It must be a matter of inquiry to every thoughtful soul why it is that, whatever be the measure of our faith, we so continually betray ignorance of God's mind, and as much inability to judge as if no light gleamed from our faith to help us.
Faith is the credence which God gives us by the Holy Ghost in any revelation of His mind; and this belief is the acceptance of its positive reality. So that in faith the soul possesses, so to speak, the substantiation of the truth presented and assured of. Ordinarily, I might give full credence to a person's assertion of things either present or future; but with God it is different. When I believe His truth, I have in me a conviction of the realities of things in which I myself am to be a sharer. And as I am in the world among uncertainties and shadows, so am I in faith apart from all natural influences here. And more than this, I am imbued and engrossed with the realities of which I have, through faith, the substance in my soul.
When I walk in the power of this faith, I must necessarily introduce the idea of the realities on which it rests in contrast to the pretensions and oppositions to God here. And this truly supplies the means for judgment, and practically is light; for " light is that which cloth make manifest."
Now, I think I may have faith, and yet I may so little realize the drown-,stances into which that faith introduces me, that I may not be able to contrast the divine scenes which are opened to faith with the earthly ones where my nature roams. And if I am more engaged with the latter or inferior scene, I shall not be able to judge between the two, for the difference will be very imperceptible to me; and to be able to distinguish between two things where there is the smallest apparent difference, is the great proof of judgment.
It is said, " If thy whole body be luminous, having no part dark, the whole shall be luminous, as when the bright shining of a candle gives light;" that is, if you are under the control of the light yourself; if it has mastered every dark part in you, then you will be luminous, as a candle is luminous; you will not only shed light, but you will judge darkness.
Now here lies the entire obstruction to the action of light on us, that light which we derive from our faith, and which would act on us fully, only there is some "dark part;" and just as in a dark deep dungeon, until a lamp masters the darkness on all sides it cannot be a light therein; so, until I am swayed by the faith which I have received, I do not and cannot bring its ideas to bear on all things around me, and therefore I cannot compare them. Practically, the dark spot comes in to warp my judgment. How easily would Paul have accepted the warning of the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem, had there not been in his heart a natural desire to go there, yet unrebuked by the light of that faith which dwelt in him, and which after- wards so controlled him when writing the Epistle to the Ephesians. The hindrance is always from the natural man; hence the apostle says, " Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may be able to prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
If there remains conformity to the world, there will be a dark spot which the light has not penetrated, and so far there will be inability to prove what is the will of God. It simplifies our inquiry very much if we see that it is not the fault of the faith, so to speak; that is to say, it is not any lack either as to the order or the amount of our faith, but that there is a dark spot in us-we do not add " virtue," (2 Peter 1;)there remains some natural clinging to the world which has not been overcome by our faith, which obstructs the light and leaves us unguided ourselves and useless for others.
We have a striking illustration of both points of the inquiry which we have been pursuing, in the case of Isaac and Jacob, and the faith which actuated each in the close of their history. That of Isaac is thus commented on by the Spirit in Heb. 11:2020By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. (Hebrews 11:20), " By faith Isaac blessed Esau and Jacob concerning things to come." Thus we see his faith was not at fault; but was his whole body luminous,—was there no part dark? Gen. 27 gives the answer, and reveals to. us the condition of Isaac's soul at the time when he had this faith thus acknowledged by the Holy Ghost.
We find, that while intent on blessing his son in accordance with it, that he betrayed a lusting for this evil world, which we shall see warped his judgment. In forgetfulness of the word of God at the birth of Esau and Jacob, he had so allowed himself to be attracted by Esau, because of his present attentions to him, that he, now at the point of death, instructs Esau to " make some savory meat, such as I love, and bring it me that I may eat, and my soul may bless thee before I die." We might think that this was too small a liking to operate so disastrously as to warp the judgment of Isaac, and to induce him to apply the disclosures made to faith, in direct contravention to God's words I But so it is. If so small a thing can warp one so much, what would not a greater one do? It teaches us that if the soul allows itself enjoyment in a scene outside this faith, that in the attempt to apply the truth, we shall always find it directed to a wrong quarter, for the mere fact of possessing faith does not ensure the right application. No; if your soul is occupied with the present, which cannot be of the faith, for " that which is seen is not faith," the natural engrossment will pervert your judgment, and lead you to misapply any truth which you hold by faith. You will see people continually, who believe simply in a truth, quite misapplying it, or unable to reduce it to its proper application, simply for this reason, that some present engrossment, like the dark part' in the body, hinders the true luminous expression of the truth. Alas I how much we all suffer from this! But it is well to know why we suffer. Now when Isaac is, through mercy, awakened to the mind of God, we see what an earthquake his soul passes through; " he trembled with a great trembling." This describes, I believe, the commotion which takes place in the soul, when the mind and word of God assume their mastery, and when the faith in a truth engages a soul cow-
Thus was it with Jacob in Gen. 40:8,98And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you. 9And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me; (Genesis 40:8‑9), and great is the contrast between him and Isaac in the two corresponding epochs in their history. When Joseph brings his two sons to him to bless them, Jacob's eyes were dim for age that he could not see, but instead of being occupied or engrossed with anything here, his whole soul is a luminous expression of the mind of God; and his words to Joseph imply, whatever might be the prospects of others, that he now had none. " As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachael died by me in the land of Canaan," &c. As another has said, " those words, ' as for me,' unfold a tale of a heart which has emerged from the crucible of suffering; which has been brought in spirit to the tomb, and has left there all most dear to its natural affections and instincts, but which is content to leave them there, and seeks no more for an outlet for them below." How different this state was to that of Isaac I Jacob had no link or attraction to earth, and he was a worshipper, too, because his soul was undistractedly engaged with the truth which his faith grasped; consequently he is in the judgment of God, and therefore guides his hands "wittingly" to correct the arrangements of Joseph. In God's presence, into which faith leads us, when engrossed by the truth which it has seized, we are not only worshippers, but we fall into communion with God's mind, practically proving it, because we are " renewed in the spirit of our mind," being delivered from the pre-occupation which would cloud or hinder it.
In conclusion, I would only remark, that the true and simple way of obtaining or deriving light from any truth which we believe, is by So connecting the truth with the Lord, that we are consequently in the region of it, and, therefore, worshippers before Him in connection with it; the effect then will be, that we shall be divinely influenced by it, our feelings swayed, and our desires formed according to it. We shall know how to compare the pretensions of man with it, and be able to judge when we do compare, because we have light to see wherein they differ. We must always make ourselves the subject of the experiment first; the little world in ourselves must be first judged in the principles which we desire or require to judge in the wide world; for we may rest assured, that we shall not be able to judge the mass if we have not judged the unit, self, which is but a type and miniature of the whole world. We may often seek to judge and pass sentence on the world as a whole, but it will be found by every true disciple, that his power of doing so (divinely) on the whole, is only in proportion to his attainment and subjection to divine judgment in himself. The Lord so lead us to live in the realization of the truth which we believe, that we may prove its power to guide us in the circumstances, and to preserve us from the influences of this evil world. Amen.