CHAPTER IV.

Faith followed by the Earnest of the Spirit.-The distinction between Faith, Knowledge, and Experience.-Neither Faith nor Experience possible, if Experience be demanded first.-Reproductive power of Faith, and its reduplicating processes of growth.-Connexion between the Earnest of the Spirit in the Church, and the conversion of souls from the world.

It is quite impossible to give a better definition of Faith than Paul has done in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and yet, in that definition there might seem at first sight to be almost a confusion between the act of the soul itself, and the realities in reference to which that act is exercised. And in fact there is a sense in which genuine faith creates as well as apprehends, the objects which it must realize. Faith is belief in God's testimony, followed by experience. The order, as we have seen, is set forth in 2d Cor. iv. 13, thus: We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken, we also believe, and therefore speak; knowing, &c. The knowing follows the belief, and the speaking follows the knowing, as pressed on and impelled by it. The knowing following the belief, is the Word of God as fire in the soul, yea, as the prophet Jeremiah calls it, as a fire in the bones, that must for very relief break out into a flame, and burn upon other souls, yea, upon the whole world. It is a constraining impulse, a life, a power, inward, from God, and therefore unconquerable, irresistible.

"In whom also, after that ye believed," says Paul to the

Ephesians, "ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the Earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory." This is a wonderful passage. The Earnest of our inheritance means the experience of it, in some measure beforehand, ministered with Faith by the Holy promised Spirit, until the time when, by redemption completed, it shall come to be held in actual everlasting possession. Thus God gives us not mere testimony, though it be his own, but experience also, and the evidence of experience, abundantly, in the Christian life, in the Christian system, which is a system of life, not a theory. But experience does not come first, it is not the first thing. Faith in God comes first, faith in God's testimony; then experience is the fruit of faith. First comes belief in the things revealed of God, because God testifies of them, because God declares them. Then comes knowledge, the knowledge of experience, growing out of faith. In some things, it is true, experience does come first, is the first thing; and faith, in accepting it from God, simply gives it shape, and possesses it in a perfection and completeness of truth, which God only himself possesses and can impart. As, for example, men know by experience their own sinfulness; that is not an article of faith first, and knowledge afterwards; but God's word teaches the same thing, only in clearer light, and as a universal truth, and with a perfection and power, which God's testimony only could impart. And faith, receiving this truth, which was partially known before, from God, knows it now with incomparably greater clearness and certainty. So that, after all, there is, even beforehand, enough of experience to begin the Christian system with that, and not with faith; and indeed in one direction we do begin with that, and appeal to that, and from that carry the sinner to God.

But in regard to things beyond our present, limited, unassisted experience, we must begin with faith, and come to experience afterwards. And faith itself produces

not seen.

knowledge, the knowledge of experience; it is the substance and life of knowledge, the demonstration of things Let us endeavor to illustrate. I have a near and dear friend, we will say, a Father, so good, so kind, so true, so holy, so completely under the influence of heavenly principle, and so bent upon my best good, that I have a confidence in him, which could not be surpassed by any knowledge of my own. If he were to tell me anything for my good, which I did not know before, or could not know without his telling it, it would answer for me all the purposes of knowledge. It would be in me as complete, actual, and active knowledge, as if I myself had seen it. Now this is because I believe it, because I believe my Father. I believe him, and therefore know what he tells me, because it is the truth. But a stranger, not acquainted with my Father, not having confidence in him, does not believe him in this manner, and therefore, though told by him precisely the same things, and for his good, does not know those things. He knows them in one sense, because he has been told them, and they are true. But in another sense he does not know them, and cannot tell another person that he knows them, because he does not believe them. He demands experience of them, before he can consent to know them.

Again: You have before you a vase or jar containing hydrocyanic acid in a preparation of the strongest alcohol. A person enters your room, whom you know to be inveterately addicted to strong drink. While he is there, you are called away; but you take care, before leaving him, to tell him that the jar contains the most deadly of all known poisons, a single drop of which would destroy life. "I have told you this," you say to him, "and you know it; therefore touch it not, at your peril." But I do not know it by any means," the man answers; "you tell it me, indeed, but I do not know it; and how can I know it, but by trying it, or seeing it tried." "You do know it," you answer, “because it is true, and I have told it to you,

and whatever truth you hear and understand, you know." "But I do not know it," the man answers, "because I do not believe it." And truly, if the man does not believe it, then in one sense he does not know it, while in another sense, the thing being true, and having been told him, he does know it. And the probability is that such an impression of knowledge will have been made upon him by your manner and words, that though he says he does not believe you, yet he will not touch the jar. In that he will act upon belief, without what he calls or deems to be knowledge. But if, against whatever you have told him, he tastes of the liquid and dies, you would say he knew better, he died against knowledge.

But belief does not in itself constitute knowledge; nothing but truth constitutes that, and belief is but the apprehension and reception of it. The belief of things that are true is knowledge; the belief of things that are false is not knowledge, though it be ever so firm a belief. The knowledge of things that are true, without belief, is dead knowledge, knowledge without life. It is only belief that imparts life and power. Nothing but belief can make a man feel that he knows. And thus it is with faith in God, faith in divine things. Knowledge without it is dead, and inefficacious for anything but condemnation. Revelation without faith is the world's condemnation.

Sense always produces belief, at least while the experience of it lasts, but knowledge does not always. An ignorant man in torrid climes, who never saw snow or ice, hears that at the North by the effect of cold the water becomes as hard as a rock. Now having heard that, and it being true, does he not know it? Yet he does not believe it, and therefore he does not feel that he knows it, and cannot use it as knowledge. But, set him down by a pool of water at the North, in an atmosphere thirty degrees below the freezing point, and let him see and feel the process, and then handle the ice, and he will both know it and believe He will not only know it, as he knew it when it was

it.

told him, but he will feel that he knows it. The experience of it will produce belief, when mere knowledge would not. Experience compels belief, takes away all volition from it, all possibility of the exercise of confidence apart from sight.

Now this sense or experience in earthly things is analogous to the sealing of the spirit in heavenly things; only, while in earthly things it goes before belief, in heavenly things it follows. It follows the confidence of the soul in God as a Father, in Christ as a Saviour. That confidence of the soul in God sets it upon the rock of reality, makes it feel the truth, and walk upon it, as a swimmer, shipwrecked and almost exhausted, feels suddenly the hard bottom beneath his feet, and speedily stands upon dry land. So faith takes the soul out of the sea of doubt, and places it upon the Rock of Ages. Thus faith is the substance of things hoped for.

There is, therefore, both the evidence of faith, evidence for faith, and the evidence of sense, in the Christian system; but if sense or experience be demanded first, if it be sought and insisted on before faith, before the soul will believe, then there can be neither faith nor experience. God is before sense, God is the ground of sense itself, God is the author of sense; and the things of the Christian system are brought from God to sense, addressed by God to the inward sense of God in all mankind. Faith in God will accept God's voice, God's Word; will believe it, and will wait for experience; but believing it, knows it, and has experience, the earnest of the Spirit. But the demand for experience first, doubts God, dishonors God, exalts man above God, puts the testimony of man, of sinful self, above that of God. It says, we will accept of nothing as from God, till it be sanctioned, confirmed, endorsed, made credible, from man, by man's experience. This is the blindness and absurdity of unbelief; this is sense, shutting itself up to sense, and making faith impossible. It is just as if you should turn the Cathedral of Strasbourg