In further explanation of the Scripture representations, we remark:

(a) That faith is an act of the affections and will, as truly as it is an set of the intellect.

It has been claimed that faith and unbelief are purely intellectual states, which are necessarily determined by the facts at any given time presented to the mind; and that they are, for this reason, as destitute of moral quality and as far from being matters of obligation, as are our instinctive feelings of pleasure and pain. But this view unwarrantably isolates the intellect, and ignores the fact that, in all moral subjects, the state of the affections and will affects the judgment of the mind with regard to truth. In the intellectual act the whole moral nature expresses itself. Since the tastes determine the opinions, faith is a moral act, and men are responsible for not believing.

John 3:18–20—“He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved”; 5:40—“ye will not come to me, that ye may have life”; 16:8, 9—“And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin.… of sin, because they believe not on me”; Rev. 2:21—“she willeth not to repent.” Notice that the Revised Version very frequently substitutes the voluntary and active terms “disobedience” and “disobedient” for the “unbelief” and “unbelieving” of the Authorized Version,—as in Rom. 15:31; Heb. 3:18; 4:6, 11; 11:31. See Park, Discourses, 45, 46.

Savages do not know that they are responsible for their physical appetites, or that there is any right and wrong in matters of sense, until they come under the influence of Christianity. In like manner, even men of science can declare that the intellectual sphere has no part in man’s probation, and that we are no more responsible for our opinions and beliefs than we are for the color of our skin. But faith is not a merely intellectual act,—the affections and will give it quality. There is no moral quality in the belief that 2 + 2 = 4, because we can not help that belief. But in believing on Christ there is moral quality, because there is the element of choice. Indeed it may be questioned, whether, in every judgment upon moral things, there is not an act of will.

Hence on John 7:17—“If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself”—F. L. Patton calls attention to the two common errors: (1) that obedience will certify doctrine,—which is untrue, because obedience is the result of faith, not vice versa; (2) that personal experience is the ultimate test of faith,—which is untrue, because the Bible is the only rule of faith, and it is one thing to receive truth through the feelings, but quite another to test truth by the feelings. The text really means, that if any man is willing to do God’s will, he shall know whether it be of God; and the two lessons to be drawn are: (1) the gospel needs no additional evidence; (2) the Holy Ghost is the hope of the world. On responsibility for opinions and beliefs, see Mozley, on Blanco White, in Essays Philos. and Historical, 2:142; T. T. Smith, Hulsean Lectures for 1839. Wilfrid Ward, The Wish to Believe, quotes Shakespeare: “Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought”; and Thomas Arnold: “They dared not lightly believe what they so much wished to be true.”

Pascal: “Faith is an act of the will.” Emerson, Essay on Worship: “A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. Man’s religious faith is the expression of what he is.” Bain: “In its essential character, belief is a phase of our active nature, otherwise called the will.” Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 257—“Faith is the creative human answer to the creative divine offer. It is not the passive acceptance of a divine favor.… By faith man, laying hold of the personality of God in Christ, becomes a true person. And by the same faith he becomes, under God, a creator and founder of true society.” Inge, Christian Mysticism, 52—“Faith begins with an experiment and ends with an experience. But even the power to make the experiment is given from above. Eternal life is not γνῶσις, but the state of acquiring knowledge—ἵνα γιγνώσκωσιν It is significant that John, who is so fond of the verb ‘to know,’ never uses the substantive γνῶσις.” Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 148—“ ‘I will not obey, because I do not yet know’? But this is making the intellectual side the only side of faith, whereas the most important side is the will-side. Let a man follow what he does believe, and he shall be led on to larger faith. Faith is the reception of the personal influence of a living Lord, and a corresponding action.”

William James, Will to Believe, 61—“This life is worth living, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.… Often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.… If your heart does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one.… Freedom to believe covers only living options which the intellect cannot by itself resolve.… We are not to put a stopper on our heart, and meantime act as if religion were not true”; Psychology, 2:282, 321—“Belief is consent, willingness, turning of our disposition. It is the mental state or function of cognizing reality. We never disbelieve anything except for the reason that we believe something else which contradicts the first thing. We give higher reality to whatever things we select and emphasize and turn to with a will.… We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. Those to whom God and duty are mere names, can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day.”

