SEPTEMBER 30.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen.—Heb. xi. 1.

BAXTER.

I SHALL briefly tell you whether you have any faith that is true and saving, though in the least degree. Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe, yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things, will have these four signs of faith within them.

1. A sound belief of things unseen, will cause a practical estimation of them, and that above all earthly things. A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass, will cause the soul deliberately to say, This is the chief desirable felicity; this is the crown, the pearls, the treasure; nothing but this can serve my turn. It will debase the greatest pleasures, or riches, or honors of the world in your esteem. How contemptible will they seem, while you see God stand by, and heaven as it were set open to your view; you will see there is little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world; you will pity them as miserable in their mirth, and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence, and as strangers to all solid joy and honor. You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery, when they are braving it among men, and domineering for a little while; and you will think, Alas! poor man! Is this all thy glory? Hast thou no better wealth, no higher honor, no sweeter pleasures than these husks? With such a practical judgment as you value gold above dirt, and jewels above common stones; you will value heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world, if you have a living, saving faith.

2. A sound belief of the things unseen, will habitually incline your wills to embrace them, with consent, and complacence, and resolution, above and against those worldly things, that would be set above them, and preferred before them. If you are true believers, you have made your choice, you have fixed your hopes, you have taken up your resolutions, that God must be your portion, or you can have none that is worth the having; that Christ must be your Saviour, or you can not be saved; and therefore you are at a point with all things else. They may be your helps, but not your happiness. You are resolved on what rock to build, and where to cast anchor, and at what port and

prize your life shall aim. You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none; heaven or nothing; Christ or none, is the voice of your rooted, stable resolutions. Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted, and have a part in Christ, or no; and whether ever you shall attain the glory which you aim at; yet you are off all other hopes; having seen an end of all perfections, and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures, even on the most flattering state on earth; and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master, and your hopes, and your whole course, for any other life or hopes. Whatever come of it, you are resolved that here you will venture all; knowing that you have no other game to play, at which you are not sure to lose, and that you can lay out your love, and care, and labor on nothing else that will answer your expectations, nor make any other bargain whatsoever, but what you are sure to be utterly undone by.

3. A sound belief of things invisible, will be so far an effectual spring of a holy life, as that you will "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and not in your resolutions only, but in your practices, the bent of your lives will be for God, and your invisible felicity. It is not possible that you should see by faith the wonders of the world to come, and yet prefer this world before it. A dead, opinionative belief, may stand with a worldly, fleshly life; but a working faith will make you stir, and make the things of God your business. And the labor and industry of your lives will show whether you soundly believe the things unseen.

4. If you savingly believe the invisible things, you will purchase them at any rate, and hold them faster than your worldly accommodations; and will suffer the loss of all things visible, rather than you will cast away your hopes of the glory which you never saw. A human faith and bare opinion will not hold fast when trial comes. For such men have taken heaven but for a reserve, because they must leave earth against their wills, and are loth to go to hell. But they are resolved to hold the world as long as they can, because their faith apprehendeth no such satisfying certainty of the things unseen, as will encourage them to let go all that they see, and have in sensible possession. But the weakest faith that is true and saving, doth habitually dispose the soul to let go all the hopes and happiness of this world,

when they are inconsistent with our spiritual hopes and happi

ness.

Let conscience tell you: What eyes do you see by, for the conduct of the chief employments of your lives? Is it by the eye of sense or faith? I take it for granted that it is by the eye of reason. But is it by reason corrupted and biased by sense, or is it by reason elevated by faith? What country is it that your hearts converse in? Is it in heaven or earth? What company is it that you solace yourselves with? Is it with angels and saints? Do you walk with them in the spirit, and join your echoes to their triumphant praises, and say, Amen, when by faith you hear them ascribing honor, and praise, and glory to the Ancient of days, the omnipotent Jehovah, that is, and that was, and that is to come? Do you fetch your joys from heaven or earth? from things unseen or seen? things future or present? things hoped for, or things possessed? What garden yieldeth you your sweetest flowers? Whence are the spirits and cordials that revive you, when a frowning world doth cast you into a fainting fit or swoon? Where is it that you repose your souls for rest, when sin or sufferings have made you weary? Deal truly, is it in heaven or earth? Which world do you take for your pilgrimage, and which for your home? I do not ask you where you are, but where you dwell? Not where are your persons, but where are your hearts? In a word, are you in good earnest when you say, you believe a heaven and hell? And do you speak, and think, and pray, and live, as those that do indeed believe it? Deal truly, your endless joy or sorrow do much depend on it. The life of faith is the certain passage to glory. The fleshly life on things here seen, is the certain way to endless misery.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.-Rom. viii. 5–7.

