The Bishop then said that faith might begin in various ways. It might begin within or without ; but if it was to be a permanent thing, if it was to be supreme over life, then it must find its root at last within the soul. Faith must be a total, not a partial — a continuous, not a desultory — energy. Faith must be light, a form of knowing, a beholding of truth. The anchor of faith was a true belief in the moral law, and the moral law must necessarily have a supreme personality. It was the voice which governed the man from within, and at the same time asserted its supremacy over everything else.
This analysis of faith was then applied by the Bishop to the Christian Faith.
2 PETER I. 5-7 i6i
" The acceptance of God, the acceptance of Christ, the accept- ance of the Bible, the acceptance of the doctrines taught in the Bible, and the acceptance of those facts which were bound up with those doctrines — that was the faith alike of the great divine and the uneducated peasant. The one might be able to see the reasons of his faith, and the other might not; but both alike had real evidence upon which their faith rested, in that absolute firm foundation which God had given to every man in his own soul." ^
3. But, always remembering that faith is faith in Christ, let us take " faith " in all the breadth and depth of its Scripture meaning. We are so apt to make narrow what the Scriptures have not made narrow, and to make wide what the Scriptures have not made wide. When faith unfolds itself, it is not a process similar to that by which a house is built. It is not as if we were addinc' something to something in an external manner. No doubt there is some truth in that thought, for " ye are God's building." But " ye are also God's husbandry." We are so ready to make faith mean only the faith that justifies, to limit it to one function, and to fail to recognize its universal character and its great function. It is true that the receiving and resting on Jesus Christ for salvation is one of the great characteristics of faith, but the meaning of faith is wider than that. It is that which makes us at home in God's eternal world ; it is that which enables us to endure as seeing Him who is invisible ; it is that which enables us to grasp with firm, unwavering hand the realities of God's eternal world, and to feel at home in His unseen presence. It gives us power to grasp the eternal principles of the righteousness, truth, and love of God.
^ Faith to Dr. John Watson was that knowledge of God and that discipline of the soul, together with that service of man which from the beginning have affected the more spiritual minds of the race and created saints, whose literature is contained in the writings of prophets, apostles, theologians, mystics, whose children have been the missionary, the martyr, the evangelist, the philan- thropist, whose renaissance has been those revivals of rehgion which have renewed the face of society .^
4. Observe now the connexion that exists between faith and the virtues. " Add to your faith." This is the root, the living
* Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterhury, ii. 70. ^ AV. Robertson Nicoll, Ian Maclartn, 276. JAS.-JUDE — 1 1
i62 THE UNFOLDING OF CHARACTER
principle. All true morality is born of spirituality, and all complete morality is born of the spirituality created and maintained by Christian faith.
(1) Faith means vision, and the faith of Christ means the vision of the perfect One. In Christ was the blending of all excellences. As a modern writer says : " No one can tell what was Christ's predominant virtue." As we live a life of faith in the Son of God we live in the presence of absolute beauty and perfection.
(2) Faith means aspiration, and the faith of Christ means not only the sight of perfection, but also a passion for it. As the worldly man covets property, and restlessly adds field to field and house to house ; as the intellectual man thirsts for knowledge, and is ever stretching out to new horizons and cataloguing new stars, — so the spiritual man rejoices in the goodness that restlessly longs to complete itself. Nothing short of the beauty of the Lord satisfies a true believer.
(3) Faith means transfm^mation — we are changed into the likeness of that on which we passionately gaze; and faith in Christ means that we are changed from glory into glory until we are complete, lacking nothing. Faith in God, in the higher universe, in the glorious future ; faith in Christ as our Eedeemer, in the grace of the Holy Spirit, in the crown that fadeth not away — this is the faith by which the just live and fulfil the whole law. Faith is the root whence spring all the fruits of righteousness, the stem whence radiate the seven branches of the golden candlestick. All colours are in the light of the sun, and all moral beauty is in Christian faith, revealing evermore its changing hues according to time, place, and circumstance.^