These little ones which believe. A plea for early baptism

Front matter

Class i^^LJi_L5

Book..

Ji^

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Faith 9

II. Misconceptions 17

Chapter I. Faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. — Hebrews xi. 1.

What is faith? Few questions have been so frequently asked or so often answered. And the reason is that in the fields of rehgious inquiry no question is of greater importance. Sometimes faith has been defined as a faculty. Sometimes as a sixth sense, by means of which spiritual realities are known. Sometimes it has been regarded as the verbal equivalent of belief. Indeed, the definitions that have from time to time been given of faith are both multitudinous and widely different.

Nor ought this to surprise us. Some things because of their very nature are indefinable. Such 1* (9)

a thing is love. Definitions of love may serve to enlarge our conceptions of its real nature, but it is not within the power of speech to tell all that love is. Love is always something greater than any definition can make it. John tells us that ' ' Love is of God" and that God Himself is love. And these facts place it beyond the limits of any possible definition. It is so with faith. It persistently refuses to be circumscribed by the limits of definitions, and is always something greater, higher, wider, deeper than words can make it. The greatest thinker, however gifted in conception or facile in speech, in the attempt to tell what faith is must at last lay aside his pen and acknowledge that it is vastly more than he has or can describe it as being. No doubt the best definition of faith that has ever been given is the one given by Paul — ^^Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ' ' But who can tell us the full meaning even of these words ?

For these reasons the term faith has been used in almost every conceivable sense. The superstition of the African or Hindoo, the belief of the savage in charms and incantations, have sometimes

FAITH. 11

been spoken of as faith. The confidence which enables the astronomer to await with calm certainty the verifications of his mathematical computations has also been spoken of as faith. Columbus directing his caravels westward over an unknown sea, assured that the evidences of the existence of a western land were entirely trustworthy, has frequently been cited as an illustrious example of faith. The certainty of a fixed order in nature which moves the husbandman to sow his fields, confident of a harvest ; Abraham, denying the instincts of fatherhood, binding his son upon the altar, in the firm belief that God would raise him up ; the little child going out into the night, with its hand in that of its father and on that account fearing no evil, each and all are but a few instances which might be given of the wide and diversified uses to which the term faith has been and is at present applied. No doubt, in each of these instances, faith in some form is present ; perhaps in every act of belief faith in the lesser ranges of its activity is operative. But belief, however firm, so long as it involves merely the intellect, is not Scriptural faith. The belief of the husbandman in the fixed order of nature never rises to the dignity of faith, for at best it but prompts to toilj looking for seed-time and harvest. The confidence with which the astronomer looks into the heavens, doubting not that his carefully computed tables will be verified in the onward march of the heavenly bodies, is not the thing of which the writer of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews so eloquently speaks. Even the intellectual conviction that rests upon abstract truth as its basis is not one in nature with evangelical faith. The invariable characteristic of such faith, a characteristic by which it is distinguished from all else that may bear the name, is that it alone rests on a personal being, whom it beholds back of all and in His righteousness and truth finds the ground of its certitude.

And this is to say that in the Scriptures the term faith is used in a specific sense and carries with it a meaning that it does not possess in secular literature or in common speech. Nor is this exceptional. Terms descriptive of spiritual realities seldom if ever have or can have a fixed meaning. Their meaning varies with the subject treated and the conceptions of the author who uses them, and the meaning that any such term may have in

FAITH. 13

any instance is to be determined in the light of the subject treated and the thought which it is designed to express. Even the famihar term, hght, has not always the same meaning. As used in common speech and by the untrained, it stands for the absense of darkness. But as used by the scientist, in its strictly scientific sense, it may have no relation to darkness at all, for when the scientist speaks of light he thinks not of darkness, but of the pulsations of ether, for his superior knowledge has taught him that the absence of darkness is but an accident that may or may not attend the presence of light. In determining, therefore, the meaning of the terms, we need to be in touch with both the thought of the writer and the subject of which he is speaking.

