Faith
In the opening chapter I explained how the cardinal virtues came to be reckoned as seven. The idea of cardinal virtues belongs to the ancient world, as it existed before the appearance of Christianity; but the classical thinkers counted only four — wisdom, courage, temperance and justice — the four already discussed. But Christianity, when it appeared, gave the foremost places among the virtues, not to these four which were the choice of the philosophers, but to the three well known to every reader of the New Testament — faith, hope and love. It was much later, after Christians also had begun to be philosophers, that the ancient quartette and the Christian trio were joined, so as to produce the seven virtues as we now think of them.
Few things indicate more clearly how great was the change effected by Christianity on the thinking of the world than the fact that it adopted an entirely new set of virtues; for virtues are simply excellences of manhood. The change indicates that the type of man which Christianity tries to produce is radically different from that aimed at by pagan philosophy; and some one has truly said, that the final test of every human system or institution is the kind of man it produces.
It might be argued, indeed, that Christianity did not change the virtues, but only altered their names. Thus, it might be maintained, with some show of reason, that faith is simply wisdom under another name, that hope is to a large extent identical with courage, and that love has a considerable resemblance to justice. But, while in each of these cases there is a certain likeness, the unlikeness is more obvious, and we must, I think, conclude, that Christianity taught mankind to admire a different set of excellences from those set up for the admiration of the ancient world, and that the man it strives to form is a man of a different type. I may be reminded, indeed, that Christianity has adopted the pagan virtues as its own; and this is true; but it has adopted them in addition to its own; and the three new ones are its own choice in a sense in which the four old ones are not.
It is not, indeed, to be thought that Christianity created these three virtues: it is not to be thought that human beings did not exercise faith, hope and love before Christianity appeared. Man has always been a being who has believed and hoped and loved. But what Christianity did was to recognise the value and importance of these mental acts or habits; and it supplied them with new objects on which to exercise their powers. Faith, hope and love are the tap-roots of the plant we call man, but Christianity transplanted the tree into new soil.
Of the three distinctly Christian or theological virtues, as they are sometimes called, the first is Faith.
In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where we find the most express definition of faith given in Holy Writ — it being defined as ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ’ — a brilliant attempt is made to represent the whole history of religion as a process of which faith has been the inspiring principle. The heroes of the Old Testament are made to march past in long procession, their exploits are enumerated, and in every case these are attributed to faith, as if this had been the power which produced religion and all its manifestations. In the New Testament, in general, faith occupies a foremost place, and especially in the writings of St. Paul. The apostles were all sensible that in Christ a great new force had entered the world, and faith was the element in man by which it was appropriated. When in modern times, after centuries of observation, Christianity was re-discovered at the Reformation and preached afresh to the nations by Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the other reformers, faith again became the watchword, and it was through the reappearance of this virtue in men’s breasts and in their characters that the rejuvenescence of Europe took place.
After that great movement subsided, a stage of development ensued in which faith became an object of speculation more than a living power. Men inquired about its nature and disputed with one another about the elements of which it is composed. Thus many strange opinions came to prevail, some of which hang, like cobwebs, about the general mind to this day. Thus in the eighteenth century, when religion was at the lowest ebb in England and Scotland, faith was understood to be the habit of taking on credit dogmas which the mind could not understand, and this submission to the authority of the Bible or the Church was supposed to be exceedingly meritorious. But anything more unlike faith, as it is represented in the Bible or as it has prevailed in the heroic periods of religion, it would be difficult to conceive. If in the mind of the reader there still linger any remains of the notion that faith is a shutting of the eyes of reason and a blind trusting to authority, I advise you to sweep such rubbish out of your thoughts. Religion wants to shut no man’s eyes: its mission is to open them.
