Faith should be recognised as very precious, because its presence or absence is what makes the difference between an eternity of happiness and an eternity of woe. But do we have enough faith? Shouldn’t we have stronger faith? Of course the answer is that more and stronger faith is a good thing, but for the purposes of obtaining eternal life, what matters more is to have genuine faith. What really makes faith precious is that it gets a grip of the Lord Jesus. In the following updated excerpt John Welch of Ayr (d. 1622) (husband of Elizabeth Knox and grandfather of John Welch of Irongray) explains this for our comfort and consolation.

Two eternities

Jesus said, “He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). What should be dear to you but this eternal life? For if you would gain the whole world, and lose your own souls, I assure you, your gain would be very little. In the time of your life here, what should you be thinking on, but on these two eternities — the eternity of joy and the eternity of pain.

You see that it is sworn by Him who is truth itself, and who came out of the Father’s bosom, the one who will not trick you. His word is spirit and life, for He has the words of eternal life. He has sworn here, and what does He swear? “Verily, he that hears my word …” — and good for you, that you hear the words of God, for without hearing there is no faith — “… and believes in him that sent me, has everlasting life.”

You have eternal life! You have the eternity of peace and joy begun in your soul which shall never have an end, and you shall never come into condemnation. You have passed from death to life, you have gone over the back of death, and made it a stepping-stone to heaven, and you have come within the boundaries of eternal life. He that believes shall get a new heaven and a new earth, and shall dwell in the tabernacle of God for ever more. If you do not believe, the wrath of God abides on you for ever more, and you are already condemned (John 3:17).

I would like to tell you how to test whether you have a true saving faith. This is very needful for you to know. If you lack faith, there is nothing between you and hell but the small thread of your life. There are, in brief, four things by which you can tell if you have true faith or not. (1) By the manner by which God produced it in your heart, (2) by the seals or stamps of faith (if you have been sealed by the Spirit of promise), (3) by the fight and the battle you have, and (4) by the things which accompany faith.

If you have faith and its works in your heart, then you may rejoice, for Christ says, “Your names are written in the Book of Life.” You may rejoice that you are within the love of God, for those who have faith are within His love. You may rejoice that you are within the election, redemption, calling, justification and sanctification, and perseverance.

One faith

If ever you got true faith, it will have been in the following manner. I grant that some get it more clearly, and some more obscurely. Some can name the day, like Zacchaeus, “This day salvation has come to my heart” (Luke 15:5). Some get it easily, like Lydia, “whose heart was opened” in an instant, at one Paul’s sermons (Acts 16:14). Others get it with more difficulty, and are longer in coming to it. Saul was cast to the ground, and was led by hand to the city, and for the space of three days was blind, and neither ate nor drank, only prayed all that time, till Ananias came to him, and preached the gospel.

Now can you remember the glorious day when you were wounded and bandaged up again? When you saw clearly that you had been in darkness all your life before but a light came from heaven and shone into your heart, to show you that you were lying bathing in your blood and filthiness? When you were pricked in your heart and cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall I do to be saved?” and there came glad tidings to your soul that day? You should remember that day. Even kings remember their birthday. Some can tell with what great difficulty they went to the throne of grace, and how long they had to wait before they could get faith and consolation.

Therefore look to the manner how faith was worked in your heart. Look and see if you thought your past ignorance was a lost thing. Look and see if you wanted to have the time redeemed, and you would have given ten thousand worlds to anyone who could let you know if ever there was mercy for you in the blood of Jesus.

One faith, different amounts

Not everyone gets faith in the same measure. If you have it in any measure, you will know there are three degrees of faith — the weakest, the middling, and the strongest faith.

The weakest faith that any of you must have is this. You see your sin, you see there is nothing for you but wrath, unless you are clothed in the righteousness of the Son, you see that the blood is able to pacify the wrath and extinguish the fire, you desire nothing more but to be ducked in that blood. If someone asks you, “What is your special desire?” you answer, “To be at that blood, to be at that Lord over there, and to have Him in my arms, and to have my soul washed in that fountain! Yet I can’t get Him! Yet I will keep waiting! Even if I don’t have the full persuasion, yet He is my Lord, and I won’t admit a contrary thought. Even if I lack the true Comforter, I won’t admit another in His place.”

If you have this much, you have true faith. This is the bruised reed that every wind shakes, and yet it isn’t broken. This is the smoking flax, or smouldering tow, that a little water would put out, yet He will not quench it (Isaiah 42:3). This is true believing, and if you have it, you cannot perish, for it is not the measure of your faith that saves, but He whom faith grips.

I grant you will never have peace or rest in your conscience until you reach that full measure of faith, the full persuasion, the exulting joys, the ravishment within the third heavens. But suppose you cannot be content with this least and weakest measure, that is a sign that your faith is true. You labour more and more to make it sure, yet the measure you have at present is true faith.

One faith, however weak

Because everything depends on it, I will confirm this to you by Scripture. Can any be blessed without faith? No. This is why David says, “Blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven.” Can any have their sins forgiven but those who believe? No. Christ says, “Blessed is he who hungers and thirst for righteousness” (Matt. 5:6). You who are hungry and thirsty are blessed, and therefore you must have true faith, even if you don’t see it. When it is easy to demonstrate that you are full of these heavenly joys and of the Holy Ghost, as Stephen was (Acts 7:55), then it is easy to demonstrate that you have faith, because you feel it inside you. But when you are hungry and thirsty, and feel your heart empty and void of all grace, and your soul is withered for lack of Christ’s blood, it is hard then to persuade you that you believe, yet, if you have this hunger and thirst, you are blessed. Why? because you will get your fill.

It is not the quantity of your faith that saves you. Why? In the same way as a drop of water is just as truly water as the whole ocean sea! So, a little faith is just as true or genuine as the greatest, even if it is not so strong, just as a child of eight days old is just as really human as a man of sixty years, and a spark is just as truly fire as a great bonfire. A sickly man is just as truly living as a healthy man, even if his life is not so comfortable to him.

So, I say again, it is not the measure of your faith that saves you — it is the blood it grips to that saves you. The weak hand of a toddler that leads the spoon to its mouth feeds just as really as the strongest arm of a grown man. It is not the hand that feeds you, although it puts the food in your mouth, but it is the food in your stomach that feeds you. It is not the hand that clothes you, although it puts your garments on you, but the garment itself. It is not the gold ring that cures you, but the pearl set in the ring. So it is not your faith, however precious it is, that will heal your wounds, but Christ, the precious pearl, set within the ring of your faith.

So if you can grip Christ, however weakly, He will not let you perish. All who looked to the serpent of brass, though never so far off, were healed of the sting of the fiery serpents, yet all did not see it equally clearly, for some were near at hand, and some were far off. Those who were nearby of course saw more clearly than those who were far off, nevertheless, those who were far off were healed of the sting just as quickly as those nearby when they looked at the serpent, for it was not their look that cured them, but He whom the serpent represented (who they believed was to come). So if you can look to Christ, ever so feebly, He can take away the sting of your conscience.

You know that the weakest hand can take a gift as just as well as the strongest. Christ is the gift, and weak faith may grip Him as well as a strong faith, and Christ is as truly yours when you have weak faith, as when you have come to these triumphant joys through strong faith. Comfort yourselves with meditation on these things.

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