Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 2.djvu/370

160 days to our own, or of the Church, which, by fasting and prayer, separated them for the work, (Acts xiii. 2, 3.) or of the founder of each lesser congregation within the bounds already occupied by the Church at large, each, in their several ways, co-operate to the extension and use and perpetuity of 's Sacraments; and in the use of these Sacraments their faith receives a blessing. And this is a way, wherein it may be made even tangible to sense, how the faith of the Church becomes available in some measure to those who have but a weak faith, or by reason of their age cannot actively exert it. The principle extends widely; in religious duties, in moral performance, in abstinence from sin, in all the ways in which custom (as it is called) or example induce men to enter upon, or to persevere in, any practice, or to abstain from any evil habit, or even from any deeper sin, it is the faith of the faithful members of the Church which is thus blessed. employs their faithful exercise of duty, either in retaining or restoring the infirmer or the erring members; the very imitation of their right practice, implies a degree of faith, and though it be but as a smoking flax, quencheth it not, but brings it to a greater brightness: and any one, who shall have observed how instrumental, what he calls circumstances or custom have been in the formation of his own religious character, or, again, how few they are who rise above and act healthfully upon, the religious character of their age, or, again, how mainly dependent children are upon the faith of others, will see how much we have to thank  for the faith of others, and how mighty an instrument true faith is in a faithless world. And when it pleased, during His actual abode upon earth, to accept the faith of parents, or masters, or friends, for those who needed any "virtue, which should go forth from ," (where themselves, from circumstances, could not exercise that faith,) and then to put forth the same gracious influences; it was not assuredly for their sake principally, but to attest His acceptance of, and to encourage the Church to offer, a vicarious faith, for those who are not as yet able to manifest it. But in instancing the above more tangible method, in which renders the faith of the church a benefit to it's