reliance in difficulty on a person, comfort in a history, guid- "Labour is sweet, for Thou hast toiled; historical 7. Just thus does the Bible's general language respecting the living by faith connect it with express thought of Christ always: Christ. "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. i. 21); " We thus judge " (have in our minds the feeling), " that if He died for all, they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died and rose again for them" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15); "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" (1 John v. 4, 5); where believing must mean thinking on Jesus himself, and the love that He, the Son of God, has taken God's other children into in Him. Purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts xv. 9) is a co-operative work containing God's gracious help to will and to do, but in which His servants, "having this hope, purify themselves, even as He is pure" (1 John iii. 3). As hereafter, so here they become like Him, “seeing Him" (looking upon Him) "as He is." They put off the old man, and are renewed in the spirit of their minds, putting on a new man "created after God” (Eph. iv. 22-24). Faith working by love works by the same connecting of personalities: "We love Him because" (thinking of how) "He first loved us" (1 John iv. 19). Personal connection, union of living, of the believer with the Object of faith, is the common idea in all the diverse phases of living by faith; which are described as a fight, a race, &c. The fight of faith. 8. In describing the fight of faith, when Paul enumerated "the whole armour of God" (Eph. vi.), he placed faith in the position of the protector of protective habits of holy life; and the connection requires us to understand by faith this habit of looking to, living by connection with, a person and facts and relative promises of saving love which surround the thought of him. Wrestling not merely against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places, he that fights "the good fight of faith" is to protect himself from dangers of human origin by acquired, "put on," habits of "truth," saving him from entanglement among the risks of the double-minded, keeping the multitude of his thoughts, his heart's desires, united to fear God's name, as "a girdle” binds loose garments close from catching in a wrestling fight; -habits conscious and manifest too, of all "righteousness,' protecting him as by a breastplate from the solicitations addressed to those frail in honesty by tempters or by their own hearts; and habits of "preparedness," obtained from 'the gospel of peace," against the stumbling-blocks which bring that destruction of brotherly love which makes love of God impossible. Those habits are acquired by a long continuance of the thoughts faith presents, and they suffice to protect from, or to repulse, contamination or attack by ordinary human sinfulness. But their growth of human habit is not strong enough to protect from "fiery darts of the wicked one". thoughts of evil cast by the father of lies into the soul, like the poisoned or ignited arrows of ancient warfare; and to protect from these superhuman dangers the "shield of faith" is to be extended over the good soldier's acquired habits of truthfulness, righteousness, and peace. What is it that can be a shield, consisting of thought and feeling, to cover habits of all goodness of thought from being suddenly invaded by some evil thought coming like a fiery dart into the soul, but another life habit, a habit of living with the eyes of the mind looking continually to "the Lord and the power of His might," the helps promised in His salvation—having Him, the Captain of the soul's salvation, the very present help of His soldier's need, ever before the eyes? Attained truthfulness, righteousness, and brotherliness, passing along life's dangerous path under a habitual glad thought of God our Saviour-a felt union of the life to Him, giving assurance of His ever-present help-is the life of safety; enduring as seeing Him who is invisible. It is even like the living of a virtuous child who, on his first exposures in the world of strangers, is protected from ill by the thought of home, in constant conscious addition to the good habits of home. Thus, evidently, in the fight of faith, the soldier, "strong in the Lord"—having armed himself after His direction with habits which He has given him power to acquire" occupies" his post of danger "till He come." He occupies it looking to His coming, as we must yet more distinctly understand by the succeeding description of "the whole armour,”—he "having for an helmet the hope of salvation," taking also "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," and "praying always with all prayer and supplication." The fight, which formally is a struggle, is, in this "living by faith," practically a help to growing closeness of union with the Object of faith. of faith. 9. The work of faith-trading with His talents, occupying The work His pounds, labouring in allotted spots of His vineyard, serving in His house in watchful readiness for whatever work may be to occupy the time until He appear (Luke xii. 32-40) -is, like the armour of God and the fight of faith, another name for perpetual helps to faith to endure as seeing Him, in a union of spirit to Him. Every willing work, every faithfully desirously accomplished task, great or little in "profitableness" to Him, is to bring a fore-echo of His approaching steps and His coming words, "Well done, good and faithful servant!" Every consciousness of faithfulness unto the end of a task is a joy-giving light from the Master's heavenly chamber, whose coming reward is described thus: "Blessed are those servants whom their Lord when He cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them" (ver. 37). It is the helping foretaste promised to the faithful by John: "Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God" (1 John The patience of faith. The race or walk of faith. iii. 21). Every work well done is thus to bind the life of the "The trivial round, the common task, will furnish all we need to ask— 10. This contact within the soul of future things with the things that have to be "endured" now, making one life of them all, is the very explanation of the patience of faith in which believers are to possess their souls, "occupying" their troubling position "till He come." That is an exercise that is constantly bringing (Rom. v. 3-5) experience of the spiritual "living," in a consciousness of support which the thought of God our Saviour's faithfulness of help gives-a consciousness producing fresh hope, settling into confirmed stable hope, a state of hope in Him. It is an experienced appreciated dependence and support which, bringing no ashaming disappointments, enables present life to "rejoice in looking for the glory of God" (ver. 2)—“living" with a life which is fed from a divine as well as a human source, "because the love of God is richly taught to our hearts," "poured out" on them "by the Holy Ghost which is given us" (ver. 5)-that "Spirit" promised to "comfort" us, and fill us with the glory of Christ Jesus by "taking of His and showing unto us." Every act of patient endurance, like every accomplished duty and every successful fight, is made to bring Jesus, our Saviour, closer to the soul in some degree of joint-life-"Jesus, who endured such contradiction of sinners"-Jesus, who instructed patient faith in these words, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John xvi. 33). 11. The close connection of faith's consciousness with Jesus personally, not doctrines or theories of God's love, but the historical Object of man's faith-Jesus, who saves His people from their sins—is prominent in that other leading representation of living by faith, its progressive character, in which it is called a race. Even the subordinate guidance and encouragement given to the progress of faith is not the thought of principles but of persons, living examples — not philosophical reasonings affording motive and hope, but the sight of “men of like passions with ourselves, who have through faith and patience inherited the promises." Faith's subordinate help is the thought of the notables of faith recorded in the Word of God: "Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race set before us" (Heb. xii. 1). But the continual centre of faith's thoughts seeking guidance, sympathy, strengthening courage, is to be one singled-out object "Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, for the joy set before Him, enduring the cross, despising the shame" (ver. 2). Of the same significance is the fact that the guiding knowledge of a believer's race, or walk, or way, is not the truth in the abstract, but the truth in closest personal connection with Him; viz., His words" If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John xv. 7). The expression, "author and finisher of our faith," which critics have felt obliged, one after another, to understand in a pregnant rather than an exact sense, may cover a truth which is necessary to the practice of faith, and corresponds to much of the language of Scripture respecting Jesus; viz., that He is the beginning and the ending of every believer's thinking of faith, as He is seen to have been historically the first, and will be the last, object of the world's true religious faith. Beholding Him, the first and the last, the author and the finisher of the earthly episode in universal life abbreviated in the words "God so loved the world," believers are to feed their thankful motives upon the past, as the early love of Jesus, and anticipate with desire thus instructed His trusted promises not yet received, and "occupy" the progressive present, until the unrevealed hour when the Son of man cometh -looking unto Him, and finding each trying portion of the race, or walk, or pilgrimage, passed over in His steps, bring Him, ever "this same Jesus," in saving comfort to His disciple's side, one with Him in the difficulties and joys of the way. 12. In the obedience of faith Jesus Christ is placed in the |