CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 4/4

6. Character.  The more ingenuity and love is in thy obediential walking, the stronger thy faith is. Faith works by love, and therefore its strength or weakness may be discovered by the strength or weakness of that love it puts forth in the Christian’s actings.  The strength of a man's arm that draws a bow, is seen by the force the  arrow which he shoots flies with.  And certainly the strength of our faith may be known by the force our love mounts to God with.  It is impossible that weak faith—which is unable to draw the promise as a strong faith can—should leave such a forcible impression on the heart to love God to aban­don sin, perform duty, and exert acts of obedience to his command, know thy place, and take it with hum­ble thankfulness, thou art a graduate in the art of be­lieving.  The Christian’s love advanceth by equal paces with his faith, as the heat of the day increaseth with the climbing sun; the higher that mounts towards its meridian, the hotter the day grows.  So the higher faith lifts Christ up in the Christian, the more intense his love to Christ grows, which now sets him on work after another sort than he was wont.  Before, when he was to mourn for his sins, he was acted by a slavish fear, and made an ugly face at the work, as one doth that drinks some unpleasing potion; but now acts of repentance are not distasteful and formidable, since faith hath discovered mercy to sit on the brow of jus­tice, and undeceived the creature of those false and cruel thoughts of God which ignorantly he had taken up concerning him.  He doth not now ‘hate the word repentance’—as Luther said he once did before he understood that place, Rom. 1:17—but goes about the work with amiable sweet apprehensions of a good God, that stands ready with the sponge of his mercy dipped in Christ’s mercy, to blot out his sins as fast as he scores them up by his humble sorrowful confession of them.  And the same might be said concerning all other offices of Christian piety.  Strong faith makes the soul ingenuous.  It doth not pay the performance of any duty, as an oppressed subject doth a heavy tax —with a deep sigh, to think how much he parts with —but as freely as a child would present his father with an apple of that orchard which he holds by gift from him.  Indeed, the child when young is much ser­vile and selfish, forbearing what his father forbids for fear of the rod, and doing what he commands for some fine thing or other that his father bribes him with, more than for pure love to his person or obedi­ence to his will and pleasure.  But, as he grows up and comes to understand himself better, and the relation he stands in, with the many obligations of it to filial obedience, then his servility and selfishness wear off, and his FJ`D(¬—natural affection—will prevail more with him to please his father than any other argument whatever.  And so will it with the Christian where faith is of any growth and ripeness.
7. Character.  To name no more, the more able faith is to sweeten the thoughts of death, and make it desirable to the Christian, the stronger his faith. Things that are very sharp or sour will take much sugar to make them sweet.  Death is one of those things which hath the most ungrateful taste to the creature’s palate that can be.  O it requires a strong faith to make the serious thoughts of it sweet and de­sirable!  I know some in a pet and a passion have pro­fessed great desires of dying, but it hath been as a sick man desires to change his place, merely out of a wea­riness of, and discontent with, his present condition, without any due consideration of what they desire. But a soul that knows the consequences of death, and the unchangeableness of that state, whether of bliss or misery, that it certainly marries us to, will never cheerfully call for death in his cordial desires, till he be in some measure resolved from the promise what entertainment he may expect from God when he comes into that other world—and that weak faith will not do without abundance of fears and doubts.  I con­fess, that sometimes a Christian of very weak faith may meet death with as little fear upon his spirit, yea, more joy, than one of a far stronger faith, when he is held up by the chin by some extraordinary comfort poured into his soul from God immediately.  Should God withdraw this, however, his fears would return upon him, and he feel again his faintings; as a sick man, that hath been strangely cheered with a strong cordial, does his feebleness when the efficacy of it is spent.  But we speak of the ordinary way how Chris­tians come to have their hearts raised above the fear, yea, into a strong desire, of death, and that is by attaining to a strong faith.  God can indeed make a feast of a few loaves, and multiply the weak Chris­tian’s little faith on a sudden, as he lives on a sick-bed, into a spread table of all varieties of consola­tions.  But I fear that God will not do this miracle for that man or woman who, upon the expectation of this, contents himself with the little provision of faith he hath, and labours not to increase his store against that spending time.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 3/4

