Faith

“ Faith which by our works is shown:
God it is Who justifies;
Only faith the grace applies.
Active faith that lives within,
Conquers earth, and hell, and sin,
Sanctifies, and makes us whole,
Forms the Savior in the soul. ”

“ O HOLY Spirit of truth, we beseech Thee to enlighten the minds of unbelievers in the midst of us; to incline their hearts to love Thy word, and to believe the teachings of Thy Church; give them courage to accept the faith and openly profess it ”

“ Thus faith—which is the rock on which the Church of Christ is built, and without which we shall never believe the promises, accept the offers, or attain the salvation of the Gospel—is the gift of God, and wrought in our souls by the Holy Spirit. ”

“ I have sought to keep the faith,—faith in a Power in the universe good enough to make truth-seeking wise, and strong enough to make truth-telling effective,—faith in the rise of man rather than in the fall of man,—faith in the gradual evolution and ultimate prevalence of right reason among men. ”

“ And in its deepest meaning of absolute dependence and happy confidence, faith abides through all the glories and the lustres of the heavens, as it burns amidst the dimnesses and the darknesses of earth. ”

“ What comforts me in this life is that I now see Him by faith; and I see Him in such a manner as might make me say sometimes, I believe no more, but I see. I feel what faith teaches us, and in that assurance and that practice of faith I will live and die with Him. ”

“ Upon faith in him depended their faith in his word, and upon faith in his word depended their power to keep alive in the world that true religion which was destined for all men and which we to-day share. ”

“ With this absolute faith in the existence of a God, and in prayer, only one thing more is needed to complete the fundamental basis of all religions—an honest effort to live according to our conscience and to the best and truest that is within ourselves. ”

“ And further it is my faith—however humbly it may be held—that among these lofty beings, highest of those who concern themselves directly with this earth of all the myriads of worlds in infinite space, is One on whom the right instinct of Christianity has always lavished heartfelt reverence and devotion. ”

“ Divine faith rests not on fallible reasonings and probable opinions, but on the infallible word, the truth itself, which is after godliness, of a godly nature and tendency, pure, and purifying the heart of the believer. ”

“ Therefore, dear Christian! let not your religion be confined to bare externals, but see that it proceed from the more inward recesses of a heart endued with a true, living, and active faith, and with an unfeigned, inward, and daily repentance. ”

“ In a work that professes to deal with the Christian faith—The Truth of Religion—and which indeed presents a powerful vindication of historical Christianity, we miss any philosophical interpretation of the nature and power of prayer, adoration, or worship, or any account, indeed, of the intimacies of the soul which belong to the very essence of the Christian faith. ”

“ For he had a vital faith, and this faith made the ideals he conceived seem possible—faith in the duty and desirability of overthrowing idols; faith in the gospel of liberty, fraternity, equality; faith in the divine beauty of Nature; faith in the perfectibility of man; faith in the omnipresent soul, whereof our souls are atoms; faith in love, as the ruling and co-ordinating substance of morality. ”

“ Faith is in some respects the first of all the Christian graces. It is the beginning of spiritual life in the soul—the originating and sustaining principle of all evangelical holiness. Having faith, we have nothing to do but to add to it all the rest of our lives. “Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.” ”

“ How do we lay aside our senses and our reason, when we use both in a due subordination to our faith? Faith itself comes by hearing, which is one of our senses: We hear the glad tidings of the gospel preached to us, and our hearts are brought into subjection to the power thereof! ”

“ Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And cries, “It shall be done!” ”

“ Religion has, before all things, to guard the heritage of truth, the moral revelation of God in Christ, to 'contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints,' and to trust to the promised guidance of the Spirit of Truth. ”

“ Something passed from my life that day which nothing can replace; for perfect faith, like love, comes to a man but once.
1 was empty of comfort and without resting-place for my spirit. Then said I: Look you, belief in this religion as dogma is gone; why not hold fast to its imaginative beauty! If revelation is a fraud, at least the intricacies of this catholic faith have grown up from the long yearning of the human heart, and possess this inner reality of corresponding with our spiritual needs. ”

