of godliness so there is another which hath been wont to be joyned with it that hath rendred it the more dangerous and it self no good friend to holy living and that is the Doctrine of the imputation of Christ's Righteousness unto Justification in that way in which it hath been managed by very many for otherwise there is a sense as I have shewed in which it is a great and a comfortable truth For when Men have been taught to esteem their own Righteousness but as filthy rags not only because of its utter insufficiency to justifie in stead of Christ or as he justifies in which respect indeed it is no better but also as any part of a Condition of Justification or of our acceptance with God And when they have been taught also that upon their believing only Christ's Righteousness in fulfilling
Justification is suspended and are both constituted so by the same means and that is by promise of pardon to such as do believe to such as do repent and by threatning the contrary to those that do not both And if they are a joynt Condition of the Promise of Justification then Justification proceeds not upon either of them alone but upon both together 6. Whereas it is said in the Similitude that a man sees with his Eye alone though not with his Eye which is alone or when it is alone I doubt this is no more true than that which is intended to be illustrated by it For Naturalists will tell them the contrary that it is not the Eye alone by which a Man sees but that it is the Soul that sees by the Eye as its Organ The Eye sees not when the Soul is departed though it be not then alone I confess I cannot possibly conceive either how the Soul should not concur with the Eye in the act of seeing when the Eye cannot see without it nor yet that Repentance should not concur with Faith in the act of Justification so long as men cannot be justified by Faith it self without it or in the absence of it as they themselves grant 3. This lyes in the way of some they cannot conceive how Justification by Evangelical Obedience as well as Faith should consist with the possibility of somes being justified by believing who yet may not live so long after as to have an oppertunity of doing good Works How rare Instances of this kind are I shall not dispute But doubtless when ever men so believe Gods Promise of pardon through Christ upon their Repentance and the necessity of their own Repentance for the obtaining of it as that they in Will and a fixed and lasting Resolution become new men then they first believe unto Justification And it is not impossible but that some may so believe that may never after they do so have opportunity to be much active in External Acts of Obedience But though this should so fall out yet such are not justified without Evangelical Obedience as wel as Faith For 1. These Motions and Acts of the Will are themselves Acts of present Evangelical Obedience 2. They are in the Root and Cause Evangelical Obedience future and to come I. They are in themselves Acts of present Evangelical Obedience For by these Motions and Acts of the Will Men do when ever they take place turn from sin to God and their Duty out of hatred to that they turn from and out of love to that they turn to And these Acts of the Will which consist in affection and resolution are proper effects and fruits of Faith in the Understanding and Acts of Heart-Obedience in the sight of God and a conformity of Soul to his declared Will and Commandment And they may as well and as truly be called Works as evil Acts of the Will may such as are a love to evil and desires and resolutions of perpetrating it Which evil Acts of the Will are yet in Scripture called Works and a working of wickedness Psal. 58. 2. Ye work wickedness in your hearts Micah 2. 1. He that looketh upon a Woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Matth. 5. 28. And envy wrath and hatred which are Internal Acts of the Soul are called Works of the flesh Gal. 5. 19 20 21. And if such inward fixed resolutions in Men of obeying God in External Acts if ever they have opportunity and a Call to it did not pass in God's account for Obedience and were not accepted in stead of the Deed when opportunity for the Deed is wanting the best Man in the World could be no Disciple of Christ who doth not actually forsake all that he hath and lay down his life for him Whosoever of you forsaketh not all that he hath cannot be my Disciple saith he Luke 14. 26 33. Whereas Christ pronounceth the poor in spirit blessed many of whom never became actually poor for his sake as not being called to it But if they are poor in Spirit if they firmly resolve to become poor in forsaking all for Christs sake when called to it these are capable of blessedness in Christ's account as well as those that suffer the loss of all for Righteousness sake Matth. 5. 3. II. Those Acts of the Will are in the Root and Cause Evangelical Obedience future and to come Because those resolutions against evil for good when they are of a fixed and lasting nature as they alwayes are when together with Faith they make men capable of Justification will certainly produce External Acts of sincere Obedience as opportunity doth occur When the Tree is made good it will bring forth good Fruit in the season of Fruit if it be not cut down before When the heart is renewed in affection and resolution the course of a Mans Life will certainly be answerable to it if ever he have opportunity of shewing it A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things Mat. 12. 35. And God who knows the heart doth judge of and estimate men according to what they are in the inward frame of their heart and prevalent bent of their Wills If there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not 2 Cor. 8. 12. We judge of the Cause by the Effects of the goodness of mens hearts by the goodness of their lives to us the Tree is known by its Fruit But God who is greater than our hearts and knows them better than we do judges of the effect by the Cause and knows what a Mans Life will be by what his heart is upon its first conversion to him and so confers on him the benefit of Justification when the Foundation of a good Life is laid in the conversion and renewing of the heart The Understanding of this Part of Discourse will serve not only to satisfie the foresaid doubt but also to inform us what Evangelical Obedience is necessary to Justification in its beginning Not but that actual Obedience in Life is necessary to the continuance of Justification where Life is continued And therefore we find that Abraham was justified by his after-believing and after-obedience as well as by his first and so was Noah before him Noah was a righteous Man and justified before he became heir of the Righteousness which is by Faith by his believing and obeying God in preparing the Ark Gen. 6. 9. Heb. 11. 7. It was by Faith in God's Promise that Abraham left his Countrey to obey God at the first and by that he was first justified Heb. 11. 8. And yet his believing God's Promise so shall thy Seed be which was not made till some years after was imputed to him also for righteousness Gen. 15. 6. It was many years after that again that by Faith he offered his son Isaac upon the