nigh" nigh to the commonwealth of Israel, that is, brought into it. For Christ "is our peace"- the author of peace between Jews and Gentiles. He "hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition" between them; "having abolished, in his flesh, the enmity, the law of commandments in ordinances;" that is, having, by the sacrifice of his flesh on the cross, abolished the Jewish system of ordinances, which constituted "the enmity," or ground of separation between Jews and Gentiles, so as "to make, in himself, of twain one new man," one new spiritual body, which knows no distinction of Jew or Gentile; so that the Gentiles are "no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God."1

ARTICLE II.

THE NATURE OF EVANGELICAL FAITH.

BY PROF. EGBERT C. SMYTH, BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BRUNSWICK, ME.

Most of the readers of the Bibliotheca have probably become familiar, through an American reprint, with a series of sermons upon the Mission of the Comforter, preached before the University of Cambridge, in March 1840, by the late Archdeacon Hare. It is not, perhaps, so well known that a little more than a year previous to the delivery of these discourses, their learned author gave, in the same place, a course of sermons upon the Nature, Province, and Power of Faith, which he was called upon to publish, and which were issued from the press the following year, in an expanded

Eph. 2:11-22. The Apostle occupies a higher position than the Psalmist; for he sees not only the ingathering of the Gentiles into God's church, but also the manner of its accomplishment, viz. by the breaking down through Christ of "the middle wall of partition" between Jews and Gentiles.

form, and under the general title of The Victory of Faith. These discourses have all the distinguishing excellences of the later series: the same breadth of view, subtlety and vigor of thought, appositeness and brilliancy of illustration, and fervent love of spiritual truth. Some passages are rich in examples of fine philosophical analysis, lucidly exhibiting the nature and province of faith. Others make us feel its power, stirring the soul like a trumpet; as, for example, that in which, after the manner of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the names and deeds of a long catalogue of heroes of the Christian faith are cited. The work is one peculiarly fitted to attract and benefit youthful yet cultivated minds, when beginning earnestly to reflect upon the nature and value of spiritual religion-minds such as are to be found in all our colleges and higher seminaries, evincing, as it does, in the best way, the reasonableness of faith, by showing its necessity in man's natural life, its harmony with the other parts of his being, its power as a practical principle, its influence among the leading historic nations, and its victorious might when it rests in the person and atonement of Jesus Christ. We hope that some one of our publishers, to whom the friends of religion are already largely indebted for the republication of many sterling foreign works, will place this volume more easily within reach than it now is, of the many who would prize it. In the present Essay we would offer a few thoughts, chiefly suggested by these discourses, upon one aspect of their general theme.

Faith is often defined to be belief upon the ground of testimony. By belief is meaut a conviction or judgment of the understanding, an intellectual assent to certain propositions which are received as true, not upon grounds of reason, but upon testimony. Religious faith is said to be a belief in religious truth founded upon the testimony of God, particularly as given in his inspired word; saving faith is the assent of the intellect, upon such testimony, to whatever is the contents of this testimony; right affections are supposed to depend upon such intellectual conviction of the truth, and to be its necessary effect. What men need is

light. Let their views of truth and duty be made clear, and their affections and wills will move in harmony with such apprehensions. Let the way of righteousness be made apparent, let the understanding be convinced of the superior. claims of goodness, let it open its eyes to the great objects of faith, in their majesty and authority and attractiveness, and such belief will be unto righteousness. It fulfils the condition upon which God justifies the ungodly. It will be the root of a holy life. Right and answering affections and good works will follow in its train, as the tides follow the moon.

Those addicted to intellectual pursuits are especially prone to such a conception of faith. The cultivation of the understanding occupies much of their attention. It is natural to value most, not what is most useful, but what is most used; studious men are likely, unless on their guard, to attach a disproportionate importance to the understanding, to the rank it holds among the powers of the mind; to the truths it elicits, and the processes by which it acts. They are, in a measure, withdrawn from practical life. The even tenor of their lives is comparatively undisturbed by the din and strife of the fiercer passions, and the more turbulent hosts of evil. The desire to measure and weigh and estimate all subjects of thought by the standards and scales of the understanding, becomes almost a passion. There is a stronger desire to be able to give a reason for faith, than to have faith; or rather, it is supposed that the having faith is simply dependent upon being able to give a reason which satisfies the understanding; or, if so narrow a view as this be not taken, if a moral element is at least thought of, the intellectual ingredient of faith is still put first; it is deemed the chief element, that which secures and characterizes all the rest. The effort is, before all and above all things else, fully to satisfy the demands of the understanding; and it is expected that, when this is accomplished, the work will be done; the soul will have gained the heights of faith, it can rest secure that it believes unto righteousness.

