DIRECTIONS to believers for the preserving of faith 4/4

 Fifth Direction.  If thou wouldst preserve thy faith, labour to increase it.  None [are] in more dan­ger of losing what they have than those poor-spirited men who are content with what they have.  A spark is sooner smothered than a flame; a drop more easily drunk up and dried than a river.  The stronger thy faith is, the safer thy faith is from the enemies’ as­saults.  The intelligence which an enemy hath of a castle's being weakly provided for a siege, is enough to bring him against it, which else should not have been troubled with his company.  The devil is a coward, and he loves to fight on the greatest advantage; and greater he cannot have than the weakness of the Christian’s faith.  Didst thou but know, Christian, the many privileges of a strong faith above a weak, thou wouldst never rest till thou hadst it.  Strong faith comes conqueror out of those temptations where weak faith is foiled and taken prisoner.  Those Philis­tines could not stand before Samson in his strength, who durst dance about him scornfully in his weak­ness.  When David’s faith was up how undauntedly did he look death in the face! I Sam. 30:6.  But, when that was out of heart, O how poor-spirited is he! —ready to run his head into every hole, though never so dishonourably, to save himself, I Sam. 21:13.

           Strong faith frees the Christian from those heart-rending thoughts which weak faith must needs be op­pressed with.  ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee,’ Isa. 26:3.  So much faith, so much inward peace and quietness.  If little faith, then little peace and serenity, through the storms that our unbelieving fears will necessarily gather.  If strong faith, then strong peace; for so the ingemination in the Hebrew, ‘peace, peace,’ imports. It is confessed that weak faith hath as much peace with God through Christ as the other hath by his strong faith, but not so much bosom peace.  Weak faith will as surely land the Christian in heaven as strong faith; for it is impossible the least dram of true grace should perish, being all incorruptible seed.  But the weak doubting Christian is not like to have so pleasant a voyage thither as another with strong faith. Though all in the ship come safe to shore, yet he that is all the way sea‑sick hath not so comfortable a voy­age as he that is strong and healthful.  There are many delightful prospects occur in a journey which he that is sick and weak loseth the pleasure of.  But the strong man views all with abundance of delight; and though he wisheth with all his heart he was at home, yet the entertainment he hath from these do much shorten and sweeten his way to him.  Thus, Christian, there are many previous delights which saints travel­ling to heaven meet on their way thither—besides what God hath for them at their journey’s end—but it is the Christian whose faith is strong and active on the promise that finds them.  This is he who sees the spiritual glories in the promise that ravish his soul with unspeakable delight; while the doubting Chris­tian's eye of faith is so gummed up with unbelieving fears that he can see little to affect him in it.  This is he that goes singing all the way with the promise in his eye; while the weak Christian, kept in continual pain with his own doubts and jealousies, goes sighing and mourning with a heavy heart, because his interest in the promise is yet under a dispute in his own thoughts.  As you would not therefore live uncomfortably, and have a dull melancholy walk of it to heaven, labour to strengthen your faith.

           Question.  But may be you will ask, How may I know whether my faith be strong or weak?  I answer by these following characters.

