Section 6.
SECTION 6.
Saving faith is more particularly described by its rise and operations; and distinguished from the faith of trembling devils, immoral Antinomians, penitents sold under sin, and modish professors who believe without frame and feeling.
IF we assent to a religious truth merely because we cannot resist its evidence; — if we hate it, wanting to shake it off, wishing it were a lie, and fretting because we cannot make it so; we have the faith of devils: for “devils believe and tremble;” the force of the awful truths which they cannot deny giving them a foretaste of infernal torments. Of this sort, it seems, was the faith of Felix, when St. Paul reasoned before him of “justice, temperance, and judgment to come.” This alarming doctrine, supported by the suffrage of conscience, and impressed by “the Spirit of truth,” made the noble heathen “tremble;” but soon recovering himself, he fought against the truth that had laid hold on him unawares, and he kept it at arm’s length, till he could shake it off as the apostle did the viper that fastened on his hand; or at least till he could run away from it, by plunging as desperately into a sea of sensual delights, as the devils in the swine did into the sea of Galilee.
The faith of immoral professors is not much better than the faith of Felix and Satan. They believe some glorious truths, but not with the heart to righteousness. Two or three comparisons may help us to understand this “mystery of iniquity.” When a person visits you, you may either receive him with cold civility, as a stranger; or embrace him with warm affection as a bosom friend. From secret motives you may show a peculiar regard to a man whom you secretly despise or detest. He has a good voice, you love music, and he ministers to your amusement. Perhaps you want him to cloak the sin of his Bathsheba; perhaps you are a party man; he is a proper tool for you; and therefore you make much of him. But while your regard for him springs merely from such external circumstances, can it ever be personal and sincere? Equally ungenerous however is the regard that Gallio and Fulsome have for the truth. Gallio holds fast the doctrine of general redemption, because he fondly supposes that he has only to avoid robbery and murder to go to heaven: Fulsome extols “everlasting love,” but it is because he thinks that it gives him the liberty of loving the world, without the least danger of losing God’s eternal favour.
He embraces “justification by faith alone;” but it is because he confounds the works of faith and the works of the law, and vainly hopes to be finally justified without either. He shouts, “Free grace for ever!” because it insures,, as he thinks, his eternal salvation, whatever length he may go in sin. He is a partial anatomist; he dissects the body of truth, throws away the vitals, and only preserves those parts which seem to countenance his immoral scheme. I question if an Indian warrior is more fond of the scalp of an Englishman, than Gallio is of the doctrine of “God’s mercy,” separated from God’s holiness and justice; or Fulsome of the doctrine of “Christ’s merits,” torn away from the evangelical worthiness of sincere obedience.
Nay, a judicious Gnostic may admire and espouse a well connected system of religious truth, just as a virtuoso admires and purchases a good collection of shells. The virtuoso contends for the beauty and rarity of his marine toys with as much passionateness as if they were parts of himself: but they only lie upon cotton in his drawers, far enough from his breast. And the Gnostic disputes for the truths he has taken a fancy to with as much warmth as if they were incorporated with himself; but he contrives that they shall pass like flying clouds over his understanding, without descending in fruitful showers upon his heart.
