C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Faith in Christ
O, for a living faith in a living Redeemer!
There are three acts of faith, assent, acceptance and assurance.
There can be no faith so feeble that Christ does not respond to it.
When you have given yourself to Christ, leave yourself there, and go about your work as a child in His household.
That is faith, cleaving to Christ, twining round Him with all the tendrils of our heart, as the vine does round its support.
Faith refers to Christ. Holiness depends on faith. Heaven depends on holiness.
This is faith, receiving the truth of Christ: first knowing it to be true, and then acting upon that belief.
Faith is the act of trust by which one being, a sinner, commits himself to another being, a Saviour.
We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
The true confidence which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence which is utter distrust of myself—are identical.
Faith is a simple trust in a personal Redeemer. The simpler our trust in Christ for all things, the surer our peace.
We shall never recover the true apostolic energy, and be endued with power from on high, as the first disciples were, till we recover the lost faith.
No man’s salvation depends on his believing that he believes; but it does depend on his seeing and receiving Jesus Christ as his Saviour.
Faith does not first ask what the bread is made of, but eats it. It does not analyze the components of the living stream, but with joy draws water from the “wells of salvation.”
I have taken my good deeds and bad deeds, and thrown them together into a heap, and fled from them both to Christ, and in Him I have peace.
The righteousness which is by faith in Christ is a loving heart and a loving life, which every man will long to lead who believes really in Jesus Christ.
Faith in Christ is not an exercise of the understanding merely; it is an affection of the heart. “With the heart man believeth.” To those who believe Christ is precious.
We are not saved by nations or by churches or by families, but as individuals, through a personal interest in a personal Saviour.
Child of God, if you would have your thought of God something beyond a cold feeling of His presence, let faith appropriate Christ.
Faith is the bond of union, the instrument of justification, the spring of spiritual peace and joy, the means of spiritual peace and subsistence.
Saving faith is confidence in Jesus; a direct, confidential transaction with Him.
Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the gospel.
Faith is the gift of God, wrought by the Holy Spirit through the means of grace, in the heart of every penitent and seeking sinner; who faithfully uses them.
We must not think that faith itself is the soul’s rest; it is only the means of it. We cannot find rest in any work or duty of our own, but we may find it in Christ, whom faith apprehends for justification and salvation.
Nothing but Christian faith gives to the farthest future the solidity and definiteness which it must have if it is to be a breakwater for us against the fluctuating sea of present cares and thoughts.
These poor people had never heard the distinctions between intellectual faith, historic faith, and saving faith; but they did as they were taught,—reached out their dirty hands to take Christ, and attended to the washing of their hands afterwards.
True faith, by a mighty effort of the will, fixes its gaze on our Divine Helper, and there finds it possible and wise to lose its fears. It is madness to say, “I will not be afraid;” it is wisdom and peace to say, “I will trust and not be afraid.”
Faith is the vital artery of the soul. When we begin to believe, we begin to love. Faith grafts the soul into Christ, as the scion into the stock, and fetches all its nutriment from the blessed Vine.
Faith then, in its relation to salvation, is that confidence by which we accept it as a free gift from the Saviour, and is the only possible way in which the gift of God could be appropriated.
The soul is the life of the body, faith is the life of the soul, and Christ is the life of faith. Justification by faith in Christ’s righteousness is the golden chain which binds the Christian world in one body.
We believe that the very beginning and end of salvation and the sum of Christianity, consists of faith in Christ, who by His blood alone, and not by any works of ours, has put away sin, and destroyed the power of death.
The act of faith, which separates us from all men, unites us for the first time in real brotherhood; and they who, one by one, come to Jesus and meet Him alone, next find that they are come to the city of God “and to an innumerable company.”
Oh, my soul! why art thou so often disquieted within thee? How is it that thou hast so little faith? Wilt thou never learn that Jesus has even the least of His little boats always under His watchful eye, and all the winds and the waves obey Him?
