11 Of Faith in The Subjective Sense.

OF FAITH IN THE SUBJECTIVE SENSE. THE FACULTY OR POWER OF BELIEVING.

CHAPTER XI.IN passing from the consideration of faith taken in the objective sense, to make some observations on this word in its subjective sense, it seems fitting to bring the faculty or power of believing under notice in the first place.

It may be taken that the word faith is sometimes employed, at least in the ordinary course of speech, to designate a specific faculty of the mind. All created intelligences seem to have this faculty. Anyhow, it is certain that men and devils have it, and there can be no sound reason to deny it to angels. Like the power to hope, to love, to judge, or to will, this, to believe, seems to be a constituent element of mind. As the eye and the ear, organs of sense, give those that have them the power of seeing and hearing, so the faculty of faith gifts with that of believing. But a question of considerable importance here presents itself. To what extent will this natural faculty enable to believe? We know on the indisputable authority of the Word of God that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."1 Corinthians 2:14. What these things of the Spirit of God are can present no difficulty. If we say that they are the mysteries of the kingdom of God, the truth as it is in Christ, or something else of similar import, we shall correctly enough express what they arc in different words. But the question is, if a natural man cannot know these things, will his faculty of faith enable him to believe them If they are without the range of his appreciative knowledge while he is a natural man, are they nevertheless meanwhile within the compass of his faith? It seems impossible to give any but a negative answer to this question. Nothing can be plainer than that the natural man is by nature unable to know the things of the Spirit of God, and, therefore, that he is under an inability appreciatively to believe them. No one who may be but very slightly acquainted with this subject can fail to perceive that, if this view of the apostle’s teaching is correct, it must most materially affect the instruction which is almost universally given concerning believing in Christ. For we shall be chargeable with no exaggeration in saying that natural men are sometimes invited by everything that can be imagined as a winning inducement, and at others threatened by everything that can be conjured up as a terrible retribution, to believe in Christ. But if it be so that the persons so invited and threatened have not so much as the faculty to do what they are required, it must be obvious to all that the invitations are something worse than silly, and the threatening something worse than a mere cruelty. That this inability does exist, and that its existence is everywhere taught in the Scriptures will, on examination, very clearly appear, we have no doubt.

Regeneration represents, if anything, a great change produced by the power of God. Those who imagine this to be effected by, or to consist in, what may be justly termed a burlesque on a religious rite, painfully illustrate the truth that the natural man does not know the things of the Spirit of God. Radically considered, regeneration is a power of special, namely, of all spiritual, perception and action. That is, a regenerated person possesses a power which one that is unregenerate does not, to perceive things, and to take courses of action, which are called spiritual. One that is not born again “cannot see the kingdom of God." He cannot. He is without the necessary faculty of perception. In order to see the kingdom of God, the eyes of his understanding must be enlightened by a regenerating power. Regeneration gives, indeed, no new faculties to the mind, but it does give a new power to existing ones, which is equal to a creation. Hence a regenerated person is called “a new creature." Human blindness to spiritual things is more than perverseness, it is inability. A perverse man may, indeed, shut his eyes and refuse to see; but a blind man cannot see. Open his eyelids as he may, no light penetrates his sightless eyeballs. So, walk as the natural man may, in the brightest rays of the Sun of Righteousness, he will still be in darkness, because he is darkness. This truth is conclusively taught also by such Scriptures as “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them,"Proverbs 20:12. "The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind."Psalms 146:8. " Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped."Isaiah 35:5. And inIsaiah 42:7, we have a prophecy that Jehovah would give his servant, "To open the blind eyes." Taken literally, do not these words represent an absolute inability to see by reason of a natural organic defect? Taken spiritually, are not the persons spoken of supposed to be as destitute of the faculty of spiritual sight as persons wholly without, or with absolutely defective eyeballs are of natural? If they ever see, must not a creative power be brought to bear upon them quite as much as if they had no eyes? If when Jesus Christ opened the eyes of the man born blind he did not create new organs, did he not give a power to existing ones which they, had not before, and never could have had but for the omnipotence he exerted? Was not this act of power equal to a creation “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath, indeed, shined into the hearts of his ministers, to give the light of the knowledge of his glory in Christ; but not to give the sight requisite to profit by it. He himself gives that. He gives that peculiar faith, which is the receptive faculty of things spiritual, the eye of the believer’s soul, and the only medium by which the light of the ministry can be appreciatively beheld. Being persuaded that there is a very general misconception of the truth we are now considering, and that this is a fruitful source of much error about faith, generally speaking, we will add another remark or two. In2 Thessalonians 3:2, the apostle sass, “All men have not faith." No proof will be required that by “all men " we are to understand professing men. Some men that profess to have faith, whether their profession may arise from ignorance or hypocrisy, have it not. But how is to have faith to he understood? Critics generally, and, as we think, rightly. have discarded the pretensions of fidelity to a place here ; but at the same time they seem to speak as if not to believe did not arise from not having faith, but from not exercising it. Hence arises much error. The natural man is almost universally credited with a power that he has not. Paul might have conveyed his meaning, by saying, All professors of Christianity are not believers; or, all do not believe. But had he expressed himself in either of these ways, he would have undoubtedly intended to convey, what interpreters for the most part are altogether unwilling to receive, the idea that the faculty of a spiritual faith was wanting. For if a man says of another, speaking absolutely, he does not hear, or see, or speak, who fails to come to the conclusion that he is speaking of one that is deaf, or blind, or dumb ? No man can speak thus of another, absolutely, without intending to convey this meaning, or to mislead his hearer. Paul said, “All men have not faith." The Lord Jesus said, “But there are some of you that believe not."John 6:64.

