DISC. vIT.] FAITH IN ITS LOWEST DEGREES. 223 him holy as well as happy : And it includes also thus much of trust or confidence, that if the soul has any hope at all of its own salvation, Christ is theonly ground of thishope. There is and will be some sort of expec- tatien of relief from the hand to which we look, when we see ourselves perishing. III. Looking :to Christ for salvation is a word that spews how little hand we have in our own deliverance from sin and death. " Israel has destroyed himself, but in God alone is his help,-" Hos. xiii. 9. It is not possible that our looking should effect our salvation of itself, or do any thing toward it any other way, than as it is, dependance on another to save us.- Faith itself is that grace that has the least shew of self - activity, self sufficiency, or self- honour in it. Rom. iv. 16. Therefore. our salvation is ordained to be of faith, " that it might be ofgrace." It is the law or constitution of faith, as the means of our salvation, that it must " exclude all boasting ;" Rom. iii. 27 ; That all_ that are saved might " glory only in the Lord ;" 1 Gor. i. 31. Nowwhen faith itself is expressed in so low and feeble exercise of it as looking unto Christ, it does in a most emphatical manner exclude every thing of self; it ut-. terly forbids all boasting, and renders all the honour to Christ alone. How can a dying wretch pretend to any glory or merit in his own salvation, who only looked and was saved ? IV. There is in this way of expression a natural and easy reference to the command of looking to the brazen serpent, which was a type bf Christ, and which was to confer health and life on the wounded and dying Israel . ites, by their looking up. to it in the wilderness. See, John. iii. 14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth in him,. should not perish, but have eternal life. Compared with Numb. xxi. 8. The Lord said-unto Moses make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh. upon it shall lice, Happy people, for whom so divine a remedy was pro- vided against a national mischief ! So sovereign an anti- dote against spreading and mortal poison ! Those that were stung and perishing, though they, were at the ut-
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