- Jan 1, 2024
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"I would think it a good token of faith to have men afraid of missing and falling short of the promises, which may be gathered from Hebrews 4:1, “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” That stout confidence that thinks it is impossible to miss the promise, is a suspicious and dangerous faith, not to be loved. A faith that fears is much better than a faith that is more stout, unless there be a sweet mixture of holy stoutness and fear together. It is said that by faith Noah, being moved by fear, prepared an ark (Heb 11:7). Noah had the faith of God’s promise that he should be kept from being drowned in the deluge with the rest of the world, and yet he was mourning and trembling in preparing the ark. If there were more faith among you, it would make many of you more holily afraid than you are. Do not suspect that faith of them that never hear a threatening but they tremble at it, and are touched by it to the quick.
It is a good token of saving faith, when it has a discovery and holy suspicion of unbelief waiting on it, so that the person dares not so to confide in and trust his own faith as not to dread unbelief, and to tell Christ of it. In Mark 9:23-24 there is a poor man that comes to Christ, to whom the Lord says, “If thou canst believe,” or canst thou believe? Yes, Lord, says he, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. There was some faith in him, but
there was also unbelief mixed with it; his unbelief was so great that it was almost like to drown his faith. But he puts it in Christ’s hand, and will neither deny his faith nor his unbelief, but puts the matter sincerely upon Christ to strengthen his faith and to amend and help his unbelief. A faith that is at the top of perfection at the very first ere ever you know it, is to be suspected.
There are some serious souls that think, because they have some unbelief, that therefore they have no faith at all; but true faith is such a faith that is joined with a suspected and feared, or seen, unbelief. That faith is surest where people fear and suspect unbelief, and see it. And when they are frightened on account of their unbelief and cry out under it, and make their unbelief an errand to Christ, it is a token that faith is there.
The third characteristic is that it will be accompanied by a cleaving to Christ, and a fear to presume in cleaving to Him. There will be two things opposing one another: an eagerness to be at Him, and a fear to be found presumptuous in meddling with Him and a holy trembling to think on it—yet notwithstanding it must and will be ventured upon. The woman (spoken of in Mark 5:28), reckoned thus with herself, “If I can but touch His clothes I shall be whole.” She not only believes this to be truth, but she cuts through the crowds and thrusts in to be at Him; yet when she comes before Christ, she trembles as if she had been taken in a fault, not having dared to come openly to Him, but behind Him. She behooved to have a touch of Him, but she durst not in a manner own and avouch her doing of it till she was unavoidably put to it.
It is a suspicious and unsound faith that never trembled at attempting to believe. There is reason to consider that faith not to be of the right stamp, that never walked under the impression of the great distance between Christ and the person, the sense whereof is the thing that makes the trembling—I say not desperation, nor any utter distrust of Christ’s kindness, but trembling—arising from the consideration of the great distance and disproportion that is between Him and the person. Faith causes the sinner to go to Christ, and the sense of his own sinfullness and worthlessness keeps him under holy fear and in the exercise of humility.
Paul once thought himself a brave man (as we may see in Romans 7:9), but when he was brought to believe in Christ, he sees that he was a dead and undone man before. I give you these three marks of a true faith from that chapter.
b. A second mark is a greater restlessness of the body of death; it becomes in some respect worse company, more fretful and struggling than ever it did before. Sin revived, says Paul, though he had no more corruption in him than he had before, but it awaked and bestirred itself more. I dare say that though there is not so much corruption in a believer as there is in a natural man, yet it struggles much more and is more painful and disquieting to the believer, and breeds him a great deal more trouble. For, says the apostle on the matter, when God graciously poured light and life in me, sin took that occasion to grow angry and to be enraged that such a neighbor was brought in beside it; it could not endure that. And as an unruly and currish dog barks most bitterly when an honest guest comes to the house, so when grace takes place in the soul, corruption barks and makes more noise than it did before.
There are some that think they have the more faith, because they feel no corruption stir in them; and there are others that think they have no faith at all, because they feel corruption struggling more and growing more troublesome to them. But the stirring and struggling of corruption (if men are indeed burdened and affected and afflicted with it) will rather prove their having faith than their wanting of it. Love that faith well that puts and keeps men contending in the fight with the body of death: for though it is not good in itself that corruption stirs, yet still is that sinful nature, that it flies always more in the face of them that look God and heavenwards, than of others that are sleeping securely under its dominion.
c. A third mark is, when the soul has never peace in any of its conflicts or combats with corruption, but when it results in faith exercised on Jesus Christ—as it was with Paul after his conversion. That is a sound faith that not only makes peace at first by Christ, but that cannot (to say so) fight one fair stroke in the spiritual warfare, nor look corruption in the face, nor promise itself an issue from any assault of the enemy, but by faith in Jesus Christ, as it was with the apostle, who toward the end of that chapter lamentably cries, “O! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24). Yet immediately he subjoins faith’s triumphing in Christ, saying, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is evident that before his conversion he thought he could do well enough all alone, but it is not so now: now he can do nothing without Christ, especially in this war with his corruption.
For a close of this treatise, I beseech and entreat such of you as are strangers to saving faith (who are, I fear, the greatest part), to consider seriously all I have spoken of the nature and native evidences of it, that you may be undeceived of your soul-ruining mistakes about it; and let sincere and sound believers, from all, be more cleared, confirmed, and comforted in their faith."
