In 1846, in "A Tract for the People," Mr. Campbell discusses

      The Book of God is addressed to the human understanding. It assumes that man, though fallen and depraved, is yet an intelligent being--that he has certain faculties or powers of ascertaining truth, of perceiving and receiving intelligence. It does not, indeed, inform him that he has the faculty of seeing, hearing, speaking, or believing. It does not explain to him that the possession of a faculty or power to do any thing, makes it his duty to employ that faculty or power in any way that his Creator may require. But it addresses him as [1] though these were matters perfectly understood and agreed upon between his Creator and himself.

      Some, in their speculative philosophy, have called these things in question, and have created doubts where none ever before existed. Hence we sometimes find men doubting whether there be such a faculty as faith amongst the intellectual faculties or powers of man. Philologists, indeed, say, that the term faculty indicates power or ability to do any thing; and Christian philosophers say, that man has just as much power to believe testimony as he has to reason, to hear, or to speak. If, then, any confidence can be due to such authorities, we may say that man, as a human being, has the faculty of speaking, hearing, reasoning, and believing--as naturally as he has the faculty of seeing, tasting, or feeling. We may advance one step farther, and say;--that speaking and hearing are both useless endowments--that they are faculties of no value, if we have not the faculty of believing what is spoken, or of ascertaining the truth of what is beard. Indeed, all sound, discriminating thinkers must regard the faculties of speaking, hearing, and believing, as necessarily and essentially related to one another; so that any one of them implies the other two. Why should man have the faculty of speech, if his neighbor had not the faculty of hearing? And why should he have the faculty of hearing, and reasoning upon what is heard, if he have not the faculty of believing what is true? Light, then, does not more obviously exist for the eye, and music for the ear, than speech for hearing, and hearing for faith. Well did Paul, therefore, reason when he said, "Faith comes by hearing; and hearing, from the [speech or] word of God." We, therefore, conclude that God never would have spoken to man, if man could not hear him; and that man never would have heard his word, if he could not believe what God said to him. The fact, then, that God has given to the world a revelation, is, with me, a demonstration that man has the power to believe it--provided only, his heart or attention is devoted to it. It is an intelligible, veritable, and credible document, worthy of God as its author, and of man as its object.

      Both oral and written testimony are addressed to our reason; for although the written testimony is designed for the eye, and the oral testimony for the ear, both are addressed to our reason--to our power of discriminating the characters of truth from those of falsehood. There is in this also a sort of tacit agreement or understanding between the parties--as much as there is between two persons speaking the same vernacular, in the use and meaning of the words and phrases, of the tones and gestures employed in their intercommunications with one another.

      Revelation, though originally in the form of oral testimony, is now altogether in the form of a written record. It is in this form, indeed, [2] still more circumstantially addressed to our reason and our faith. The meaning of its language and the truth of its developments are alike to be ascertained by the faculties to which they are conjointly addressed. It always proceeds upon the assumption that unless it is understood it can not be believed, and that unless it is believed it can exert no salutary influence upon our hearts or our lives.

      To admit the testimony to be true, is, in the sacred style, equivalent to believing it; for he that believeth the testimony of God has simply "set to his seal that God is true." Faith, indeed, is always but the conviction of the truth of testimony, whether that testimony be human or divine. To be convinced that any testimony or report is true, is to believe it; to be convinced that it is not true, is to disbelieve it; not to be able to decide, is to doubt. Hence there are but three distinct states of mind as respects testimony. We believe, disbelieve, or doubt it.

      Of all the endowments vouchsafed to man, that of faith is superlatively excellent. To this faculty he owes all that knowledge that ennobles and exalts him in the scale of being. The range and acquisitions of his five senses are as nothing compared with the domains of faith. The area of faith is wider than the earth, broader than the sea, extending through all time, and launching into an indefinite eternity past and future. By faith we commune with all the living and with all the dead whose deeds of renown have been inscribed upon the rolls of time. Ages past and gone are ever present with us--empires that have long since fallen, still stand before us--cities, palaces, and temples, that, ages since, have mouldered down to dust, arise from their ruins and display to us the science and skill, the genius and taste, the pride and superstition of their founders and architects. By faith in human testimony the experience of ages is brought home to us and made subordinate to our wants and our wishes. By it we may be said to have lived before we were born--to have communed with the men of all ages and nations--to have been--contemporaries with all the generations of men.

