The Tupelo journal., 1904-09-30
THE VENTURE OF FAITH.
Elements of True Faith and What
tie Soul Loses With
out Them.

fathOmaDle, the most lmppsSlDle VI uen-
nition. They have the simplicity OF the
sea and of the sky, which bound each
other at the horizon, but are not to be
scored and marked by any boundary
line of ours. One such word is faith,
which Christ and Paul agree in putting
into the forefront of the working virtues.
but which the theoisgies have more OBJ
scured than explained to us. We are
getting back to the discovery that faith
is not so much a mental operation as a
personal relation in which the will is en-
listed. Its proper object is not a creed.
but a person-our God and our Saviour.
We ade learning that he is not justified
by faith who merely holds a right con-
ception of that doctrine, and who can di-
late on the imperfection of rival defini-
tions Of it, but he who from his heart can
say that he has put himself for sal
walton into the hands of that Christ
who is made justification unto us.
Not that creeds are useless things, but
their use is to embody u convictions
rather than our faith. When the
apostles say: 81 know whom | have
believed" he combines both.
Equally faulty is the confusion OF
faith with sight, which Phillips
Brooks says he found a very common
error. 1t is not unusual to find people
who have been greatly bereaved by the
death of their friends show unwilling
ness to trust God in the matter the
least bit. They insist on knowing ex-
actly why this should have befallen
them, and array their arguments
against it's wisdom as though they
were in just as good a position as their
Maker to judge of the matter.
Though He Stay me, yet will | trust
in Him." is not what they even wish
to be able to say.
1t is probably less common to find
those who ask to see rather than to
know in the matter of their own sal
walton. Il cannot believe" an in
quirer said to Mr., Moody. Whom
can you not believer" was his pene-
trating answer. Faith means trust
ing God in that matter. 1t is going be-
yond what sight and knowledge make
possible to us. 1t is the child's leap
into his fathers arms, made in the
dark often, and met by his fathers
firm grasp.
Faith means venture. What we
have learned by experience to be true
is no longer a matter of faith, but of
sight, of conviction, of certainty. 1t
Is not a matter of faith with us that
the earth will sustain US as we walk
upon it, but it may once have been
such in Jul infancy, if we had clear
ness of thought sufficient to deal with
that problem. When a boy has learned
to swim, it ceases to be a matter of
faith with him that the water will
bear him up, but it was SO at the
outset of his learning. And as the
baby trusts itself to the ground and
the boy to the water, the believer
trusts himself to God, by an act of
volition, by an act of courage, at a
venture. Eliminate these elements,
and you have eliminated the essentials
of faith. You may have left a cal
culating prudence, or a doctrinal spec
ulation, or a pious emotion, but not
faith.
And as the Christian life begins in
faith, in trusting and believing God,
so it goes on in faith, says the Sunday
School Times. We are sanctifed by
faith. not less than justified by it.
Our Saviour cannot do many mighty
works in us if our unbelief binders
Him in working. We have to trust
Him as hating our sins, desiring to
set us free from our sins, and able
to cleanse us from them. 1t is in
this faith that w pray for greater
holiness, for growth in likeness to- His
own holiness. for the grace of charac-
ter which shall displace our habitual
wrong-doings. Fol these things we
are authorized to pray without any re-
serves, as they are declared to be the
forbids us to rest in u imperfection,
as though that were a law of life for
us instead of being just an ugly fact
of life. Whether sinless perfection, as
some think, is attainable in this life,
or, as others believe, is to be the
crown of the lifelong process of
sanctiication, is not the question here.
In either view, the seeking for all the
holiness we are capable of is the Chris
tian's duty, and it is fulfilled by faith
working on to hope and love.
In this process we are greatly him
dered by want of faith at n critical
point. We deplore u sins, we ask
for help to overcome them, and we go
about our life and it's works without
any faith that the prayer had been
answered. We know 1t was right in
itself, and that we really wanted what
we asked for. We know that without
the help we asked, sin will continue
to rule in our mortal bodies. Yet we
do not really expect the help to be
given, and still less do We believe that
it has been given. So we find ourselves
just where we were, and begin the
same prayers over again, and to just
as little purpose. Where has the fall
ure been? Not in God, surely! Not
in the grace and willingness OF Jesus
Christ to save us and all His people
from their sins. 1t has been in us.
Gods hands of giving have been
stretched out to us with the gift we
asked, but no hand of faith in us went
out to grasp it. We did not believe
that our prayers were answered. and
we were left as powerless against the
evil thing as before.
The prayer for specification is the
prayer to be "illed with the Spirit
of Jesus Christ. When we offer that,