233 / 652
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
the
only
ground
of
this
hope.
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
of
grace."
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.
Now
when
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-