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his soul to Jesus has found the clue to the maze!" Modern unbelief is so short of the quality that it seized the label, and has advertised itself as HONEST doubt. It was in dire need of a character. We lift our feeble voice on behalf of HONEST FAITH. PROFOUND THOUGHTS ON FAITH AND DOUBT |
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When the new-born faith has wondered for a while, she asks herself the question, "Whence am I? How came I into the heart ?" The answer which she receives from the Book, and also from her own consciousness is — This is the operation of God. The Holy Spirit must have wrought this faith, which is so new, so vivid, so potent, so much above the ordinary range of the mind. If this be so, a new source of reliance is opened up. The man says, "God has actually begun to operate upon my nature, and as he is unchangeable, he will carry on this work, and complete it." Thereupon God-reliance enters on a fertile country, a land which floweth with milk and honey. The Holy Alliance is an actual fact. The Father must have drawn, or the man would not have come to Christ; and herein is love. The Christ has made a complete atonement for sin; and herein is love. The Holy Ghost has wrought faith, and its blessed consequences; and herein is love. The believing heart is introduced into a new relation to God; it has reached an unexpected nearness to him; it has received the first-fruits of the power which it desired to rely upon. That same Spirit, who is evidently in the heart, is declared to be an abiding Comforter, a Sanctifier, an inward and effectual Teacher: this makes the future quite another thing from what it had ever threatened or even promised to be. The revelation of the Book has become a revelation within the heart; the man believes after a higher fashion, and is girt with a strength which his most sanguine hopes had never dreamed of realizing.
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