Both sayings may be interpreted in the same sense. Paul spoke of the absence of the faculty simply. The Lord spoke of the absence of its exercise, but including in his meaning, without doubt, the faculty itself. It can as little be said absolutely Without misleading, that a man believes not who possesses the faculty of faith, as it can that a man sees not who has his eyes. These propositions of the Lord Jesus and of Paul are not identical, but they carry the same meaning. Both are true of the same subject. When one is true of any man the other must be; and when one is not true the other cannot be. While, then, either of these terms will suit the meaning intended, it ought to be known that lie that does not believe has not the requisite faculty to do so, and that this is the gift of God.

While desiring to avoid cumbering these pages with quotations, a passage in Edwards on The Religious Affections may be inserted here without in the least crossing my wish in this particular. After having drawn attention to several Scriptures in proof that a radical difference exists between what is natural and what is spiritual, he says : From hence it follows, that in those gracious exercises and affections which are wrought in the minds of the saints through the saving influences of the Spirit of God, there is a new inward perception or sensation of their minds, entirely different in its nature and kind from anything that ever their minds were the subjects of before they were sanctified. For, doubtless, if God by his mighty power produces something that is new, not only in degree and circumstances, but in its whole nature, and which could be produced by no exalting, varying, or compounding of what was there before ; I say, if God produces something thus new in the mind, that is a perceiving, thinking, conscious thing ; then, doubtless, something entirely new is felt, or perceived, or thought; or, which is the same thing, there is some new sensation or perception of the mind, which is entirely of a new sort, and which could be produced by no exalting, varying, or compounding of that kind of perceptions or sensations which the mind had before ; or there is what some metaphysicians call a new simple idea. If grace be, in the sense above described, an entirely new kind of principle, then the exercises of it are also entirely a new kind of exercises. And if there be in the soul a new sort of exercises, of which it is conscious, which the soul knew nothing of before, and which no improvement, composition, or management of what it was before conscious or sensible of, could produce ; then it follows, that the mind has an entirely new’ kind of perception or sensation : and here is, as it were, a new spiritual sense that the mind has, or a new principle, perception, or spiritual sensation, which is in its whole nature different from any former kinds of sensation of the mind, as tasting is diverse from any of the other senses ; and something is perceived by a true saint, in the exercise of this new sense of mind, in spiritual and divine things, as entirely diverse from any thing that is perceives in them by natural men, as the sweet taste of honey is diverse from the ideas men get of honey by only looking on it, and feeling it. So that the spiritual perceptions which a sanctified and spiritual person has, are not only diverse from all that natural men have, after the manner that the, ideas or perceptions of the same sense may differ one from another, but rather as the ideas and sensations of different senses do differ. Hence the work of the Spirit of God in regeneration is often compared to the giving a new sense; giving eyes to see, and ears to hear; unstopping the ears of the deaf ; and opening the eyes of them that were born blind; and turning from darkness unto light. And because this spiritual sense is immensely the most noble and excellent, and that without which all other principles of perception, and all our faculties, are useless and vain ; therefore the giving this new sense, with the blessed fruits and effects of it in the soul, is compared to a raising the dead, and to a new creation. This new spiritual sense, and the new dispositions that attend it, are no new faculties, but are new principles of nature. I use the word principles, for want of a word of more determinate signification. By a principle of nature in this place, I mean that foundation which is laid in nature, either old or new, for any particular kind of exercise of the faculties of the soul; or a natural habit, or foundation for action, giving a person ability and disposition to exert the faculties of such a certain kind ; so that, to exert the faculties in that kind of exercises, may be said to be his nature. So this new spiritual sense is not a new faculty of understanding, but it is a new foundation laid in the nature of the soul, for a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of understanding. So that the new holy disposition of heart that attends this new sense, is not a new faculty of will, but a foundation laid in the nature of the soul, for a new kind of exercises of the same faculty of will." See Part III., chap. i.; and again in chap. iii.