Truth is the wholesome food of souls. Hence it is said, “The just shall live by his faith,” by his receiving Christ in the word of truth, and by mystically feeding upon him, according to these deep words: “Except you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no life in you:” or, as St. John expresses it, “the truth is not in you.” Now, as food must be inwardly taken, and properly digested, before it can nourish us; so must truth. If men, therefore, who “buy the truth” in theory, and “sell it” in practice, who “profess it in words, and deny it in works,” have not power to take up their cross and to follow Christ; we ought no more on that account to conclude that the truth is inefficacious to our salvation, than to suppose that good food is improper for our nourishment, because men that spend their time in preparing it for others, in drawing up bills of fare, in placing dishes to the best advantage, and in inviting others to eat heartily, while they live upon trash themselves, have not strength to go through a hard day’s work. Again: from such scriptures as these: “I will heal their backslidings: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee: God shall send forth his mercy and his truth: he sent his word and healed them,” &c, it is evident that evangelical truth is, next to Christ, the medicine as well as the food of souls. Now, as it is absurd to suppose that speculating upon a medicine, instead of taking it, can conduce to the recovery of our bodily health, so it is unreasonable to fancy that bare speculations upon the doctrines of the Gospel can be productive of saving health; cordial believing having no less necessary a reference to truth, than real drinking to a potion. Hence appears the necessity of clearly distinguishing between saving faith and Antinomian fancy; between the faith by which a man affectionately believes with an humble heart unto righteousness; and its counterfeit, by which a man idly believes with a conceited mind to practical Antinomianism, whether he be a follower of Mr. Wesley or of Mr. Romaine. The soaring faith of an immoral Antinomian is far inferior to the abortive faith of an imperfect penitent, and even to doubting. When truth and error present themselves to our minds together, (as they always do in every trial of faith,) so long as we remain in suspense between them, we continue in the uneasy state, between faith and unbelief, which we call “doubting.” But when truth appears more beautiful than error to the eye of our understanding, without appearing good enough prevalently to engage our affections; we are in the uncomfortable state of the carnal penitent whom St. Paul describes in his own person, Rom 7. We approve the revealed will of God, and “delight in his law after the inward man.” If the celestial rose were not beset with thorns, we would instantly gather it, If we had no bodily appetites to resist, no ignominious cross to take up, no false wisdom to part with, we would heartily believe and “work the work of God.” But we cannot yet give up our bosom sin; carnal reason and the flesh prevail still against the spirit, though not without a struggle; unbelief and abortive faith (if I may use the expression) wrestling in our distracted breasts, as Esau and Jacob did in Rebecca’s womb; and making us complain, “The good that I would do,” if it cost me nothing, “I do not: but the evil I would not, that I do,” because it gratifies my fallen nature. Thus with his mind, his rational powers, the carnal penitent “serves the law of God” by good, though ineffectual resolutions; but with his flesh, his carnal appetites, he “serves the law of sin” by bad, though lamented performances. Here I beg leave to account for the famous confession of the princess, who cries out in Ovid, f125 Video meliora, proboque, — deteriora sequor, which may be thus paraphrased’ “I stand between the rough, steep, ascending path of virtue, [bonum honestum,] and the plain, flowery, downward road of vice, [bonum jucundum.] Conscience says that the one is far more commendable; passion declares that the other is far more pleasing. I madly give the casting vote to hurrying passion; it decides that the pleasure of a present, certain gratification, be it ever so sinful, overbalances the fear of a future, uncertain punishment, be it ever so terrible: and notwithstanding the remonstrances of my conscience, I submit to the hazardous decision of my appetite; secretly hoping that God does not regard my crimes, or that a day of retribution is a chimera.”
To return: faith does not struggle into birth without her co-eval child and constant partner, hope. When faith fails, despair groans, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?” But when faith revives, hope lifts up her head, and cries, “I thank God [there is deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thus we go on falling and rising, dying and reviving, till we are quite tired of the sins which hinder us from welcoming the saving truth with a more cordial embrace; and when we do this, our faith is unfeigned; the Lord sets to it the broad seal of his power; it proves victorious; we enter into Gospel liberty, and instead of the old note, “Who shall deliver me?” we sing, under the Christian dispensation, “Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law” of sin, as well as from the curse of the law of innocence and of the ceremonial law. “There is no condemnation to them that [believe and] walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The manner in which this deliverance is generally wrought, may be more particularly described thus: — Free grace, “at sundry times and in divers manners,” speaks to our consciences, recommending “the word nigh, — the commandment” that is “everlasting life,” the truth that contains the regenerating power of God. If it be “the day of provocation,” we unnecessarily begin “to make excuse.” We cannot come to the marriage feast. We are either too good, too bad, or too busy to entertain the truth; and we say as civilly as Felix, “Go thy way for this time, [when I shall be more fit, or] when I shall have a more convenient season, I will call for thee.” Perhaps we perversely “harden our heart, contradicting, blaspheming,” and saying as the Pharisees, “We will not have this [truth] to reign over us. Away with it!” But if it be the day of conversion, if our free willing soul “know the time of our visitation,” humbly bowing at the word of the Lord, and saying, as the Virgin Mary, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to thy word;” I am a lost sinner, but “there is mercy with thee that thou mayest be feared:” then the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, “is received in an honest and good heart;” for nothing is wanting to render the heart initially good and honest, but the sincere submission of our free will, to that free grace which courts us, and says, “Behold! I stand at the door [of every heart] and knock. If any man hear my voice and open, I will come in and sup with him, and he with me.” He shall “taste how good the Lord is,” he shall “taste the good word of God and the powers [of truth, which are the powers] of the world to come.” And so shall he rise superior to shadows and lies, which are the powers of this present evil world.
