Deposit of faith

“ When no more objections occur, then we are simply told that salvation by faith only ought not to be preached as the first doctrine, or, at least, not to be preached at all. But what saith the Holy Ghost? "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ." ”

“ Under the shelter of the full assurance of faith, in the sunshine of God’s love felt in the heart, all spiritual virtues bloom and flourish. But with a faith hesitant, distracted, that is sure of no doctrine in the creed and cannot plant a firm foot anywhere, nothing prospers in the soul or in the Church. ”

“ Oh, how mistaken are those who imagine that the articles of the Creed are like fetters on the mind. On the contrary, they are to us the evidences of that liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. We reject temptations against faith, as attacks on our happiness. We feel that to doubt the doctrine of faith would be to doubt the Son of God, and to doubt Him would be to discredit our own soul. Be firm, then, my brethren in faith. Remember that faith is part of your birthright and privilege as Christians. The Sepulchre of Christ is the gate to the Palace of Truth. ”

“ I ask, in the first place, whether it is wise to speak of faith as the one thing needful, and the only thing required, as many seem to do now-a-days in handling the doctrine of sanctification? -Is it wise to proclaim in so bald, naked, and unqualified a way as many do, that holiness of converted people is by faith only, and not at all by personal exertion? ”

“ The fact that it was the religion of their ancestors, the fact that they were baptized in it, the beauty of its ceremonies and architecture, the soothing influence of its ordinances, the services it has rendered to civilisation, might keep it standing in its place for a time; but these considerations are not strong enough to withstand the power of hell, when it is exerted in the way of persecution, or a general apostasy. {279} "Every plant that my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," said Christ. [Footnote 41] It must be a supernatural motive that binds us to our faith. ”

“ He, on the contrary, who considers and uses an increase of means only as a sacred deposit, committed to him for the extension of Christ's Kingdom, and not for individual aggrandizement, is liable to no such deception with respect to the Leadings of Providence. ”

“ But what if these modern churches, like the old ones they are to supersede, should become as salt which has lost its savor? Does the ethical spirit or the benevolent spirit not need support from a transcendental faith? ”

“ The same Spirit which revealeth the object of faith generally to the universal church, doth also illuminate the understanding of such as believe, that they may receive the truth. For faith is the gift of God, not only in the object, but also in the act. And this gift is a gift of the Holy Ghost working within us—And as the increase of perfection, so the original of faith is from the Spirit of God, by an internal illumination of the soul. ”

“ No, Barrister! they mean that men of different denominations may yet all believe in the corruption of the human will, the redemption by Christ, the divinity of Christ as consubstantial with the Father, the necessity of the Holy Spirit, or grace (meaning more than the disposition of circumstances) , and the necessity of faith in Christ superadded to a belief of his actions and doctrines,—and yet differ in many other points. ”

“ The baptism of the Holy Ghost is the spirit of Truth cleansing from all sin; giving mortals new motives, new purposes, new affections, all pointing upward. This mental condition settles into strength, freedom, deep-toned faith in God; and a marked loss of faith in evil, in human wisdom, human policy, ways, and means. It develops individual capacity, increases the intellectual activities, and so quickens moral sensibility that the great demands of spiritual sense are recognized, and they rebuke the material senses, holding sway over human consciousness. ”

“ Do we shut the door of faith? Do we lessen the number of believing people in England? Only remember what faith is, according to our homilies, (viz. “A sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God,”) And we appeal to all mankind, do we destroy this faith, which is the life and soul of the church? ”

“ God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel. Faith is the first principle of sanctification. And the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness. The gospel is truth ”

“ Consider how much we owe to God for having called us to the true faith, preferably to so many millions whom he has left behind in darkness and the shades of death. Alas! poor souls, how deplorable is their condition, void as they are of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, or of his only spouse, the true Catholic Church! ”

“ Hence we learn, that the first and great end of God’s permitting the temptations which bring heaviness on his children, is the trial of their faith, which is tried by these, even as gold by the fire. Now we know, gold tried in the fire, is purified thereby, is separated from its dross. And so is faith, in the fire of temptation; the more it is tried, the more it is purified. Yea, and not only purified, but also strengthened, confirmed, increased abundantly, by so many more proofs of the wisdom and power, the love and faithfulness of God. ”

“ It has been alleged that the Pope, the bishops, the priests, and the monks and nuns form the estate spiritual or ecclesiastical; while the princes, nobles, burgesses, and peasantry form the secular estate or laity. Let no man, however, be alarmed at this. All Christians constitute the spiritual estate: and the only difference among them is that of the functions which they discharge. We have all one baptism, one faith, and it is this which constitutes the spiritual man. ”

“ By the confession even of the ministers at the altars, nothing is more rare than the interior and spiritual religion, which is alone capable of regulating the life of man, and of triumphing over his inclinations. In good faith, among the most numerous and the most devotional people, are there many capable of understanding the principles of their religious system, and who find them of sufficient strength to stifle their perverse inclinations? ”

“ This gift is held out to the sinner's acceptance in many places of the word of God, and becomes the sinner's in the moment of believing. Provision is made by the same covenant for his sanctification; but that makes no part of justifying righteousness. Christ is made of God unto him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Try, my precious young friend, to lay hold on this hope, and enter into the rest provided for the believer here. Stretch forth 'the withered hand,' the Lord himself will give you strength. ”

“ Faith alone is able to penetrate and apprehend them. The doctrines which the Church, assisted by the Holy Spirit, promulgates, since they alone are true, offer to the believing investigator a mine of infinite treasures. ”

