Faith No Fancy (10)

The first mark by which you may try your faith is the ground and origin of it, or that whereby it is begotten and cherished. “Faith cometh,” says the apostle in Romans 10:17, “by hearing.” Doctrinal faith comes by the preaching of the gospel, and saving faith is wrought instrumentally by the same Word of God, its being the power of God unto salvation, its being this Word that is the very ground of our faith.

I would ask you: From whence comes your faith? What hand has the Word of God had in it? There are many who have a sort of faith not only without, but contrary to the Word of God, whereby they believe that they will get to heaven, while in the meantime the Word of God directly excludes them. And how is your faith maintained? Is your faith maintained without ever knowing the necessity of a promise for that effect? Can you maintain your peace, and not have so much as any foundation in the truth and faithfulness of God to build it upon?

Never love that faith which hungers not after the Word, a faith that is supposed to be lively without ever being fed by the Word, that cannot claim either its rise and origin, or its growth from the Word. I will not say from this or that word in particular, or at this or that time read or heard, but from the Word of God. The Word is the very foundation which faith builds upon.

If we look to what either accompanies or follows faith, there are some plain Scriptures which will make that clear, as Acts 15:9, “And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” There is an efficacy in faith to circumcise the heart, to purify it, and to banish lusts out of it, for it closes and unites with Christ, and so brings Him home to dwell in the heart. And where Christ dwells, He commands, and so whatever opposed Him is banished.

Faith gives Christ welcome, and will give nothing welcome to dwell with Him that is opposite and displeasing to Him. Faith improves Christ for the subduing of the lusts of the heart and mortifying its corruptions; whereas before there might be a fair outside of a profession and something clean outwardly, and much filthiness and rottenness within; but when faith is exercised on Christ, it purifies from all filthiness of the spirit as well as of the flesh. It applies the promises for that end, even to get the inside made clean as well as the outside. Yea, its main work is to have the inside, the heart, purified, that being the fountain of all the pollution which defiles the man, and brings the other necessarily along with it.

Never love that faith which leaves the heart as a pig sty to lusts, leaves it swarming with unclean and vain thoughts, or leaves the heart just as it was before; or that faith, which cleanses only the outside, and does no more. Such a faith, however esteemed by the man, will never be accounted for true saving faith before God.

I do not, I dare not, say that believers will always discern this heart purity or cleanness, but this I say, that true faith will set the man at work to purify the heart and will be making use of Christ for that end; not only to have the arm of the dominion of sin broken, but to have the soul more and more delivered from the indwelling power of it. And this will be the design that he will sincerely pursue, to get the heart purified within as well as the outward man; inward heart abominations will be grievous and burdensome to him as well as scandalous outbreakings.

A second place is Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” If you would know a companion of true faith, here is one: it has a life of faith with it. There is one life killed, and another life is quickened. The life which is killed is that whereby the man some time lived to the law. “I am dead to the law,” says the apostle. A man's good conceit of himself which once he had is killed and taken away; he wonders how it came that he thought himself holy, or a believer, or how he could promise to himself heaven in the condition in which he was.

Another life there is that comes in the place of that, and it is a life which is quickened and maintained by Christ, and from nothing in the man himself, but it is wholly from and by Christ. From Him the believer has his holiness and strength for doing all duties called for, and his comfort also; his all is in Christ. His stock of life, strength, and furniture is not in himself, but he lives by a continual traffic, as it were, on bills of exchange between Christ and himself. When he wants, he sends a bill to Christ, and it is answered in every thing that he stands in need of and that is good for him. He is a dead man and he is a living man; wherever true faith is, there the man is dead and the man is living.

Do not, I pray you, mistake it by thinking that true faith is but vented or puts forth itself only in reference to this or that particular, or at this or that particular time only, for faith must be exercised not only by fits and starts, as when we are under accusations for sin, or at prayer, but we must design and endeavor to exercise faith through all our life. That is, we must by faith look for every thing that is useful and needful for us from Christ, and be always endeavoring to follow a common trade of living this way. We must be habituating ourselves to seek after peace, strength, and consolation, and whatever else we need, out of the fullness which is in Him.

This life of faith is to see the want of all things in ourselves, and yet to have all things in ourselves, contenting and comforting ourselves that there is strength in Him, though we are weak in ourselves; that He has gotten the victory over all His and our enemies, and that we shall at last through Him be victorious in our own persons; contenting and satisfying ourselves that He has a complete righteousness though we are bankrupt and have none of our own, and betaking ourselves only to that righteousness for our justification before God, thus making a life to ourselves in Him: He living in us by His Spirit, and we living in Him by faith. O sweet and desirable, but mysterious life!

The third place is Galatians 5:6, “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” He does not simply say faith, but “faith which worketh by love.” For faith is an operative grace, and the main vent of it, the thing by which it works, is this: it works by love. Faith is the hand of the new creature whereby every thing is wrought, it having life from Christ. We may say that love is in a manner the hand of faith, or rather like the fingers upon the hand of faith, whereby it handles every thing tenderly, even out of love to God in Christ, and to others for His sake. Faith works, and it works by love.

That is a sound and good faith that warms the heart with love to Christ, and the nearer that faith brings the believer to Him, the more it warms the heart with love to others. Therefore love to the people of God is given as an evidence of one that is born of God, in 1 John 5:1, because wherever true faith is, there cannot but be love to the children of God, flowing from love to Him that begets them. A faith that is not affected with God's dishonor out of love to Him, and that can endure to look upon the difficulties, sufferings, and afflictions of the children of God without sympathizing and being kindly affected therewith, is not to be taken for a sound faith, but to be suspected for a counterfeit.

The fourth place is James 2:14, “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?” True faith has always sound holiness with it in all manner of conversation in the design and endeavor of the believer, which is withal through grace in some measure attained. What avails it for a man to say that he loves another when, if a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, he bid such a one to depart in peace, to be warmed, to be filled, and yet in the meantime gives him nothing that he stands in need of? Would not such a poor creature think himself but mocked? Even so, will not God reckon you to be but mock believers, or mockers of faith, when you profess yourselves to be believers in Christ while in the meantime you have neither indeed heart purity, nor holiness in your outside conversation? That is but such a faith as devils may have, that will never do you any good.

You would believe this truth, that never a faith will pass for faith in God's account (and so there should never a faith pass for faith in your account), but that faith that sets a man at work to the study of holiness, that faith that works by love, that faith that purifies the heart, and that faith that puts the person in whom it is to study to have Christ living in him, and himself living in Christ.

— to be continued —

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