      By faith in divine testimony we know how the universe was made--how worlds began to be--how space sprang from nothing, and how it has been possessed with its unnumbered tenantry of worlds. By it we see the first man springing out of the dust at the bidding of his Almighty Maker, blushing into life in his immediate presence, and receiving a holy spirit from the life-inspiring voice of his Father and his God. By it we see him wrapped in a mystic sleep and the hand of God dislocating a rib near his heart, which he moulds after the image of love into incarnate beauty, and presents to Adam as a companion meet for such a man as he. [3]

      Faith, also, illuminated by the same bright Sun of Eternity, gifts man with the prospective visions of times and ages yet unborn. It presents to the enraptured vision of the saint, Adam and Eve, with all their redeemed progeny, ransomed from the grave; emerging, phoenix-like, from the ashes of an old world; or, Eve-like, rising in immortal beauty and loveliness from the opened side of the second Adam, making their sublime entry amidst the acclamations of the celestial choristers, into new heavens and a new earth, especially prepared for them. Truly, then, may we not say with Paul, that "faith is the confident expectation of things hoped for, and the conviction [or evidence] of things not seen"?

      But the sublime nature, ineffable utility, and importance of faith, are not to be learned from a survey of its widespread and long-enduring dominion over time, space, and eternity; but from a strict attention to the place it now occupies in the world and in the church of God, in the present employments, character, and destiny of man. Be it observed, then, that all the faculties of man have a present specific use and importance in the full development of himself, in the formation of such a character as he should rationally desire to possess to all eternity, and in qualifying him to fill his own space in the world, in the performance of those functions, and the discharge of those duties which will avail to the interests and happiness of the world.

      Every faculty of man has its proper object and its proper use. Has he the faculty of vision? There are objects to be seen, and advantages to be gained from seeing them. Has he the faculty of hearing? There are the harmonies and the melodies of nature and of the human voice to be heard and to be enjoyed. Has he the faculty of reasoning? There are objects to be compared, and conclusions of practical utility to be deduced from them. Has he the faculty of believing? There is the testimony of men, and there is the testimony of God to be believed and appropriated. Now, as this is the noblest faculty which man possesses, conversant with things past, present, and future, proximate and remote, God has ordained that he shall walk by faith, physically, intellectually, and morally. Hence man is obliged to walk through his whole life more by faith than by his five senses, his own observations, or his own experience--probably more than by these all combined. This being a very fundamental fact, we shall be at some pains to develop it.

      The infant man enters life more helpless than any animal with whose history we are acquainted. He has not instinct sufficient for the first effort essential to life, health, or comfort. He is as destitute of reason, observation, and experience, as of instinct, to guide him in the pursuit of what is essential to his animal existence. God has made him dependent upon the care, direction, and counsel of his [4] mother or his nurse, in the very first steps of life's pilgrimage. He must walk by faith in the articles of food and medicine, and all physical safety. He can not walk by reason, for as yet he has it not. He can not walk by his own experience, for he has acquired none. He can not walk by instinct, for that was not imparted to him. He is, therefore, under an insuperable necessity to walk by faith as respects food, medicine, poison, and all surrounding dangers from fire, flood, or tempest. If he believe not on the testimony of others that medicine will cure, that poison will kill, that fire will burn, and that water will drown, he must pay the penalty and suffer for his unbelief. More destitute of instinct and of defense than the oyster or the lobster, he must not be left to his own guidance or guardianship. He must not be permitted to experiment with the serpent, the young lion, or with the poisons, animal or vegetable, with which the earth abounds. The law of nature is as imperious and universal as the law of the gospel. If the gospel says, "He that believeth not shall be damned"--the law of man's natural existence says, "It he believe not his mother or his nurse, he must die."

