o. Faith's works are
Christ's works.

And as by effort, so faith is also hindered by the desire to see and
feel. 'If thou believest, thou shalt see;' the Holy Spirit will seal our
faith with a Divine experience; we shall see the glory of God. But this
is His work: ours is, when all appears dark and cold, in the face of all
that nature or experience testifies, still each moment to believe in
Jesus as our all-sufficient sanctification, in whom we are perfected
before God. Complaints as to want of feeling, as to weakness or
deadness, seldom profit: it is the soul that refuses to occupy itself
with itself, either with its own weakness or the strength of the enemy,
but only looks to what Jesus is, and has promised to do, to whom
progress in holiness will be a joyful march from victory to victory.
'The Lord Himself doth fight for you;' this thought, so often repeated
in connection with Israel's possession of the promised land, is the food
of faith: in conscious weakness, in presence of mighty enemies, it sings
the conqueror's song. When God appears to be _not doing_ what we trusted
Him for, then is just the time for faith to glory in Him.

There is perhaps nothing that more reveals the true character of faith
than joy and praise. You give a child the promise of a present
to-morrow: at once it says, Thank you, and is glad. The joyful thanks
are the proof of how really your promise has entered the heart. You are
told by a friend of a rich legacy he has left you in his will: it may
not come true for years, but even now it makes you glad. We have already
seen what an element of holiness joy is: it is especially an element of
holiness by faith. Each time I really see how beautiful and how perfect
God's provision is, by which my holiness is in Jesus, and by which I am
to allow Him to work in me, my heart ought to rise up in praise and
thanks. Instead of allowing the thought that it is, after all, a life of
such difficult attainment and such continual self-denial, this life of
holiness through faith, we ought to praise Him exceedingly that He has
made it possible and sure for us: we can be holy, because Jesus the
Mighty and the Loving One is our holiness. Praise will express our
faith; praise will prove it; praise will strengthen it. 'Then believed
they His words; they sang His praise.' Praise will commit us to faith:
we shall see that we have but one thing to do, to go on in a faith that
ever trusts and ever praises. It is in a li