Logically, faith comes first, and love next; but in life they will spring up together in the soul; the interval which separates them is impalpable, and in every act of trust, love is present; and fundamental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust in Christ.
Faith, considered as a habit, is no more precious than other gracious habits are; but considered as an instrument to receive Christ and His righteousness, it excels them all; and this instrumentality of faith is noted in the phrases, “by faith,” and “through faith.”
Faith is trusting Jesus to lead us and going where He leads. What avails it to me to analyze Saratoga water, and to believe in its virtues? I must drink the water if I want its purifying power. And the soul that has not actually drunk of Christ can never be purged from sin.
Faith has a saving connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope, and as we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore; but all good works having no connection with Christ are drifted along down the gulf of fell despair.
The first thing in faith is knowledge. What we know we must also agree unto. What we agree unto we must rest upon alone for salvation. It will not save me to know that Christ is a Saviour; but it will save me to trust Him to be my Saviour.
Faith that trusts on Jesus alone for salvation, and not on your respectable life, and the obedience that follows Him, are the indispensable steps to salvation. You admit that you have not taken these decisive steps. Then, however near you are, you are not in Christ.
Faith is the nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is that grace that drives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him, and love helps to keep the grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love draws it fast.
Relying on the atonement which Christ has made, and desiring to be saved in no other way, I commit myself into Thy hands, O God, my Father! Take me, and do with me as Thou seest to be for Thy glory. I consecrate myself forever to Thy service, and trust for acceptance in the merits of Thy Son.
Faith is a Christian’s right eye, without which he cannot look for Christ; right hand, without which he cannot do for Christ; it is his tongue, without which he cannot speak for Christ; it is his vital spirit, without which he cannot act for Christ.
To trust God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to believe that He loves us, that is faith, that is what we must do to be saved. And to love God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to seek to testify our love by our whole life,—that is Christian duty; that is all we have to do.
Faith from its essential nature implies the fallen state of man, while it recognizes the principles of the covenant of grace. It is itself the condition of that covenant. It is a grace which is alike distinguished from the love of angels and the faith of devils. It is peculiar to the returning sinner. None but a lost sinner needs it; none but a humbled sinner relishes it.
It appears to me that, even within the recollection of living men, the Christian faith has come to be less and less regarded as a commanding and mighty power from heaven, a voice of authority, a law of holy life, but more and more as an easy going guide to future enjoyment, to a universal happiness and an indiscriminate salvation.
If we bear an inward enmity to all sins because they are offensive to God, if we can say that it is the desire of our souls to love Christ above all things, and to be eternal debtors to free grace, reigning through His righteousness, then we may warrantably conclude, that our faith, however weak, is yet of a saving nature.
If you feel sincerely sorry on account of your sins, and believe that Christ is able and willing to forgive you, the work is done. You may trust with all the confidence of a child who confesses his fault, and casts himself into his father’s arms. This is faith; a simple trust in the power and willingness of the Father to forgive, for the sake of what Christ the Son has done.
Seek for a fresh invoice of grace. Unbelief can scoff or growl; faith is the nightingale that sings in the darkest hour. Faith can draw honey out of the rock and oil out of the flint. With Christ in possession and heaven in reversion, it marches to the time of the One-hundred-and-third Psalm over the roughest road, and against the most cutting blast.
Here then is man’s duty. It is to receive that free and full salvation that Christ has provided. It is to stretch forth the hand of faith, and with it take the proffered salvation. It is to cling to the cross as the only hope of everlasting life. Will you do it? Weary, working, plodding one, will you, ceasing all this vain attempt to save yourself, receive Christ, and Christ alone as your Saviour?
I expect eternal life, not as a reward of merit, but a pure act of bounty. Detesting myself in every view I can take, I fly to the righteousness and atonement of my great Redeemer for pardon and salvation; this is my only consolation and hope. “Enter not into judgment, O Lord, with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no flesh be justified.”
