The Moral Quality of Faith.
It is not often that the old reformer, preparing to quit the scene of his labours, bequeaths to his young successor such parting counsels as those of Paul to Timothy. The usual product of experience, especially of an experience gained in attempting a great moral revolution, is a certain caution and lowering of hope; and when, looking back upon the past, the spent enthusiast measures the smallness of his achievements, by the splendour of his early projects, he is tempted to regret the magnitude of his aims, and to advise for the future a zeal too temperate to live through the frosts of circumstances. Towards the end of life the precepts which flow naturally from our lips express themselves in negatives. It was otherwise with Paul. Would that every leader's voice could burst, as he falls, into such a trumpet-sound, thrilling the young hearts that pant in the good fight, and must never despair of victory!
II. The secret of the deep affection between the aged Apostle and the young disciple is to be found in a quality common to them both that energy of faith which from its wondrous conquests over our lower nature, is by many regarded as supernatural. Faith is the natural hypothesis of a pure and good heart, whence it looks on the face of nature and of life, and deciphers and welcomes their Divine lineaments. There is a certain temper, often usurping the name of charity, which springs, not from faith, but from the utter want of it: an easy laxity, a good-natured indulgence towards the sinfulness of men, arising from mere dim-sightedness as to its reality; a smiling complacency to which character is indifferent, provided enjoyment and good-fellowship are unimpeded. The true charity is not that which thinks lightly of evil, but that which is slow to believe in it.
III. The germ of this moral defect of faith lurks in us all, and puts forth its tendency at least in transient moods, when the vision is dim, and the heart is low. In flat and heavy hours the tones of conscience are so muffled that by not esteeming we can miss them, and can say of the Holy Spirit, "It is nought." It is strange and sad how small and brief a darkness may quench for us an everlasting sun. It is an offence, not less against the calmness of reason, than the constancy of love, to be thus haunted by the visions of an untrustful mind, and like some poor sleep-walker, be led by ghosts of fear over marsh and moor till the home of rest be lost. Be it ours, in all things human and Divine, to keep the good hearts of faith; and as we accept the clearness of a brother's face, and the simplicity of his word, and the freedom of his affection, so we think ourselves open to the expression of God's life and love, in the beauty of the world, in the law of conscience, in the ample range of thought and aspiration, and in the promises already pressing for fulfilment, of saints and prophets.
J. Martineau, Hours of Thought,vol. i., p. 86.
References: 2 Timothy 1:6. A. Raleigh, The Way to the City,p. 138; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xviii., No. 1080. 2 Timothy 1:6; 2 Timothy 1:7. G. Calthrop, Words to my Friends,p. 254. 2 Timothy 1:7. Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times"vol. i., p. 310. 2 Timothy 1:7-12. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 211. 2 Timothy 1:8. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 343. 2 Timothy 1:9. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xii., No. 703; Ibid., Evening by Evening,p. 164; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. vi., p. 333. 2 Timothy 1:9-10. G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India,p. 229.