^ A. C. Eraser, Philosoi^hy of Theism, 312. » W. James, The Will to Believe, 96.
HEBREWS XI. I 415
IL
The Test of Things not seen.
1. Faith is the proof or test of things not seen. Faith tries the spirits, as St. John says ; that is to say, tests beliefs by living them and acting them ; tries them until experiment becomes experience, proves them until faith v?ins its crown by passing into knowledge and into love.
^ Somewhere in his essays Huxley writes : " Theology claims that the just shall live by faith : science says the just shall live by verification." Now here this acute thinker gives a clear proof that he did not in the least understand the meaning of this great New Testament word — Faith. He confounded it with credulity, that tendency by which we accept a thing on trust without making any attempt to find out if it is true. Faith, on the other hand, in the true sense, is the faculty by which we take a thing on trust in order to find out if it is true. It is the basis of all i religious experiment, the background of all moral effort, the standing-place of the soul in its leap towards God.^
2. By faith we are able to rest in the assurance of the hope of everlasting life and happiness through Christ ; we are able to experience proof in ourselves of an unseen God, an unseen Christ, an unseen Holy Spirit, an unseen world, and an unseen life. Of these things we are assured and positive. Whatever doubts may agitate the minds of others, however old parchments and ancient inscriptions and the study of grammar may shake the foundations of other people's belief, and cast them into a restless sea of perplexing opinions, the true Christian rests with a fixed heart and a calm mind in the assurance and proof of the living faith which is in his soul. This is indeed — to quote the words of St. John — this is indeed " the victory that overcometh the world," the victory that overcometh philosophic doubts and scientific ' perplexities, as well as the forces of evil and of worldliness —
" even our faith."
^ That which is common to every great act of faith is that it lays hold upon some word of God and holds it against the world ; through it, it transcends or overcomes the world, and inherits a
^ E. Griffith-Jones, Faith and Verification, 19.
4i6 FAITH
promise of something above and beyond the world. The doer of such an act makes himself greater than the world, and though he lose it, in doing so he finds, or gains, or makes himself.^
Ij We may consider Christian faith as a supernatural gift of God to us, a " power of the world to come," enabling us to live already in a higher world than that which is seen, a faculty for approaching God, touching God personally, possessing God Him- self— the faculty by which every relation to God is realized and vitalized. As we begin to use this higher faculty, we find our- selves no longer imprisoned by circumstances from which there is no escape. The imprisoning circumstances remain, but there is no prisoner. Faith in Christ gave him secret access to another world, and he is free. There was no external change, nothing was seen to happen ; the man prayed in secret, and the prayer of faith proved to be a working of the Holy Ghost in his mind, and heart, and will, and he became conscious of light and power within, en- abling him to rise out of his own emptiness, folly, and sadness.^
3. Nor is this exercise of the principle of faith in the lea^ incompatible with the fullest use of our intellectual faculties on the subject-matter of religion. The genuine believer will not, cannot, consistently hold back the tide of criticism from searching into the very foundations of his creed. Unwillingness to join in this process argues not faith, but a subtle doubt — doubt, that is, lest the realities of faith might dissolve and vanish into nothingness in the alembic of critical thought. Those who thus defend their faith against the principle of criticism thereby prove that at heart they are not believers but sceptics. It would be well if religious thinkers were to act with the same confidence as the scientific in their special departments. No attempt is made to hinder any one from inquiring to his fullest bent into the constitution of matter. Why ? Because we know that no examination into the con- stituents and behaviour of the material world will endanger our sense of its practical reality. On the other hand, we all feel assured that the closest scrutiny of, the most laboured inquiry into, the character and behaviour of the physical universe will end not in the dissipation of matter, but in its better comprehension and its fuller mastery. Why should it be otherwise with the deeper realities that appeal to our spiritual nature ? A true-hearted
^ W. P. Du Bose, High PriestJwod and Sacrifice. ' George Congreve, Christian Progress.
HEBREWS XT. I 417
inquiry into the substance and core of religion cannot possibly result in dissolving its realities into mist and nothingness ; it will result in their truer understanding, and in a surer realization of the distinction between what is absolute and relative, eternal and temporal. True, there are special perils in this process, but our mind should be directed not against the process itself, but against these perils that are involved in it.