If faith, then, new birth; if new birth, then sonship; if sonship, then “an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ.” But if you have not got your foot upon the lowest round of the ladder, you will never come within sight of the blessed face of Him who stands at the top of it, and who looks down to you at this moment, saying to you, “My child, wilt thou not at this time cry unto me, ‘Abba, Father?’”
This saving faith is the perceiving, believing, and resting upon a fact—the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The failure to understand this is one fruitful cause of the confusion in many minds about this subject. For not unfrequently persons are looking into their own hearts, and trying to discover whether they have faith or not, instead of looking away from themselves altogether at the object of faith.
True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in His word, but also an assured confidence, which the Holy Ghost works by the gospel, in my heart; that not only to others but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness, and salvation are freely given by God merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.
Faith is reliance upon the sacrificial death of Christ for salvation and everlasting life. It is the act of the heart by which we heartily welcome Him into our souls. Faith is the primal grace. Faith is the cardinal grace. By holiness we are made like Christ; by faith we are made one with Christ; and being in Christ, we have peace.
Faith—saving faith—whatever other definition may be framed—is best described as that act of the soul by which the whole man is given over to the guardianship of the Mediator. He who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two things: first, his belief that he needs a protector; secondly, his belief that Christ is just that protector which his necessities require.
When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, “I have faith in that rope as well made and strong.” But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion—it is an act. The miner lets go of every thing else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith.
Faith is not the lazy notion that a man may with careless confidence throw his burden upon the Saviour and trouble himself no further, a pillow upon which he lulls his conscience to sleep, till he drops into perdition; but a living and vigorous principle, working by love, and inseparably connected with true repentance as its motive and with holy obedience as its fruits.
Above all things I entreat you to preserve your faith in Christ. It is my wealth in poverty, my joy in sorrow, my peace amid tumult. For all the evil I have committed, my gracious pardon; and for every effort, my exceeding great reward. I have found it to be so. I can smile with pity at the infidel whose vanity makes him dream that I should barter such a blessing for the few subtleties from the school of the cold-blooded sophists.
Faith has in it the recognition of the certainty and the justice of a judgment that is coming down crashing on every human head; and then from the midst of these fears and sorrows and the tempest of that great darkness there rises up in the night of terrors the shining of one perhaps pale, quivering, distant, but divinely given hope, “My Saviour! My Saviour! He is righteous; He has died; He lives! I will stay no longer; I will cast myself upon Him!”
If God made no response except to perfect faith, who could hope for help? But God has regard for beginnings, and His eye perceives greatness in the germ. The hand of the woman in the crowd trembled as it was stretched toward Jesus, and the faith back of it was superstitiously reverent, trusting in the virtue of the robe, rather than in the One who wore it; yet the genuineness of that faith, feeble though it was, triumphed in God’s loving sight. Real trust is real power, though the heart and hand be feeble.
When there is a clear reception of truth as revealed, declared, or testified to, the soul believes in that truth. There is here the idea of transfer. The truth has been received through or from an accredited witness. “It is revealed from faith to faith.” When the soul, conscious of weakness or want, looks to, trusts in, or waits upon, another for help and strength, this is resting on, relying on, acting faith on, that other for the desired blessing. And when the soul believes or acts faith into another, there is an entire self-surrender to the authority and sovereign will of that other to rule. There is here the idea of the soul going out to rest on the power, and to be subordinate to, the authority of another. Thus the Israelites “were all baptized unto or into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”
The natural homage which such a creature as Man bears to an infinitely wise and good God, is a firm Reliance on Him for the blessings and conveniences of life, and an habitual Trust in Him for deliverance out of all such dangers and difficulties as may befall us. The man who always lives in this disposition of mind, when he reflects upon his own weakness and imperfection, comforts himself with the contemplation of those Divine attributes which are employed for his safety and welfare. He finds his want of foresight made up by the omniscience of Him who is his support. He is not sensible of his own want of strength when he knows that his Helper is Almighty. In short, the person who has a firm Trust on the Supreme Being, is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.