promise. "Our fathers trusted in Thee, and were not confounded." We have a further illustration in our Lord's address to his disciples upon the withering away of the fig-tree: "Have faith in God.” He did not question whether they believed the existence of God, but exhorted them to confidence in his promises, when called by him to contend with mountainous difficulties: "Have faith in God; for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe (trust) that these things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith." It was in reference to his simple confidence in Christ's power that our Lord so highly commended the centurion, and said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel," Matt. viii. 10. And all the instances of faith in the persons miraculously healed by Christ, were also of this kind: their faith was belief in his claims, and also confidence in his goodness and

power.

3. That faith in Christ which in the New Testament is connected with salvation, is clearly of this nature; that is, it combines assent with reliance, belief with trust. "Whatsoever ye ask the Father in my mame," that is, in dependence upon my interest and merits, "he shall give it you." Christ was preached both to Jews and genties as the object of their trust, because he was preached as the only true sacrifice for sin; and they were required to renounce their dependence upon their own accustomed sacrifices, and to transfer that de. pendence to his death and mediation,—and in his name shall the gentiles trust." He is said to be set forth as a propitiapon, “through faith in his blood;" which faith can neither merely mean assent to the historical fact that his blood was shed by a violent death; nor mere assent to the general doctrine that his blood had an atoning quality; but as all expiatory offerings were trusted in as the means of propitiation both among Jews and gentiles, faith or trust was now to be exclusively rendered to the blood of Christ, as the divinely appointed sacrifice for sin, and the only refuge of the true penitent.

4. To the most unlettered Christian this then will be very obvious, that true and saving faith in Christ consists both of assent and trust; but this is not a blind and superstitious trust in the sacrifice of Christ, like that of the heathens in their sacrifices; nor the presumptuous trust of wicked and impenitent their sins; but such a trust as is exercised men, who depend on Christ to save them in

66

The gospel, as the scheme of man's salvation, declares that he is under the law; that this law of God has been violated by all; and that every man is under sentence of death. Serious consideration of our ways, confession of the fact, and sorrowful conviction of the evil and danger of sin, will, under the influence of divine grace, follow the cordial belief of the testimony of God; and we shall then turn to God with contrite hearts, and earnest prayers and supplications for his mercy. This is called repentance towards God;" and repentance being the first subject of evangelical preaching, and then the injunction to believe the gospel, it is plain, that Christ is only immediately held out, in this divine plan of our redemption, as the object of trust in order to forgiveness to persons in this state of penitence, and under this sense of danger. The degree of sorrow for sin, and alarm upon this discovery of our danger as sinners, is nowhere fixed to a precise standard in scripture; only it is supposed everywhere, that it is such as to lead men to inquire earnestly, "What shall I do to be saved?" and with earnest seriousness to use all the appointed means of grace, as those who feel that their salvation is at issue, that they are in a lost condition, and must be pardoned or perish. To all such persons, Christ, as the only atonement for sin, is exhibited as the object of their trust, with the promise of God, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Nothing is required of such but this actual trust in, and personal apprehension or taking hold of, the merits of Christ's death as a sacrifice for sin; and upon their thus believing they are justified, their "faith is counted for righteousness," or, in other words, they are forgiven.

5. This appears to be the plain scriptural representation of this doctrine; and we may infer from it, (1.) That the faith by which we are justified is not a mere assent to the doctrines of the gospel, which leaves the heart unmoved and unaffected by a sense of the evil and danger of sin and the desire of salvation, although it supposes this assent; nor, (2.) Is it that more lively and cordial as

sent to, and belief in, the doctrine of the gospel, touching our sinful and lost condition, which is wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God, and from which springeth repentance, although this must precede it; nor, (3.) Is it only the assent of the mind to the method by which God justifies the ungodly by faith in the sacrifice of his Son, although this is an element of it; but it is a hearty concurrence of the will and affections with this plan of salvation, which implies a

and

apprehension of his merits: such a belief of the gospel by the power of the Spirit of God as leads us to come to Christ, to receive

397

keeping of our souls into his hands, in humble confidence of his ability and his willing

ness to save us.

