The Influence Of Faith Reacheth Unto All Other Graces 4/6

           Fifth.  Faith brings in succours when other graces fail.  Two ways the Christian’s graces may fail—in their activity, or in their evidence.

1. In their activity, it is low water sometimes with the Christian.  He cannot act so freely and vigorously then as at another time when the tide runs high, through divine assistances that flow in a main upon him.  Those temptations which he could at one time snap asunder as easily as Samson did his cords of flax, at another time he is sadly hampered with that he cannot shake them off.  Those duties which he performs with delight and joy, when his grace is in a healthful plight; at another time he pants and blows at, as much as a sick man doth to go up a hill—so heavily doth he find them come off.  Were not the Christian, think you, ill now on it, if he had no com­ings in but from his own shop of duty?  Here now is the excellency of faith; it succours the Christian in this his bankrupt condition.  As Joseph got over his brethren to him, and nourished them out of his gran­aries all the time of famine, so doth faith the Christian in his penury of grace and duty.  And this it doth in two ways.

           (1.) By laying claim to the fulness of that grace which is in Christ as its own.  Why art thou dejected, O my soul, saith the Christian’s faith, for thy weak grace?  There is enough in Christ, all fulness dwells in him, it pleased the Father it should be so, and that to pleasure thee in thy wants and weaknesses.  It is a ministerial fulness; as the clouds carry rain not for themselves but the earth, so doth Christ his fulness of grace for thee.  ‘He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,’ I Cor. 1:30.  When the rags of the Christian’s own righteousness discourage and shame him, faith hath a robe to put on that covers all this uncomeliness. ‘Christ is my righteousness,’ saith faith, and ‘in Him’ we are ‘complete,’ Col. 2:10.  Faith hath two hands, a working hand a receiving hand; and the receiving hand relieves the working hand, or else there would be a poor house kept in the Christian’s bosom.  We find Paul himself but in a starving condition, for all the comfort his own graces could with their earnings afford him.  He is a wretched man in his own account, if these be all he hath to live upon, Rom. 7:24; yet even then, when he sees nothing in his own cup­board, his faith puts forth his receiving hand to Christ, and he is presently set at a rich feast, for which you find him giving thanks, ver. 25, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

           (2.)  Faith succours the Christian in the weakness and inactivity of his graces, by applying the promises for the saints’ perseverance in grace.  It brings great comfort to a sick man, though very weak at present, to hear his physician tell him, that though he is low and feeble, yet there is no fear he will die. The present weakness of grace is sad, but the fear of falling quite away is far sadder.  Now faith, and only faith, can be the messenger to bring the good news to the soul, that it shall persevere.  Sense and reason are quite posed and dunced here.  It seems impossible to them, that such a bruised reed should bear up against all the counterblasts of hell, because they consider only what grace itself can do, and finding it so over­matched by the power and policy of Satan, think it but rational to give the victory  to the stronger side. But faith, when it seeth symptoms of death in the saint’s grace, finds life in the promise, and comforts the soul with this—that the faithful God will not suf­fer his grace to see corruption.  He hath undertaken the physicking of his saints: ‘Every branch in me that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit’ John 15:2.  When Hazael came to inquire of Elisha for his sick master, whether he should live or die; the prophet sent him with this answer back unto the king his master: ‘Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die,’ II Kings 8:10—that is, he might certainly recover for all his disease, but he should die by the traitorous bloody hand of Hazael his servant.  Give me leave only to allude to this.  When the Christian consults with his faith, and inquires of it, whether his weak grace will fail or hold out, die or live, faith's answer is, ‘Thy weak grace may certainly die and fall away, but the Lord hath showed me it shall live and persevere’ —that is, in regard of its own weakness and the muta­bility of man’s nature, the Christian’s grace might certainly die and come to nothing; but God hath shown faith in the promise that it shall certainly live and recover out of its lowest weakness.  What David said in regard of his house, that every Christian may say in regard of his grace.  ‘Though his grace be not so with God (so strong, so unchangeable in itself), yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire,’ II Sam. 23:5.  This salt of the covenant is it shall keep, saith faith, thy weak grace from corrup­tion. ‘Why art thou cast down,’ saith the psalmist, ‘O my soul? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God,’ Ps. 42:11.  The health of David's countenance was not in his countenance, but in his God, and this makes his faith silence his fears, and so peremptorily resolve upon it, that there is a time coming—how near soever he now lies to the grave’s mouth—when he shall yet praise him.  ‘The health and life of thy grace lie both of them, not in thy grace,’ saith faith, ‘but in God, who is thy God, therefore I shall yet live and praise him.’  I do not wonder that the weak Christian is mel­ancholy and sad when he sees his sickly face in any other glass but this.