And this is pre-eminently true in respect of the term faith. As used by inspired writers and in the discussion of themes purely spiritual, it carries with it a meaning other than any that it may possess in uninspired poetry or secular Hterature. It could not be otherwise. Either new words must be coined or old terms used in other than their ordinary sense when themes spiritual and eternal become the subject of discussion. But the theme of the New Testament is specitic and altogether miique. Its writers are not, in the ordinary sense, either scientists, historians, or philosophers. Xor are the themes which they set forth the same as those that make up the subject matter of secular thought and literature. The single theme of the Scriptures is : God's plan for saving man. Its history traces the special line of God's action, continued through time, looking to that end. From first to last the Bible is a record of God's gracious action among men, continued in the course of history through the ages until it culminates in the great revelation of God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself through His death upon the cross. And this truth must not be lost sight of for a moment. The habit of thinking of the Scriptures as merely a revelation of truths, or doctrines, or precepts recorded in a book, has done immense harm. It has always, when persisted in, tended to arrest the thought so that it stops short, and is in danger of resting on the book with its propositions and doctrines instead of passing through these to the hving God. The Bible is not an ai^senal of proof texts, or a repository of doctrines, or even a collection of

FAITH. 15

precepts and rules for the government of the Ufe. It is not, except in a secondary sense, even a revelation of truth. From Genesis to the Apocalypse of John it is a revelation of a personal God as an All- wise. All-loving, and All-righteous Being, and contains a disclosure of the relations into which, through Christ, He desires to bring all men with Himself. It is, therefore, in the light of the subject treated and a knowledge of the thought which the inspired writers are aiming to convey, that we are to determine the meaning of the term faith as used in the Scriptures. What faith in its ordinary sense may be or what it may help man to achieve in things secular and temporal are of no concern to the inspired writers. Dealing with things spiritual and eternal a new and enlarged meaning is given to the term, and the question for us to determine is. What conception had they of faith and what would they have us regard it as being ?

There is a belief that it is mere intellectual assent founded on evidence that satisfies the mind, or, if direct evidence is wanting, on the testimony of someone who knows. When the act of believing is represented as a Christian duty and privilege, these inferior forms of belief are too easily accepted as suflacient. But faith is not mere intellectual assent — it is not mere belief on testimony. It is not even the intellectual acceptance as true of what God has said. Faith is not faith without the element of personal confidence, self-commitment — trust. — Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology, page 357.

Chapter II. Misconceptions

Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble, — James xi. 19.

We have just been saying that the term faith when used in its evangelical sense possesses a specific meaning. In its nature Christian faith is mi genesis. Whether regarded in the light of its origin, of the object upon whom it lays hold, or considered from the standpoint of the work that it accomplishes, it stands alone and unique. And this is so, because it is Christian faith. It is characteristic of the religion of Christ that it exalts everything with which it is brought into relation. In the realm of experience it perpetually repeats the miracle of Cana — changing the ordinary into the extraordinary, turning the common water of earth into wine. And what it does in the realm of experience it does in respect of our powers ; all find in this religion their normal field of activity and for this reason also their highest development.

It is SO with the power of faith. Christ tells us that it is the gift of God. And being His gift, it has not only its specific purpose, but finds in this purpose its perfect Ufe. If the life of the body were all, if life were no more than meat or the body than raiment, the gift of faith would not be needed. The instinct that makes it possible for the bird to secure its food, that teaches it to build its nest and guides it in its unerring flight from ^^zone to zone," would have served every purpose of man. It is because his destiny is beyond, because God is his home, because the things for which he has been created and with which he needs to be brought into vital touch are unseen and eternal, that he needs faith. For these purposes and for these alone has faith been given, and in the working out of these purposes do we see it in the Scriptures. Instead, therefore, of the usual inquiry, ' ' What is faith ? " we must substitute the more specific question, ' ' What is Christian faith ? ' '

Let us hasten to own that Christian faith is not mere intellectual assent to any truths as such. Possibly, in the case of the immature Christian, faith may rise but little above the assent of the intellect to truths put in verbal form. But even then, such assent is secondary and subordinate. Upon truths alone, faith cannot lay hold with the full power of its Ufe or derive from them the necessary stimulus for the accompUshment of its divine task. It accomplishes its higher and truer work when it unites the behever with Christ, and through such union makes him partaker of the divine Hfe. In the nature of the case simple assent to creeds or systems cannot be the appointed work of Christian faith. It is not truths that save, but the Truth. ^^ I,'' says Christ, ^^ am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." After all, the highest expression of truth is the Perfect Person. Jesus not only gave utterance to truths. He Himself was ' ^ the Truth ' ' in its concrete and essential form. Systems may contain truth. Truth may find its expression in creeds, but it is the personal Truth who alone has power to save. The failure to recognize this has done and is yet doing untold harm. It has forced Christ into the background — has divided Christendom into a multitude of warring sects, zealous indeed for truths, but too often losing sight of the personal Truth, Christ Jesus, in whom all believers are to be made one, even as He and the Father are One.