6. This is that qualifying condition to which the promise of God annexes justification; that without which justification would not take place; and in this sense it is that we are justified by faith; not by the merit of faith, but by faith instrumentally as this condition: for its connexion with the benefit arises from the merits of Christ, and the promise of God. If Christ had not merited, God had not promised; if God had not promised, justification had never followed upon this faith; so that the indissoluble connexion of faith and justification is from God's institution, whereby he hath bound himself to give the benefit upon performance of the condition. Yet there is an aptitude in this faith to be made a condition; for no other act can receive Christ as a Priest propitiating and pleading the propitiation, and the promise of God for his sake to give the benefit. As receiving Christ and the gracious promise in this manner, it acknowledgeth man's guilt, and so man renounceth all righteousness in himself, and honoureth God the Father, and Christ the Son the only Redeemer. It glorifies God's mercy and free grace in the highest degree. It acknowledges on earth, as it will be perpetually acknowledged in heaven, that the whole salvation of sinful man, from the beginning to the last degree thereof, whereof there shal! be no end, is from God's freest love, Christ's merit and intercession, his own gracious promise, and the power of his own Holy Spirit.

7. Faith, in scripture, sometimes is taken for the truth and faithfulness of God, Rom. iii. 3; and it is also taken for the persuasion of the mind as to the lawfulness of things indifferent, Rom. xiv. 22, 23; and it is likewise put for the doctrine of the gospel, which is the object of faith, Acts xxiv. 24, Phil. i. 27, Jude 3; for the belief and profession of the gospel, Rom. i. 8; and for fidelity in the performance of promises.

FALL OF MAN. In addition to what is stated on this subject under the article Adam, it may be necessary to establish the literal sense of the account given of man's fall in the book of Genesis. This account is, that a garden having been planted by the Creator, for the use of man, he was placed in it, "to dress it, and to keep it ;"-that in this garden two trees were specially distinguished, one as "the tree of life," the other as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;"-that from eating of the latter Adam was restrained by positive interdict, and by the penalty, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;"-that the serpent, who was more subtle than any beast of the field, tempted the woman to eat, by denying that death would be the consequence, and by assuring her, that her eyes and her husband's eyes "would be opened," and that they would

"be as gods, knowing good and evil; "-that the woman took of the fruit, gave of it to her husband, who also ate ;-that for this act of disobedience they were expelled from the garden, made subject to death, and laid under other maledictions.

2. That this history should be the subject of much criticism, not only by infidels, but by those who hold false and perverted views of the Christian system, was to be expected. Taken in its natural and obvious sense, along with the comments of the subsequent scriptures, it teaches the doctrines of the existence of an evil, tempting, invisible spirit, going about seeking whom he may deceive and devour; of the introduction of moral corruptness into human nature, which has been transmitted to all men; and is connected also with the doctrine of a vicarious atonement for sin; and wherever the fundamental truths of the Christian system are denied, attempts will be made so to interpret this part of the Mosaic history as to obscure the testimony which it gives to them, either explicitly, or by just induction. Interpreters have adopted various and often strange theories; but those whose opinions it seems necessary to notice may be divided into such as deny the literal sense of the relation entirely; such as take the account to be in part literal and in part allegorical; and those who, whilst they contend earnestly for the literal interpretation of every part of the history, consider some of the terms used, and some of the persons introduced, as conveying a meaning more extensive than the letter, and as constituting several symbols of spiritual things and of spiritual beings.

3. Those who have denied the literal sense entirely, and regarded the whole relation as an instructive mythos, or fable, have, as might be expected, when all restraint of authority was thus thrown off from the imagination, themselves adopted very different theories. Thus we have been taught, that this account was intended to teach the evil of yielding to the violence of appetite and to its control over reason; or the introduction of vice in conjunction with knowledge and the artificial refinements of society; or the necessity of keeping the great mass of mankind from acquiring too great a degree of knowledge, as being hurtful to society; or to consider it as another version of the story of the golden age, and its being succeeded by times more vicious and miserable; or as designed, enigmatically, to account for the origin of evil, or of mankind. This catalogue of opinions might be much enlarged: some of them have been held by mere visionaries; others by men of learning, especially by several of the semi-infidel theologians and biblical critics of Germany; nor has our own country been exempt from this class of bold expositors. How to fix upon the moral of "the fable" is, however, the difficulty; and the great variety of opinion is a sufficient refutation of class, since scarcely can two of them be the general notion assumed by the whole

found who adopt the same views, after they have discarded the literal acceptation.