YET even this is no disparaging of the flesh. For so long as it keeps its own place, nothing amiss cometh to pass. But when

we let it have its own will in every thing, and it passes over its proper bounds, and rises up against the soul, then it destroys and corrupts every thing, yet not owing to its own nature, but to its being out of proportion, and the disorder thereupon ensuing. But they that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death. He does not speak of the nature of the flesh, or the essence of the body, but of being carnally minded, which may be set right again, and abolished. And in saying thus, he does not ascribe to the flesh any reasoning power of its own. Far from it. But to set forth the grosser motion of the mind, and giving this a name from the inferior part, and in the same way as he often is in the habit of calling man in his entireness, and viewed as possessed of a soul, flesh. But to be spiritually minded. Here again he speaks of the spiritual mind, in the same way as he says further on, But he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit; and he points out many blessings resulting from this, both in the present life, and in that which is to come. For as the evils which being carnally minded introduces, are far outnumbered by those blessings which a spiritual mind affords. And this he points out in the words life and peace. The one is in contraposition to the first-for death is what he says to be carnally minded is. And the other in contraposition to the following. For after mentioning peace, he goes on, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: and this is worse than death. Then to show how it is at once death and enmity; for it is not subject to the law of God, he says, neither indeed can be. But be not troubled at hearing the neither indeed can be. For this difficulty admits of an easy solution. For what he here names carnal mindedness is the reasoning that is earthly, gross, and eagerhearted after the things of this life and its wicked doings. It is of this he says, neither yet can it be subject to God. And what hope of salvation is there left, if it be impossible for bad to become good? This is not what he says. would Paul have become such as he was? how would the penitent thief, or Manasses, or the Ninevites, or how would David after falling have recovered himself? after the denial have raised himself up? not that it is impossible for a man that good, but that it is impossible for one who continues wicked to

one who is

Else how

How would St. Peter

What he says, then, is is wicked to become

be subject to God. Yet for a man to be changed, and so become good, and subject to him, is easy. For he does not say that man can not be subject to God, but, wicked doing can not be good. It is vice then he means by carnal mindedness, and by spiritual mindedness the grace given, and the working of it discernible in a right determination of mind, not discussing in any part of this, a substance and an entity, but virtue and vice. For that which thou hadst no power to do under the law, now, he means, thou wilt be able to do, to go on uprightly, and with no intervening fall, if thou layest hold of the Spirit's aid. For it is not enough not to walk after the flesh, but we must also go after the Spirit, since turning away from what is evil will not secure our salvation, but we must also do what is good. And this will come about, if we give our souls up to the Spirit, and persuade our flesh to get acquainted with its proper position, for in this way we shall make it also spiritual; as also if we be listless we shall make our soul carnal. For since it was no natural necessity which put the gift into us, for the freedom of choice placed it in our hands, it rests with thee henceforward whether this shall be or the other. For he, on his part, has performed every thing. For sin no longer warreth against the law of our mind, neither doth it lead us away captive as heretofore, for all that state has been ended and broken up, and the affections cower in fear and trembling at the grace of the Spirit. But if thou wilt quench the light, and cast out the holder of the reins, and chase the helmsman away, then charge the tossing thenceforth upon thyself. Since thou seest then the real state of things voiced with a shriller note than any trumpet, let not thyself grow soft and treacherous to so great a grace. Since not even after the faith is it possible for a listless man to be saved! For the wrestlings are made easy that thou mayest strive and conquer, not that thou shouldst sleep, or abuse the greatness of the grace by making it a reason for listlessness, so wallowing again in the former mire.