E. G. Robinson: “Campbellism makes intellectual belief to be saving faith. But saving faith is consent of the heart as well as assent of the intellect. On the one hand there is the intellectual element: faith is belief upon the ground of evidence; faith without evidence is credulity. But on the other hand faith has an element of affection; the element of love is always wrapped up in it. So Abraham’s faith made Abraham like God; for we always become like that which we trust.” Faith therefore is not chronologically subsequent to regeneration, but is its accompaniment. to the soul’s appropriation of Christ and his salvation, it is not the result of an accomplished renewal, but rather the medium through which that renewal is effected. Otherwise it would follow that one who had not yet believed (i. e., received Christ) might still be regenerate, whereas the Scripture represents the privilege of sonship as granted only to believers. See John 1:12, 13—“But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; also 3:5, 6, 10–15; Gal. 3:26; 2 Pet. 1:3; cf. 1 John 5:1.

(b) That the object of saving faith is, in general, the whole truth of God, so far as it is objectively revealed or made known to the soul; but, in particular, the person and work of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the centre and substance of God’s revelation (Acts 17:18; 1 Cor. 1:23; Col. 1:27; Rev. 19:10).

The patriarchs, though they had no knowledge of a personal Christ, were saved by believing in God so far as God had revealed himself to them; and whoever among the heathen are saved, must in like manner be saved by casting themselves as helpless sinners upon God’s plan of mercy, dimly shadowed forth in nature and providence. But such faith, even among the patriarchs and heathen, is implicitly a faith in Christ, and would become explicit and conscious trust and submission, whenever Christ were made known to them (Mat. 8:11, 12; John 10:16; Acts 4:12; 10:31, 34, 35, 44; 16:31).

Acts 17:18—“he preached Jesus and the resurrection”; 1 Cor. 1:23—“we preach Christ crucified”; Col. 1:27—“this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim”; Rev. 19:10—“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Saving faith is not belief in a dogma, but personal trust in a personal Christ. It is, therefore, possible to a child. Dorner: “The object of faith is the Christian revelation—God in Christ.… Faith is union with objective Christianity—appropriation of the real contents of Christianity.” Dr. Samuel Hopkins, the great uncle, defined faith as “an understanding, cordial receiving of the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ and the way of salvation by him, in which the heart accords and conforms to the gospel.” Dr. Mark Hopkins, the great nephew, defined it as “confidence in a personal being.” Horace Bushnell: “Faith rests on a person. Faith is that act by which one person, a sinner, commits himself to another person, a Savior.” In John 11:25—“I am the resurrection and the life”—Martha is led to substitute belief in a person for belief in an abstract doctrine. Jesus is “the resurrection,” because he is “the life.” All doctrine and all miracle is significant and important only because it is the expression of the living Christ, the Revealer of God.

The object of faith is sometimes represented in the N. T., as being God the Father. John 5:24—“He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life”; Rom. 4:5—“to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” We can explain these passages only when we remember that Christ is God “manifested in the flesh’ (1 Tim. 3:16), and that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Man may receive a gift without knowing from whom it comes, or how much it has cost. So the heathen, who casts himself as a sinner upon God’s mercy, may receive salvation from the Crucified One, without knowing who is the giver, or that the gift was purchased by agony and blood. Denney, Studies in Theology, 154—“No N. T. writer ever remembered Christ. They never thought of him as belonging to the past. Let us not preach about the historical Christ, but rather, about the living Christ; nay, let us preach him, present and omnipotent. Jesus could say: ‘Whither I go, ye know the way’ (John 14:4); for they knew him, and he was both the end and the way.”

Dr. Charles Hodge unduly restricts the operations of grace to the preaching of the incarnate Christ: Syst. Theol., 2:648—“There is no faith where the gospel is not heard; and where there is no faith, there is no salvation. This is indeed an awful doctrine.” And yet, in 2:668, he says most inconsistently: “As God is everywhere present in the material world, guiding its operations according to the laws of nature; so he is everywhere present with the minds of men, as the Spirit of truth and goodness, operating on them according to laws of their free moral agency, inclining them to good and restraining them from evil.” This presence and revelation of God we hold to be through Christ, the eternal Word, and so we interpret the prophecy of Caiaphas as referring to the work of the personal Christ: John 11:51, 52—“he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad.”

