Faith and The Desire for Life

The Appetites, which always attract especial attention as having usurped a dominion over man to which they are not entitled, are tendencies or desires, which are closely connected with the necessities of our physical system. We have seen in what manner they may be regulated and purified. 

The propensive principles, which are more closely connected with the necessities of the mental nature, and are generally regarded as sustaining a higher rank, are liable to be perverted, as well as the appetites; and need continually the purifying influences and the restraints of sanctifying grace. And if faith, by its action either direct or indirect, can purify and subordinate the lower principles, which are so often perverted and are known to be so violent in their perversion, there is no reason to suppose that it has less of regulating and sanctifying efficacy in its application to other and higher parts of our nature.
 

The desire of life, that is to say, the desire of the preservation and of the continuance of life, is not, in the proper sense of the terms, an Appetite; but it is obviously an implanted principle of our nature, which may properly be denominated a PROPENSITY. 

He, who has faith, may be said, just in proportion as he has it, to take his “life in his hands,” as the Scriptures express it, and to hold it at the divine pleasure. The anxieties, which afflict others, and which often render their lives a burden, do not, in a great degree, trouble those, who believe. Admitting, as they cannot well do otherwise, the correctness of the common remark, that in life we are in the midst of death, and admitting all that can be justly said of our constant exposure to various sufferings, they leave the issues of their earthly being in his hands, who gave it, without disquieting solicitude. The season of danger, even when the natural instincts take the alarm, is not a season of distrust and unholy fear; and when in the course of divine providence, the hour of dissolution comes, it comes rightly and well. “Is not the life,” says the Savior, “more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”

— edited from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 5