and there it finds refuge from accusing thoughts, and the Accuser's malice. The Cross is not far off, not over the seas, in the Holy Land, nor removed by length of time. Faith sees it close at hand, and clasps it and loves it, and is crucified on it with Him, dying to itself with its Lord, nailed to it, motionless to its own desires, dead to the world, and living to Him. Nor is Heaven far off to Faith. For where its Lord is, there is Heaven. Faith is with Him, present with Him in spirit, though absent in the body; a penitent amid those who, around the Throne, sing "Holy, Holy, Holy." Although as yet unfit to enter there, where nothing defiled can enter, there it lives and loves, in "the city of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem," with "an innumerable company of Angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant." There, with them, it worships Him; it beholds the glorious scars, radiant with Majesty and Love, which plead our cause with the Father, and "tastes and sees that the Lord is good" unto all that seek Him. b Faith, in one sense, goes before love, because, unless we believed, we should have none to love. Faith is Divine knowledge. As in human love we cannot love unless we have seen, heard, or in some way known, so, without Faith, we cannot know aught of God, or know that there is a God Whom to love. Yet in act, Faith cannot be without love. "The just,' says Scripture, shall live by his faith,' but by a faith which lives. A dead faith cannot give life." 6 b Ps. xxxiv. 8. a Heb. xii. 22, 23. с Faith without love is the devils' faith. For they "believe and tremble." They knew Jesus, that "He was the Holy One of God." They knew, and they owned, and they besought their Judge, " Art Thou come to torment us before the time?" "If Thou cast us out, suffer us to enter into the swine." Hearing must come before faith, for "faith" cometh by hearing." But faith cannot for an instant be separated from love. Who is the Object of Faith? God the Father, Who created us, and gave His Son to die for us; God the Son, Who became one of us, and by dying, redeemed us; God the Holy Ghost, Who sanctifieth us, and " pours forth love," which He is, “abroad in our hearts." We were as stocks and stones without faith; but He died, even "of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." Are we stocks or stones now, that, having faith, we can believe without loving? Which of His acts of boundless love should we believe without loving? Were it not enough to bear us out of ourselves, for love, to transport us, to make us give up our lives for love, to carry us away out of ourselves and of all that we are, to think that for us, earth-worms and defiled, Jesus died? Does not the very Name of JESUS make the heart beat, and tremble, and thrill with love? Could a criminal really believe that he had received a full pardon from his injured King, or that the King's Son had suffered to obtain his pardon, and was come to tell it him and forgive him, and not love? Well might he doubt such love. But he could not believe it and not love. Faith and love would enter his soul together. So is it with chil d Rom. x. 17. dren, who with simple faith believe, and place no hindrance to belief and love. Tell them of their Good Father in Heaven, and they together believe in and love Him. Tell them of Jesus' love, and they together believe in and love Him. Tell them of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, that He vouchsafes to dwell in them, and they listen with wondering awe and love; they believe at once and love. Love is in all true faith, as light and warmth are in the ray of the sun. Light and warmth are in the sun's ray, and the sun's ray brings with it light and warmth; not, light and warmth, the sun's ray: yet, where the sun's ray is, there are light and warmth, nor can that ray be any where without giving light and warmth. Even so, faith it is which brings love, not love, faith; yet faith cannot come into the heart, without bringing with it the glow of love, yea, and the light wherewith we see things Divine. So soon as faith is kindled in the heart, there is the glow of love; and both come from the same Sun of Righteousness, pouring in faith and love together into the heart, and "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." In winter, fewer rays come upon any spot of this land from the sun; whence there is then less brightness of light and less glow of heat than in summer; and so the surface of the earth is chilled; and though for a time the frost be melted by that fainter sun, this warmth, coming upon it only for a short time, soon passes away. Even so, there are degrees of faith and love. Yet they may be real faith and love, even when the power of both is lessened, in that the soul does not keep itself or e Ps. xix. 6. live in the full presence of God. Or, as through a closed window, more light comes than heat, so in some hearts, there may be more of knowledge than of love. And again, as on a cold misty day, when the sun is hidden from our eyes, we are so oppressed by the clamminess of the chill damp upon the surface of our bodies, and by the heavy gloom around, that we scarcely feel the presence of the light and heat; and yet the light and heat are there, else we should be in utter darkness, and our bodies would die; even so, many hearts, at many times, when some mist hides from them the Presence of their Lord, feel nothing but their own coldness and numbness, and all seems dark around them, and yet in their very inmost selves they believe and love, else their souls would be dead, and they would be "past' feeling," and they would not pine for more light and love. A dead body is in darkness, and seeth not the light of this world, and has an aweful coldness to the touch; yet itself feels not its own coldness, nor knows its own darkness. Even so, the dead soul, being without the life of God, feels not its own death, craves not to love more. For He Who is Love hath left it, and it hath no power wherewith to desire to love, unless or until the Voice of Christ raises it from the dead and awakens it, and it hears His Voice, and lives. Or think on the great instances of faith in Holy Scripture. Think you not that Abraham loved, as well as believed, when God first spake to him, and called him to give up his country, and his kindred, and his father's house, and instead of all, God said, "I will bless thee," and he took God for his All, and Eph. iv. 19. "went out, not knowing whither he went," save that he was following God? Or did not Moses love, when, taught of God, he renounced "the wisdom of the Egyptians," and "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt ?" Or David, did he not love, when, in zeal for the honour of the Lord of Hosts, he went forth, a stripling, in His Name, to meet the champion of the Philistines? or did not love with faith revive, when the royal penitent said, "I have sinned against the Lord," and much more, when the Lord had put away his sin, he, all life-long, said, " My sin is ever before me ?" Why did he wish to be cleansed with the atoning hyssop, even the humiliation of our Lord in His Passion? Was it not for love of God? "Thou desirest truth in the inward parts." So he longed to be what God would have him. What longed he for, but not to be "cast out of God's Holy Presence," or lose His Holy Spirit, His Presence, from the soul? Or in St. Peter, when both faith and love had been chilled in the night of the Lord's Passion, did they not revive by that gracious look wherewith He recalled him to Himself, and melted him into tears of penitence and love? And of that other great penitent, St. Mary Magdalene, our Lord bears witness that in her there were together love and faith; and for both together, a loving faith, or a "faith working by love," our Lord tells her, "thy sins are forgiven." Truly, she had great faith, Who knew and believed the Physician of her soul, Whom the Pharisee who received Him, knew not, who knew that "the Son of Man had Ps. li. 3, 7, 6, 11. |