Since Christ is the Word of God and the Truth of God, he may be received even by those who have not heard of his manifestation in the flesh. A proud and self-righteous morality is inconsistent with saving faith; but a humple and penitent reliance upon God, as a Savior from sin and a guide of conduct, is an implicit faith in Christ; for such reliance casts itself upon God, so far as God has revealed himself,—and the only Revealer of God is Christ. We have, therefore, the hope that even among the heathen there may be some, like Socrates, who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit working through the truth of nature and conscience, have found the way of life and salvation.

The number of such is so small as in no degree to weaken the claims of the missionary enterprise upon us. But that there are such seems to be intimated in Scripture: Mat. 8:11, 12—“many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness”; John 10:16—“And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Acts 4:12—“And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved”; 10:31, 34, 35, 44—“Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.… Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him.… While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word”; 16:31—“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.”

And instances are found of apparently regenerated heathen; see in Godet on John 7:17, note (vol. 2:277), the account of the so-called “Chinese hermit,” who accepted Christ saying: “This is the only Buddha whom men ought to worship!” Edwards, Life of Brainard, 173–175, gives an account “of one who was a devout and zealous reformer, or rather restorer, of what he supposed was the ancient religion of the Indians.” After a period of distress, he says that God “comforted his heart and showed him what he should do, and since that time he had known God and tried to serve him; and loved all men, be they who they would, so as he never did before.” See art. by Dr. Lucius E. Smith, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1881:622–645 on the question: “Is salvation possible without a knowledge of the gospel?” H. B. Smith, System, 323, note, rightly bases hope for the heathen, not on morality, but on sacrifice.

A chief of the Camaroons in S. W. Africa, fishing with many of his tribe long before the missionaries came, was overtaken by a storm, and while almost all the rest were drowned, he and a few others escaped. He gathered his people together afterwards and told the story of disaster. He said: “When the canoes upset and I found myself battling with the waves, I thought: To whom shall I cry for help? I knew that the god of the hills could not help me; I knew that the evil spirit would not help me. So I cried to the Great Father, Lord, save me! At that moment my feet touched the sand of the beach, and I was safe. Now let all my people honor the Great Father, and let no man speak a word against him, for he can help us.” This chief afterwards used every effort to prevent strife and bloodshed, and was remembered by those who came after as a peace-maker. His son told this story to Alfred Saker, the missionary, saying: “Why did you not come sooner? My father longed to know what you have told us; he thirsted for the knowledge of God.” Mr. Saker told this in England in 1879.

John Fiske appends to his book, The Idea of God, 168, 169, the following pathetic words of a Kaflr, named Sekese, in conversation with a French traveler, M. Arbrouseille, on the subject of the Christian religion: “Your tidings,” said this uncultured barbarian, “are what I want, and I was seeking before I knew you, as you shall hear and judge for yourself. Twelve years ago I went to feed my flocks; the weather was hazy. I sat down upon a rock, and asked myself sorrowful questions; yes, sorrowful, because I was unable to answer them. Who has touched the stars with his hands—on what pillars do they rest? I asked myself. The waters never weary, they know no other law than to flow without ceasing from morning till night and from night till morning; but where do they stop, and who makes them flow thus? The clouds also come and go, and burst in water over the earth. Whence come they—who sends them? The diviners certainly do not give us rain; for how could they do it? And why do I not see them with my own eyes, when they go up to heaven to fetch it? I cannot see the wind; but what is it? Who brings it, makes it blow and roar and terrify us? Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field; to-day I returned to my field and found some; who can have given to the earth the wisdom and the power to produce it? Then I buried my head in both hands.”

On the question whether men are ever led to faith, without intercourse with living Christians or preachers, see Life of Judson, by his son, 84. The British and Foreign Bible Society publish a statement, made upon the authority of Sir Bartle Frere, that he met with “an instance, which was carefully investigated, in which all the inhabitants of a remote village in the Deccan had abjured idolatry and caste, removed from their temples the idols which had been worshiped there time out of mind, and agreed to profess a form of Christianity which they had deduced from the careful perusal of a single Gospel and a few tracts.” Max Müller, Chips, 4:177–189, apparently proves that Buddha is the original of St. Josaphat, who has a day assigned to him in the calendar of both the Greek and the Roman churches. “Sancte Socrates, ors pro nobis.”

