'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — February 15

By faith put off your sackcloth and ashes, and put on the garments of joy and gladness. Let your clothes be white, and your head anointed with oil. Live to the fullest. Live today, live tomorrow, live, O Christian, forever! This you can do if you learn to use your faith. Do you desire to have a continual feast and rejoice always in the Lord? Let me prescribe a daily diet without ever neglecting it. Just as often as you refresh your body with rest and recreation, so cheer up your soul. Let your soul have two or three walks each day up Mount Tabor, that is, in some retired place of mediation and prayer. Go to Isaac's field to meditate, or David's closet. What is to be done there? Make use of your faith. This is the chief mystery of our spiritual life.
Stir up your soul to talk with Christ. Consider the promises and privileges you enjoy. Think of them, roll them under your tongue, chew on them until you feel their sweetness in your soul. View them together and individually. Sometimes contemplate one in particular, or another more deeply. Consider how wonderful that your debts are cancelled, and how wonderful that God's wrath is satisfied. Consider how happy and safe a condition you are in as a son of God, and how pleasant a state not to fear death and hell. Mingle these thoughts with prayers for grace and aid. Do not leave the mountain until your heart has been cheerfully warmed and revived. This is using your faith. You will find your soul saying ‘It is good to be here.' It is good to daily be here and often. Unstirred coals do not glow or give heat. The beauty of faith is its use. Don't just have muscles, use them. Let a man diligently and thoroughly improve his faith and the joy it will bring to him will be great.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
Samuel Ward, Sermons, pp. 23-25
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