to us, we are encouraged to trust him for all that we expect, namely, that he will conduct us safely and comfortably through this world, and at last receive us to glory; and in so doing, we have the highest satisfaction; or, as the apostle expresses it, _We know whom we have believed_, or trusted, _and are persuaded that he is able to keep what we have committed unto him against that day_, 2 Tim. i. 12. or the day of his second coming, when grace shall be consummate in glory. These acts of faith are generally styled, by divines, _direct_; in which we have more immediately to do with Christ, as our great Mediator, or God the Father in him; and being, properly speaking, acts of religious worship, the object thereof must be a divine person. But there is another sense of the word _faith_; which, as it does not contain in it any act of trust or dependence, as the former does, so it has not God for its immediate object, as that has; and this is what we call the _reflex_ act of faith, or the soul’s being persuaded that it believes; that those acts of faith which have God or Christ for their object, are true and genuine. This every one cannot conclude at all times, who is really enabled to put forth those direct acts of faith, that we have been speaking of; and it is the result of self-examination, accompanied with the testimony of the Holy Spirit to his own work. Some indeed have questioned the propriety of the expression, when this is styled an act of faith; as supposing that nothing can be so called, but what hath a divine person for its object: but we have before considered that faith, in a sense different from that in which we have now explained it, may be conversant about divine things; therefore, as we may be said, by a direct act of faith, to trust in Christ; we may be persuaded, by this reflex act, that we do so: and this is more immediately necessary to assurance, together with that joy and peace which we are said to have in believing. But this we shall have occasion to insist on under a following answer.[63]