March 3

"I will never forget your precepts: for with them you have quickened me." Psalm 119:93.

IT is no small attainment to arrive at the full belief of the heart in the truth of the Divine record. I speak not now of the historical credence which an enlightened judgment may yield—I speak of a higher faith than this. Nor do I confine myself to that entire assent of the mind, and trembling belief of the heart, upon the grounds of which the soul may have ventured an humble reliance upon Christ, although this is no small attainment; but I allude to that firm, unmoved, and immoveable belief of the truth, which is often an after-work—a work of time and of deep experience, before the heart becomes thoroughly schooled in it. Let me not be supposed to undervalue the smallest degree of faith. To believe that God's word is true, and on the strength of that belief to be willing to renounce all other dependence, and to rest simply and implicitly upon its revealed plan of salvation, is a blessed attainment—an attainment only to be realized by the power of the Holy Spirit; but, to know it from a deep experience of its sanctifying power, from the heartfelt preciousness and fulfilment of its promises, from its sustaining and soothing influence in sorrow, its all-sufficient light in darkness and perplexity—to be brought to trust the naked promise because God has spoken it—to believe, and to go forward, because he has said it, is a still higher step in faith's ladder, and a more illustrious display of the grace and power of the Spirit.

It is an unspeakable mercy to be well grounded in the belief of the truth. Let those speak who have thus been blessedly taught. Let them testify that God's word was, when they first believed, as a sealed book, compared with what it now is—that since they have advanced in the Divine life, led and instructed by the Spirit of truth, it has opened to their minds with all the light and freshness of a new revelation; doctrines, once mysterious, are now beautifully lucid—promises, once unfelt, are now sweetly consolatory—precepts, once insipid, are now powerfully persuasive. And to what is this maturity in the full belief of the truth to be ascribed? We unhesitatingly reply, the witness of the Spirit—the Holy Spirit deepening His work in the heart, teaching the soul more experimentally, and guiding it more fully into all truth—in a word, bringing the truth to the mind with a more realizing and convincing power.