DIRECTIONS to believers for the preserving of faith 3/4

 Fourth Direction.  Take special notice of that unbelief which yet remain in thee and, as it is putting forth daily its head in thy Christian course, be sure thou loadest thy soul with the sense of it, and deeply humblest thyself before God for it.  What thy faith loseth by every act of unbelief, it recovers again by renewing thy repentance.  David’s faith was on a mending hand when he could shame himself heartily for his unbelief, Ps. 73:22.  He confesseth how ‘foolish and ignorant’ he was; yea, saith he, ‘I was as a beast before thee’—so irrational and brutish his unbelieving thoughts now appeared to him—and, by this ingenuous, humble confession, the malignity of his distemper breathes out [so] that he is presently in his old temper again, and his faith is able to act as high as ever.  ‘Thou hast holden me by my right hand.  Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory,’ ver. 23, 24.  But so long as thy unbelief is sure to grow upon thee as thou beest unhumbled for it.  We have the reason why the people of Laish were so bad.  ‘There was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in anything,’ Judges 18:7. Christian, thou hast a magistrate in thy bosom com­missioned by God himself to check, reprove, and shame thee, when thou sinnest.  Indeed, all things go to wreck in that soul where this [one] doth his office. Hear therefore what this hath to charge thee with, that thou mayest be ashamed.  There is no sin dis­honours God more than unbelief; and this sword cuts his name deepest when in the hand of a saint.  O to be wounded in the house of his friends, this goes near the tender heart of God.  And there is reason enough why God should take this sin so unkindly at a saint’s hand, if we consider the near relation such a one stands in to God.  It would grieve an indulgent father to see his own child come into court, and there bear witness against him and charge him of some untruth in his words, more than if a stranger should do it; because the testimony of a child, though, when it is for the vindication of a parent it may lose some credit in the opinion of those that hear it, upon the suspi­cion of partiality, yet, when against a parent, it seems to carry some more probability of truth than what is another that is a stranger says against him; because the band of natural affection with which the child is bound to his parent is so sacred that it will not be easily suspected.  He can offer violence to it, but upon the more inviolable necessity of bearing witness to the truth.

           O think of this, Christian, again and again—by thy unbelief thou bearest false witness against God! And if thou, a child of God, speakest no better of thy heavenly Father, and presentest him in no fairer char­acter to the world, it will be no wonder if it be con­firmed in its hard thoughts of God, even to final im­penitency and unbelief, when it shall se how little credit he finds with thee, for all thy great profession of him and near relation to him.  When we would sink the reputation of a man the lowest possible, we cannot think of an expression that will do it more effectually than to say, ‘He is such a one as those that are nearest to him, even his own children, dare not trust, or will not give him a good word.’  O Christian, ask thyself whether thou couldst be willing to be the unhappy instrument to defame God, and take away his good name in the world.  Certainly thy heart trem­bles at the thought of it if a saint; and if it doth, then surely thy unbelief, by which thou hast done this so oft, will wound thee to the very heart; and, bleeding for what thou hast done, thou wilt beware of taking that sword into thy hand again, with which thou hast given so many a wound to the name of God and thy own peace.

DIRECTIONS to believers for the preserving of faith 2/4

 Second Direction.  Wouldst thou preserve thy faith, look to thy conscience.  A good conscience is the bottom faith sails in.  If the conscience be wrecked, how can it be thought that faith should be safe?  If faith be the jewel, a good conscience is the cabinet in which it is kept; and if the cabinet be broken, the jewel must needs be in danger of losing. Now you know what sins waste the conscience—sins either deliberately committed, or impudently contin­ued in.

           O take heed of deliberate sins!  Like a stone thrown into a clear stream, they will so roil thy soul and muddy it, that thou, who even now couldst see thy interest in the promise, wilt be at a loss and not know what to think of thyself.  They are like the fire on the top of the house; it will be no easy matter to quench it.  But, if thou hast been so unhappy as to fall into such a slough, take heed of lying in it by im­penitency.  The sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it; and therefore, how hard wilt thou find it, thinkest thou, to act thy faith on the promise, when thou art, by thy filthy garments and besmeared countenance, so unlike one of God's holy one’s?  It is dangerous to drink poison, but far more to let it lie in the body long.  Thou canst not act thy faith, though a believer, on the promise, so as to ap­ply the pardon it presents to thy soul, till thou hast renewed thy repentance.

           Third Direction.  Exercise thy faith, if thou meanest to preserve it.  We live by faith, and faith lives by exercise.  As we say of some stirring men, they are never well but at work—confine them in their bed or chair and you kill them; so here, hinder faith from working, and you are enemies to the very life and being of it.  Why do we act faith so little in prayer, but because we are no more frequent in it?  Let the child seldom see its father or mother, and when he comes into their presence he will not make much after them. Why are we no more able to live on a promise when at a plunge?  Surely because we live no more with the promise.  The more we converse with the promise, the more confidence we shall put in it.  We do not strangers as we do our neighbours, in whose company we are almost every day.  It were a rare way to secure our faith, yea, to advance it and all our other graces, would we, in our daily course labour to do all our ac­tions, as in obedience to the command, so in faith on the promise.  But alas! how many enterprises are un­dertaken where faith is not called in, nor the promise consulted with, from one end of the business to the other?  And therefore, when we would make use of faith in some particular strait, wherein we think our­selves to be more than ordinary at a loss, our faith itself is at a loss, and to seek, like a servant who, be­cause his master very seldom employs him, makes bold to be gadding abroad, and so when his master doth call him upon some extraordinary occasion, he is out of the way and not to be found.  O Christian! take heed of letting your faith be long out of work.  If you do not use it when you ought, it might fail you when you desire most to act it.

