7, 8, the filthy imputation, nnder which fallen be*
lievers may, if we credit the antinomians, commit in-
ternal and external adultery, mental and bodily mur-
der, without the leaft reafonable fear of endanminjg
their faith, their intereft in God's favour, and their
inamiffible title to a throne of glory.
But, '* How is Faith the gift of God ?" — Some per-
Tons think, that Faith is as much out vf our power,
as the lightening chat (hoots from a diftant cloqd :
they fuppofe, that God drives finners to the fountain
of Chrijd's blood, as irrefiftibly as the infernal Legion
drove the herd of fwine into the fea of Galilee ; and
that a man is as pailive in the firll a£i of faith, as
Jonah was in the adt of the fiOi, which call him upon
the (hore. Hence, the abfurd plea of many, who lay
fait hold on the horns of the Devil's altar, unbelief,
and cry out, '* We can no more believe, than we can
make a world."

1 call this an abfurd plea for feveral reafons : ( 1 ) It
fuppofes, that when God commands all men every inhere
to repent i and to believe the gofpel^ he commands them
to do what is as impofiible to them as the making of
a new world. — (2) It fuppofes, that the terms of the
covenant of grace are much harder than the terms of
the covenant of woorks. For the old covenant required
only perfed human obedience : but the new covenant
requires oi us the work of an almighty God, i. e. be^
/df'ving i a work this, which upon ibe fcheme I oppofe.