It was in opposition to that view of faith that the Evangelical doctrine Vas developed in which most of us were brought up. In Evangelical preaching faith held a very prominent and honourable place. Those who can remember the more earnest type of preaching prevalent a generation ago will easily recall the frequency of the appeal, ‘Only believe, and you shall be saved.’ But there was a tendency to narrow faith to a single point and to restrict it to a single act, namely, trust in the sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sin. But, however important this may be, it is far from expressing the whole genius of faith. If you go back to a character like Luther and listen to him speaking about faith, as he was incessantly doing, you realise that in him it was the bursting forth of a spring of energy, which spread sunshine and fruitfulness over the entire landscape; it was a habit of the whole man, the action of which kept all the functions healthy and happy. Faith is wronged when it is conceived as something demanded of us on pain of perdition; it is the most natural, the most health-giving and joy-giving of all experiences.
If I might attempt a definition of faith, I should be inclined to call it the response of man to God — to His revelations, His promises, and His offers.
I. — THE RESPONSE TO GOD’S
REVELATIONS
As has been already said, faith did not come into the world with Christianity, and it is not even peculiar to religion. Faith is a human function, which every human being is exercising every day in regard to multitudes of objects. Whatever lies beyond the range of our own immediate observation is an object of faith. How do those of us who have never been out of Europe know that such places as Africa, Asia and America exist? It is by believing the testimony of those F who have been there; or it is by seeing objects, like black faces or white ivory, not produced in this country, and inferring that there must be other continents besides Europe from which they come. Our knowledge of all the events which have happened in this world before our own generation is due to faith: we believe the testimony of those who have placed them on record. And all our knowledge of what is taking place in the world of our own day, except that which is cognis able by our own five senses, is obtained in the same way — by testimony, which we accept by faith.
Thus it may be seen how vast is the sweep of faith, and how large a part it plays in everyday life. Of course, testimony has to be sifted. It is not all worthy of belief; some of it is true and some false; and it is the part of a wise man to sever the wheat from the chaff, believing only that which is deserving of credence.
Now, among the various testimonies which come to us from many quarters, inviting us to believe in the existence of things we have never seen, there is the testimony of God, certifying to us His own existence and His character. His testimony takes many forms. Partly it is in His works — ‘the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and godhead ’ — partly it is in His providence, for we know that we have not brought our selves into existence, and that the sweetness of life which we taste is not of our own procuring; partly it is in conscience, where a holy and righteous will, above our own, is daily announcing itself. We are quite entitled to test these evidences; this is our prerogative as reasonable beings. But, if they stand the test, then this Supreme Being is entitled to the homage of our soul — to our admiration, trust and worship — and this is faith.
Have you ever thought what a change it would make if you believed with all your heart and soul and strength and mind that God is? This one belief would alter everything. Some may even think that it would change too much: if we realised God as He really is, we could think of no thing else. This I do not admit. The thought of God should be to the rest of our thinking like the sky to the other objects of the landscape — always there, blue, serene, unifying. In His presence, constantly and steadily realised, everything would find its right place; it would be easy to do proper and difficult to do wrong. In fact, the problem of life would be solved. Alas, we lose sight of Him: earthly objects shut Him out; we often do not even wish to retain Him in our knowledge because of the im perativeness of His claims on our conscience. But it is the office of faith to overcome this godlessness, saying, in the words of the psalm, ‘I have set the Lord alway before me.’
II. — THE RESPONSE TO GOD’S
PROMISES
God does not merely stand at a distance, silently appealing to man through His works: He comes near and speaks in intelligible words; and His words are promises.
It will be remembered how large a part was played by the divine promises in the experience of Abraham, the father of the faith ful. God promised him a land and a seed and a blessing; and the faith of Abraham was exhibited in laying hold of these promises. In order to do so, he had to let the world go — for the abandonment of things prized by the natural heart is always involved in the grasping of those things to which faith applies itself — but he steadily followed the star of the promise wherever it led him. Among the successors of Abraham, this cleaving to a divine promise through good and bad report, through fair weather and foul, was so prominent a characteristic of faith that the writer of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews sums up their biographies in the words, ‘These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.’ And at all times the life of faith is one of response to the promises. These are contained in the Word of God. The reading of God’s Word is one of the most native habits of a Christian life; and the traffic which the soul thereby keeps up with God consists to a large extent in appropriating the promises.