      But it is not in the nursery only that the infant man is trained to walk by faith. He enters the primary school under the same imperious law. The primer is put into his hand. He opens it, and looks at the letters of the alphabet; but neither knows their name nor their sound. He might look at them for a thousand years, and neither know the name nor the sound of the first letter. But by faith in his teacher, he learns the names and the sounds of them all. By the same principle he learns the art and mystery of reading his own mother's language. Does he desire the science of numbers or that of magnitudes? He is equally obliged to walk by faith either in the written testimony or in the verbal explanation of a teacher. Does he desire to learn ancient or foreign languages--to distil sweetness and pleasure from Greek and Roman springs? Then must he repose implicit faith in his lexicographer, and believe him in every definition of verb and noun.

      Having passed through the nursery training and discipline by faith, having also advanced through the primary and high school education under the guidance and supremacy of the same universal law, does he desire to take his place as a free agent on the active theatre of life? Does he become a merchant, a mechanic, an agriculturist? He is still to walk by the same rule, and to be governed by the same stern necessity. Believe he must in those who have gone before him in every calling and department of life. He has to buy and sell, to barter and exchange the products of his own labor, or the products of other men's labor, by faith in human testimony. In receiving a shilling, a guinea, an eagle, a bank bill, a bill of exchange, a draft, he must act by faith as to their genuineness, their value at a given time [5] and at a given place. All of which depends upon the testimony of ethers. In paying or in receiving payments, he acts by the same principle and obeys the same law. Even the weights and measures by which he buys and sells are to him almost universally matters of testimony and faith. What need have we of farther witness? In natural and social life, in the nursery and at school, in the active business and pursuits of life, men are compelled in all cases first, and in most cases always, to walk by faith. Their own senses, observation, and experience, in process of time, guide them in co-operation with testimony and faith; but these first lead the way and continue our chief guides through all the great concerns of life!

      Why, then, should it be otherwise as respects things unseen, spiritual, and eternal? Here, indeed, we must "walk by faith, and not by sight." But the sceptic and the infidel have no reason to reject the gospel, or deny the Bible, because it imparts its blessings only through faith. Nature, society, and the gospel bear equally impressed upon them the characteristic marks of the same great original. If man, in things temporal and with respect to his present life, walks by faith, why should it be thought incredible that God would have him walk by faith in things spiritual and with respect to an eternal life? The conditions of spiritual and eternal life are, in this all-important feature, the same. He that believeth not must perish, is equally true as respects both.

      The gospel assumes that which Christian and infidel must equally admit;--that mankind are accustomed to walk by faith in all the important concerns of this life. It, therefore, very rationally addresses itself to this faculty in addressing man. It proposes to him no new principle. It speaks in harmony with the presiding genius of his own nature. It submits to him clear and ample testimony in proof of all that it demands and of all that it promises. Its language is,--"If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater." If men's words may be relied on, how much more the word of God!

      Great virtue and power are attached to the faith of the gospel. Some, however, ascribe this efficacy rather to the manner of believing it, than to the truth which is believed. There are some very popular mistakes upon this subject. Some imagine that there are several ways of believing testimony, or of assenting to evidence. This is, however, a very great error, and of injurious tendency. There is but one way of believing any testimony, human or divine; and that is, to admit it to be true. He that admits any testimony to be true, believes it; and no believer can do more than admit the truth of a witness. There are, indeed, or may be, different degrees of clearness and certainty in the evidence adduced in any case; and hence there are, or may be, as many different degrees of conviction or assurance of the truth of it. Hence [6] faith is strong or weak, in the ratio of the clearness and force of the testimony adduced. But the clearness and force of testimony is not necessarily innate in the words or manner of the witness; but much depends upon the discrimination and clearness of perception, as well as upon the candor of the believer, in appreciating the clearness and force of the testimony adduced. It is, therefore, essential to strong and vigorous belief in any thing, that the testimony be clear and forcible in itself, and that it be clearly perceived and fully comprehended by the believer. It follows, then, that there are not several ways of believing; but that there may be different degrees of evidence and that one person may more clearly and satisfactorily believe than another.