- From Faith No Fancy, by James Durham
It is a good token of saving faith, when it has a discovery and holy suspicion of unbelief waiting on it, so that the person dares not so to confide in and trust his own faith as not to dread unbelief, and to tell Christ of it. In Mark 9:23-24 there is a poor man that comes to Christ, to whom the Lord says, “If thou canst believe,” or canst thou believe? Yes, Lord, says he, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. There was some faith in him, but
there was also unbelief mixed with it; his unbelief was so great that it was almost like to drown his faith. But he puts it in Christ’s hand, and will neither deny his faith nor his unbelief, but puts the matter sincerely upon Christ to strengthen his faith and to amend and help his unbelief. A faith that is at the top of perfection at the very first ere ever you know it, is to be suspected.
There are some serious souls that think, because they have some unbelief, that therefore they have no faith at all; but true faith is such a faith that is joined with a suspected and feared, or seen, unbelief. That faith is surest where people fear and suspect unbelief, and see it. And when they are frightened on account of their unbelief and cry out under it, and make their unbelief an errand to Christ, it is a token that faith is there.
The third characteristic is that it will be accompanied by a cleaving to Christ, and a fear to presume in cleaving to Him. There will be two things opposing one another: an eagerness to be at Him, and a fear to be found presumptuous in meddling with Him and a holy trembling to think on it—yet notwithstanding it must and will be ventured upon. The woman (spoken of in Mark 5:28), reckoned thus with herself, “If I can but touch His clothes I shall be whole.” She not only believes this to be truth, but she cuts through the crowds and thrusts in to be at Him; yet when she comes before Christ, she trembles as if she had been taken in a fault, not having dared to come openly to Him, but behind Him. She behooved to have a touch of Him, but she durst not in a manner own and avouch her doing of it till she was unavoidably put to it.
It is a suspicious and unsound faith that never trembled at attempting to believe. There is reason to consider that faith not to be of the right stamp, that never walked under the impression of the great distance between Christ and the person, the sense whereof is the thing that makes the trembling—I say not desperation, nor any utter distrust of Christ’s kindness, but trembling—arising from the consideration of the great distance and disproportion that is between Him and the person. Faith causes the sinner to go to Christ, and the sense of his own sinfullness and worthlessness keeps him under holy fear and in the exercise of humility.
Paul once thought himself a brave man (as we may see in Romans 7:9), but when he was brought to believe in Christ, he sees that he was a dead and undone man before. I give you these three marks of a true faith from that chapter.
C. Other marks of faith from Romans 7:9
a. It discovers a man’s former sinfullness, and particularly his former self-conceit, pride, and presumption. I was, says Paul, alive—a man, living upon the thoughts of his own holiness—but when the Law came, I died. He fell quite from these high thoughts.b. A second mark is a greater restlessness of the body of death; it becomes in some respect worse company, more fretful and struggling than ever it did before. Sin revived, says Paul, though he had no more corruption in him than he had before, but it awaked and bestirred itself more. I dare say that though there is not so much corruption in a believer as there is in a natural man, yet it struggles much more and is more painful and disquieting to the believer, and breeds him a great deal more trouble. For, says the apostle on the matter, when God graciously poured light and life in me, sin took that occasion to grow angry and to be enraged that such a neighbor was brought in beside it; it could not endure that. And as an unruly and currish dog barks most bitterly when an honest guest comes to the house, so when grace takes place in the soul, corruption barks and makes more noise than it did before.
There are some that think they have the more faith, because they feel no corruption stir in them; and there are others that think they have no faith at all, because they feel corruption struggling more and growing more troublesome to them. But the stirring and struggling of corruption (if men are indeed burdened and affected and afflicted with it) will rather prove their having faith than their wanting of it. Love that faith well that puts and keeps men contending in the fight with the body of death: for though it is not good in itself that corruption stirs, yet still is that sinful nature, that it flies always more in the face of them that look God and heavenwards, than of others that are sleeping securely under its dominion.
c. A third mark is, when the soul has never peace in any of its conflicts or combats with corruption, but when it results in faith exercised on Jesus Christ—as it was with Paul after his conversion. That is a sound faith that not only makes peace at first by Christ, but that cannot (to say so) fight one fair stroke in the spiritual warfare, nor look corruption in the face, nor promise itself an issue from any assault of the enemy, but by faith in Jesus Christ, as it was with the apostle, who toward the end of that chapter lamentably cries, “O! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom 7:24). Yet immediately he subjoins faith’s triumphing in Christ, saying, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is evident that before his conversion he thought he could do well enough all alone, but it is not so now: now he can do nothing without Christ, especially in this war with his corruption.
IV. Conclusion
That is a sound faith that makes the sinner to make use of Christ in every thing he is called to, that joins Him (I mean Christ) in the work on every occasion, and particularly when it comes as it were to grappling and hand-blows with this formidable enemy, the body of death, this monster, whereof when one head is cut off, another as it were starts up in its place.For a close of this treatise, I beseech and entreat such of you as are strangers to saving faith (who are, I fear, the greatest part), to consider seriously all I have spoken of the nature and native evidences of it, that you may be undeceived of your soul-ruining mistakes about it; and let sincere and sound believers, from all, be more cleared, confirmed, and comforted in their faith."
- From Faith No Fancy, by James Durham
