so I press upon you this question: What
Christ is it to Whom your confidence turns, and for what is it that you
are looking to Him? Is it for help and guidance of some vague kind; is
it for pattern or example, or is it for the salvation of your sinful
souls, by the might of His great sacrifice?

Then, remember still further, that this personal outgoing of confidence,
which is the action both of a man's will and of a man's intellect, to
the person revealed to us in the great doctrines of the Gospel--that
this faith, if it is to be worth anything, must be continuous. Paul
could desire nothing better for his Ephesian friends than that they
should have that which they had--faith; that they should continue to
have it, and that it should be perennial and increasing all through
their lives. You can no more get present good from past faith than the
breath you drew yesterday into your lungs will be sufficient to
oxygenate your blood at this moment. As soon as you break the electric
contact, the electric light goes out, and no matter how long a man has
been living a life of faith, that past life will not in the smallest
degree help him at the present moment unless the faith is continuous.
Remember this, then, a broken faith is a broken peace; a broken faith is
a broken salvation; and so long, and only so long, as you are knit to
Jesus Christ by the conscious exercise of a faith realised at the
moment, are you in the reception of blessing from Him at the moment.

And, still further, this faith ought to be progressive. So Paul desired
it to be with these people. If there is no growth, do you think there is
much life? I know I am speaking to plenty of people who call themselves
Christians, whose faith is not one inch better to-day than it was when
it was born--perhaps a little less rather than more. Oh! the hundreds
and thousands of professing Christians, average Christians, that clog
and weaken all churches, whose faith has no progressive element in it,
and is not a bit stronger by all the discipline of life and by their
experience of its power. Brethren! is it so with us? Let us ask
ourselves that; and let us ask very solemnly this other question: If my
faith has no growth, how do I know that it has got any life?

And so let me remind you further that this faith, the personal outgoing
of a man's intellect and will to the personal Saviour revealed in the
Scriptures as the sacrifice for our sins, and the life of our spirits,
whic