The Missionary Review of the world, July, 1896:519–523, tells the story of Adiri, afterwards called John King, of Maripastoon in Dutch Guiana. The Holy Spirit wrought in him mightily years before he heard of the missionaries. He was a coal-black negro, a heathen and a fetish worshiper. He was convicted of sin and apparently converted through dreams and visions. Heaven and hell were revealed to him. He was sick unto death, and One appeared to him declaring himself to be the Mediator between God and man, and telling him to go to the missionaries for instruction. He was persecuted, but he won his tribe from heathenism and transformed them into a Christian community.

S. W. Hamblen, missionary to China, tells of a very earnest and consistent believer who lived at rather an obscure town of about 2800 people. The evangelist went to visit him and found that he was a worthy example to those around him. He had become a Christian before he had seen a single believer, by reading a Chinese New Testament. Although till the evangelist went to his house he had never met a Baptist and did not know that there were any Baptist churches in existence, yet by reading the New Testament he had become not only a Christian but a strong Baptist in belief, so strong that he could argue with the missionary on the subject of baptism.

The Rev. K. E. Malm, a pioneer Baptist preacher in Sweden, on a journey to the district as far north as Gestrikland, met a woman from Lapland who was on her way to Upsala in order to visit Dr. Fjellstedt and converse with him as to how she might obtain peace with God and get rid of her anxiety concerning her sins. She said she had traveled 60 (= 240 English) miles, and she had still far to go. Malm improved the opportunity to speak to her concerning the crucified Christ, and she found peace in believing on his atonement. She became so happy that she clapped her hands, and for joy could not sleep that night. She said later: “Now I will return home and tell the people what I have found.” This she did, and did not care to continue her journey to Upsala, in order to get comfort from Dr. Fjellstedt.

(c) That the ground of faith is the external word of promise. The ground of assurance, on the other hand, is the inward witness of the Spirit that we fulfil the conditions of the promise (Rom. 4:20, 21; 8:16; Eph. 1:13; John 4:13; 5:10). This witness of the Spirit is not a new revelation from God, but a strengthening of faith so that it becomes conscious and indubitable.

True faith is possible without assurance of salvation. But if Alexander’s view were correct, that the object of saving faith is the proposition: “God, for Christ’s sake, now looks with reconciling love on me, a sinner,” no one could believe, without being at the same time assured that he was a saved person. Upon the true view, that the object of saving faith is not a proposition, but a person, we can perceive not only the simplicity of faith, but the possibility of faith even where the soul is destitute of assurance or of joy. Hence those who already believe are urged to seek for assurance (Heb. 6:11; 2 Peter 1:10).

Rom. 4:20, 21—“looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform”; 8:16—“The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”; Eph. 1:13—“in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed With the Holy Spirit of promise”; 1 John 4:13—“hereby we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit”; 5:10—“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.” This assurance is not of the essence of faith, because believers are exhorted to attain to it: Heb. 6:11—“And we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fulness of hope [marg.—‘full assurance’] even to the end”; 2 Pet. 1:10—“Wherefore, brethren, give to more diligence to make your calling and election sure.” Cf. Prov. 14:14—“a good man shall be satisfied from himself:”

There is need to guard the doctrine of assurance from mysticism. The witness of the Spirit is not a new and direct revelation from God. It is a strengthening of previously existing faith until he who possesses this faith cannot any longer doubt that he possesses it. It is a general rule that all our emotions, when they become exceedingly strong, also become conscious. Instance affection between man and woman.

