The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 431

BRAKEL AND COMRIE

391

to and leans on the strong shoulders him across a stream. "Second, that such trust necessarily requires a previous knowledge of evangelical truth and assent to its credibility and that, after that, faith exercises itself on and by its promises. "We now answer the question already stated as follows True, saving faith IS not the act of the mind assenting to evangelical truth, but the trusting of the heart to be saved by Christ on the ground of His voluntary offering of Himself to sinners and of the promises to them that trust And we say also that faith has its seat, not in the tinderin Him.

to another, or as

of the

man

one entrusts himself

that carries

;

:

standing, but in the will ; not being the assent to the truth in the understanding,

and

since

it

trust

is

must have

it

it

its

can not be

seat in the

will.

"The truth of what we have said is evident: " First, from the name itself. What we call to believe '

'to trust,' 'to confide,' 'to entrust.'

'

Scripture calls

Speaking of divine things revealed

Word alone, we must not be confined to our own language, would cause many to fall into error but we should adapt our speech and understanding to the nature and character of the original Hebrew and Greek. For in our language to believe means to accept promises and the narrative of events on the strength of another man's word but according to the force of the original languages the words, -laTtvu, to us in the for this

;

'

'

;

naf, IDD^ are translated

VP^r^., ''?,3,

entrust,

'

'

to lean upon.

'

They

not only to believe, '

'

but to '

trust,

' '

to

are used, not to denote the nature of trust,

but by trusting yielding oneself to Christ, relying on Him. "Secondly, the Scripture ascribes the act of faith to the heart: 'With the heart man believeth unto righteousness' (Rom. x. 10); 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he said, I believe that Jesus Christ

is

the Son of

God

'

(Acts

are both acts of the heart, the will.

viii. 37).

If it

Trusting and believing

be said that the heart refers also

we answer, very rarely, and even then it refers not understanding alone, but also to the will, or to the soul with all its

to the understanding,

to the

workings. "Thirdly,

if

the act of faith did consist in the assent of the

mind

to the

would be possible to have saving faith without accepting Christ, without trusting Him and you may know and acknowledge Christ as the Savior as long as you please, but what union and communion with Christ does that afford? To accept Christ and to trust and lean on Him would be only an effect of faith, but an effect does not complete the being of a thing which is complete before the effect and saving faith would not differ from historic faith, but be the same in its nature. For historic faith is also the assent of the mind to the truth of the Gospel, and even the devils and the unconverted have this faith. If it be said that the knowltruth,

it

;

;

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