FAITH.
Faith unites the soul with Christ as a wife is united to her husband. All that Christ possesses becomes the property of the believing soul. Christ possesses all things and eternal life; thenceforth they belong to the soul. The soul possesses all sins and vices; these thenceforth become the property of Christ. Then there commences a blessed exchange: Christ, who is at once God and man—Christ, who has never sinned—Christ, whose holiness is invincible—Christ, the Almighty and Eternal, appropriating to Himself, by His marriage-ring, that is to say, by faith, all the sins of the believing soul, these sins are swallowed up and abolished in Him; for no sin can subsist before His infinite righteousness. Thus, by means of faith, the soul is delivered from all sins, and clothed with the everlasting righteousness of her husband, Jesus Christ. Oh! happy union! the rich, the noble, the holy bridegroom, Jesus Christ, takes in marriage this poor, despised, wicked bride, rescues her from all evil, and adorns her with the most exquisite possessions. Christ, king and priest, shares His honour and His glory with all Christians.
LOVE TO CHRIST.
If thou lovest him who hath made thee a present of twenty florins, or done thee some service, or in some measure signified his affection for thee, how much more oughtest thou to love Him who has not given for thee gold or silver, but who has given Himself, who has received for thee so many wounds, who for thee has sweated blood, who died for thee; in a word, who, in paying the ransom for all thy sins, swallowed up death, and obtained a Father for thee in heaven who is full of love.
GRACE.
Man’s nature was, at its origin, essentially good; it turned away from good, which is God, and inclined towards evil. Still, its holy and glorious origin remains, and it is capable, by the power of God, of recovering that origin. It is the business of Christianity to give it again to Him. The gospel, it is true,
shows us man in a state of humiliation and impotency, but even thus he is placed between two glorious and elevated states—that which is past, from which he is fallen, and that which is future, to which he is called. Such is the truth: man knows it, and, little as he may reflect upon it, he easily discovers that all that is told him about his present purity, power, and glory, is but a lie in which one would cradle and lull asleep his pride.