Satan may bring forward and corrupt scripture, but he cannot answer scripture. It is Christ’s word of mighty authority. Christ foiled Satan with it (Mat 4:7). In all the scripture there is not an ill word against a poor sinner stripped of self-righteousness. No! it plainly points out this man to be the subject of the grace of the gospel, and none else. Believe but Christ’s willingness, and that will make you willing. If you find you cannot believe, remember it is Christ’s work to make you believe. Put Him upon it; He works to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). Mourn for your unbelief, which is a setting up of guilt in the conscience above Christ, and undervaluing the merits of Christ, accounting His blood an unholy, a common, and unsatisfying thing. Thomas Willcox
Oh what an encouragement this is to poor sinners who have Christ and yet doubt as they are tossed by trials and temptations and wonder at their unbelief. Believing these things and/or having faith is the work of Christ and not human strength or ability. It is God who works faith in the soul by His grace. Even those who come to the point of recognizing that faith is the gift of God’s grace in salvation seem to leave it at that point rather than see that grace as always being in the hand of God to dispense as He pleases. It is so easy to buy into the ways of modern religion regardless of what theological stripe one wears, and that way is that man is to depend on self. Faith/belief has become the work of man that man is to depend on rather than what God gives broken sinners. True faith is looking to Christ for faith and not looking to the will of man for faith in Christ. True faith comes to the soul by grace and true faith receives grace rather than working by the strength and efforts of the human will.
Those who have felt the bondage of their own hearts know that they cannot look to themselves in hope for faith to get something from Christ, but instead the real truth is that those who know the bondage of their own hearts know that they must look to Christ in order to believe. It is Christ alone by His Spirit who can give them a fresh view of the blood of Christ on the cross. It is Christ alone who can show them that His merits are far greater than their demerits. This work of Christ in the soul is not just something that He does here and there, but it is something that He does for His children on a regular basis. The children fall into pride or trusting in self and in His sovereign care He leaves them to wallow in that for a while in order to teach them their utter dependence upon Him in a fresh way and a deeper way. He may withdraw His restraining hand from them in order to show them what their hearts are without Him and how dependent they are on Him to refrain from sin and to do anything good.
Growing spiritually is not done according to the human will and kindness, but according to the Divine will and spiritual kindness. God will give a person spiritual growth as He pleases and most of the time that involves hard things, and a lot of the time that involves hard things that stretch us beyond our abilities. Until we are stretched beyond our perceived abilities we will continue to trust in self rather than look to His grace. When the soul is in the midst of a very hard trial, it will reach the point of seeing that it cannot believe any longer. Ah, says the soul, I am lost. But the soul may not be lost despite what it feels. It feels the pain of being pushed beyond what it can believe in its own strength, but that may be the hand of God stretching the soul to learn to look to Him in order to believe. This being pushed to the brink and beyond, so to speak, is God’s mercy to us to teach us to look to Him for all things spiritual.
Yes, it is true, the soul is to live by grace and live by faith. But when the soul cannot live by faith, it must learn that this is a gift of Christ in order that Christ may give Himself and His spiritual blessings. The soul should learn at some point, though indeed relapses are common in this area due to our pride and self-reliance, that when it knows that it is being pushed beyond its ability to believe it must look to Christ for faith. Even more, at some point the soul should learn to look to Christ before that happens and constantly look to Christ for faith. The problem with that however, is that the Divine wisdom knows that point and it can go beyond that point as well in order to teach us that we need grace in order to believe each and every day. Instead of the soul being cast into despair for its unbelief, it should know that faith in self is self-righteousness. We must be stripped of that in order to rest in grace.
Yes, we should mourn for our unbelief in thinking our sin is greater than the blood of Christ. Yes, it is a sin to undervalue the merits of Christ. But it is a far greater sin to think that our sin in this regard is beyond the work of Christ. Jesus Christ died for our sins of unbelief. Jesus Christ died for poor helpless sinners who waver and doubt and agonize over their unbelief. We must learn to rest in Christ in all our pain and despair. It is all of grace.
God Loves... Himself 
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