Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 231—“It has been said that any one who can read Edwards’s Religious Affections, and still believe in his own conversion, may well have the highest assurance of its reality. But how few there were in Edwards’s time who gained the assurance, may be inferred from the circumstance that Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons, disciples of Edwards and religious leaders in New England, remained to the last uncertain of their conversion.” He can attribute this only to the semi‐deistic spirit of the time, with its distant God and imperfect apprehension of the omnipresence and omnipotence of Christ. Nothing so clearly marks the practical progress of Christianity as the growing faith in Jesus, the only Revealer of God in nature and history as well as in the heart of the believer. As never before, faith comes directly to Christ, abides in him, and finds his promise true: “_Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world_” (_Mat. 28:20_). “Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void and find The Rock beneath.” (_d_) That faith necessarily leads to good works, since it embraces the whole truth of God so far as made known, and appropriates Christ, not only as an external Savior, but as an internal sanctifying power (Heb. 7:15, 16; Gal. 5:6). Good works are the proper evidence of faith. The faith which does not lead men to act upon the commands and promises of Christ, or, in other words, does not lead to obedience, is called in Scripture a “dead,” that is, an unreal, faith. Such faith is not saving, since it lacks the voluntary element—actual appropriation of Christ (James 2:14‐26). _Heb. 7:15, 16_—“_another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life_”; _Gal. 5:6_—“_For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love_”; _James 2:14, 26_—“_What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? Can that faith save him?... For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead._”