this subject Thomas Aquinas says, " Quantum ad prima credibi- lia, quae sunt articuli fidei, tenetur homo explicite credere. Quan- tum autem ad aha credibilia non tenetur homo explicite credere, sed solum implicite, vel in praeparatione animi, in quantum para- tus est credere quidquid divina Scriptura continet."1 Implicit faith is denned as, "Assensus, qui omnia, quamvis ignota, quae ab ecclesia probantur, amplectitur.', 2 Bellarmin 3 says, "In eo qui credit, duo sunt, apprehensio et judicium, sive assensus : sed apprehensio non est fides, sed aliud fidem praecedens. Possunt enim infideles apprehendere mysteria fidei. Praeterea, apprehen- sio non dicitur proprie notitia Mysteria fidei, quae ratio-
nem superant, credimus, non intelligimus, ac per hoc fides distin- guitur contra scientiam, et melius per ignorantiam, quam per notitiam definitur." The faith required of the people is simply, " A general intention to believe whatever the Church believes." 4 The Church teaches that there are seven sacraments. A man who has no idea what the word sacrament means, or what rites are regarded by the Church as having a sacramental character, is held to believe that orders, penance, matrimony, and extreme unc- tion, are sacraments. So, of all other doctrines of the Church. True faith is said to be consistent with absolute ignorance. Ac- cording to this doctrine, a man may be a true Christian, if he submits to the Church, although in his internal convictions and modes of thought, he be a pantheist or pagan.
It is to this grave error as to the nature of faith, that much in the character and practice of the Romish Church is to be referred, —
1. This is the reason why the Scriptures are withheld from the people. If knowledge is not necessary to faith, thereds no need that the people should know what the Bible teaches.
2. For the same reason the services of public worship are con- ducted in an unknown language.
3. Hence, too, the symbolism which characterizes their wor- ship. The end to be accomplished is a blind reverence and awe. For this end there is no need that these symbols should be under- stood. It is enough that they affect the imagination.
4. To the same principle is to be referred the practice of reserve in preaching. The truth may be kept back or concealed.
1 Summa, n. ii. quaest. ii. art. 5, edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 7, a, of third set.
2 Hutterus Rediviws, § 108, 6th edit. Leipzig, 1845, p. 271.
* De Justifications, lib. i. cap. 7, Disputationes, edit. Paris, 1608, vol. iv. p. 714, a, c.
* Strauss, Dogmatik, Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, Tubingen and Stuttgart, 1840, vol. i. p. 284.
88 PART 111. Gu. XVI. — FAITH.
The cross is held up before the people, but it is not necessary that the doctrine of the sacrifice for sin made thereon should be taught. It is enough if the people are impressed ; it matters not whether they believe that the sign, or the material, or the doc- trine symbolized, secures salvation. Nay, the darker the mind, the more vague and mysterious the feeling excited, and the more blind the submission rendered, the more genuine is the exercise of faith. "Religious light," says Mr. Newman, " is intellectual darkness." *
5. It is on the same principle the Roman Catholic missions have always been conducted. The people are converted not by the truth, not by a course of instruction, but by baptism. They are made Christians by thousands, not by the intelligent adop- tion of Christianity as a system of doctrine, of that they may be profoundly ignorant, but by simple submission to the Church and its prescribed rites. The consequence has been that the Catholic missions, although continued in some instances for more than a hundred years, take no hold on the people, but almost uniformly die out, as soon as the supply of foreign ministers is cut off.
§ 5. Faith and Feeling. It has already been seen, —
1. That faith, the act of believing, cannot properly be denned as the assent of the understanding determined by the will. There are, unquestionably, many cases in which a man believes against his will.
2. It has also been argued that it is not correct to say that faith is assent founded on feeling. On this point it was ad- mitted that a man's feelings have great influence upon his faith ; that it is comparatively easy to believe what is agreeable, and difficult to believe what is disagreeable. It was also admitted that in saving faith, the gift of God, resting on the inward illu- minating testimony of the Holy Spirit, there is a discernment not only of the truth but of the divine excellence of the things of the Spirit, which is inseparably connected with appropriate feeling. It was moreover conceded that, so far as the conscious- ness of the believer is concerned, he seems to receive the truth on its own evidence, on its excellence and power over his heart and conscience. This, however, is analogous to other facts in his experience. When a man repents and believes, he is con- scious only of his own exercises and not of the supernatural in-
1 Sermons, vol. i. p. 124.