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Faith ■weak in comprehension ; and in consistency. Scepticism general. 



But true Faith may be " weak" — weak in logical compre- 

 hension, or in practical consistency, or in both, Faith is weak in 

 logical comprehension when it admits a general proposition, yet 

 åouhis particidar propositions necessarily included in it. Thus 

 the Apostles fully believed that Jesus was the Messiah, yet were 

 wholly opposed for a time to the doctrine of His death and resur- 

 rection. Thus my seventh-day Baptist friends of the '^ Sahhath 

 Recordery"^ fully believe in the Perpehdty of the Sahhath, and 

 that Christ is its Lord, but deny the change of the dai/ by our 

 Lord ; and thus, on the other hand, my friend W. B. T. fully 

 believes that Christ, as the '^Lord of the Sabbath day,'^ has 

 full authority over it; but he can see no other meaning in that 

 glorious truth than that of a right to annihilate it altogether. 

 This is very much as if one should infer, from the words 

 of Jehoyah to jNIoses, " I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, 

 and Jacob,^' merely that, as their God, he had the right to 

 annihilate them at will. How different was the inference de- 

 rived from these words by our Saviour, in his dispute with 

 the Sadducees, we all know. From this want of full logical 

 comprehension, spring a great part of the differences among 

 true Christians. And hence too it is often difficult for us (not 

 for Christ) to distinguish " weak faith,'' especially in strong 

 minds, from stubborn unbelief. 



It is very striking to observe how much alike is the spirit 

 of unbelief in all ages. We find in fact that every revelation 

 of tlig.l)ivine Will, every Dispensation, every Prophet, every 

 Doctrine, Precept, and Institution of the Bible, has at some 

 time or other been questioned or denied. And sometimes this 

 has been done by very good men. The deep root of opposi- 

 tion is by nature in us all. It lurks beneath the surface of 

 our own consciousness, till some unexpected occasion brings it 

 out. Nothing but the love of Christ can cure it. Even 

 Peter, the first to profess his assured faith, was the first to re- 



* A Sabbatarian newspaper published weekly in New York. 

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