“ They have despised the Scriptural doctrine of the Millennium, and have made a common thing of the rest of faith by introducing all kinds of penances, masses, alms, and other deeds whereby to earn the peace with God, freely offered through faith in Jesus' atoning Sacrifice. ”

“ But the very meaning of divine faith is that we do, in spite of all discouragements, hold that to be practicable which is the will of God; and it is nothing new in the history of Christianity if at a crisis we need 'the blood of martyrs'—or something morally equivalent to their blood—for 'a seed,' the seed of a fresh growth of Christian corporate life. ”

“ But build the house of your faith on the rock of human experience, on the one rock on which every true Church is founded, the individual touch between the human Spirit and the divine, the personal experience of the human man on earth with the divine Man in the heaven, beside and around him, and you build the house of your faith on a rock that nothing can shake nor destroy, and it will shelter you, no matter what storms may rage outside. ”

“ Whatever therefore may be the merits or the final result of this grave and earnest controversy, it leaves untouched the corruption of human nature, the deity and atonement of Christ, justification by faith, the necessity of Divine influence to renew and purify the heart, and the scriptural doctrine of predestination, according to the fore-knowledge of God. ”

“ She finds all the articles of her faith more solemnly affirmed; all the practices which her piety demands more numerous and accessible; confession, absolution, communion—all is there; and must she refrain from satisfying her thirst for them?
“Is it credible that a soul thus thirsty for truth, faith, and love should be much disposed to recoil from the difficulty of accepting one word more in the confession of faith, [10] or of recognizing the head of the universal church as the head of the church in the East as well as of that in the West? ”

“ Some vainly imagine that, under the Gospel dispensation, gifts and blessings are obtained, not by external observances, or external works, but merely through faith and repentance, through mental operations, independent of physical. But, laying aside the traditions, superstitions, and creeds of men, we will look to the word of God, where we shall discover that external works, or outward ordinances, under the Gospel dispensation, were inseparably connected with inward works, such as faith and repentance. ”

“ They who are thus animated with the truth cannot hide the great principles of the Church. They will glory in her Covenant and publish the truth. Behold the martyrs, how they witnessed for Jesus Christ, while fire and sword had no more power over their faith than over the stars. The truth demands publicity. Our poor, deceived, demon-ridden world needs the truth, Gospel truth shining like the sun, convicting truth pointed like lightning; the sweet truth of love and the fiery truth of wrath; truth that reveals life, death, immortality, judgment, heaven, hell, and eternity. ”

“ What does faith rest upon? What is to be said of inspiration, and authority, and the essential attributes of a church? These, and other questions of the most essential religious importance, as the nature and signification of the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Incarnation of Christ, of Redemption, of Atonement, discussions as to the relations between faith and morals, and on the old, inevitable enigmas of necessity and liberty, all more or less entered into that mixed whirl of earnest inquiry and flippant scepticism which is summed up under the general name of the Deistic Controversy. ”

“ Are the people lawless and wretched? It all comes of giving up the Catholic order and creed. Return to the one fold under the one Shepherd if you would find prosperity. And there are others who repeat the same injunction, not indeed denying that there may be saving faith apart from their [343] ritual, but insisting still that it is an error and a sin to seek God elsewhere than at the accredited shrine. ”

“ We need sorely to reconsider what faith really is, and when we have recovered in some measure that knowledge of it in experience, which declared its unspeakable worth in the early Church and in later periods of ecclesiastical history which stand out before all others, we shall look back upon our past distrust of God and His promises with shame and wonderment, and proceed to revise our cataloguing of spiritual values and degrees of sin. ”

“ He who has such faith is fit for the altar and receives the sacrament as an assurance, or seal, or sign to assure him of God's promises and grace. But such faith we do not all have; would to God one-tenth of the Christians had it! See, such rich, immeasurable treasures, which God in His grace showers upon us, cannot be the possession of every one, but only of those who suffer either bodily or spiritual adversity: the bodily through the persecution of man, and the spiritual by despair of conscience ”

“ If the grasshoppers come again we can then find who has grain in their bins. With regard to faith and repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins, and the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Ghost, and the ordinances of the Gospel, the people are united; but when we come to the providences of God to us, then is the place for scepticism to come in and the people to differ. We are bound by our covenants to accept the word of the Lord. ”

“ That the Lord would 'build the waste places and repair the breaches;' that he would 'purify the sons of Levi,' fill all pulpits with able, faithful ministers of the new testament, who shall 'declare the whole counsel of God;' and that wherever his name is recorded, the Holy Ghost might fill the place, and convince the hearts of preachers and hearers, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment ”

“ If docility, obedience, a desire to believe, submission previous to insight, be not, under Christian conditions, characteristics of faith, merely because, under pagan conditions, they might be opposed to spiritual knowledge, then have most believers believed in vain; for error cannot be the foundation of truth. Discernment belongs, by universal confession, to faith, and baptism is the “sacrament of illumination” ”

“ But faith presupposes regeneration. Hence, as truth is the instrumentality employed by the Holy Spirit in the production of regeneration, and faith, as baptism is to be added after the great moral change, conversion has been effected in adults, it follows that the truth or word is the grand and principal means of grace, and not secondary to baptism. ”

“ For such are the dispositions which Scripture in other places requires, Christ, however, here and elsewhere, names and requires faith alone, and attributes salvation, more especially of the body, to faith, because faith is the prime origin and root of hope, fear, sorrow, and love of God. ”

“ They had long talks together, and my husband—as did the elders ever in such cases—spoke to the governor of redemption through Christ, and baptism for the remission of sins. Faith is not an act of the will. Like the unseen wind, it comes, and we see the power thereof, but know not whence it proceeds. ”