4. Character.  The more the Christian can lose or suffer upon the credit of the promise, the stronger his faith is.  If you should see a man part with a fair inheritance, and leave his kindred and country where he might pass his days in the embracements of his dear friends and the delicious fare which a plentiful estate would afford him every day, to follow a friend to the other end of the world, with hunger and hard­ship, through sea and land, and a thousand perils that meet him on every hand, you would say that this man had a strong confidence of his friend, and a dear love to him, would you not?  Nay, if he should do all this for a friend whom he never saw, upon the bare credit of a letter which he sends to invite him to come over to him, with a promise of great things he will do for him; now, to throw all his present possessions and enjoyments at his heels, and willingly put himself into the condition of a poor pilgrim and traveller, with the loss of all he hath, that he may come to his dear friend, this adds to the wonder of his confidence. Such gallant spirits we read of—‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice,’ I Peter 1:6-8.  Observe the place, and you shall find them in sorrowful plight —‘in heaviness through manifold temptations’—yet, because their way lies through the sloughs to the en­joyment of God and Christ, whom they never saw or knew, but by the report the word makes of them, they can turn their back off the world's friendship and enjoyments—with which it courted them as well as others—and go with a merry heart through the deep­est of them all.  Here is glorious faith indeed.  It is not praising of heaven, and wishing we were there, but a cheerful abandoning the dearest pleasures, and embracing the greatest sufferings of the world when called to the same, that will evidence our faith to be both true and strong.
5. Character.  The more easily that the Christian can repel motions, and resist temptations to sin, the stronger is his faith.  The snare or net which holds the little fish fast, the greater and stronger fish easily breaks through.  The Christian’s faith is strong or weak as he finds it easy or hard to break from temptations to sin.  When an ordinary temptation holds thee by the heel, and thou art entangled in like the fly in the spider’s web—much ado to get off, and per­suade thy heart from yielding—truly it speaks faith very feeble.  To have no strength to oppose the as­saults of sin and lust, speaks the heart void of faith. Where faith hath not a hand to prostrate an enemy, it yet hath a hand to lift up against it, and a voice to cry out for help to heaven.  Some way or other faith will show its dislike and enter its protest against sin.

           And to have little strength to resist, evidenceth a weak faith.  Peter's faith was weak when a maid's voice dashed him out of countenance; but it was well amended when he could withstand, and, with a noble constancy, disdain the threats of a whole counsel, Acts 4.  Christian, compare thyself with thyself, and give righteous judgment on thyself.  Do now thy lusts as powerfully inveigle thy heart, and carry it away from God, as they did some months or years ago; or canst thou in truth say thy heart is got above them.  Since thou hast known more of Christ, and had a view of his spiritual glories, canst thou now pass by their door and not look in; yea, when they knock at thy door in a temptation, thou canst shut it upon them, and dis­dain the motion?  Surely thou mayest know thy faith is grown stronger.  When we see that the clothes which a year or two ago were even fit for the person, will not now come on him, they are so little, we may easily be persuaded to believe the person is much grown since that time.  If thy faith were no more grown, those temptations which fitted thee would like thee as well now.  Find but the power of sin die, and thou mayest know that faith is more lively and vigor­ous.  The harder the blow, the stronger the arm that gives it.  A child cannot strike such a blow as a man. Weak faith cannot give such a home-blow to sin as a strong faith can.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 2/4

2. Character.  The more composed and content­ed the heart is under the changes which providence brings upon the Christian’s state and condition in the world, the stronger his faith is.  Weak bodies cannot bear the change of weather so well as healthful and strong ones do.  Hot and cold, fair or foul, cause no great alteration in the strong man's temper; but alas! the other is laid up by them, or at best goes complain­ing of them.  Thus strong faith can live in any cli­mate, travel in all weather, and fadge with any condi­tion.  ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there­with to be content,’ Php. 4:11.  Alas! all Christ’s schol­ars are not of Paul’s form; weak faith hath not yet got the mastery of this hard lesson.  When God turns thy health into sickness, thy abundance into penury, thy honour into scorn and contempt, into what language dost thou now make thy condition known to him?  Is thy spirit embittered into discontent, which thou ventest in murmuring complaints? or art thou well satisfied with God's dealings, so as to acquiesce cheer­fully in thy present portion, not from an unsensible­ness of the affliction, but approbation of divine ap­pointment?  If the latter, thy faith is strong.

           (1.) It shows God hath a throne in thy heart.  Thou reverencest his authority and ownest his sover­eignty, or else thou wouldst not acquiesce in his or­ders.  ‘I was dumb, because thou didst it,’ Ps. 39:9.  If the blow had come from any other hand he could not have taken it so silently.  When the servant strike the child, he runs to his father and makes his complaint; but, though the father doth more to him, he com­plains not of his father, nor seeks redress from any other, because it is his father whose authority he re­veres.  Thus thou comportest thyself toward God; and what but a strong faith can enable thee?  ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ Ps. 46:10.  We must know God believingly to be what he is, before our hearts will be ‘still.’

           (2.) This acquiescency of spirit under the dispo­sition of providence shows that thou dost not only stand in awe of his sovereignty, but hast amiable comfortable thoughts of his mercy and goodness in Christ.  Thou believest he can soon, and will certainly make thee amends, or else thou couldst not so easily part with these enjoyments.  The child goes willingly to bed when others, may be, are going to supper at a great feast in the family; but the mother promiseth the child to save something for him against the morn­ing; this the child believes and is content. Surely thou hast something in the eye of thy faith which will rec­ompense all thy present loss; and this makes thee fast so willingly when others feast, be sick when others are well.  Paul tells us why he and his brethren in afflic­tion did not faint, II Cor. 4:16, 17.  They saw heaven coming to them while earth was going from them. ‘For which cause we faint not, ...for our light afflic­tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’

