It has left me a stronger, soberer, wiser, godlier,
better man than it found me."
How, then, can you make the New Year a blessed one for yourselves? I
know but one way, my friends. The ancient way. The Bible way. The
way by which Abraham, and Jacob, and David, and all the holy men of
old, and all the saints, and martyrs, and righteous and godly among
men, made their lives blessed among themselves, in spite of sorrow,
and misfortune, and distress, and persecution, and torture, and death
itself; the one only old way of being blessed, which was from the
beginning, and will last for ever and ever, through all worlds and
eternities; the way of the old saints, which St. Paul sets forth in
the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews; and that is, FAITH. Faith,
which is the substance of what we hope for, the evidence of things
not seen. Faith, of which it is written, that the just shall live by
his faith.
But how can faith give you a blessed New Year? In the same way in
which it gave the old saints blessed years all their lives through,
and is giving them a blessed eternity now and for ever before the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ, to which may God in His mercy bring us
all likewise.
They trusted in God. They had faith, not in themselves, like too
many; not in their own good works, like too many; not in their own
faith, in their own frames, and feelings, and assurances, like too
many; but they had faith in God.
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