Alexandrian School also, the Christian tticttis, was Auctoritats- Glaube, a faith founded on authority, opposed, on the one hand, to the heathen iina-rrjixT}, and on the other to the Christian y»wis, or philosophical explanation and proof of the truths believed. Among the school-men also, this was the prevalent idea. When they denned faith to be the persuasion of things not seen, they meant things which we receive as true on authority, and not be- cause we either know or can prove them. Hence it was constant- ly said, faith is human when it rests on the testimony of men ; divine when it rests on the testimony of God. Thomas Aquinas 1 says, " Non fides, de qua loquimur, assentit alicui, nisi quia est a Deo revelatum." " Faith, of which we speak, assents to nothing except because it is revealed by God." We believe on the author- ity of God, and not because we see, know, or feel a thing to be true. This is the purport of the teaching of the great body of the scholastic divines. Such also was the doctrine of the Reform- ers, and of the theologians of the subsequent age, both Lutheran and Reformed. Speaking of assent, which he regards as the sec- ond act or element of faith, Aquinas says, " Hie actus fidei non rerum evidentia aut causarum et proprietatum notitia, sed Dei dicentis infallibili auctoritate." Turrettin2 says, "Non quaeritur, An fides sit scientia, quae habeat evidentiam : Sic enim distin- guitur a scientia, quae habet assensum certum et evidentem, qui nititur ratione clara et certa, et ab opinione, quae nititur ra- tione tantum probabili ; ubi fides notat assensum certum quidem, sed inevidentem, qui non ratione, sed testimonio divino nititur." De Moor 8 says, " Fides subjectiva est persuasio de veritate rei, alterius testimonio nixa, quomodo fides ilia generatim descripta,
scientiae et conjecturae opponitur Dividitur .... in
fidem divinam, quae nititur testimonio divino, et humanam, quae fundata est in testimonio humano fide accepto." Owen,4 " All faith is an assent upon testimony ; and divine faith is an assent upon a divine testimony." John Howe5 asks, " Why do I be- lieve Jesus to be the Christ ? Because the eternal God hath given his testimony concerning Him that so He is." " A man's believ- ing comes all to nothing without this, that there is a divine testi- mony." Again,6 " I believe such a thing, as God reveals it, be-
1 Summa, ii. ii. qusest. i. art. 1, edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 2, a, of third set.
2 Institutio, xv. ix. 3, edit. Edinburgh, 1847, vol. ii. p. 497.
> Commentarius in Johannis Marckii Compendium, cap. xxii. § 4, Leyden, 1766, vol. iv. p. 299. 4 Doctrine of Justification, ch. i. edit. Philadelphia, 1841, p. 84. 6 Works, vol. ii. p. 885, Carter's edition, New York, 1869. <* Tbid. p. 1170.
62 PART IH. Ch. XVI. — FAITH.
cause it is reported to me upon the authority of God." Bishop Pearson1 says, " When anything propounded to us is neither apparent to our sense, nor evident to our understanding, in and of itself, neither certainly to be collected from any clear and necessary connection with the cause from which it proceedeth, or the effects which it naturally produceth, nor is taken up upon any real arguments or reference to other acknowledged truths, and yet notwithstanding appeareth to us true, not by a manifestation, but attestation of the truth, and so moveth us to assent not of itself, but by virtue of the testimony given to it ; this is said properly to be credible ; and an assent unto this, upon such cred- ibility, is in the proper notion faith or belief."
This View almost universally Meld.
This view of the nature of faith is all but universally received, not by theologians only, but by philosophers, and the mass of Christian people. The great question has ever been, whether we are to receive truth on authority, or only upon rational evi- dence. Leibnitz begins his " Discours de la Conformity de la Foi avec la Raison," by saying, " Je suppose, que deux ve'rite's ne sauroient se contredire; que Fob jet de la foi est la verite que Dieu a reVe*le*e d'une maniSre extraordinaire, et que la raison est l'enchainment des ve'rite's, mais particuliSrement (lorsqu'elle est compare's avec la foi) de celles oii l'esprit humain peut atteindre naturellement, sans etre aide* des lumiSres de la foi." 2
It has already been admitted that the essential element of faith is trust ; and, therefore, in the general sense of the word to believe, is to trust. Faith is the reliance -of the mind on any- thing as true and worthy of confidence. In this wide sense of the word, it matters not what may be the objects, or what the grounds of this trust. The word, however, is commonly used in reference to truths which we receive on trust without being able to prove them. Thus we are said to believe in our own exist- ence, the reality of the external world, and all the primary truths of the reason. These by common consent are called be- liefs. Reason begins with believing, i. e., with taking on trust what it neither comprehends nor proves. Again, it has been admitted that the word belief is often and legitimately used to express a degree of certainty less than knowledge and stronger than probability ; as when we say, we are not sure, but we be- lieve that a certain thing happened.
1 An Exposition of the Creed, 7th edit. London, 1701, p. 3. 3 Theodicee, Works, edit. Berlin, 1840, 1839, part ii. p. 479.