But the great promise to which faith attaches itself is that of the life to come. Of immortality man has dim intimations apart from special revelation; and some thinkers, like Socrates and Plato, before the advent of Christ and apart from the Bible, followed such natural light as was vouchsafed to them with a wistful and noble eagerness. But it is in the Word of God that the unveiling of the life to come has taken place, and especially in the words of Jesus Himself, who has spoken to us distinctly of the mansions intended for our future habitation as one who has been there and is familiar with them. It is, therefore, to His blessed words, above all others, that faith responds, when it rises up to claim possession of its heritage.
This action of faith, also, has to overcome obstacles. Not only may doubt arise as to whether even the testimony of Christ is credible, but the things that are temporal engross our time and attention, and, above all, we shrink in cowardice from the kind of life imperatively demanded of us if we really have an immortal destiny. Who does not feel that it would change everything if he believed with his whole soul in his own immortality? It would supply him with a totally new standard of values: many things which the world prizes and pursues he would utterly despise, and many things which the world neglects would be the objects of his most ardent pursuit. The world to come, because invisible, is to the multitude as good as non-existent: but it may shine as attractively before the eyes of the soul for a lifetime as the prize does for a moment in the eyes of the competitor in the games; and this passionate response to God’s grandest promise is faith.
III. — THE RESPONSE TO
GOD’S OFFERS
It may seem a little forced to distinguish between God’s promises and His offers; and I will not deny the charge, if any one chooses to bring it; but I make the distinction in order to emphasise the personal element in God’s dealings with us. He comes nearer to us than even a promise brings Him: Person to person, He makes us offers.
His grand offer is His Son, whom He offers to the world as its Saviour. This world is full of sin and misery, and it is in desperate need of some one to save it from these evils. Reformers and theorists are not wanting. The world is like an invalid with a disease of many years’ standing, who has tried many physicians and spent much money on them, but is nothing better, but rather growing worse. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? God Himself comes to the rescue, and His remedy is nothing less than His own Son.
It is only expressing the same truth in another form if we say that Christ offers Himself to every man. When a human go SEVEN CARDINAL VIRTUES
being feels himself to be a sinner, condemned by justice and exposed to the loss of his destiny, then he feels the value of the offer of a Saviour. But even one not so ripe for salvation as this might be awakened to the true position of affairs by the mere fact that a Saviour is offered to him. As a person who has been in an accident, on awaking and seeing in the bedroom doctors, nurses and weeping relatives, be comes aware that something serious has happened; so a thoughtful man, realising that Christ is offering Himself to him as his Saviour, might well ask, why he needs such an offer. The Son of God, it is said, gave His life for me; but how did I stand in need of such a sacrifice? what have I done that I should require an atonement to be made for me at such a price? what danger am I exposed to from which the Son of God should have become incarnate to deliver me? Along such a line of reflection any one might come to realise the value of Christ. Who does not acknowledge that the life and death of Christ form the mightiest event that ever happened in this world? The Son of God incarnate! the Son of God dead upon the cross! What, then, is that to me? what am I getting out of it? Christ is not dead, He is living still. With all that history at His back, He comes to me and offers Himself as my Saviour. And, when my soul rises in humility and timid gratitude to accept the offer, feeling it to be the greatest chance I shall ever have in time or eternity, this is faith.
In this chapter I have been less desirous of giving an exact definition of faith than of commending it as an act or habit to be acquired; and, in conclusion, I should like, with the same end in view, to mention one form of faith that lends itself to easy cultivation. If any one is unaware how to begin to exercise faith, the easiest form of it is prayer. This is a response to God’s revelation of Himself; for he who cometh to God in prayer must believe that He is. It is a response to God’s promises, for one of the principal arts of prayer is to plead the promises. And it is a response to God’s offers: the best way of replying to Christ’s offer of Himself is to speak to Him, and this is prayer. A single genuine prayer, and the life of faith is begun; and we have God’s own word for it, that ’ whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’