      Some superficial thinkers have spoken and written much upon different kinds of faith. They have "historical" and "saving faith," 'the "faith of miracles," and the "faith of devils," the "faith direct and reflex," "temporary and enduring faith," etc., etc. These are conceits of the old metaphysical theologians, and have done a world of mischief. By placing historical and saving or divine faith in contrast, and in giving all value to saving and none to historical belief, they have bewildered themselves and their followers:--

There is no faith worth any thing that is not historical; for all our religion is founded upon history. What would any Jew or Christian have believed concerning Moses or Jesus, bat for the history of those persons? Is there any man under the broad heavens who believes in Moses or in Jesus, who has not first heard of the Lawgiver and the Saviour from history, oral or written! Not one. But there are those who believe in Moses and in Jesus on mere human tradition, without any correct knowledge of the history; and there are those who believe on Moses and on Jesus on the proper evidence; but they have such views of Moses and of Jesus as renders their faith of no value. They hold opinions and views of these persons that make them mere shadows or ideal personages. Our Saviour told certain Jews that believed in Moses, as they alleged, that had they "believed Moses they would have believed him;" but not having believed the writings of Moses, they could not believe his words. [7]

      Multitudes believe something concerning Jesus the Messiah on mere national or human authority and prescription, who have not one distinct real conception or apprehension of him; and, consequently; "he will not commit himself to them." Many in Jerusalem, while he was there, like Nicodemus when he first visited him, believed in him; to whom, we are told, he would not commit himself because he knew what mistakes and misconceptions they entertained concerning him. The whole history must be clearly understood and really believed in its true sense and on its divine evidence, as demonstrated by the Holy Spirit, before any one can, in strict propriety, be said to believe it. All who thus believe it, will find that it is both the wisdom and power of God to salvation.

      But the power and efficacy of faith depend not so much upon the act or manner of believing, nor upon the certainty of the evidence, nor even upon our assurance of its truth, as upon the nature and value of the thing that is believed. THE POWER OF FAITH IS IN THE TRUTH BELIEVED. The power of faith is the power of truth. It is not eating that sustains or destroys human life. It is what is eaten. Some eat and live--others eat and die. Some believe and are saved--others believe and are damned. Both characters truly and sincerely believe. But the former believe the truth and are saved--the latter believe a lie and are damned. So true it is, that it is not the manner of believing that saves or destroys, nor the sincerity of believing; but the meaning or nature of that which is believed. "God," says Paul, sends to some "a strong delusion," or allows them to receive a strong delusion, so "that they may believe a lie" and be condemned; while to others he sends the truth with power, that they may believe and be saved. Some believe fatally, yet sincerely--indeed, all, who believe an error or a falsehood. Some, indeed, prefer to believe a pleasing and agreeable falsehood rather than an unsavory or disagreeable truth. Hence some really love darkness while others love the light and the truth.

      It is highly important that this great proposition be somewhat elaborated and demonstrated;--that salvation is not in the act of believing, but in the object or proposition that is believed. It is the object of faith, and not faith itself, that has the power to save. If we examine our physical, intellectual, and moral constitutions, in all their organs, faculties, and capacities, one by one, we shall find that it is neither the possession of them nor the employment of them that affords us health, safety, or happiness; but the object on which they are employed. It is not the eye, nor the act of seeing, that affords us pleasure or pain. It is the thing seen. It is not the ear, nor the act of hearing, but the thing heard that soothes or irritates. So of the organs of tasting, smelling, feeling. The pleasures of [8] sense, derived from tastes, odors, and contacts, are not in the sense or organs themselves, nor in the operations of the organs, but in the objects on which these senses act.

