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Faith & Sense

by Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)

The following selection is taken from the twenty-fourth edition of Erskines' Gospel Sonnets (Edinburgh: Silvester Doig, Royal Exchange, 1743) pp 351-364. The original title of this piece appears as follows: "The Believers Principles Concerning Faith & Sense" (in six parts, three of which are presented here below). The electronic edition of this text has been scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. In a few cases antiquated characters have been replaced and the spelling has been modernized. This particular version therefore is not in the public domain. It may be copied and distributed only for personal or educational use.

SECTION I.

Faith & Sense Natural, compared and distinguished

 

When Abram's body, Sarah's womb,

Were ripe for nothing but the tomb,

Exceeding old, and wholly dead,

Unlike to bear the promised seed:

Faith said, I shall an Isaac see;

No, no, said sense, it cannot be:

Blind reason to augment the strife,

Adds, How can death engender life?

My heart is like a rotten tomb,

More dead than ever Sarah's womb;

O! can the promis'd seed of grace

Spring forth from such a barren place?

Sense gazing but on flinty rocks,

My hope and expectation chokes:

But could I, skilled in Abram's art,

O'erlook my dead and barren heart;

And build my hope on nothing less

Than divine pow'r and faithfulness;

Soon would I find him raise up sons

To Abram, out of rocks and stones.

Faith acts as busy boatmen do,

Who backward look and forward row;

It looks intent to things unseen,

Thinks objects visible too mean.

Sense thinks it madness thus to steer,

And only trusts its eye and ear;

Into faith's boat dare thrust it oar,

And put it further from the shore.

Faith does alone the promise eye;

Sense won't believe unless it see;

Nor can it trust the divine guide,

Unless it have both wind and tide.

Faith thinks the promise sure and good;

Sense doth depend on likelihood;

Faith ev'n in storms believes the seers;

Sense calls all men, ev'n prophets, liars.

Faith uses means, but rests on none;

Sense fails when outward means are gone;

Trusts more on probabilities,

Than all the divine promises.

It rests upon the rusty beam

Of outward things that hopeful seem;

Let these its supports sink or cease,

No promise then can yield it peace.

True faith that's of a divine brood,

Consults not base with flesh and blood;

But carnal sense which ever errs,

With carnal reason still confers.

What! won't my disciples believe

That I m risen from the grave?

Why will they pore on dust and death,

And overlook my quick'ning breath?

Why do they slight the word I spake?

And rather sorry counsel take

With death, and with a pow'rful grave,

If they their captive can relieve?

Sense does enquire if tombs of clay

Can send their guests alive away;

But faith will hear JEHOVAH'S word,

Of life and death the sov'reign Lord.

Should I give ear to rotten dust,

Or to the tombs confine my trust;

No resurrection can I see,

For dust that flies into mine eye.

What! Thomas, can't thou trust so much

To me as to thy sight and touch?

Won't thou believe till sense be guide,

And thrust its hands into my side?

Where is thy faith, if it depends

On nothing but thy finger ends?

But bless'd are they the truth who seal

By faith, yet neither see nor feel.

 

 

SECTION II.

Faith & Sense Spiritual, compared and distinguished. Where also the Difference between the Assurance of Faith, and the Assurance of Sense.

 

The certainty of faith and sense

Wide differ in experience:

Faith builds upon, Thus saith the Lord;

Sense views his work, and not his word.

God's word without is faith's resort,

His work within doth sense support.

By faith we trust him without pawns (i.e. pledges)

By sense we handle with our hands.

By faith the word of truth's receiv'd,

By sense we kno we have believ'd.

Faith's certain by fiducial acts,

Sense by its evidential facts.

Faith credits the divine report,

Sense to his breathings makes resort:

That on his word of grace will hing,

This on his Spirit witnessing.

By faith I take the Lord for mine,

By sense I feel his love divine:

By that I touch his garments hem,

By this find virtue thence to stream.

By faith I have mine all on band,

By sense I have some stock in hand:

By that some vision is begun,

By this I some fruition win.

My faith can fend ev'n in exile,

Sense cannot live without a smile.

By faith I to his promise fly,

By sense I in his bosom lie.

Faith builds upon the truth of God,

That lies within the promise broad;

But sense upon the truth of grace

His hand within my heart did place.

Thus Christ the object faith will eye,

And faith's the object sense may see:

Faith keeps the truth of God in view,

While sense the truth of faith may shew.

