The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 419

;

FAITH IN GENERAL moment,

it

379

often occurred that the minister unconsciously offered

to his people

one Sunday the very opposite of what he had eloThis should not be so. The

quently proclaimed the week before.

Church must increase in knowledge also and what sufficed for the Church is not sufficient now. The ideas of faith were confused then; and the earliest writings show that the various problems regarding faith had not been solved. But not so in the apostolic writings, whose inspiration is proven from the fact that they contain a clear and definite answer to nearly all these questions. But after the apostles had passed away, the ;

apostolic

depth of their word not yet understood, there was a childlike confusion of ideas in the Church of the

first

centuries

;

until the

Lord

allowed various heretical forms of faith to appear, which the Church

was compelled successfully

it

to

had

oppose by the real forms of faith. To do this to emerge from that confusion and to arrive at

and conceptions. Hence the many differences, questions, and distinctions which subsequently arose regarding faith's being and exercise. Owing to the earnest debates, the. real being of faith became gradually more defined and clearly distinguished from its false forms and imitations. That in the present time every path, good and bad, has its own distinctive sign-post, so that no one can turn in the wrong direction ig^norantly, is the fruit of the long conflict waged with so much patience and talent. Undoubtedly ignorance has caused much misunderstanding. But we maintain that a guide who neglects to examine the roads before he undertakes to guide travelers is unworthy of his title. And a minister of the Word is a spiritual guide, appointed by the Lord Jesus to conduct pilgrims traveling to the heavenly Jerusalem through the high Alps of faith, where the ordinary communications clearer distinctions

have ceased, from one mountain-plateau to anis inexcusable when, merely guessing at the location of the heavenly city, he advises his pilgrims to try the path which seems to lead in that direction. By virtue of his office he should make it his chief business to know which is the shortest, safest, and most certain way, and then tell them that this and none other is the way. Formerly, when the various paths had not yet been examined, it was to some extent praiseworthy to try them all but now, since their misleading character is so well known, it is unpardonable to try them again. of the earthly life other.

Hence he

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