      The same universal law obtains in the intellectual and moral departments of our nature. It is not the faculty of perception, reflection, comparison, or memory--or the employment of these faculties; but the things perceived, reflected upon, compared, imagined or remembered, that afford us either pleasure or pain. So of all the affections and passions. We love and we hate, we admire and adore with pleasure or pain, according to the objects. And were we to adopt the new philosophy of fifty organs in the human head, and of as many faculties, called acquisitiveness, cautiousness, etc., etc., we, should find the same law without a single exception. If, then, the faculty of faith, or the operation of faith, has any power to bless, to animate with hope, to justify, to sanctify, to regenerate, or to save, that power is neither in the faculty, in the act, nor operation, but in the object on which it terminates.

      Still the objects subjected to the faculties of man,--whether sensitive, intellectual, or moral,--can afford him neither pleasure nor pain unless apprehended and appropriated by the faculties to which they severally belong. The richest, most variegated, and beautiful landscape in nature,--the most, majestic and sublime operations of the divine hand in heaven or earth, afford no pleasure to the eye unless viewed and contemplated by that organ. The most rapturous harmonies and melodies of nature or of art afford no pleasure unless listened to and heard. In vain the aromatic shrubs and fragrant flowers of the garden pour their delicious odors into the bosom of gentle zephyrs, to be wafted to our nostrils, if we inhale then not So the rich provisions of almighty love, displayed to man in a thousand ways, but consummated beyond our powers of thought and utterance in the gift of eternal youth, beauty, and loveliness to fallen man, through the incarnation of the everlasting WORD--the sufferings unto death of his only begotten and infinitely beloved Son--and through the sanctification of his HOLY SPIRIT,--unless apprehended and appropriated by faith, can neither fill the soul with heavenly peace, and joy, and love, nor give to man the victory over death, the grave, and Satan. Hence, by a figure of speech which puts the instrument for the agent, salvation is ascribed to faith, while it virtually belongs to the sacrifice and intercession of the Messiah. The gospel, then, as ministered now by the Holy Spirit, is "the power of God for salvation to every one that believes it." Faith, indeed, is but the hand that apprehends and appropriates Christ as revealed to us by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. Salvation, then, is of faith, that it might be by grace. For as the hand that plucks the fruit is not [9] the fruit, is not that which either creates or sustains life, but only that which ministers to its development and preservation--so faith's sublime efficacy is not in itself, but in that which it receives and appropriates to the soul of man, in which alone is the spring and fountain of eternal life.

      Having now, as we hope, clearly ascertained the necessity, utility, and value of faith in the Christian institution, it is expedient that we also ascertain, if possible, that great central proposition in the Christian system which gives to faith all its sovereignty over the heart, and soul, and life of man. It were of little value to the sick and dying could we convince them that all medicinal efficacy was in a certain specific remedy, and not in the act of receiving it into the system; and yet withhold from them a revelation of that sovereign specific.

      There is, then, but one remedial system for sin and sinners in this universe. There never can be but one such system under a government of perfect wisdom, of immaculate holiness, of inflexible justice, of inviolate truth, and of infinite mercy. That one only omnipotent remedy, though composed of many mysterious and sublime elements, displayed in the wonderful facts of Messiah's life, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven--is nevertheless all concentrated in the form of one proposition, on the faith and intelligence of which is suspended instrumentally the salvation of any human being. All the truths of the Bible are but the envelope of this remedy--inscribed, indeed, with the directions for its use, and innumerable certificates in attestation of its life-restoring power. That proposition in word is, "GOD IS LOVE"--that proposition in fact is, "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON"--(a sin-offering)--"THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM MIGHT NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE." "The testimony of God," summed up by the last of the Apostles, is, "God has gifted to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." "He, then, that has the Son, has this life; he that has not the Son of God, has not this life." But all this is again concentrated in a single proposition concerning the person, office, and mission of his Son; viz.: "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God." This is the most fundamental proposition in the moral universe. It is the foundation of the system of redemption--the foundation of a Christian's hope in God--and the foundation of the Christian Church. Jesus himself so commanded it. (Matt. xvi. 16, 17.) Paul also commends it to our consideration, (I. Cor. iii. 11,) saying, 'Other foundation can no man lay than that which is already laid'--viz.: that Jesus is the Christ.¹ So God himself commended it by Isaiah, (xxviii. 16,) "Thus saith the [10] Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation-stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste"--"shall not be confounded world without end." So also the Holy Spirit attested it, (Acts ii. 36,) "Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ." Thus the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit agree in one testimony concerning Jesus. This is the testimony of the law in all its types--the testimony of all the Prophets in their predictions of the gospel kingdom--and it is the testimony of the twelve Apostles.

