“Faith works by love.” If we have strong faith in God, we shall have great love to him. If our faith be assured or perfect, our love will correspond to it in degree.
Now the natural tendency of love to God is to regulate and restrain all unregulated and unrestrained love of that, which is not God. The soul sees very clearly, that all such unregulated and unrestrained love of the creatures, whether it be the love of a man for himself or of others with a selfish reference to himself, is offensive to God; so that the love of God and the unregulated and wrong love of the creatures are antagonistical in their very nature; and the former love, if it exists in the highest degree, always implies the entire regulation and purification of the latter.
With these two sources of influence
combined, viz., the direct influence of faith, and that influence,
which, operating by means of love, is indirect, the soul, by the
expulsion of selfishness, may be restored to its true position, and in
the possession of the purity and fullness of love, may become right with
God. It is here, in particular, that we find the source of power and
control over the Appetites. They can be truly said, when the subject is
rightly considered, to be subdued and to be kept in their place by
faith, and by faith alone. But this result, in its full extent, cannot
take place by the ordinary action of faith; but only by a high degree,
perhaps by that degree alone, which is denominated ASSURANCE.
— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 3.
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