lï 250 FAITH IN ITS LOWEST DEGttEES. and the Jews in their prayers, even from the ends of the earth, and in heathen lands, turned their eyes towards this temple in humble hope of acceptance ; 1 Kings viii. 29, 35, &c. So may the poor perishing sinner say, "Though I am far from God and holiness, and all hope in myself, or in any creatures that are near sue, yet I am within reachof the call of Christ; I hear the voice of his inviting grace; I will look towards him asmy only hope ; I will keep my eyes upon hirn and trust in him ; I will by him draw near to God ; and my soul shall live." H. Believing in Christ may be described in this place by looking to him to express the lowest and the weakest degree of faith, for the encouragement of poor convinced trembling sinners. When persons are -awakened to a lively apprehension of their guilt, and a quick senseof their danger, and see themselves every moment liable to perish under the wrath of an offended God, and at the saine time feel their own utter inability to save themselves, it is proper that the act of faith whereby we are saved should be expressed in the easiest manner, that may allure them toward Christ, the only Saviour, and may encourage them to hope. When they are, as it were, at the ends of the earth, at a wide distance from God and Christ, they may look towards him, and send a with of desire and dependance that way; like dying drowning sailors in a storm that look towards the shore, to see if there be any hope : And such a look as this, is ordained of God, to derive all salvation from so almighty and complete a Saviour as.Iesus Christis: For it contains in it the wholenature of say- ing faith, as the flower and the fruit are contained in a little green bud, though the several parts and the leaves ofthem are not yet unfolded, nor appear to sight. Such a look of a convinced sinner to Christ implies in it a distressing sense of his sin and present danger, a beliefthat there is help for him in Christ, and an aversion of the eye from every thing else ; a renouncing all other dependancies, an earnest desire to partake of this salvation, such as Christ offers it; that is, to make him holy as well as happy : And it includes also thus much of trust or confidence, that ifthe soul has any hopeat all of its own salvation, Christ is the only ground of this hope. There is and will be some sort of , expectation of relief from the hand to which we look, when we see ourselves perishing. III. Looking to Christ for salvation is a word that shews how little hand we have in our own deliverance from sin and death. Israel has destroyed himself, but in Godalone is his help; Hos. xiii. 9. It is not possiblethat our looking should affect 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-acti- vity, self-sufficiency, or self-honour in it. Rom. iv. 16. There-
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