CHAPTER VII.

FAITH.

FAITH does not consist in thinking that my sins are comparatively little, and therefore may be forgiven ; but in knowing that they are very great, and believing that, though they are never so many and great, past or present, Christ's blood is above them all.

Nothing but Christ's blood, taking away, and as it were annihilating sin, can quiet an awakened conscience. Repentance implies an abiding self-dislike and self-abhorrence, and can neither destroy the existence, nor extinguish the remembrance, nor heal the smart, of past sin; the torment of it can never die but with a conviction that Christ took it all on himself.

My sins are many and great, and continually rising up against me; but I must not, I must not make God a liar, deny my Saviour, and grieve the Spirit by refusing his comfort. I may have more joy of Christ than I could have had of innocence or any sanctity of my own. O Adam, what hast thou done? O Jesus, what hast thou not done?

The man who has no doubts and fears, has no faith.

Perfect obedience being impossible, it is necessary that all should have some reserve at hand in the want of it; something to support their hope, and

give peace to their consciences; sincerity or Christ. But the former can no more be pleaded, than perfect obedience; and if faith in Christ, suffering in our stead what we should have suffered, and doing for us what we cannot do, is not our appointed relief, the case of mankind is desperate.

If Christ will take my sins, I may well give him every thing else.

'Fides Christum mihi donat, charitas ex fide me proximo,' says Luther; that is, Faith gives me Christ, and love from faith gives me to my neighbour.

God grants me forgiveness, not because I have so much repentance, or so much obedience, to bring him as the price of it, but of his free goodness, because I want it, and must be undone without it; and because he knows, whether I do or not, that I have only one thing to say to him," God be merciful to me a sinner!"

The scripture bids us do every thing, and at the same time tells us that we can do nothing: the conclusion is, that what is commanded must be done, and cannot be done without help.

Christ crucified for our sins, is the chief thing in our religion we should know, and almost the only thing which the generality of the Church of England do not know.

Christ came into the world to take away my sin, by taking it on himself; and if I go to him with it, my comfort is that it cannot be too great for him.

The experience and possession of divine pity is better than bodily ease, freedom from trouble, or the greatest worldly prosperity.

What has not God given me, in giving me a will to pray? All the rest is his work; and I am as sure, as the word and promise can make me, that not one prayer will be lost.

I shall obey when I have the will, and none can set it free but God: it is the mountain which faith has to remove. Thinking we have most power where

we have the least, is the great error of the world, and has been mine all my life.

What a mercy, above all miracles, that I who am a sinner, a three-score years old rebel, and have done that every day of my life, which lost Adam his paradise and brought death into the world, should have my abode on earth prolonged; that if it be possible I may not come short of my birth-right; that I may leave off sinning, and say before I die, come to do thy will!"

Lo, I

When I think what the devil can do, in conjunction with my nature, what I have been, am, and shall be, it is transporting news to be told that there is such a thing as believing unto righteousness, and that salvation is wholly in and by a substitute. This is a hard point: and yet if God is always the same, there can be no other possible hope for a creature always sinful.

I am as sure, on the word and promise of God, that my sins are done away in Christ, as if an angel were to bring me a release in writing, or I were now in heaven out of all danger. Shall I not be at God's bidding for this, and put myself into his hands for the further mercies of gratitude, love, obedience, a willing heart, and heavenly affections?

The angels do not work for life or reward, because they are already possessed of it, penetrated with a lively sense of God's love to them in their happiness, and therefore all on fire to do his will; so should we, if we would but enter more into the knowledge and present possession of our happiness, by faith in Christ.

From the depth of my sin, and the most astonishing evil of it, I raise some faint conception of God's love in Christ. Well might he say, "My thoughts are not as your thoughts," &c. Isaiah lv. 8.

Christ came to teach a pure morality, and assert the necessity of a perfect law-keeping, but does not expect to find it in us; he therefore wrought it for us.

There is no security till Christ puts his weddingring on my heart.

Power to conform the understanding, will, and and heart to the scripture, is as much a gift from heaven, as scripture itself.

By poring continually on my sins, and setting them as it were in battle array against the blood of Christ, I hold off my remedy, make little account of the word of God, and must thank myself if I never know peace.

In another man's case, I should certainly think one drop of the blood of Christ sufficient for all his sins, though ever so many and great. In my own, I cannot think so for my life with any degree of steadfastness.

What I speak, think, invent write, as of myself, puffs me up with conceit, and is a sweet morsel for pride. Thinking it to be from God would humble me, as every thing does which we know to be purely a gift, let it come from whom it will.

No music like Aaron's bells. Mercy and propitiation through our great High-Priest, sound sweetly to the purged ear.

At home with God; satisfied and rejoicing only in the sense of his favour, in my heart's choice of him, in the privilege of presenting myself before him in faith, and longing for his promises.

The man who comes to Christ, without any desire or expectation of being created in him unto good works, and having his nature renewed in holiness, is a fool or an infidel. He neither knows nor believes one tittle of the gospel.

We need not be afraid to look on our own deformity, great and ugly as it is. Christ died for the sins of the whole world; and therefore if I had all the sins of the whole wold in my own person, I would not doubt of forgiveness.

The remission of sins, apprehended by faith, is the dissolution or ending of Satan's kingdom in us, and

the beginning, foundation, and principle of a new nature, state, and life in God through Christ.

I cannot give myself to Christ; he must give himself to me.

God does not offer me health, long life, plenty of worldly accommodations, respect, distinction, principalities, universal empire: but, O unutterable grace!-Himself. The greatness of the thing, so infinitely transcending all that we can deserve, hope for, or conceive, overwhelms the understanding, and is apt to stifle our belief of it.

Let God work; my own efforts, by being trusted in, have a tendency to exclude him, and hinder his progress.

The scripture speaks in vain, if God does not speak it again in the heart. Knowing is not willing, though it is generally mistaken for it.

To have God hold the great burning-glass in his hand, to bring all my sins to a point,-how dreadful! and what a glory is then to be seen in Christ!

If I had not sinned as I have, I should never have prayed as I do.

My work is my pleasure, and joyous happy state. I find in it all I want; and do not stretch my thoughts beyond it for more satisfaction from any thing else. Make no more resolutions to do what you never will; but know your weakness, trust and pray.

Unbelief, or doubting of the power and will of God to convert others, though ever so illiterate or obstinate, self-righteous or wicked, is the same want of faith as it would be in my own case. The obstacle may or may not be greater, but nothing is too hard for God. If we cannot help ourselves to the graces we want, let us not pretend to it, nor make vain efforts in our own strength, but wait patiently on God, and be as clay in the hands of the potter.

Nothing greater can be said of faith, than that it is the only thing which can bid defiance to the accusations of conscience.