      In this proposition, therefore, is the mysterious and sublime power of the gospel. It is the distinctive and peculiar object of the Christian's faith. There is no salvation in the belief of the call of Abraham, the mission of Moses, or the preaching of John the Harbinger, any more than in the translation of Enoch, the salvation of Noah from the flood, or of Lot from the overthrow of Sodom. There is no development of the Messiah in any of these facts or declarations. Many such facts, events, and declarations are but the envelope of the great truth of all divine revelation. The bread which sustains life is not in the ear nor in the chaff, but in the corn. Still it is true, that were there no ear and no chaff, there would be no wheat. We give them their proper importance; but not an importance beyond their meaning or design. The power of the sword is not in the scabbard, nor in the handle; but in the blade. The power of saving faith is in the saving truth believed. Of course no truth can have power over either the heart or the hope of man that is not understood. The efficacy is in the sense, and not in the sound. The sense of the great proposition is, therefore, that which is believed, and not the mere words which contain that sense. Indeed, the faith that saves the soul communes with the sense of words and not with the words themselves. Millions professing Christianity seem to think that there is a peculiar virtue in the mere enunciation of "the persons of the Trinity"--a sort of magic charm or cabalistic power in so many words or letters peculiarly arranged. But the Great Teacher said, "It is eternal life to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."² And Isaiah said, "By the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."³ And Jesus said, "He that received the seed in good ground is he that heareth the word and understandeth it."⁴ Again he says, "If you continue in my word, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."⁵

      Reprobates are sometimes described as those who "hear," but who do not understand the gospel. And they do not understand it because they [11] will not; for ears and understanding they have, but they will not, they do not, apply them. Still the truth believed, understandingly believed, is that which instrumentally saves the soul. Hence preached the evangelical Isaiah, "Incline your ear"--"Hear," said the Lord, "and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David."

      These things being so, according to the constitution of the human mind and of the universe, the great proposition must be understood before it can be believed in its sanctifying and saving efficacy. But that I when so believed it possesses the power, is clearly and strongly affirmed by high authority. Thus speaks the Apostle John:--"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." Again, says the same Apostle:--"This is the victory that overcometh the world--viz.: our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" "Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life through his name."⁶ The importance and salutary power of this faith need not, methinks, to be further argued. The justified, and sanctified, and saved build their hopes upon it--Jesus builds his church upon it--God himself founds the remedial system upon it. He that believes it is begotten and born of God--he overcomes the world--and will, most certainly, be saved and obtain through it eternal life; for no man can believe in its true meaning, and not confide in it.

      Demons, indeed, believe and tremble. They cannot believe that Jesus died for them. Therefore, they can have no confidence in him. They cannot appropriate one of his promises. But sinful men can believe that to them is the word of this salvation sent and they can confide in the Lord Jesus. Through their faith in the testimony of God, and their personal confidence in the promises of Christ, they can individually say, "Christ loved me, and gave himself for me!" This is to believe God, and to believe in him whom he has sent. This, indeed, is the effect of all true faith; for no one can be said to believe in Jesus that does not confide in him for his own personal salvation.

      It remains, then, that we develop the full meaning of this vital proposition as "the foundation of repentance from dead works," and as the basis of all Christian piety and humanity. In doing this we shall, in our next Tract, attempt to develope that "REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE," which God has granted to the nations as the fruit of their faith in the divinely authenticated proposition that "Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God."

A. C.      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. "Tracts for the People.--No. IV. Faith." The Millennial Harbinger 17 (February 1846): 73-84.

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