FOUR PARTICULARS In Which Faith Stands Pre-Eminent Above Other Graces 1/4

  I proceed to show wherein it appears that faith hath such a pre-eminence above other graces as we previously have indicated.  This takes in the following particulars.

           First Particular.  In the great inquiry that God makes after faith above all other graces.  Nothing more speaks our esteem of persons or things than our inquiry after them.  We ask first and most for those that stand highest in our thoughts.  ‘Is your father well?’ said Joseph, ‘the old man of whom ye spake?  Is he yet alive?’ Gen. 43:27.  No doubt there were others of whose welfare Joseph would have been glad to hear also, but being most pent and pained with a natural affection to his father, he easeth himself of this first.  And when David asks for Absalom above all others, ‘Is the young man Absalom safe?’ and over again with it to Cush, II Sam. 18, it was easy to guess how highly he valued his life.  Now you shall find the great inquiry that God makes is for faith: ‘When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?’ Luke 18:8—implying that this is the grace which he will especially look for and desires to find.  We read, John 9, of a great miracle, a man by Christ restored to his sight that was born blind.  This so enraged the malicious Pharisees that they excommunicate the poor man for no other fault but giving his merciful physician a good word.  This brings Christ the sooner to him—so tender is he of those that suffer for him, that they shall not long want his sweet company—and he hath no cause to complain for being cast out of man’s society that gains Christ’s presence by the same. Now, observe what Christ saith to him at his first meet­ing, ver. 35, ‘Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’  The man had already expressed some zeal for Christ, in vindicating him, and speaking well of him to the head of the bitterest enemies he had on earth, for which he was now made a sufferer at their hands.  This was very commendable.  But there is one thing Christ prizeth above all this, and that is faith.  This he inquires after, ‘Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’  As if he had said, ‘All this thy zeal in speaking for me, and patience in suffering, are nothing worth in my account except thou hast faith also.’  Indeed most of God’s dealings with his people, what are they but inquiries after faith? either the truth or strength of it.  When he af­flicts them, it is ‘for the trial of their faith,’ I Peter 1:7. Afflictions they are God’s spade and mattock, by which he digs into his people's hearts to find out this gold of faith.  Not but that he inquires for other graces also; but this is named for all as the chief; which found, all the other will soon appear.  When God seems to delay, and makes, as it were, a halt in his providence, before he comes with the mercy he prom­iseth, and we pray for, it is exploratory to faith.  ‘O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt,’ Matt. 15:28.  She had received her answer without so much ado; only Christ had a mercy in store more than she thought of.  With the granting of her suit in the cure of her daughter, he had a mind to give her the evidence of her faith also, and the high esteem God hath of his grace, as that which may have of him what it will.