4 mixed with a confident faith, up to the height of martyrdom. Be faithful unto the death,' said the Holy Spirit, and I will give thee the crown of life." And when the apostles, by way of abbreviation, express all the body of Christian religion, they call it 'faith working by love;" which also St. Paul, in a parallel place, calls a new creature:'3 it is ' a keeping the commandments of God.' That is the faith of a Christian, into whose definition charity is ingredient, whose sense is the same with keeping of God's commandments: so that if we define faith, we must first distinguish it. The faith of a natural person, or the faith of devils, is a mere believing a certain number of propositions upon a conviction of the understanding; but the faith of a Christian, the faith that justifies and saves him, is 'faith working by charity,' or 'faith keeping the commandments of God.' They are distinct faiths in order to different ends, and therefore of different constitution; and the instrument of distinction is charity or obedience. 5. And this great truth is clear in the perpetual testimony of holy Scripture. For Abraham is called the father of the faithful;' and yet our blessed Saviour told the Jews, that if they had been the sons of Abraham, they would have done the work of Abraham;'" and therefore good works are by the apostle called the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham.'7 For faith in every of its stages, at its first beginning, at its increment, at its greatest perfections, is a duty made up of the concurrence of the will and the understanding, 3 Ib. vi. 15. 6 John, viii. 39. ' Rev. ii. 10. 2 Gal. v. 6. 7 Rom. iv. 12. when it pretends to the divine acceptance :-faith and repentance begin the Christian course. 'Repent and believe the gospel' was the sum of the apostles' sermons; and all the way after it is, 'faith working by love.' Repentance puts the first spirit and life into faith, and charity preserves it, and gives it nourishment and increase; itself also growing by a mutual supply of spirits and nutriment from faith. Whoever does heartily believe a resurrection and life eternal upon certain conditions, will certainly endeavour to acquire the promises by the purchase of obedience and observation of the conditions: for it is not in the nature or power of man directly to despise and reject so infinite a good. So that faith supplies charity with argument and maintenance, and charity supplies faith with life and motion: faith makes charity reasonable, and charity makes faith living and effectual. And therefore the old Greeks called faith and charity "a miraculous chariot," or yoke; they bear the burden of the Lord with an equal confederation: these are like Hippocrates' twins, they live and die together. Indeed faith is the first-born of the twins; but they must come both at a birth, or else they die, being strangled at the gates of the womb. But if charity, like Jacob, lays hold upon his elder brother's heel, it makes a timely and a prosperous birth, and gives certain title to the eternal promises. For let us give the right of primogeniture to faith, yet the blessing, yea, and the inheritance too, will at last fall to charity. Not that faith is disinherited, but that charity only enters into the possession. The na · Θαυματὴν ξυνωρίδα. ture of faith passes into the excellency of charity before they can be rewarded: and that both may have their estimate, that which justifies and saves us, keeps the name of faith, but doth not do the deed till it hath the nature of charity. For to think well, or to have a good opinion, or an excellent or a fortunate understanding, entitles us not to the love of God, and the consequent inheritance;' but to choose the ways of the Spirit, and to relinquish the paths of darkness, this is the way of the kingdom, and the purpose of the gospel, and the proper work of faith. 6. And if we consider upon what stock faith itself is instrumental and operative of salvation, we shall find it is in itself acceptable, because it is a duty and commanded: and therefore it is an act of obedience, a work of the gospel, a submitting the understanding, a denying the affections, a laying aside all interests, and a bringing our thoughts under the obedience of Christ. This the apostle calls 'the obedience of faith and it is of the same condition and constitution with other graces, all which equally relate to Christ, and are as firm instruments of union, and are washed by the blood of Christ, and are sanctified by his death, and apprehend him in their capacity and degrees, some higher and some not so high. But hope and charity apprehend Christ in a measure and proportion greater than faith, when it distinguishes from · Τὸ ἀγαθὲς μὲν εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἢ κακώς, ὁ Θεὸς ἐκ ἐν τῇ γνώσει ἔθηκε γινωσκομένων, ἀλλὰ ἐν τῇ αἱρέτει τῶν ἁιρεμένων. Just. M. Resp. ad orthod.-" God does not regard us as good or evil by our knowledge of things to be known; but by our choice of things which ought to be chosen.” ἐδὲν κέρδος ὑγιᾶς πίσεως, πῆς πολιτείας διεφθαρσμένης. Chry. l. 4. de Sacerd. 2 Rom. xvi. 26. them. So that if faith does the work of justification, as it is a mere relation to Christ, then so also does hope and charity or if these are duties and good works, so also is faith. And they all being alike commanded in order to the same end, and encouraged by the same reward, are also accepted upon the same stock; which is, that they are acts of obedience and relation too: they obey Christ, and lay hold upon Christ's merits, and are but several instances of the great duty of a Christian, but the actions of several faculties of the new creature. But because faith is the beginning grace, and hath influence and causality in the production of the other, therefore all the other, as they are united in duty, are also united in their title and appellative: they are all called by the name of faith, because they are parts of faith, as faith is taken in the larger sense: and when it is taken in the strictest and distinguishing sense, they are effects and proper products by way of natural emanation. 7. That a good life is the genuine and true-born issue of faith, no man questions that knows himself the disciple of the holy Jesus; but that obedience is the same thing with faith,' and that all Christian graces are parts of its bulk and constitution, is also the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, and the grammar of Scripture, making faith and obedience to be terms coincident and expressive of Fides (authore Cicerone) est firma opinio, et est fida mandatorum executio. Dicta est autem fides (ut ait idem Cicero de Officiis) à fio, quòd id fieri debeat quod dictum et promissum est. -"Faith,' says Cicero, is a firm opinion, and it is the faithful execution of commands. The word,' he says, in his Offices, 'is derived from fio, to become, because that ought to be done which has been said and promised.'" each other for faith is not a single star, but a constellation, a chain of graces, called by St. Paul the power of God unto salvation to every believer; that is, faith is all that great instrument by which God intends to bring us to heaven; and he give this reason: In the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith,' for 'it is written, the just shall live by faith.' Which discourse makes faith to be a course of sanctity and holy habits, a continuation of a Christian's duty, such a duty as not only gives the first breach, but by which a man lives the life of grace. The just shall live by faith; that is, such a faith as grows from step to step, till the whole righteousness of God be fulfilled in it. From faith to faith,' saith the apostle; which St. Austin expounds, from faith believing, to faith obeying; from imperfect faith, to faith made perfect by the animation of charity; that he who is justified may be justified still. For as there are several degrees and parts of justification, so there are several degrees of faith answerable to it; that in all senses it may be true, that by faith we are justified,' and 'by faith we live,' and' by faith we are saved.' For if we proceed from faith to faith,' from believing to obeying, from faith in the understanding to faith in the will, from faith barely assenting to the revelations of God to faith obeying the commandments of God, from the body of faith to the soul of faith; that is, to faith formed and made alive by charity; then we shall proceed from justification to justifica Rom. i. 16, 17. Ex fide annunciantium evangelium in fidem obedientium evangelio. S. Aug." From the faith of those announcing the gospel to the faith of those obeying the gospel." |