It cannot be stated too plainly, or with too great insistence, that it is not truths wrought in creeds or confessions that become the true object of saving faith, but the personal Truth, even Jesus. In the Apostles' Creed we have what is without doubt the most concise and generally accepted of all the confessions of the church. So really is it an epitome of the great truths of the word of God, as that, having studied the New Testament, it becomes impossible to formulate its teachings without using the terms of this oldest of the confessions. Yet it is possible to assent to each of its statements, and yet be devoid of faith. No doubt every article of this confession is true. Every such article confessedly rests solidly on the word of God. But truths alone, and as such, are not the basis of saving faith.

It is at this point that we need clearly to distinguish. Truths, even the truths of the Scriptures, are not the object of Christian faith. Even the Bible, if not rightly conceived, may become a vain object of belief. The moment it is regarded as a revelation of truths that are to be believed, to the saving of the soul, it becomes a false anchorage. He who though sometimes unrecognized.

but who yet lives and moves on every page of the inspired word, He who is the true content of the Scriptures, must be laid hold of, for until the soul finds Him it misses the very kernel of the Scriptures on the side of its saving revelations. Appropriate here are the words of Prof. L. F. Stears, in his recent book, entitled ^^The Evidence of Christian Experience. ' ' He says : ^ ^ A very common definition makes faith intellectual assent to the truth of certain doctrines. But while faith may involve such assent, this is secondary and subordinate. The rationalistic tendency, so manifest in the theology of the last century, nowhere comes more plainly to light than in this definition, inherited as it is from the Roman Catholic Church. It reduces the most sacred and spiritual act of religious life to a matter of intellectual acceptance. Neither is faith a conviction of the reahty of what is unseen. The belief of the man of science in the existence of atoms and energy and ether, which he cannot see, may be a kind of faith, but it is not the kind which we have in our analysis of the Christian experience. It resembles Christian faith in so far as both are concerned with a region beyond the discovery of sense. But that is all.

In their essence the two kinds of faith are radically different, in correspondence'* with the difference of the two spheres to which they belong. Christian faith is a much simpler matter. It is the act of trust in God by which we receive and trust Jesus Christ alone for salvation."

And so, too, a knowledge of the historic Christ — a knowledge of all that He did and said — may be possessed and faith still be wanting. Without question, the scribes and Pharisees knew more of the outward, the historic, Christ than do we. Of most of the audiences to which Christ spoke, they formed a part. Persistently they followed Him from place to place as He made the tours of His earthly ministry. They crowded themselves with utter immodesty into the seclusion even of His private life. They were witnesses of most, if not all, of His miracles. They also knew the teaching of the prophets concerning His coming, and how completely in Him these prophesies were fulfilled. They were witnesses of His shameful trial, and around His cross they stood, beholding the darkness at mid-day. They were witnesses of the earthquake and the mighty happenings in testimony of the divinity of the One who there gave up His life. Nor were they ignorant of His resurrection, on the morning of the third day, for it was these very men who conceived and put into the mouths of the watchers beside the tomb the he concerning the steahng of His body by the disciples. None, not even the intimate associates of Jesus, knew better than did the Pharisees the minutest detail of Christ's claims and history, for no eyes are so keen as those of hate. And, knowing these facts, they also believed them. For the mind has no choice between believing and disbelieving what is known to be true. But, knowing all these things, they were without Christian faith. The intellect, constrained by evidence that could not be disputed, was convinced, and, as a consequence, belief was engendered, but the heart, without which no one can believe ^^unto righteousness," refused to love, and the faith which is ' ' wrought by love ' ' remained unborn.

To contend, therefore, that a system of truth must first be mastered before faith can come into being is to betray ignorance, both of the nature of faith and also of the relation of faith to knowledge in the experience of men.

It is against this error that Martensen protests in these earnest words, ^ ^ If we hold fast the truth that salvation is an individual thing and yet are not satisfied with simple faith in the Redeemer as the ground for our salvation, we shall be in danger of reposing in a certain set of propositions, trusting that if we hold them we may be indifferent to everything else." So also said the thoughtful Julius MuUer, ^ ' We must regard the conviction that the faith which saves does not consist in the adoption of a series of articles of faith, but in an absolute and trustful surrender of one's self to the personal Saviour, a surrender of which the simplest child is capable."

So, likewise. Dr. Jacobs in his '^Elements of Religion : " ^ ' Faith has its intellectual side ; but it is not mere assent to any doctrine or to any number of doctrines. It is essentially a matter of the heart and will. It is the sinking of my will into God's will, the harmonizing of my heart with God's heart."