DIRECTIONS to believers for the preserving of faith 1/4

  First Direction.  That which was instrumental to beget thy faith will be helpful to preserve it—I mean the word of God.  As it was seed for the former pur­pose in thy conversion, so now it is milk for the present sustentation of thy faith.  Lie sucking at this breast, and that often.  Children cannot suck long, nor digest much at a time, and therefore need the more frequent returns of their meals.  Such children are all believers in this world.  ‘Precept’ must be ‘upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little.’  The breast [must be] often drawn out for the nourishing of them up in their spiritual life, or else they cannot subsist.  It was not ordinary that Moses should look so well as he did after he had fasted so long, Ex. 34:28, 29.  And truly it is a miraculous faith they must have who will undertake to keep their faith alive without taking any spiritual repast from the word.  I have heard of some children that have been taken from their mother’s breast as soon almost as born, and brought up by hand, who yet have done well for their natural life.  But I shall not believe a creature can thrive in his spiritual life, who cast off ordinances, and weans himself from the word, till I hear of some other way of provision that God hath made for the ordinary maintenance of it besides this; and I despair of living so long as to see this proved. I know some, that we may hope well of, have been for a time persuaded to turn their backs on the word and ordinances; but they have turned well hunger-bit to their old fare again, yea, with Naomi's bitter com­plaint in their mouths, ‘I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty,’ Ruth 1:21.  And happy are them that they are come to their stomachs in this life, before this food be taken off the table, never more to be set on.  He that taught Christians to pray for their daily bread, did suppose they had need of it; and surely he did not mean only or chiefly corporal bread, who, in the same chapter bids them, ‘But seek ye first the kingdom of God,’ Matt. 6:33. Well, Christian, prize thou the word, fed savourily on the word, whether it be dished forth in a sermon at the public, or in a conference with some Christian friend in private, or in a more secret duty of reading and meditation by thy solitary self.  Let none of these be disused, or carnally used, by thee, and with God’s blessing thou shalt reap the benefit of it in thy faith. When thy stomach fails to the word, thy faith must needs begin to fail on the word.  O that Christians, who are so much in complaints of their weak faith, would but turn their complaints into inquiries why it is so weak and declining!  Is it not because faith hath missed its wonted meals from the word?  Thou, hap­ly, formerly broken through many straits to keep thy acquaintance with God in his word, and wert well paid for that time which thou didst borrow of thy other occasions for this end, by that sweet temper that thou foundest thy heart in to trust God and rely upon him in all conditions; but now, since thou hast dis­continued thy acquaintance with God in those ordin­ances, thou perceivest a sad change.  Where thou couldst have trusted God, now thou art suspicious of him.  Those promises that were able in a mutiny and hubbub of thy unruly passions, to have hushed and quieted all in thy soul at their appearing in thy thoughts, have now, alas! but little authority over thy murmuring unbelieving heart, to keep it in any toler­able order.  If it be thus with thee, poor soul, thy case is sad; and I cannot give thee better counsel for thy soul, than that which physicians give men in a consumption for their bodies.  They ask them where they were born and bred up, and to that their native air they send them, as the best means to recover them. Thus, soul, let me ask thee, if thou ever hadst faith, where it was born and bred up? was it not in the sweet air of ordinances, hearing, meditating, conferring of the word, and praying over the word?  Go, poor creature, and get thee as fast as thou canst into thy native air, where thou didst draw thy first Chris­tian breath, and where thy faith did so thrive and grow for a time.  No means more hopeful to set thy feeble faith on its legs again than this