4. But that the account of Moses is to be taken as a matter of real history, and according to its literal import, is established by two considerations, against which, as being facts, nothing can successfully be urged. The first is, that the account of the fall of the first pair is a part of a continuous history. The creation of the world, of man, of woman; the planting of the garden of Eden, and the placing of man there; the duties and prohibitions laid upon him; his disobedience; his expulsion from the garden; the subsequent birth of his children, their lives and actions, and those of their posterity, down to the food; and, from that event, to the life of Abraham, are given in the same plain and unadorned narrative; brief, but yet simple; and with no intimation at all, either from the elevation of the style or otherwise, that a fable or allegory is in any part introduced. As this, then, is the case, and the evidence of it lies upon the very face of the history, it is clear, that if the account of the fall be excerpted from the whole narrative as allegorical, any subsequent part, from Abel to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, may be excerpted for the same reason, which reason is merely this, that it does not agree with the theological opinions of the interpreter; and thus the whole of the Pentateuch may be rejected as history, and converted into fable. Either then the account of the fall must be taken as history, or the historical character of the whole five books of Moses must be unsettled; and if none but infidels will go to the latter consequence, then no one who admits the Pentateuch to be a true history generally, can consistently refuse to admit the story of the fall of the first pair to be a narrative of real events, because it is written in the same style, and presents the same character of a continuous record of events. So conclusive has this argument been felt, that the anti-literal interpreters have endeavoured to evade it, by asserting that the part of the history of Moses in question bears marks of being a separate fragment, more ancient than the Pentateuch itself, and transcribed into it by Moses, the author and compiler of the whole. This point is examined and satisfactorily refuted in Holden's learned and excellent work, entitled, "Dissertation on the Fall of Man;" but it is easy to show, that it would amount to nothing, if granted, in the mind of any who is satisfied on the previous question of the inspiration of the holy scriptures. For let it be admitted that Moses, in writing the pentateuchal history, availed himself of the traditions of the patriarchal ages, a supposition not in the least inconsistent with his inspiration or with the absolute truth of his history, since the traditions so introduced have been authenticated by the Holy Spirit; or let it be supposed, which is wholly gratuitous,

that he made use of previously existing documents; and that some differences of style in his books may be traced which serve to point out his quotations, which is a position that some of the best Hebraists have denied; yet two things are to be noted, first, that the inspired character of the books of Moses is authenticated by our Lord and his apostles, so that they must necessarily be wholly true, and free from real contradictions; and, secondly, that to make it anything to their purpose who contend that the account of the fall is an older document, introduced by Moses, it ought to be shown that it is not written as truly in the narrative style, even if it could be proved to be, in some respects, a different style, as that which precedes and follows it. Now the very literal character of our translation will enable even the unlearned reader to discover this. Whether it be an embodied tradition, or the insertion of a more ancient document, (though there is no foundation at all for the latter supposition,) it is obviously a narrative, and a narrative as simple as any which precedes or follows it.

5. The other indisputable fact to which I just now adverted, as establishing the literal sense of the history, is that, as such, it is referred to and reasoned upon in various parts of scripture: "Knowest thou not this of old, since man (Adam) was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?" Job xx. 4, 5. There is no reason to doubt but that this passage refers to the fall and the first sin of man. The date agrees; for the knowledge here taught is said to arise from facts as old as the first placing of man upon earth, and the sudden punishment of the iniquity corresponds to the Mosaic account: "The triumphing of the wicked is short, his joy but for a moment." "If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom," Job xxxi. 33. Magee renders the verse,

"Did I cover, like Adam, my transgression,

By hiding in a lurking-place mine iniquity?"

and adds, "I agree with Peters, that this contains a reference to the history of the first man, and his endeavours to hide himself after his transgression." Our margin reads, "after the manner of men;" and also the old versions; but the Chaldee paraphrase agrees with our translation, which is also satisfactorily defended by numerous critics. "What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" Job xv. 14. Why not clean? Did God make woman or man unclean at the beginning? If he did, the expostulation would have been more apposite, and much stronger, had the true cause been assigned, and Job had said, "How canst thou expect cleanness in man, whom thou createdst unclean?" But, as the case now stands, the expostulation has a plain reference to the introduction of vanity

and corruption by the sin of the woman, and is an evidence that this ancient writer was sensible of the evil consequences of the fall upon the whole race of man. "Eden" and "the garden of the Lord" are also frequently referred to in the prophets. We have the "tree of life" mentioned several times in the Proverbs and in the Revelation. 'God," says Solomon," made man upright." The enemies of Christ and his church are spoken of, both in the Old and New Testaments, under the names of "the serpent," and "the dragon;" and the habit of the serpent to lick the dust is also referred to by Isaiah.

