begets, to a mere assent of the understanding to truths which it receives upon testimony, simply intellectually apprehended, we are in a sphere into which we have no reason to suppose the Spirit's ordinary and immediate operations extend; and we are at a loss to understand why his peculiar and special agency is of such momentous consequence. The laws of the understanding are unchangeable; and, upon all subjects properly before them, in which the heart is free from wrong bias and prejudice, men's intellects work correctly. As matter of fact, thousands of men are intellectually convinced of the truth and divine authority of the Christian religion, whose lives show that their hearts are strangers to its power. It is said that they do not have a convincing apprehension of what they profess to believe. This is true; but why do they not realize this? The evidence is clear. Why, when men are told of the truth, and justice, and love of God, and believe in these things with the understanding, is there no attractiveness, no constraining power, over them, of these august, and authoritative, and living verities? And what is it to appreciate moral and spiritual things? Can it be merely to perceive them with the mind? Can it be merely that assent of the mind which is founded upon an intellectual apprehension of their existence? That to which faith assents is their holy and sacred qualities, their divine authority, loveliness, and perfection. Assent to qualities such as these, moral and spiritual, must be of the heart, a moral and spiritual act: whosoever loveth, says the apostle, knoweth God. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. In order to faith, there must be, to the mind, some demonstration of the spiritual; and to this the understanding is, of itself, incompetent. It would be incompetent even if there were not so much bad teaching in the world; if men's intellects, through the conception of their hearts, had not become bewildered in the mazes of error. In order to be seen, known, appreciated, the truth must be loved. So long as the heart is wrong, all the learning and knowledge of the highest archangel might be poured into the human understanding, until it was filled Shepard's Works, Vol. III. p. 439. 1 and flooded, and there would be no faith. Something more than reasoning, even though the reasoner be the Spirit of Truth, is necessary to communicate divine knowledge, to open the eyes to the divinity of truth, to the unspeakable preciousness and majesty of him who is the Truth. "I have seen a God by reason," writes one of the most eminent Puritan divines, "and men were amazed at God thus apprehended; but I have seen God Himself and been ravished to behold Him." If faith be simply an exercise of the understanding, why this vast difference between knowing things by reason, and by faith or the spirit of faith? If the agency of the Spirit, in the production of faith, be necessary simply because there is so much ignorance, and error, and bad teaching in the world that men's minds are bewildered; because he can reason with a power and cogency beyond that of the human teacher, why should this agency be absolutely and alike necessary to the production of faith in every human soul? Why are, often, those who have sat, all their lengthened lives, under the teachings of the sanctuary, as really destitute of a genuine faith - a faith which overcomes the world, a faith unto righteousness as are the most degraded Bushmen? Why to all men, the refined as well as the uncultivated, the learned as well as the ignorant, the masters in Israel as well as the publicans and sinners, must it be said, alike: Except ye be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of God; ye must be born again; whosoever believeth, is born of God? But if faith is with the heart-a submission of the will to the will of God, a personal trust in the redemptive act of his Son-then must it be spiritual in its very essence, and the appropriate fruit of the Spirit. For it is with the heart that men sin. And when sin has thus once gained a lodgement at the very seat and centre of personal life, it cannot be dislodged but by the renewal of the heart, by a change in the man; so that the affections and the will, once sold under sin, may become free to love and choose the truth. Such a change, no amount of light in the understanding can, of itself, beget; nor any more dispense with its necessity. Shepard's Works, Vol. III. p. 439. VOL. XVII. No. 67. II. In view of the truth which has been set forth - - that faith depends more upon the will than upon the understanding—we see, secondly, why a genuine faith is so often the possession of the poor and unlearned, while the learned and cultivated are destitute of it. If the grounds of faith were the decision of the understanding, the results of a balancing and weighing of arguments, a sifting of testimony, then the best judges as to human legislation, would be the best as to the divine: those most skilled in earthly wisdom, would be most competent to appreciate the heavenly. Faith would increase in proportion to the expansion of the understanding. He who is most conversant with human science, would most easily apprehend the things of God. The philosopher would attain to faith more easily than the peasant. Among men of science we should find a readier apprehension, a fuller