Substantially the same notion often creeps into the thinking of those who recognize the necessity of the enlighten

ment of the Holy Spirit in order to a true and living faith. His work is supposed to be, not that of inclining the heart to do the will of God, to act faithfully up to the light received; and thus, by the way of obedience, to be led on to knowledge-but, primarily, that of instruction. If he moves the will, it is simply by playing upon the understanding. The cause of the moral result is the perception of truth; the belief of the intellect, through the Spirit's agency, may be deemed necessary to set this cause in motion. Others, again, affirm that, by the agency of the Spirit, not only the intellect is quickened and illumined, but the emotional nature is made sensitive to all virtuous appeals, and the will is inclined to consent to that which is seen and felt to be right and good. Saving faith, however, is still simply an act of the understanding-" but belief, and nothing more," -although, since it has its seat in a mind, all whose moral mechanism has been, as it were, reconstructed, it invariably produces, by an organic necessity, right affections and a holy

life.1

Before attempting to controvert this idea of faith, we would invite attention to a few preliminary remarks.

1. In the first place, it is to be noticed that the faith which we wish to consider is that faith which the scriptures affirm to be unto righteousness; the faith which is divinely appointed to be the condition of the soul's justification and salvation. We make this remark, however, simply for the sake of definiteness in our inquiry, and not for the sake of removing what is termed evangelical or saving faith out of the analogy of faith in general. For this analogy, we believe, if it were necessary, might easily be shown to be opposed to the notion of faith which has been stated. That is, as archdeacon Hare has remarked: "even when we speak of faith as manifested in our intercourse with our neighbors — when we talk of putting faith in one another-the moral action of the will is a stronger element in that faith than the

1 See Dr. Chalmers's Institutes of Theology, Part II. Chap. VI. and Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. XIII. pp. 513, 514.

1

judicial exercise of the understanding." But this question need not concern us. The question is not, whether the word faith is properly used by the writers of the New Testament, but simply, what notion they attach to it, what meaning they employ it to convey. This must be settled by their use of it. They constantly make faith the condition of salvation. This faith is often affirmed, by men who undertake to interpret the voice of scripture, to have its seat and origin in the understanding. There is much latitude in the expression of this interpretation: some seem to regard faith as exclusively an operation of the intellect; nothing more is necessary to salvation than such an assent of the mind to the testimony of the Bible. Others say, that there must be holy affections in heart, and a consistent life, if there is true faith. But these last are looked upon as the natural effects of faith and essential to it, but its necessary or certain results, in the heart and life. The question is, whether this is the idea of faith evidently in the minds of those who have prescribed, with the authority of God, faith as the indispensable condition of salvation.

not part of it

2. Again, we would remark, it is conceded that there is an intellectual element in faith; and it may also be allowed, that, as matter of experience, and in the order of time, this intellectual element is primary. As far, at least, as concerns the faith demanded in the Bible, it may be fully admitted, that nothing can be believed but what is known. By this is not meant that nothing can be believed but what is understood or fully comprehended. Mysteries, or truths which transcend the finite reason, may be known, and are properly objects of faith. What is meant is, that in saving faith there is found, as an ingredient, an intellectual apprehension of its object. The Romish church teaches that it is enough, in order to salvation, to put faith in the church; there may be entire ignorance of the doctrines of the church. But if the church holds the truth of the scripture, and if the individual member believes in the church, he has an implicit faith in all that the

Victory of Faith, p. 18. See also Bishop Berkeley's Min. Phil. Di. VII. 13, and Bishop Barrow's Complete Works, Vol. II. p. 98.