Edwards, Religious Affections, in Works, 3:83–91, says the witness of the Spirit is not a new word or suggestion from God, but an enlightening and sanctifying influence, so that the heart is drawn forth to embrace the truth already revealed, and to perceive that it embraces it. “Bearing witness” is not in this case to declare and assert a thing to be true, but to hold forth evidence from which a thing may be proved to be true: God “beareth witness.… by signs and wonders” (Heb. 2:4) So the “seal of the Spirit” is not a voice or suggestion, but a work or effect of the Spirit, left as a divine mark upon the soul, to be an evidence by which God’s children may be known. Seals had engraved upon them the image or name of the persons to whom they belonged. The “seal of the Spirit,” the “earnest of the Spirit,” the “witness of the Spirit,” are all one thing. The childlike spirit, given by the Holy Spirit, is the Holy Spirit’s witness or evidence in us.

See also illustration of faith and assurance, in C. S. Robinson’s Short Studies for S. S. Teachers, 179, 180. Faith should be distinguished not only from assurance, but also from feeling or joy. Instance Abraham’s faith when he went to sacrifice Isaac; and Madame Guyon’s faith, when God’s face seemed hid from her. See, on the witness of the Spirit, Short, Bampton Lectures for 1846; British and For. Evan. Rev., 1888:617–631. For the view which confounds faith with assurance, see Alexander, Discourses on Faith, 63–118.

It is important to distinguish saving faith from assurance of faith, for the reason that lack of assurance is taken by so many real Christians as evidence that they know nothing of the grace of God. To use once more a well-worn illustration: It is getting into the boat that saves us, and not our comfortable feelings about the boat. What saves us is faith in Christ, not faith in our faith, or faith in the faith. The astronomer does not turn his telescope to the reflection of the sun or moon in the water, when he can turn it to the sun or moon itself. Why obscure our faith, when we can look to Christ?

The faith in a distant Redeemer was the faith of Christian, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Only at the end of his journey does Christian have Christ’s presence. This representation rests upon a wrong conception of faith as laying hold of a promise or a doctrine, rather than as laying hold of the living and present Christ. The old Scotch woman’s direction to the inquirer to “grip the promise” is not so good as the direction to “grip Christ.” Sir Francis Drake, the great English sailor, had for his crest an anchor with a cable running up into the sky. A poor boy, taught in a mission school in Ireland, when asked what was meant by saving faith, replied: “It is grasping God with the heart.”

The view of Charles Hodge, like that of Alexander, puts doctrine before Christ, and makes the formal principle, the supremacy of Scripture, superior to the material principle, justification by faith. The Shorter Catechism is better: “Faith in Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest on him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.” If this relation of faith to the personal Christ had been kept in mind, much religious despondency might have been avoided. Murphy, Natural Selection and Spiritual Freedom, 30, 31, tells us that Frances Ridley Havergal could never fix the date of her conversion. From the age of six to that of fourteen she suffered from religious fears, and did not venture to call herself a Christian. It was the result of confounding being at peace with God and being conscious of that peace. So the mother of Frederick Denison Maurice, an admirable and deeply religious woman, endured long and deep mental suffering from doubts as to her personal election.

There is a witness of the Spirit, with some sinners, that they are not children of God, and this witness is through the truth, though the sinner does not know that it is the Spirit who reveals it to him. We call this work of the Spirit conviction of sin. The witness of the Spirit that we are children of God, and the assurance of faith of which Scripture speaks, are one and the same thing, the former designation only emphasizing the source from which the assurance springs. False assurance is destitute of humility, but true assurance is so absorbed in Christ that self is forgotten. Self-consciousness, and desire to display one’s faith, are not marks of true assurance. When we say: “That man has a great deal of assurance,” we have in mind the false and self-centered assurance of the hypocrite or the self-deceiver.

Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 231—“It has been said that any one who can read Edwards’s Religious Affections, and still believe in his own conversion, may well have the highest assurance of its reality. But how few there were in Edwards’s time who gained the assurance, may be inferred from the circumstance that Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons, disciples of Edwards and religious leaders in New England, remained to the last uncertain of their conversion.” He can attribute this only to the semi-deistic spirit of the time, with its distant God and imperfect apprehension of the omnipresence and omnipotence of Christ. Nothing so clearly marks the practical progress of Christianity as the growing faith in Jesus, the only Revealer of God in nature and history as well as in the heart of the believer. As never before, faith comes directly to Christ, abides in him, and finds his promise true: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Mat. 28:20). “Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void and find The Rock beneath.”

