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^ We have none of us seen Christ in the flesh. At times we judge ourselves disadvantaged thereby. But no ! Christ says we are supremely advantaged. We are blessed with a distinctive blessedness. We have really lost nothing by not being alive when Christ was incarnate here. Oh, how we should like to have seen Him ! If we could have basked in His smile, or heard His voice, or even felt the rustle of His seamless robe as He flitted past us on the highway ! Had we seen we v/ould indeed have believed ! Ah ! so we reason. But it is a meaner faith which is so inspired. " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." What is true of believing Christ is true concerning all the spiritual objects of faith, God. The heavenly home. Any spiritual truth. The quality which draws down beatitude is a faith which is independent of materialistic props.^
Faith is — not sight, It boasts not of the sun at noonday bright, While groping in the starlight haze of night.
Nor Dogma proud, Fierce vaunting of all Truth in accents loud. Beguiling with bold words th' unthinking crowd.
Nor Science known, Seated in queenly robes upon her throne. Meting the boundless with her clasped zone.
Nor Certainty, The overweening claim that Truth must be What we forecast from what we hear and see.
Faith does but muse With heed upon the data she must use, Nor Likelihood's fair claim durst she refuse.
Faith does but think That walking on the Infinite's dread brink, She dare not mete its chain by one small link.
Faith does but feel That what she deems all dimly, may be real. On her blind guess she will not set Truth's seal.
Faith doth but hope She shall see clear — whereas she doth but grope — When earth's dark vistas widen to heaven's scope.
^ D. T. Young, The Crimson Book, 55. ST. JOHN (2) — 25
386 BELIEVING WITHOUT SEEING
She doth but will The healthful impulses she would instil May, by heaven's prospering, all good fulfil.
She can but trust Her wistful craving for the True and Just, Not only may be realized but must}
3. Faith may even be believing that which seems contrary to sense. — For there is in the heart of every human being an eternal opposition between the merely sceptical understanding and the spiritual faculty, between that which demonstrates and that which believes, between the mind which we share with the animal and the spirit which we believe we specially derive from God. These two are opposed one to the other. And that in us which says, " This must be so, this shall be so ! " is a higher faculty than that which says, " How is this so ? JVJiy is this so ? " and the act of faith on which our morality, our religion, our higher forms of being and living rest, is that by which we assert the supremacy of the one of these above the other.
Ko help in all the stranger-land, 0 fainting heart, 0 failing hand? There's a morning and a noon, And evening cometh soon.
The way is endless, friendless ? No ; God sitteth high to see below; There's a morning and a noon, And the evening cometh soon.
Look yonder on the purpling west Ere long the glory and the rest. There's a morning and a noon. And the evening cometh soon.^
IIL
The Blessedness of Faith in the Unseen.
Our Lord does not tell us why they are blessed who believe without seeing. He simply says they are blessed. This makes a
* John Owen. ' J. V. Cheney.
ST. JOHN XX. 29 387
marked difference between this blessing and those others which form the preface to the Sermon on the Mount. There in each case reasons are given ; a specific reward is spoken of as bestowed upon each grace. The merciful are blessed, for they shall obtain mercy. The pure in heart are blessed, for theirs is the Vision of God, the All Holy and Pure. The peacemakers are blessed, for they shall be called the sons of God, who is the true Author of peace. The meek are blessed, for they shall inherit the earth; what has been called " the harvest of a quiet eye " is theirs ; it is a reward that no man can take from them. And so on all through. But no special reward of faith is spoken of in the text. It is not said that the faithful and trusting soul is blessed, for it shall receive the consolations of hope and of assurance. We might, indeed, have expected that our Lord would have given us some such promise. The Psalmist had sung of the blessings of trust with no uncertain voice : " Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in him ; and he shall bring it to pass." More than one of the beatitudes take up the words of the Psalms, and fill them with a larger and a more gracious meaning; but there is no exact counterpart in the words of our Lord for the words of the Psalmist about faith. The blessing of faith in the New Testament is something higher than the temporal prosperity of which the pious Hebrew poet spoke as the lot of the faithful and the just; it is rather that abiding and deepening sense of God's mercy and truth for which we daily pray. " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Paith is its own reward ; and the law of faith is this : " Whosoever hath, to him shall be given."