16. What is the specific evidence upon which saving faith is founded ?
This is the light let into the soul by the Holy Ghost in his work of spiritual illumination. Thus is the beauty, and excel- lence, and the suitableness of the truth to the practical wants of the subject apprehended. With this the witness of the Holy Ghost with and by the truth cooperates, 1 Cor. ii., 4, 5 ; Rom., viii., 16 ; 2 Cor. iv., 6 ; Eph. ii., 8.
17. How may it be proved from Scripture and experience that spiritual illumination is the ground of saving faith t
1st. The Scriptures, wherever they come, make a demand un- conditional, immediate, and universal upon the most intelligent and the most ignorant alike, that they should be received and believed, and unbelief is always charged as sin, and not as mere ignorance or mental incapacity. The faith which they demand must, therefore, be a moral act, and must depend upon the spirit- ual congeniality of the believer with the truth.
2d. By nature men are spiritually blind, and subjects of an " evil heart of unbelief," 2 Cor. iii., 14; iv., 4.
3d. Believers are said to be enlightened, and to discern the
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things of the Spirit, Acts xiii., 48 ; 2 Cor. iv.; 6 ; Eph. i., 17, 18 ; 1 John iL, 20, 27 ; v., 9, 10.
4th. Men believe because they are taught of God, John vi., 44, 45.
5th. Every Christian is conscious of believing, because he sees the truth believed to be true, lovely, powerful, and satisfy- ing.
6th. This is proved by the effects of faith. " We are said to live by faith, to be sanctified by faith, to overcome by faith, to be saved by faith. Blind consent to authority, or rational con- viction, produce no such effects ; if the effects are spiritual, the source must be also spiritual."
18. What are the different opinions as to the relation between faith and trust ?
In consequence of their doctrine of implicit faith, that nothing is required beyond blind assent to the teachings of the church, Komanists necessarily deny that trust enters into the essence of saving faith.
The Sandemanians, as the Campbellites, holding that faith is a mere affirmative judgment of the understanding passed upon the truth on the ground of evidence, also deny that trust is an element of saving faith.
Some orthodox theologians have held that trust is rather to be regarded as an immediate and invariable consequent of saving faith, than an element of that faith itself.
Keligious faith, resulting from spiritual illumination, re- spects the entire word of God and his testimony, and, as such, is a complex state of mind, varying with the nature of the par- ticular portion of revealed truth regarded in any particular act. Many of the propositions of Scripture are not the proper objects of trust, and then the faith which embraces them is only a rever- ent and complacent assent to them as true and good. But the specific act of saving faith which unites to Christ, and is the com- mencement, root and organ of our whole spiritual life, terminates upon Christ's person and work as mediator, as presented in the offers and promises of the gospel. This assuredly includes trust in its very essence, and this is called " saving faith" by way of eminence, since it is the faith that saves, and since only through
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this as their principle, are any other more general exercises of saving faith possible.
19. How may the fact that saving faith includes trust be proved from the language of Scripture ?
The uniform and single condition of salvation presented in the Scriptures is expressed in the words believe in or on Christ, elg or enl rbv xpwrbv, John vii., 38 ; Acts ix., 42 ; xvi., 31 ; Gal. ii., 16. To believe in or on a person necessarily implies trust as well as credit.
The same is abundantly proved by the usage with respect to the phrases " by faith in or on Christ/' 2 Tim. iii., 15 ; Acts xxvi., 18 ; Gal. iii., 26 ; Heb. xi., 1. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, but the foundation of hope is trust.
20. How may the same be proved from those expressions which are used in Scripture as equivalent to the phrase " be- lieving in Christ V
" Eeceiving Christ," John i, 12 ; Col. ii., 6. " Looking to Christ," Is. xlv., 22 ; compare Num. xxi., 9, with John iii., 14, 15. "Flying to Christ for refuge," Heb. vi., 18. " Coming to Christ," John vi., 35 ; Matt, xi., 28. " Committing," 2 Tim. i., 12. All these illustrate as well as designate the act of saving faith, and all equally imply trust as an essential element, for we can " re- ceive," or " come to," or " look to" Christ only in that charac- ter of a propitiation, an advocate and a deliverer, in which he offers himself to us.
21. How may the same be proved from the effects which the Scriptures ascribe to faith ?