(d) That faith necessarily leads to good works, since it embraces the whole truth of God so far as made known, and appropriates Christ, not only as an external Savior, but as an internal sanctifying power (Heb. 7:15, 16; Gal. 5:6).

Good works are the proper evidence of faith. The faith which does not lead men to act upon the commands and promises of Christ, or, in other words, does not lead to obedience, is called in Scripture a “dead,” that is, an unreal, faith. Such faith is not saving, since it lacks the voluntary element—actual appropriation of Christ (James 2:14–26).

Heb. 7:15, 16—“another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life”; Gal. 5:6—“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love”; James 2:14, 26—“What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? Can that faith save him?… For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.”

The best evidence that I believe a man’s word is that I act upon it. Instance the bank-cashier’s assurance to me that a sum of money is deposited with him to my account. If I am a millionaire, the communication may cause me no special joy. My faith in the cashier’s word is tested by my going, or not going, for the money. So my faith in Christ is evidenced by my acting upon his commands and promises. We may illustrate also by the lifting of the trolley to the wire, and the resulting light and heat and motion to the car that before stood dark and cold and motionless upon the track. Salvation by works is like getting to one’s destination by pushing the car. True faith depends upon God for energy, but it results in activity of all our powers. Rom. 3:28—“We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” We are saved only by faith, yet this faith will be sure to bring forth good works; see Gal. 5:6—“faith working through love.” Dead faith might be illustrated by Abraham Lincoln’s Mississippi steamboat, whose whistle was so big that, when it sounded, the boat stopped. Confession exhausts the energy, so that none is left for action.

A. J. Gordon, The First Thing in the World, or The Primacy of Faith: “David Brainard speaks with a kind of suppressed astonishment of what he observed among the degraded North American Indians; how, preaching to them the good news of salvation through the atonement of Christ and persuading them to accept it by faith, and then hastening on in his rapid missionary tours, he found, on returning upon his track a year or two later, that the fruits of righteousness and sobriety and virtue and brotherly love were everywhere visible, though it had been possible to impart to them only the slightest moral or ethical teaching.”

(e) That faith, as characteristically the inward act of reception, is not to be confounded with love or obedience, its fruit.

Faith is, in the Scriptures, called a work, only in the sense that man’s active powers are engaged in it. It is a work which God requires, yet which God enables man to perform (John 6:29 ἔργον τοῦ Θεοῦ. Cf. Rom. 1:17 δικαιοσύη Θεοῦ). As the gift of God and as the mere taking of undeserved mercy, it is expressly excluded from the category of works upon the basis of which man may claim salvation (Rom. 3:28; 4:4, 5, 16). It is not the act of the full soul bestowing, but the act of an empty soul receiving. Although this reception is prompted by a drawing of heart toward God inwrought by the Holy Spirit, this drawing of heart is not yet a conscious and developed love: such love is the result of faith (Gal. 5:6). What precedes faith is an unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God. Conscious and developed affection toward God, or love proper, must always follow faith and be the product of faith. So, too, obedience can be rendered only after faith has laid hold of Christ, and with him has obtained the spirit of obedience (Rom. 1:5—ὑπακοὴν πίστεως = “obedience resulting from faith”). Hence faith is not the procuring cause of salvation, but is only the instrumental cause. The procuring cause is the Christ, whom faith embraces.

John 6:29—“This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent”; cf. Rom. 1:17—“For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith”; Rom. 3:28—“We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law”; 4:4, 5, 16—“Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.… For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace”; Gal. 5:6—“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love”; Rom. 1:5—“through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations.”

Faith stands as an intermediate factor between the unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God inwrought in the soul by God’s regenerating act, on the one hand, and the conscious and developed affection toward God which is one of the fruits and evidences of conversion, on the other. Illustrate by the motherly instinct shown in a little girl’s care for her doll,—a motherly instinct which becomes a developed mother’s love, only when a child of her own is born. This new love of the Christian is an activity of his own soul, and yet it is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). To attribute it wholly to himself would be like calling the walking and leaping of the lame man (Acts 3:8) merely a healthy activity of his own. For illustration of the priority of faith to love, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:533, note; on the relation of faith to love, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:116, 117.

