"Faith is Peter's drowning cry, as he began to sink, 'Lord, save me!' (Matt. xiv. 30). Assurance is that same Peter declaring before the Council, in after-times, 'This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner: neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved'" (Acts iv. 11, 12). "Faith is the anxious, trembling voice, 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!' (Mark ix. 24). Assurance is the confident challenge, 'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemneth?'" (Rom. viii. 33, 34). Faith is Saul praying in the house of Judas at Damascus, sorrowful, blind, and alone. (Acts ix. 11.) Assurance is Paul, the aged prisoner, looking calmly into the grave, and saying, 'I know whom I have believed.' 'There is a crown laid up for me' (2 Tim. i. 12; iv. 8). "Faith is Life. How great the blessing! Who can tell the gulf between life and death? And yet life may be weak, sickly, unhealthy, painful, trying, anxious, worn, burdensome, joyless, smileless, to the very end. "Assurance is _more than life_. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty." A minister once pronounced the benediction in this way: "The heart of God to make us welcome; the blood of Christ to make us clean, and the Holy Spirit to make us certain." The security of the believer is the result of the operation of the Spirit of God. Another writer says: "I have seen shrubs and trees grow out of the rocks, and overhang fearful precipices, roaring cataracts, and deep running waters; but they maintained their position, and threw out their foliage and branches as much as if they had been in the midst of a dense forest." It was their hold on the rock that made them secure; and the influences of nature that sustained their life. So believers are oftentimes exposed to the most horrible dangers in their journey to heaven; but, so long as they are "rooted and grounded" in the Rock of Ages, they are perfectly secure. Their hold of Him is their guarantee; and the blessings of His grace give them life and sustain them in life. And as the tree must die, or the rock fall, before a dissolution can be effected between _them_, so either the believer must lose his spiritual life, or the Rock must crumble, ere their union can be dissolved. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, Isaiah says: "I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place; and He shall be for a glorious throne to His Father's house: and they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons" (xxii. 23, 24).