66

6. If the history of the fall, as recorded by Moses, were an allegory, or anything but a literal history, several of the above allusions would have no meaning; but the matter is put beyond all possible doubt in the New Testament, unless the same culpable liberties be taken with the interpretation of the words of our Lord and of St. Paul as with those of the Jewish lawgiver. Our Lord says, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh?" Matt. xix. 4, 5. This is an argument on the subject of divorces, and its foundation rests upon two of the facts recorded by Moses: (1.) That God made at first but two human beings, from whom all the rest have sprung. (2.) That the intimacy and indissolubility of the marriage-relation rests upon the formation of the woman from the man; for our Lord quotes the words in Genesis, where the obligation of man to cleave to his wife is immediately connected with that circumstance: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." This is sufficiently in proof that both our Lord and the pharisees considered this early part of the history of Moses as a narrative; for, otherwise, it would neither have been a reason, on his part, for the doctrine which he was inculcating, nor have had any force of conviction as to them. "In Adam," says the apostle Paul, "all die;" "by one man

sin entered into the world." "But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." In the last passage, the instrument of the temptation is said to be a serpent, opis, which is a sufficient answer to those who would make it any other animal; and Eve is represented as being first seduced, according to the account in Genesis. This St. Paul repeats in 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14: "Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived," first or immediately, "but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." And he offers this as the reason of an

injunction, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." When, therefore, it is considered, that these passages are introduced, not for rhetorical illustration, or in the way of classical quotation, but are made the basis of grave and important reasonings, which embody some of the most important doctrines of the Christian revelation, and of important social duties and points of Christian order and decorum; it would be to charge the writers of the New Testament with the grossest absurdity, nay, with even culpable and unworthy trifling, to suppose them to argue from the history of the fall as a narrative, when they knew it to be an allegory. And if we are, therefore, compelled to allow that it was understood as a real history by our Lord and his inspired apostles, those speculations of modern critics, which convert it into a parable, stand branded with their true character of infidel and semiinfidel temerity.

7. The effect of the sin or lapse of Adam, was to bring him under the wrath of God; to render him liable to pain, disease, and death; to deprive him of primeval holiness; to separate him from communion with God, and that spiritual life which was before imparted by God, and on which his holiness alone depended, from the loss of which a total moral disorder and depravation of his soul resulted; and finally to render him liable to everlasting misery. See ORIGINAL SIN. For the effect of the fall of Adam upon his posterity, see IMPUTATION.

FASTING has been practised in all ages, and among all nations, in times of mourning, sorrow, and affliction. We see no example of fasting, properly so called, before Moses. Since the time of Moses, examples of fasting have been very common among the Jews. Joshua and the elders of Israel remained prostrate before the ark from morning till evening, without eating, after Israel was defeated at Ai, Joshua vii. 6. The eleven tribes which fought against that of Benjamin, fell down on their faces before the ark, and so continued till evening without eating, Judges xx. 26. David fasted while the first child he had by Bathsheba was sick, 2 Sam. xii. 16. The heathens sometimes fasted: the king of Nineveh, terrified by Jonah's preaching, ordered that not only men, but also beasts, should continue without eating or drinking; should be covered with sackcloth, and each after their manner should cry to the Lord, Jonah iii. 5, 6. The Jews, in times of public calamity, appointed extraordinary fasts, and made even the children at the breast fast, Joel ii. 16. Moses fasted forty days upon mount Horeb, Exod. xxiv. 18. Elijah passed as many days without eating, 1 Kings xix. 8. Our Saviour fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, Matt. iv. 2. These fasts were miraculous, and out of the common rules of nature.