We never will get right on the question of evangelical faith until we accept, without reserve or qualification, the truth that ^^with the heart," and not with the head, man believeth unto righteousness. The question as to the existence of faith in any given case can never be determined by an inquiry into the degree of intellectual knowledge that may be possessed, nor is the presence of such faith in the heart conditioned on either age or experience. 2

The object of faith is Christ in the totahty of His person, not merely a particular work or suffering of Christ, still less the fruits thereof. Faith enters into a substantial, mystical union with the whole person. — Dorner.

Chapter III. The Object Of Faith

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. — Acts xvi. 31.

Since faith is a living thing and since its seat is the heart, a study of its object logically precedes a study of its nature. Experience proves that different objects are known by means of different faculties. Thus ideas appeal specifically and primarily to the intellect. To the mind they become objects in a sense that they do not and cannot to the sense or to the heart. On the other hand, material qualities appeal more particularly to the sense. Weight, color hardness, indeed all the various phenomena of matter, are known through the sense and become objects to no other knowing power of man. The heart also has its specific objects. The heart helps us little in the solution of purely intellectual questions, and it is just as helpless in making known to us material qualities. Its distinctive realm is that of the spiritual and the personal. Whatever belongs to the realm of the personal and spiritual becomes an object to the heart, for the reason that by the heart these realities can best be known.

Accordingly, when once the object apprehended is known, it becomes easy for us to locate the particular faculty or power by which it is apprehended. It is, therefore, for the sake of the light that the inquiry touching the object of faith throws on the nature of faith itself that we here consider it. What, then, is the object of Christian faith ? We have tried to make it clear that it is not a set of propositions. That truths, even the truths of God's word, are not the object of saving faith. To have read the Scriptures, however carelessly, is to have learned that Christ, and Christ alone, is the object, the true content, of Christian faith. It is not truths, therefore, but a person that is laid hold of in every saving outreach of the soul.

It is true that we sometimes speak of faith in God's word. We endeavor for certain reasons to stimulate in ourselves and in others faith in the promises. But neither the word nor the promises can be the true or ultimate object of evangelical

THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 29

faith. We speak of faith in the promises because in practical experience it is impossible at all times to use language in strict accordance with the facts, for, in a subordinate sense, faith does rest upon the promises. It is unfortunate that the English word ' ' faith ' ' has no cognate verb, but is dependent for such companionship upon the dissimilar verb ' ^ believe. " If it were possible to coin an appropriate word — a word that would express the true action of faith — we would be vastly richer for the purpose of expression. We would then not be compelled to speak of faith in the promises at the moment when we desire to express simply our belief in them. Nevertheless, with speech as it is, we recognize that it is only in a secondary and subordinate sense that one can have faith in the promises. A moment's reflection will bring anyone to see that even here faith must ultimately rest upon Christ. It is faith in Him, confidence in His integrity, that inspires confidence in His promises. It is because He is ' ' faithful who has promised ' ' that we regard the promises as trustworthy. We do not believe certain promises because we have no confidence in the person who made them. We do place implicit reliance in the promises of others because we have confidence in the persons by whom such promises have been made. Confidence in the man gives confidence in the promise. And so in respect of the promises of Christ. His integrity, His trustworthiness. His absolute righteousness, make it impossible that He should deceive. It is, therefore, upon Him that we at least rest, even when we think that we are resting upon His promises. First and last, the object of faith is Christ. It is in this fact that the essential distinction between the religion of Jesus and every other consists. It alone rests upon the personal relationship of the disciple with the Master. Wherever this idea has been departed from, Christianity has lost its power. And so on the contrary, in the precise measure that this truth has been kept in the foreground, has the Christian religion become a transfiguring and all-conquering power. Out of devotion to Jesus have arisen all those enduring forms of heroism that have glorified the history of the church. ' ' For His sake ' ' His disciples have deemed it a privilege to live in solitude and in dungeons, and rejoiced to lay down their lives at the stake. No trial has been too

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great for the sake of " the name." And it is this devotion to Jesus that has ever irradiated the private experience of the Christian with the brightness of Sonship. ^^To me," says Paul, summarizing his rehgion, ' ' to hve is Christ, and to die is gain," for that too is to depart and to be with Him.

Nor is that all. Recognizing that no man hath life in himself, that we live alone as we live in Him, dependent, even as the branch is dependent upon the vine, the believer chngs to Christ as his only hope. First and last, the personal relationship of the behever to Jesus is the essence of the religion He inaugurated. ^^Come unto me, all ye that weary and are heavy laden," are His words to the sin-burdened. ' ' I am the vine, ye are the branches. " ^ ^ He that believeth in me ' ' is the familiar phrase in which He expresses the condition of the new life which He is ever willing to communicate. The personal, ever-hving Christ is pre-eminently the object, yea, the only object, of Christian faith.