Whatever faith, then, a natural man may have, and whatever he may be capable of believing by its exercise, the faculty and the act are so utterly deficient of a spiritual nature that, in speaking of spiritual things, it may be said of him that he has not faith, and that he does not believe. But we are not left alone to the deductions of our reason to conclude that where the faculty of faith respecting spiritual things is wanting the act of believing cannot be exerted, for the Saviour has informed us that a natural man not only does not, but that he cannot believe. InJohn 6:44, he says, " No man can come to me except the Father which bath sent me draw him." Or, as he puts it in verseJohn 6:65"No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." It will not be disputed that to come to Christ is to believe in him. But though this is generally admitted, the truth taught about it is not so easily conceded. For from what the Lord Jesus had previously said to the Jews in chap.John 5:40, "And ye will not come unto me that ye might have life," it has been contended, and we believe the opinion is very generally entertained, that aversion of heart is the only obstruction to faith in Christ. How false this notion is, and how empty is the metaphysical distinction between a natural and a moral inability respecting this matter, may be seen at large in the late Mr. John Stevens’ book entitled, " Help for the true Disciples of Immanuel." But even supposing, which we do not, that aversion of heart were the only obstruction to faith in Christ, if this is “by nature," that is, if it is the natural condition of man under the fall, is not the hindrance insuperable? Does it not amount to a cannot? Whether the nature of an obstruction to a particular perception and action of the mind be moral, or mental, or physical, if it be inherent in a man and irremovable by him, it is effectual, and constitutes an actual inability. Practically, what matters the nature or the name of an obstruction that effectually obstructs? Is an effectual hindrance less so by one name than another? But a false principle of interpretation lurks here. This is interpreting the cannot by the will not. What authority is there for this? Why might not others interpret the will not by the cannot? Either way is a vicious method of handling the Word of God. To interpret the cannot by the will not in this instance is to do away with the testimony of man’s helpless inability, and the absolute necessity of Almighty grace to be exerted to overcome it. To interpret the will not by the cannot would be to make void the severe reproof delivered by Jesus Christ to the Jews, and to all beside that are guilty of the same offence. Each of these testimonies, the will not and the cannot, has its own interpretation independently of the other. As they will not, they are perversely disinclined. As they cannot, they are wanting of the requisite power. But a distinction lies here that seems to escape general observation. InJohn 6:44, the Lord Jesus reveals a terrible want which constitutes a fatal inability with the view of bringing to notice the necessity of the exercise of divine grace to remedy the mischief. Moreover, his testimony here is absolute and comprehends the race; and it should be noticed that there is in it nothing of the nature of a personal reproof. On the other hand, what he said inJohn 5:40, was not absolute and unlimited, but it had a particular reference to the persons whom he was then addressing, audit had in it very strongly the nature of a personal rebuke. He appealed to the Scriptures in proof of his Messiahship ; and although these abundantly testified of him, and he answered most evidently in every point to their testimony, these Jews, who thought they had eternal life in them, nevertheless would not receive him as the Christ. Now where there is a just cause of reproof, and doubtless there was in this instance, there must be fault, and where there is fault there must be a breach of duty, and where a breach of duty a transgression of law. It was, then, without doubt, the duty of these Jews, and is of all others who have the Scriptures in their hands, to come to, to receive, or to believe in Christ. The will not, therefore, represents that coming to, and reception of Christ which is the duty of all men who hear the testimony God has testified concerning his Son. This duty, falling as it evidently does under the law of works, is wholly unconnected with the promise of life and salvation in Christ. Its due discharge will have its appropriate reward; its omission, its just desert. On the other hand, the cannot come represents that peculiar appreciative coming to, and receiving of Christ, which is a special privilege granted under the law of faith. Those who come not thus commit no .fault, incur no blame, and are not reproved. Those who do come thus, simply exert a given power and u e a given privilege, and in so doing they get to enjoy the blessings of salvation. But they discharge no duty by so doing, earn no reward, and receive no commendation. What they do is altogether of grace just as much as is what they enjoy. About the doing and the enjoying they may be congratulated, but not applauded. But more of this later on.