THE SCRIPTURE WAY OF SALVATION.
EPH. ii. 8.
_Ye are saved through faith._
1. NOTHING can be more intricate, complex, and hard to be understood,
than religion as it has been often described. And this is not only
true concerning the religion of the Heathens, even many of the wisest
of them, but concerning the religion of those also, who were, in some
sense, Christians: yea, and men of great name in the Christian world,
men _who seemed to be pillars_ thereof. Yet how easy to be understood,
how plain and simple a thing is the genuine religion of Jesus Christ!
Provided only, that we take it in its native form, just as it is
described in the oracles of God. It is exactly suited by the wise
Creator and Governor of the world, to the weak understanding, and
narrow capacity, of man in his present state. How observable is this,
both with regard to the end it proposes, and the means to attain that
end! The end is, in one word salvation: the means to attain it faith.
2. It is easily discerned, that these two little words, I mean faith
and salvation, include the substance of all the bible, the marrow, as
it were, of the whole scripture. So much the more should we take all
possible care, to avoid all mistake concerning them, and to form a true
and accurate judgment concerning both the one and the other.