{"id":18086,"date":"2023-06-20T11:52:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T11:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/?p=18086"},"modified":"2025-08-12T02:02:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T02:02:44","slug":"the-nature-and-increase-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/2023\/06\/the-nature-and-increase-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature And Increase Of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Primitive Baptist Magazine 1852:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Faith is the gift and the operation of God. It comes by the Holy Spirit\u2019s power rising and strengthening the sublimest faculties of the soul, and is really a regeneration\u2014a rebegetting\u2014a revival of life from the dead. Thus the believer is said to be \u201cborn of the Spirit,\u201d because it is the Spirit\u2019s office in the covenant of grace to regenerate, and because it is the promise concerning the Spirit to all, \u201ceven as many as the Lord our God shall call.\u201d And thus also the Christian is said to be \u201cborn, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the principle of divine life and light is given to the soul, it enables the soul to feel its own loss and misery, and to see its own sin and darkness. A man can have no true sight of his sin but by this grace. He is therefore in some sense a believer before he knowns himself to be one. Faith acts in him before he can be sensible of the reflect act of faith. He first lives, and then he feels his misery, and then he cries for mercy. He cries for mercy, and then is enlightened to see the way of mercy in the Word of mercy. He is next enlightened to behold the free welcome and rich bounty of this mercy to all returning sinners. He is enabled to contemplate upon himself, and view the fitness of God\u2019s mercy for him, and his fitness as needy and convinced sinner for it. He is then strengthened to embrace it, like a poor creature who must perish without it, but who shall never perish with it. And at length God\u2019s grace seals itself upon the soul, by giving a true taste of joy and peace in believing, insomuch that the broken, withered heart revives, and is able today, I do humbly venture to believe that Christ died for me, and will save me for evermore.<\/p>\n

Ambrose Serle<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faith is the gift and the operation of God. It comes by the Holy Spirit\u2019s power rising and strengthening the sublimest faculties of the soul, and is really a regeneration\u2014a rebegetting\u2014a revival of life from the dead. Thus the believer is said to be \u201cborn of the Spirit,\u201d because it is the Spirit\u2019s office in the covenant of grace to regenerate, and because it is the promise concerning the Spirit to all, \u201ceven as many as the Lord our God shall call.\u201d And thus also the Christian is said to be \u201cborn, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the principle of divine life and light is given to the soul, it enables the soul to feel its own loss and misery, and to see its own sin and darkness. A man can have no true sight of his sin but by this grace. He is therefore in some sense a believer before he knowns himself to be one. Faith acts in him before he can be sensible of the reflect act of faith. He first lives, and then he feels his misery, and then he cries for mercy. He cries for mercy, and then is enlightened to see the way of mercy in the Word of mercy. He is next enlightened to behold the free welcome and rich bounty of this mercy to all returning sinners. He is enabled to contemplate upon himself, and view the fitness of God\u2019s mercy for him, and his fitness as needy and convinced sinner for it. He is then strengthened to embrace it, like a poor creature who must perish without it, but who shall never perish with it. And at length God\u2019s grace seals itself upon the soul, by giving a true taste of joy and peace in believing, insomuch that the broken, withered heart revives, and is able today, I do humbly venture to believe that Christ died for me, and will save me for evermore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":18087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1339],"tags":[1198,1201,1202,1250,1197],"class_list":["post-18086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-primitive-baptist-magazine","tag-duty-faith","tag-fullerism","tag-hyper-calvinism","tag-regeneration","tag-spiritual-growth"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18088,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18086\/revisions\/18088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}