“Saving faith, which takes hold of Christ for pardon and strength, and daily flies to him for both, is the root which must be cherished, increased, and kept in exercise by all that would thrive in any other grace, and be fit for any duty. That is the first stone in the spiritual building, to which all the rest are added.
Without faith virtue would languish, our command over our passions be weak, and the back of patience be broken, and our care of the knowledge of divine things very small. It is faith acting upon Christ in heaven, and the hopes of a better life, that sets all the wheels at work in the soul.”
– Thomas Manton, The Life of Faith (Fearn, U.K.: Christian Focus, 1997), 21.