But this Christ, revealed that we might both know and believe on Him, is the historic Christ. Not a creation of the imagination or one who may be known apart from His word and the operation of the Holy Spirit, but the Christ of Bethlehem, of Calvary, and of the tomb. ' ' The one who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, who suffered and was buried, and the third day arose again for our justification." No other Christ is known in the Scriptures, for besides Him there is no other. He alone has power to save ; and this Christ, in all that for which He stands, is the object of saving faith.

But in determining the object of faith we have also determined the estimate that is to be put upon creeds and confessions. Their value is to be estimated by the help that they afford to a better understanding of Christ and His saving work. Apart from this they have no value. The Christ confessed in the creed, and not the creed, is the essential thing. What the alpenstock is to the traveler in the mountains, affording in slippery places a means of safety as he climbs upward toward the summit, this creed and doctrine are to the believer. They afford safety to the believer

THE OBJECT OF FAITH. 33

amid the perils to which everyone, however he may flatter himself to the contrary, is constantly exposed in his religious thinking. They put in simple form the saving truths upon which no one dare even for a moment loose his hold. In this light have creeds been regarded by the church. But back of all, eclipsing all, giving meaning to all, is the personal Christ in whom alone faith is to rest. 2^

Faith is a moment in the idea of love. — Julius Muller.

Trust, or faith, is a manifestation of love. Faith, or trust, is the primary manifestation of love to the heavenly- Father as it is of a child's love to its earthly father. — Prof. Harris, God the Creator and Lord of All, page 326.

That which saves the soul is faith, not belief. God demands the heart of man, because the heart once gained and changed all the rest follows, while the gift of all the rest without the heart is only seeming and leaves the man in his first estate. — Auguste Sabatier, Religions of Authority , page 335.

Chapter IV. Love And Faith

Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is of God and knoweth God.—l John iv. 7.

Between love and Christian faith there is a most intimate connection ; indeed, neither can exist without the other. In the seventh chapter of Luke, Christ identifies the two. It was Mary's love to Him that poured itself out in the ointment with which she anointed His feet, and it was her trust in Him that secured the forgiveness of her sins. Speaking to Simon, Christ says of Mary, ^ ^ Her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. ' ' A moment later, addressing Mary, He said, ' ^ Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace. ' ' To us, seeing as we do through a glass darkly, love and faith seem to be distinct reahties, but to Him, who was able to look into the heart and trace things to their source, they were regarded as one. And yet, if the object of saving faith is, as we have just learned, a person and not a truth, a spiritual being and not a system of thought, it could not be otherwise.

It hardly needs to be proven that a person, and by that term we mean all for which it rightly stands, cannot become an object to either the reason or the sense. It is to the affections, to that realm of our nature spoken of in the Scriptures as ^ ' the heart," to which a person, in smy true sense, can become an object. We have just been saying that different objects are known by us in different ways. The faculty that brings us into relation with one is powerless to bring us into relation with another and a different set .of objects. Before the universe man stands a complex being, striving to know the things that are about him. Roughly these realities may be classified as material, mental, and spiritual. But the facts belonging to each of these separate classes are known by different perceptive powers. We know material things through the sense. They cannot be known by the mind as they are. We lay hold of ideas, the great thoughts with which the universe is inwrought, by the mind. Without the faculty of thought, ideas expressed in nature or on a printed page could not be known. And so the heart also has its specific objects that it makes known. Realities, unperceived by the intellect and unknown by the sense, are revealed to the heart. Distinctively it is the organ of spiritual knowledge. By it we know personalities. Being itself the essence of personality, it is to the heart alone that a person can be revealed. As reason in the world speaks to reason in man, as sensuous objects speak to the sense, so the spiritual, which is the true essence of personality, speaks to the heart, and no one really knows another until he loves him. And this is the place to say that, as an organ of spiritual knowledge, we have made too little of the heart. Indeed, it is doubtful if we rightly know anything except through love. In all our education and intercourse we find again and again that love sees furthest, hears quickest, feels deepest. Nature says, ^ ' If any man love me, I will manifest myself unto him. ' ' But she is speechless to the heart in which there is no response. Two men walk along the same road ; the one sees nothing of beauty, hears nothing of music. The other hears voices which linger in his ear. The wayside flower speaks to him its tender message, and the whole scene is as the distinct handwriting of the Creator. Wherein is the difference ? It is this : the one loves nature, and nature takes him into her confidence and speaks to him her deepest spiritual secrets. The other cares not for nature, and natures cares nothing for him.