reception, of the divinity and atonement of Christ, than among those whose intellects are less keen and disciplined. Whereas the fact, it has with truth been said, is "very often exactly the reverse: the philosopher, beguiled by the phantoms of his understanding, finds it difficult, if not impossible, to raise his spirit beyond the moral teacher, the man Jesus; while the poor and humble acknowledge and adore him as their ever-present Saviour and God."1 III. Again, if faith be a property of the heart rather than of the understanding, we see how it is that men are accountable for their faith. It is a work of the will, an act of that within us to which responsibility immediately attaches. So far as it involves an exercise of the understanding, there is not entire freedom from accountability; for in every intellectual operation there is personal agency. Though men cannot make truth, nor alter the laws of evidence, they can attend to that evidence with a simple, single-hearted desire to know the truth; and for all that is otherwise, in forming their opinions, they are accountable. But the real ground of the faith which the gospel requires, is not simply nor chiefly that apprehension of truth to which the understanding, of itself, is competent. Whosoever be Victory of Faith, p. 27. lieveth that Jesus is the Son of God, hath the witness in himself. Faith is founded, not upon the belief or testimony of those about us; not because the mind can state the historical and rational grounds of its belief, important as are these in their place, but because it sees the excellence and feels the authority and power of truth; because, with and by the truth, there is the witness of the Spirit. If the mind within whose reach this truth is placed, does not discern its true character, if it has not this evidence, the difficulty lies deeper than its understanding. It is responsible for not believing. Hence the gospel enjoins faith upon all who hear its call. If faith were founded upon the testimony of the church, none could be under obligation to believe, to whom that testimony should not be afforded. If it were founded on historical testimony, it could not be required of those who have not the time and ability to examine and appreciate that evidence. But since it rests upon the divine character of the truth, the obligation to believe is universal. If there is not convincing evidence, evidence which forms a sufficient and ample basis for an unwavering faith, it is because sin blinds the mind, because the heart is wrong. IV. Finally, we see that all faith which is not moral and practical, is wanting in the essential characteristic of the faith required in the gospel. If faith is of the heart, it must influ ence the life. There are the fountains of life. As a man believeth, in his heart, so is he. Hence we find so often, in the scriptures, obedience, works, made the condition of salvation; while it is affirmed, with unqualified distinctness, that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. It is faith only which justifies, which is the condition upon which we become one with Christ, in all the benefits and triumphs of his redemption. Yet faith can never exist alone, no more than the sun can climb the azure vault of the sky, and shine in his meridian splendor, and not pour his light upon all that he beholds. Faith brings Christ into the soul; and this light of the knowledge of the glory of God chases away its darkness, and purifies every fountain of feeling, and makes it fruitful as the garden of the Lord. ARTICLE III. BOARDMAN'S HIGHER CHRISTIAN LIFE.' BY REV. JACOB J. ABBOTT, UXBRIDGE, MASS. We have, here, a work on Christian experience. Though not yet two years old, it has attained a popularity and influ ence of no ordinary extent. Of its author we know little, except what we have learned from the book before us. The SUBJECT treated, if it be Christian experience in general, or the higher stages of it, that growth in grace by which the riper fruits of piety are reached, is one both of unspeakable interest and importance. The Christian world will never be tired of reading of this description. To no human benefactors will they make more grateful acknowledgments than to the Baxters, the Doddridges, the Flavels, the Bunyans, the Edwardses, and the Alexanders. Is the author of "The Higher Christian Life" worthy of a place in the church among those greater lights and benefactors? In other words: is "The Higher Christian Life" worthy to take its place by the side of Doddridge's Rise and Progress, Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, Pike's Cases of Conscience, Edwards on Religious Affections, the Alexanders (father and son) on Religious Experi ence and Consolation addressed to the Suffering People of God, James's Christian Professor and Christian Progress, and other standard works of that class? So much, and more, has been claimed for this treatise. Having given it a somewhat careful examination, we will proceed to state, as clearly and as fairly as we can, the results of our investigation. And we remark, at the outset, that the book is a difficult. one to analyze satisfactorily, for reasons that will appear as 1 The Higher Christian Life, by Rev. W. E. Boardman. "That ye may be filled with all the fulness of God." Boston: Henry Hoyt; New York; D. Appleton and Co. 1859. pp. 330. 12mo. |