Can there be no such thing as weak faith, weak love, and weak repentance?
I answer: 1. If you mean comparatively weak, I say, yes. But if you mean weak, in such a sense as to be sinful, I say, no. Faith, repentance, love, and every Christian grace, properly so called, does and must consist in an act of will, and resolve itself into some modification of supreme, disinterested benevolence. I shall, in a future lecture, have occasion to show the philosophical nature of faith. Let it suffice here to say, that faith necessarily depends upon the clearness or obscurity of the intellectual apprehensions of truth. Faith, to be real or virtuous, must embrace whatever of truth is apprehended by the intelligence for the time being. 2. Various causes may operate to divert the intelligence from the objects of faith, or to cause the mind to perceive but few of them, and those in comparative obscurity. 3. Faith may be weak, and will certainly necessarily be weak in such cases, in proportion to the obscurity of the views. And yet, if the will or heart confides so far as it a
