"It is more pleasing to God to see his people study Him and His will directly, than to spend the first and chief of their effort about attaining comfort for themselves. We have faith given us, principally that we might believe and live by it in daily applications of Christ. You may believe immediately (by God's help) but getting assurance of it may be the work of a great part of your life."
It would be interesting to know just what was in Lincoln's mind when he read this paragraph, and sat down with pen and ink to copy and meditate upon it. The "comfort" which Baxter was referring to in this passage was the comfort of assurance of salvation in Christ. It was a theme on which Mr. Lincoln heard many sermons, first and last, by Predestinarian preachers, both Baptist and Presbyterian. If a man was among the elect, how could he be sure of it, and what means could he take to make the assurance more certain? Baxter's answer was that assurance in this matter is less important than to study and obey God's will; and that faith is given us as something in whose exercise we may live daily without greatly troubling ourselves about fathomless mysteries. It was good doctrine for a man who had been reared as Lincoln had been reared, and the remainder of the passage was especially in line with his needs. He could believe immediately, even though the assurance of faith was long delayed. That assurance might be the work of a lifetime, but faith was something that might be lived upon now. The thought is akin to that in the fine lines of Lizzie York Case:
"_There is no unbelief: For thus by day and night unconsciously The heart lives by the faith the lips deny,-- God knoweth why._"
A man can live by a faith of which he has not full assurance--so said the sensible old Puritan, Richard Baxter--he can live on it though it take him nearly all his life to gain assurance; and I am certain he would have added, had he been asked, that if assurance never came, and our heart condemn us, "God is greater than our heart."
The carefully written paragraph in Lincoln's hand appears to indicate that the thought was one which deeply impressed Lincoln. Perhaps he felt that his own faith was of that sort, a faith on which a man could live, while going forward in the study and pursuit of the will of God, not seeking one's own comfort or the joy of complete assurance, but finding in the daily performance of duty the essential quality of true faith.