Hence faith's assurance firm can stand,

When sense's in the deep may strand;

And faith's persuasion full prevail,

When comfortable sense may fail.

I am assur'd when faith's in act,

Though sense and feeling both I lack:

And thus mysterious is my lot,

I'm oft assur'd when I am not;

Oft pierc'd with racking doubts and fears:

Yet faith these brambles never bears;

But unbelief that cuts my breath,

And stops the language of my faith,

Clamours of unbelieving fears,

So frequently disturb mine ears,

I cannot hear what faith would say,

Till once the noisy clamours stay.

And then will fresh experience find,

When faith gets leave to speak its mind,

The native language whereof is,

My Lord is mine, and i am his.

Sad doubtings compass me about,

Yet faith itself could never doubt;

For, as the sacred volume saith,

Much doubting argues little faith.

The doubts and fears that work my grief,

Flow not from faith, but unbelief;

For faith, whene'er it acteth, cures

The plague of doubts, and me assures.

But when mine eye of faith's asleep,

I dream of drowning in the deep;

But as befals the sleeping eye,

Though sight remain, it cannot see;

the seeing faculty abides,

Though sleep from active seeing hides:

So faith's assuring pow'rs endure

Ev'n when it ceases to assure.

There's still persuasion in my faith,

Ev'n when I'm fill'd with fears of wrath;

The trusting habit still remains,

Through slumbers hold the act in chains.

The assuring faculty it keeps,

Ev'n when its eye in darkness sleeps,

Wrapt up in doubts; but when it wakes,

It rouses up assuring acts.

 

 

 

SECTION VI.

Faith and Sense compared; or, Faith building upon Sense discovered

 

Faith has for its foundation broad

A stable rock on which to stand,

The truth and faithfulness of God,

All other grounds are sinking sand.

 

My frames and feelings ebb and flow;

And when my faith depends on them,

It fleets and staggers to and fro,

And dies amist the dying frame.

 

That faith is surely most unstay'd,

Its stagg'ring can't be counted strange,

That builds its hope of lasting aid

On things that every moment change.

 

But could my faith lay all its load

On Jesus' everlasting name,

Upon the righteousness of God,

And divine truth that's still the fame.

 

Could I believe what God has spoke,

Rely on his unchanging love,

And cease to grasp at fleeting smoke,

No changes would my mountain move.

 

 

...When divine smiles in sight appear

And I enjoy the heav'nly gale;

When wind and tide and all is fair,

I dream my faith shall never fail:

 

My heart with false conclusions draw,

That strong my mountain shall remain;

That in my faith there is no flaw,

I'll never never doubt again.

 

 

...But, ah! by sudden turns I see

My lying heart's fallacious guilt,

And that my faith, not firm in me,

On sinking sand was partly built:

 

For, lo! when warming beams are gone,

And shadows fall; alas, 'tis odd,

I cannot wait the rising Sun,

I cannot trust a hiding God.

 

 

...When drops of comfort quickly dry'd,

And sensible enjoyments fail:

When cheering apples are deny'd,

Then doubts instead of faith prevail.

 

But why, tho' fruit be snatched from me,

Should I sistrust the glorious Root;

And still affront the standing Tree,

By trusting more to falling fruit?

 

The smallest trials may evince

My faith unfit to stand the shock,

That more depends on fleeting sense,

Than on the fix'd eternal rock.

 

The safest ark when floods arise,

Is stable truth that changes not:

How weak's my faith that more relies

On feeble sense's floating boat.

 

 

...The frame of nature shall decay,

Time-changes break her rusty chains;

Yea, heav'n and earth shall pass away;

But faith's foundation firm remains.

 

Heav'n's promises so fix'dly stand,

Ingrav'd with an immortal pen,

In great Immanuel's mighty hand,

All hell's attempts to raze are vain.

 

Did faith with none but truth advise,

My steady soul would move no more,

Than stable hills when tempests rise,

Or solid rocks when billows roar.

 

But when my faith the cousel hears

Of present sense and reason blind,

My wav'ring spirit then appears

A feather toss'd with ev'ry wind.

 

Lame legs of faith unequal crook:

Thus mine, alas! unev'nly stand,

Else I would trust my stable Rock,

Not fading frames and feeble sand.

 

I would when dying comforts fly,

as much as when they present were,

Upon my living joy rely.

Help, Lord, for here I daily err.