Thus opens the kingdom of God in the believing soul: thus is Christ the “truth and the life,” formed in the heart by faith: thus grace begins to “reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.” I call that faith “saving and operative,” because so long as it lives, it saves; and so long as it saves, it “works righteousness,” — it works by a righteous fear of the evil denounced against sin; by a righteous opposition to every known sin; by a righteous hope of the good promised to obedience; and by a righteous love of the truth that has produced it, and of the Father of lights, from whom that truth proceeds; it being scarcely possible to welcome heartily a beam of the sun for its brightness, without indirectly welcoming the sun itself. Therefore, when living faith ceases to “work,” it dies away, as the heart that ceases to beat; it goes out, as a candle that ceases to shine.
“But, upon this footing, what becomes of the modish doctrine of a faith without frame and feeling?” If the ministers, who recommend such a faith, mean that we must set our heart as a seal to the Gospel truths adapted to our present state, and stamp them with all our might, not considering whether our fallen nature and carnal reason relish them, and steadily following the poet’s direction,
“Tu ne cede malis; sed contra audentior ito,
Quam MALA te NATURA sinit:”
they maintain a truth, a great truth, which cannot be too much urged upon tempted, desponding, and despairing souls. But if they mean that we must believe ourselves unconditionally elected to glory, be the frame of our minds ever so carnal, and the feelings of our hearts ever so worldly, they destroy “the health of the daughter of God’s people,” with as rank poison as ever grew in spiritual Egypt. I am no judge of what passes in the breasts of those gentlemen; but, for my part, I never feel faith more strongly at work than when I wrestle not only with flesh and blood, but with the banded powers of darkness.
None but a dead man is quite destitute of frame and feeling. It is not a real flame that neither warms in winter nor shines in the dark. The moment a light is not in its degree able to triumph over darkness, and even to turn it into light, it ceases to be a true light. You may see in Windsor Castle a candle most exquisitely painted; it shines as steadfastly as Mr. Fulsome believes. Was the coloured canvass as loquacious as that Antinomian hero, it might say, “I shine without feeling, though not without a frame.” But even then Mr. Fulsome’s faith would have the pre-eminence; for if we credit him it shines without either frame or feeling. How absurd is Solifidianism? how dangerous! If any man can show me a true light, that actually emits no beams, I will repent of the ridicule I cast upon the dotages, which make way for a “justifying faith” that works by adultery and murder; an ill-smelling candle this, which burns in the breasts of apostates to the honour of him that kindled it at the fire of Tophet; an infernal candle, sending forth darkness instead of light, and so far benighting the good men who follow it, that they look upon it as the inextinguishable “candle of the Lord,” and upon sincere obedience as a “jack o’lantern.”
The preceding pages represent truth as the remedy and nourishment of our souls; and I have already observed, that as we cannot take food without the continual help of the God of nature, so we cannot receive the truth without the continual assistance of the God of grace; it being the first axiom of the Gospel, that all our sufficiency and ability to do any good are of God. Nevertheless, lest those who seek occasion against the truth, which they do not relish, should call the free grace I hold forth Pelagianism, I shall conclude this section by asserting, that if Christ were not “the Saviour of all men,” and if we were entirely destitute of the gracious, evangelical “light that enlightens every man,” and “helps our infirmities,” we should be, with respect to saving truths, like people who either have no kind of food, or no appetite at all to their food; nay, like sick people that have an insurmountable aversion to a medicine and an irresistible longing for poison. But the saving “grace of God having appeared to all men,” and having mercifully given us an evangelical capacity to receive the truth as it is revealed to us in the dispensation we are under, we may either put that truth from us, as the unbelieving Jews did, or welcome it, as Job and his friends, although not without difficulty: yea, such difficulty as forms the “trial of our faith,” and makes it reasonable in God to bid us “choose life” rather than death, when truth and error, blessing and cursing, are set before us.