The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 444

FAITH

404 he can do

In this direction the shaft is clear he has the so. But the wheel can not turn the other way a little perhaps, with much difficulty and much squeaking, but never suffiThe working of his will can never produce ciently to grind corn. any saving good. He can not make the wheel of his life run with the energy of the will toward God. Even after he is inwardly changed, and the faith faculty has ensin.

power

;

to sin.

;

tered his consciousness,

it is

useless so long as the powerless will

There-

enters the consciousness to expel his Christian assurance.

must be divinely wrought upon to serve the changed consciousness. Hence the disposition of faith is imparted not only fore the will

to the consciousness,

but also to the

The

Christ of the Scripture.

When

again freely toward God.

changed, then only can the

will, to

adapt

will of the saint is

new

the ego

itself to

made

to

the

move

turned and the will

is

disposition enter the consciousness,

to be assured that Christ after the Scripture is the only Christ

and

his Christ.

The

faculty of faith

is

therefore something complex.

be independent from the consciousness and knowledge

It ;

can not

for

it

im-

plies a change of man's being and the will's liberty to move toward God. Hence this faculty is not a spontaneous growth from the

implanted it

life,

neither is

it

independent of

can enter us only after regeneration,

it

;

but as a disposition

and even then

it

must be

given us by the grace of God.

Of course, the man

in

whom

the faculty of faith begins to work

believes in Scripture, in Christ, and in his

own

salvation

;

but with-

end to object against Scripture, Christ, and his own salvation. He may be almost convinced wholly convinced he will never be. This is temporary faith, historical faith, faith in ideals, but never saving faith. out

it

he continues

to the

;

But if a man has received this disposition, is it possible for him immediately and always to believe? Surely not, no more than a normal infant can read, write, or think logically. And when at sixteen he can do these things, it is owing not to new faculties received since his birth, but to the development of those born in him. A new-born child of God possesses the faculty to believe but there This requires something is no immediate and actual believing. more. As a child can not learn and develop without teachers and ;

in connection with his

own environment,

so the faculty of faith can

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