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it, they are setting their will before God's will, and fancying that they know better than God what is best for them. And if this is so with those who try to leave themselves in God's hands, how shall they who never seriously try at all be able to do so when the time of trouble comes ?
^ Faith is not mere belief ; but such belief as leads us to have confidence in God — confidence in what He is to us, and does for us, and asks of us, with the necessary implication of a response on our part. And when we speak of a living, or lively faith, we mean a faith by which we live in conscious response to God's love and its demands upon us ; trusting Him for to-morrow because we know that we are obeying Him to-day.^
^ Faith is that temper of sympathetic and immediate response to Another's will which belongs to a recognized relationship of vital communion. It is the spirit of confident surrender, which can only be justified by an inner identification of the life. Unless this inner relationship be a fact, faith could not account for itself : but if it be a fact, it must constitute a fixed and necessary demand upon all men. All are, equally, "children of God"; and the answer to the question, " Why should I believe ? " must be, for ever and for all, valid : " because you are a child of God." Faith itself lies deeper than all the capacities of which it makes use : it is, itself, the primal act of the elemental self, there at the root of life, where the being is yet whole and entire, a single personal individuality, unbroken and undivided. Faith, which is the germinal act of our love for God, is an act of the whole self, there where it is one, before it has parted off into what we can roughly describe as separate and distinguishable faculties.*
2. "In all thy ways acknowledge him." Here we have a sample of the almost untranslatable pregnancy and power of Hebrew speech. The English word " acknowledge " represents only one of the many meanings which are to be found in the original term. This word, originally meaning " to see," came to signify that which results from sight, unless the sense be imperfect or the understanding impaired, namely, knowledge. It exhibits knowledge at all its stages of growth. It stands for a knowledge of isolated facts, and for a knowledge of facts in their largest combinations. It describes a mere act of perception, an un- suspected discovery, a stern experience inflicted upon the dull * J. R. Illingworth, Christian Character. ^ H. S< Holland in Lux Mundi,
2i6 TRUST IN THE LORD
understanding; it pictures casual acquaintance and the closest possible intimacy; it is used of knowledge by name and of knowledge face to face. It is used of the moral sense recognizing moral good or moral evil, and of the affections gaining knowledge of their object through being exercised on it. It depicts the movements, not merely of the heart and the intellect, but also of the will. It thus represents sometimes the watchful, active care of God's loving Providence, sometimes the prostrate adoration of a soul, in which knowledge of its Divine Object has passed into the highest stage, and is practically inseparable from worship. As used in the passage before us, it describes nothing less compre- hensive than the whole action of man's spiritual being when face to face with the Eternal God. To " know " God in truth is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him, with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength ; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put our whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and Ilis Word, and to serve Him truly.
(1) In order to acknowledge God truly there must he a real conviction that God rules the world. — An atheist, who believes that no God exists, or a theist, who believes in His existence but not in His active government of earthly things, or a fatalist, who dreams that all things proceed by an iron necessity which nothing can change — not one of these men can really acknowledge God as the text requires. It is presupposed that we believe in the existence of an almighty, free, intelligent Spirit, from whom all things have sprung, and on whom all things depend ; that He fills the whole universe with His presence, or illumines it with His smile ; that He is guiding, controlling, and disposing all its affairs for the consummation of holy and glorious purposes ; that He cares for the well-being of all His creatures, from the highest seraph who flames before His throne down to the little sparrow which cannot fall to the ground until He permits it ; that He has special care for the dignity and well-being of men, and most of all for those who fear Him or who hope in His mercy. A settled conviction of all this is essential to a right acknowledgment of God. If there be no God, it is unreasonable to acknowledge any. If God be not a free or almighty intelligence, but a blind or neces- sary force, we may as well do homage to the storm that lays waste