2. Besides the solemn fast of expiation instituted by divine authority, the Jews ap

pointed certain days of humiliation, called the fasts of the congregation. The calamities for which these were enjoined, were a siege, pestilence, diseases, famine, &c. They were observed on the second and fifth days of the week they began at sunset, and continued till midnight of the following day. On these days they wore sackcloth next the skin, and rent their clothes; they sprinkled ashes on their heads, and neither washed their hands, nor anointed their heads with oil. The synagogues were filled with suppliants, whose prayers were long and mournful, and their countenances dejected with all the marks of sorrow and repentance.

3. As to the fasts observed by Christians, it does not appear by his own practice, or by his commands to his disciples, that our Lord instituted any particular fast. But when the pharisees reproached him, that his disciples did not fast so often as theirs, or as John the Baptist's, he replied, “Can ye make the children of the bride-chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days," Luke v. 34, 35. Fasting is also recommended by our Saviour in his sermon on the mount; not as a stated, but as an occasional, duty of Christians, for the purpose of humbling their minds under the afflicting hand of God; and he requires that this duty be performed in sincerity, and not for the sake of ostentation, Matt. vi. 16.

4. Although Christians, says Dr. Neander, did not by any means retire from the business of life, yet they were accustomed to devote many separate days entirely to examining their own hearts, and pouring them out before God, while they dedicated their life anew to him with uninterrupted prayers, in order that they might again return to their ordinary occupations with a renovated spirit of zeal and seriousness, and with renewed powers of sanctification. These days of holy devotion, days of prayer and penitence, which individual Christians appointed for themselves, according to their individual necessities, were often a kind of fast-days. In order that their sensual feelings might less distract and impede the occupation of their heart with its holy contemplations, they were accustomed on these days to limit their corporeal wants more than usual, or to fast entirely. In the consideration of this, we must not overlook the peculiar nature of that hot climate in which Christianity was first promulgated. That which was spared by their abstinence on these days was applied to the support of the poorer brethren.

FAT. God forbade the Hebrews to eat the fat of beasts: "All the fat is the Lord's. It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations, throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood," Lev. iii. 17. Some interpreters understand these words literally, and suppose fat as well as blood to

be forbidden. Josephus says Moses forbids only the fat of oxen, goats, sheep, and their species. This agrees with Lev. vii. 23, “Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.' This is observed by the modern Jews, who think that the fat of other sorts of clean creatures is allowed them, even that of beasts which have died of themselves, conformably to Lev. vii. 24, " And the fat of the beast that dieth of itself, and the fat of that which is torn with beasts, may be used in any other use; but ye shall in nowise eat of it." Others maintain that the law which forbids the use of fat, should be restrained to fat separated from the flesh, such as that which covers the kidneys and the intestines; and this only in the case of its being offered in sacrifice. This is confirmed by Lev. vii. 25: “Whosoever eateth of the fat of the beast of which men offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people." In the Hebrew style, fat signifies not only that of beasts, but also the richer or prime part of other things: "He should have fed them with the finest " (in Hebrew the fat) "of the wheat." Fat denotes abundance of good things: "I will satiate the souls of the priests with fatness," Jer. xxxi. 14. My soul shall be satisfied with marrow and fatness," Psalm lxiii. 5. The fat of the earth implies its fruitfulness: "God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine," Gen. xxvii. 28.

66

FATHER. This word, besides its common acceptation, is taken in scripture for grandfather, great-grandfather, or the founder of a family, how remote soever. So the Jews in our Saviour's time called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob their fathers. Jesus Christ is called the Son of David, though David was many generations distant from him. By father is likewise understood the institutor of a certain profession. Jabal was father of such as dwell in tents, and such as have cattle." Jubal "was father of all such as handle the harp and organ," or flute, &c., Gen. iv. 20, 21. Huram is called father of the king of Tyre, 2 Chron. ii. 13; and, 2 Chron. iv. 16, even of Solomon, because he was the principal workman, and chief director of their undertakings. The principal prophets were considered as fathers of the younger, who were their disciples, and are called sons of the prophets, 2 Kings ii. 12. Father is a term of respect given by inferiors to superiors. "My father," said Naaman's attendants to him, "if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing," 2 Kings v. 13; and so the king of Israel addresses the prophet Elisha, 2 Kings vi. 21. Rechab, the founder of the Rechabites, is called their father, Jer. xxxv. 6. A man is said to be a father to the poor and orphans, when he supplies their necessities, and sympathises with their miseries, as a father would do towards them: "I was a father to