Here are a few thoughts on faith from John Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ:
“Let me here give the Christian reader a more particular description of the qualities of unbelief, by opposing faith unto it, in these particulars:
1. Faith believeth the Word of God, but unbelief questioneth the certainty of the same.
2. Faith believeth the word, because it is true, but unbelief doubteth thereof, because it is true.
3. Faith sees more in a promise of God to help than in all other things to hinder; but unbelief, notwithstanding God’s promise, saith, How can these things be?
4. Faith will make thee see love in the heart of Christ when with His mouth He giveth reproofs, but unbelief will imagine wrath in His heart when with His mouth and word He saith He loves us.
5. Faith will help the soul to wait, though God defers to give, but unbelief will snuff and throw up all, if God makes any tarrying.
6. Faith will give comfort in the midst of fears, but unbelief causeth fears in the midst of comforts.
7. Faith will suck sweetness out of God’s rod, but unbelief can find no comfort in the greatest mercies.
8. Faith maketh great burdens light, but unbelief maketh light ones intolerably heavy.
9. Faith helpeth us when we are down, but unbelief throws us down when we are up.
10. Faith bringeth us near to God when we are far from Him, but unbelief puts us far from God when we are near to Him.
11. Faith putteth a man under grace, but unbelief holdeth him under wrath.
12. Faith purifieth the heart, but unbelief keepeth it polluted and impure.
13. Faith maketh our work acceptable to God through Christ, but whatsoever is of unbelief is sin, for without faith it is impossible to please Him.
14. Faith giveth us peace and comfort in our souls, but unbelief worketh trouble and tossings like the restless waves of the sea.
15. Faith maketh us see preciousness in Christ, but unbelief sees no form, beauty, or comeliness in Him.
16. By faith we have our life in Christ’s fullness, but by unbelief we starve and pine away.
17. Faith gives us the victory over the law, sin, death, the devil, and all evils; but unbelief layeth us obnoxious to them all.
18. Faith will show us more excellency in things not seen than in them that are, but unbelief sees more of things that are than in things that will be hereafter.
19. Faith makes the ways of God pleasant and admirable, but unbelief makes them heavy and hard.
20. By faith Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob possessed the land of promise; but because of unbelief neither Aaron, nor Moses, nor Miriam could get thither.
21. By faith the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea, but by unbelief the generality of them perished in the wilderness.
22. By faith Gideon did more with three hundred men and a few empty pitchers than all the twelve tribes could do, because they believed not God.
23. By faith Peter walked on the water, but by unbelief he began to sink.
Thus might many more be added, which, for brevity’s sake, I omit, beseeching every one that thinketh he hath a soul to save or be damned to take heed of unbelief, lest, seeing there is a promise left us of entering into His rest, any of us by unbelief should indeed come short of it.”