The logical order is therefore: 1. Unconscious and undeveloped love; 2. Faith in Christ and his truth; 3. Conscious and developed love; 4. Assurance of faith. Faith and love act and react upon one another. Each advance in the one leads to a corresponding advance in the other. But the source of all is in God. God loves, and therefore he gives love to us as well as receives love from us. The unconscious and undeveloped love which he imparts in regeneration is the root of all Christian faith. The Roman Catholic is right in affirming the priority of love to faith, if he means by love only this unconscious and undeveloped affection. But the Protestant is also right in affirming the priority of faith to love, if he means by love a conscious and developed affection. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 368—“Faith is not a mere passive receptivity. As the acceptance of a divine life, it involves the possession of a new moral energy. Faith works by love. In faith a new life-force is received, and new life-powers stir within the Christian man.”

We must not confound repentance with fruits meet for repentance, nor faith with fruits meet for faith. A. J. Gordon, The First Thing in the World: “Love is the greatest thing in the world, but faith is the first. The tree is greater than the root, but let it not boast: ‘if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee’ (Rom. 11:18). Love has no power to branch out and bear fruit, except as, through faith, it is rooted in Christ and draws nourishment from him. 1 Pet. 1:5—‘who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’; 1 Cor. 13:13—‘now abideth faith, hope, love’; Heb. 10:19–25—‘draw near.… in fulness of faith.… hold fast the confession of our hope.… provoke unto love and good works’; Rom. 5:1–5—‘justified by faith.… rejoice in hope.… love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts’; 1 Thess. 1:1, 2—‘work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope.’ Faith is the actinic ray, hope the luminiferous ray, love the calorific ray. But faith contains the principle of the divine likeness, as the life of the parent given to the child contains the principle of likeness to the father, and will insure moral and physical resemblance in due time.”

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 112—“ ‘The love of the Spirit’ (Rom. 15:30) is the love of the Spirit of Christ, and it is given us for overcoming the world. The divine life is the source of the divine love. Therefore the love of God is ‘shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us’ (Rom. 5:5). Because we are by nature so wholly without heavenly affection, God, through the indwelling Spirit, gives us his own love with which to love himself.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 286, 287, points out that in 2 Cor. 5:14—“the love of Christ constraineth us”—the love of Christ is “not our love to Christ, for that is a very weak and uncertain thing; nor even Christ’s love to us, for that is still something external to us. Each of these leaves a separation between Christ and us, and fails to act as a moving power within.… Not simply our love to Christ, nor simply Christ’s love to us, but rather Christ’s love in us, is the love that constrains. This is the thought of the apostle.” The first fruit of this love, in its still unconscious and undeveloped state, is faith.

(f) That faith is susceptible of increase.

This is evident, whether we consider it from the human or from the divine side. As an act of man, it has an intellectual, an emotional, and a voluntary element, each of which is capable of growth. As a work of God in the soul of man, it can receive, through the presentation of the truth and the quickening agency of the Holy Spirit, continually new accessions of knowledge, sensibility, and active energy. Such increase of faith, therefore, we are to seek, both by resolute exercise of our own powers, and above all, by direct application to the source of faith in God (Luke 17:5).

Luke 17:5—“And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.” The adult Christian has more faith than he had when a child,—evidently there has been increase. 1 Cor. 12:8, 9—“For to one is given throngh the Spirit the word of wisdom.… to another faith, in the same Spirit;” In this latter passage, it seems to be intimated that for special exigencies the Holy Spirit gives to his servants special faith, so that they are enabled to lay hold of the general promise of God and make special application of it. Rom. 8:26, 27—“the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity.… maketh intercession for us.… maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God”; 1 John 5:14, 15—“And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.” Only when we begin to believe, do we appreciate our lack of faith, and the great need of its increase. The little beginning of light makes known the greatness of the surrounding darkness. Mark 9:24—“I believe; help thou mine unbelief”—was the utterance of one who recognized both the need of faith and the true source of supply.

On the general subject of Faith, see Köstlin, Die Lehre von dem Glauben, 13–85, 301–341, and in Jahrbuch f.d. Theol., 4:177 sq.; Romaine on Faith, 9–89; Bishop of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 1–40; Venn, Characteristics of Belief, Introduction; Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doct., 294.