           3. Character.  The more able to wait long for answers to our desires nd prayers, the stronger faith is.  It shows the tradesman to be poor and needy when he must have ready money for what he sells. They that are forehanded are willing to give time, and able to forbear long.  Weak faith is all for the present; if it hath not presently its desires answered, then it grows jealous and lays down sad conclusions against itself—his prayer was not heard, or he is not one God loves, and the like.  Much ado to be kept out of a fainting fit—‘I said in my haste that all men were liars.’  But strong faith that can trade with God for time, yea, waits God’s leisure—‘He that believeth shall not make haste,’ Isa. 28:16.  He knows his money is in a good hand, and he is not over-quick to call for it home, knowing well that the longest voyages have the richest returns.  As rich lusty ground can forbear rain longer than lean or sandy [ground], which must have a shower ever and anon, or the corn on it fades; or as a strong healthful man can fast longer without faintness, than the sickly and weak,—so the Christian of strong faith can stay longer for spiritual refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in the returns of his mercy and discoveries of his love to him, than one of weak faith.

CHARACTERS by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak 1/4

1. Character.  The more entirely the Christian can rely on God, upon his naked word in the promise, the stronger his faith is.  He, surely, putteth great­er confidence in a man that will take his own word or single bond for a sum of money, than he who dares not, except some others will be bound for him.  When we trust God for his bare promise, we trust him on his own credit, and this is faith indeed.  He that walks without staff or crutch is stronger than he that needs these to lean on.  Sense and reason, these are the crutches which weak faith leans on too much in its acting.  Now, soul, inquire,

           (1.) Canst thou bear up thyself on the promise, though the crutch of sense and present feeling be not at hand?  May be thou hast had some discoveries of God’s love and beamings forth of his favour upon thee; and so long as the sun shined thus in at thy window thy heart was lightsome, and thou thoughtest thou shouldst never distrust God more, or listen to thy unbelieving thoughts more; but how findest thou thy heart now, since those sensible demonstrations are withdrawn, and may be some frowning providence sent in the room of them?  Dost thou presently dis­pute the promise in thy thoughts, as not knowing whether thou mayest venture to cast anchor on it or no?  Because thou hast lost the sense of his love, does thy eye of faith fail thee also, that thou hast lost the sight of his mercy and truth in the promise?  Surely thy eye of faith is weak, or else it would read the promise without these spectacles.  The little child, in­deed, thinks the mother is quite lost if she goes but out of the room where he is; but as it grows older so it will be wiser.  And truly so will the believer also. Christian, bless God for the experiences and sensible tastes thou hast at any time of his love; but know, that we cannot judge of our faith, whether weak or strong, by them.  Experiences, saith Parisiensis, are like crutches, which do indeed help a lame man to go, but they do not make the lame man sound or strong; food and physic must do that.  And therefore, Christian, labour to lean more on the promise, and less on sen­sible expressions of God’s love, whether it be in the present feeling or past experiences of it.  I would not take you off from improving these, but [from] leaning on these, and limiting the actings of our faith to these.  A strong man, though he doth not lean on his staff all the way he goes—as the lame man doth on his crutch, which bears his whole weight—yet he may make good use of it now and then to defend himself when set upon by a thief or dog in his way.  Thus the strong Christian may make good use of his experi­ences in some temptations, though he doth not lay the weight of his faith upon them, but [upon] the promise.

           (2.) Canst thou bear thyself upon the promise, when the other crutch of reason breaks under thee? or does thy faith ever fall to the ground with it?  That is a strong faith indeed that can trample upon the im­probabilities and impossibilities which reason would be objecting against the performance of the promise, and give credit to the truth of it with a non obstante —notwithstanding.  Thus Noah fell hard to work about the ark, upon the credit he gave both the threatening and promissory part of God's word, and never troubled his head to clear the matter to his reason how these strange things could come to pass. And it is imputed to the strength of Abraham’s faith, that he could not suffer his own narrow reason to have the hearing of the business, when God promised him a Michaelmas^[7] spring—as I may say—a son in his old age.  ‘And being not weak in faith, he consid­ered not his own body now dead,’ Rom. 4:19.  Skilful swimmers are not afraid to go above their depth, whereas young learners feel for the ground, and are loath to go far from the bank-side.  Strong faith fears not when God carries the creature beyond the depth of his reason: ‘We know not what to do,’ said good Jehoshaphat, ‘but our eyes are upon thee,’ II Chr. 20. As if he had said, ‘We are in a sea of troubles; beyond our own help, or any thought how we can wind out of these straits; but our eyes are upon thee.  We dare not give our case for desperate so long as there is strength in thine arm, tenderness in thy bowels, and truth in thy promise.’  Whereas weak faith, that is groping for some footing for reason to stand on, it is taken up how to reconcile the promise and the crea­ture’s understanding.  Hence those many questions which drop from its mouth.  When Christ said, ‘Give ye them to eat,’ Mark 6, his disciples ask him, ‘Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth  of bread?’  As if Christ’s bare word could not spare that cost and trouble!  ‘Whereby shall I know this?’ saith Zacharias to the angel, ‘for I am an old man,’ Luke 1:18.  Alas! his faith was not strong enough to digest, at present, this strange news.