30 SALVATION THE GIFT OF GOD
controversies and the need for definition. He said that, of course, we must have doctrine. I assented, remarking that the form must be more or less human. " After all," he said, " after all, the greatest thing is faith." Having said this, he paused, and then recited, giving earnest emphasis to the long rolling lines which sang of a faith victorious, a faith which can wait till the opening doors of Heaven disclose what faith waits for : —
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the
best. Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break
thy rest, Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or
the rolling Thunder, or fihe rending earthquake, or the famine, or the
pest
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart's desire !
Thro' the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher. Wait till Death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of death- less fire ! ^
3. The entire system of salvation revealed in the Gospel ia based upon this foundation doctrine, that the faith which saves the soul is a faith which looks immediately to, and which termin- ates definitively in, the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the almighty and atoning Eedeemer. Now, it is of exceeding importance to have a clear and distinct understanding of this cardinal doctrine, that, in order to salvation, there must be a personal faith in a Personal Saviour. Wrong views here are ruinous. Any mistake as to the object of faith is fatal error. Yet there may be and there is a belief of the truth of Scripture which is not faith in the New Testament and saving sense of the term. There may be a belief of all that God has revealed in His Word, and even an intellectual apprehension of the remedial scheme as set forth in the Gospel, altogether apart from that faith which is connected with the elements of spiritual life and the
^ Bishop W. Boyd Carpenter, Some Pages of My Life, 269.
EPHESIANS II. 8 31
earnest of salvation. And the explanation of this is to be found in the nature of the case. The object of saving faith is not the truth about Christ, but the Person of Christ; it is not the testimony, but the Testifier. Of course there must of necessity be the believing of the truth about Christ, the crediting of the testimony given in the Word concerning Him. But what is the relation which the truth and the testimony bear to Christ ? Why, the truth is but the light under which He is revealed; the testimony is only the platform on which He is exhibited. And what is the relation which faith bears to the truth and the testimony about Christ ? Why, faith eyes Christ as He is seen by the light of the truth ; it occupies itself with Him as He is set forth in the testimony. But faith is not satisfied with the mere speculative knowledge and the certified evidence of Christ's Saviourhood. Faith breaks through all his Scripture surroundings and presses forward to Christ Himself, and finds its proper focus and fruition in the Person of the revealed and realized Saviour.
^ As Dr. Liddon so moved among his fellow-men, so thought of them and approached them, he seemed as one who was often thinking of the gaze of Christ lighting on him, the Hand of Christ pointing to some act of service, the Voice of Christ prompting some witness to the Faith. There was a memorable tone that came into his words when in preaching or in argument or in conversation he spoke of that which he condemned as slighting or disloyal to Christ. It was, quite simply, like the way in which a man fires up when any one has, even unawares, spoken rudely or contemptuously of his friend ; and there are parts of his writings in which, for those at least who knew him, that same tone still sounds. It was but one sign of a real habit of thinking constantly of his Master ; of a very attentive listening for His command ; of an earnest, anxious desire to go straight forward in His cause, to live and die as His.^
' J. 0. Johnston, Lift and Letters of R. P. Liddon, 403,
God's Workmanship.
EPH.-COL.
Literature.
Blunt (J. J.), Plain Sermons^ i. 195.
Champness (T.), New Coins from Old Gold, 79.
Dawson (W. J.), The Divine Challenge, 107.
Gregg (J.), The Life of Faith, 22.
Howatt (J. R.). ^^« Children's Pew, 201.
Jordan (C), Manna for Young Pilgrims, 101.
Lewis (A.), Sermons Preached in England, 132.
Mf.Ghee (R. J.), in The New Irish Pulpit, 465.
Mackintosh (H. R.), Life on God's Plan, 43.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Epliesians, 108.
MofFatt (J.), Reasons and Reasons, 25.
Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 13.
Ramsay (A. A.), Things that are Lovely, 19.
Romanes (E.), Thoughts on the Collects for the Trinity Season, 234.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 321.
Westcott (B. F.), Christian Aspects of Life, 23.
Christian World Pulpit, xxviii. 95 (Spurgeon) ; liv. 295 (Sheepshanks).
Examiner, Nov. 19, 1903, p. 508 (Jowett).
Homiletic Review, lii. 58 (Morf;an).