“ And with such a heart and mind are the scriptures to be read, and the examples and glorious effects of faith to be considered, that so we may receive strength and holy boldness, more nearly to unite ourselves with God, and to enjoy his infinite love and faithfulness in a more ample and abundant manner. ”

“ The faith I want is 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. Believe and thou shalt be saved! He that believeth is passed from death to life. ”

“ The simple fact that you were present and saw him sprinkled, or heard him request the administration of the rite, convinces you that he had a certain kind or species of faith. Do all people have one faith? ”

“ The same faith of which our Lord says,—‘Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.’ The faith of the heart; the childlike, undoubting, ready, willing faith, which welcomes the news of the Lord; which runs to meet it, and is not astonished at it ”

“ By the grace of God I desire that my faith in God should extend towards EVERY thing, the smallest of my own temporal and spiritual concerns, and the smallest of the temporal and spiritual concerns of my family, towards the saints among whom I labour, the church at large, everything that has to do with the temporal and spiritual prosperity of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution, etc. Dear reader, do not think that I have attained in faith (and how much less in other respects!) ”

“ The religious life begins with Faith, which has been defined ... as the resolution to stand or fall by the noblest hypothesis. This venture of the will and conscience progressively verifies itself as we progress on the upward path. ”

“ Justifying faith implies, not only a divine evidence or conviction, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself but a sure trust and confidence, that Christ died for my sins, that he loved me and gave himself for me. ”

“ Faith makes us, and not we it, and faith makes its own forms. ”

“ That the whole substance of religion was faith, hope, and charity, by the practice of which we become united to the will of God; that all besides is indifferent, and to be used as a means that we may arrive at our end, and be swallowed up therein, by faith and charity. ”

“ The intelligence of each one, his past history, his moral dispositions, will determine how far the faith that is in him corresponds to the faith that is without him—the faith as it is in itself, the object of faith as it is in God. ”

“ Faith is a sure trust which a man hath in God, that his sins are forgiven. Or if you are not, whether you hear our church or no, at least hear the scriptures. Hear believing Job, declaring his faith, I know that my Redeemer liveth. ”

“ And is not the demonstration, which we possess, that alone which is true, as being supplied out of the divine Scriptures, the sacred writings, and out of the “God-taught wisdom,” according to the apostle? Learning, then, is also obedience to the commandments, which is faith in God. And faith is a power of God, being the strength of the truth. ”

“ To this intellectual, moral, and religious activity, heightened and intensified by supernatural faith, we owe the spread of Christianity throughout the Gentile world, more than to the zeal and labors of all the apostles. ”

“ Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him; the childlike teachableness that waits on Him to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit. ”

“ Faith is a grace that one expression supposes and another expressly requires: Knowing this, that the trial of your faith, v. 3; and then in v. 6, Let him ask in faith. There must be a sound believing of the great truths of Christianity, and a resolute cleaving to them, in times of trial. That faith which is spoken of here as tried by afflictions consists in a belief of the power, and word, and promise of God, and in fidelity and constancy to the Lord Jesus. ”

“ Religion indeed enlightens, terrifies, subdues; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears, it inflames devotion, but [pg 185] only for the occasion. ”

“ Such an unfeigned faith being required as mentioned, and clearly linding in the word of the Lord, that all dealing and aim of true Christianity, concerning the new birth or creature, true repentance, dying unto sin, a new life, true righteousness, obedience, salvation and eternal life, lie in a sincere, active faith, according to all Scripture, as may be seen and read in many passages ”

“ Here we have the single word faith put to stand for the whole revealed order of salvation: for morals are contained under faith; and this, which is the ultimate object of infallibility, is expressed in the following and various formulas: 1. Concerning faith. 2. In things of faith and morals. 3. Things which pertain to faith. 4. Things necessary to salvation. 5. Precepts of morals binding the whole Church. 6. Things pertaining to piety. 7. Things of religion. 8. Things of faith speculative and practical. 9. Things pertaining to doctrine. ”

“ We can take our place again with all the great religious spirits who have ever molded the faith and life of men, and we find ourselves in harmony with the devout of every faith who are manfully battling with sin and discord. ”

“ Religion has sometimes been represented as introducing a new faculty called "faith" into the man's life, as adding this faith to the reason he had before, or perhaps as driving reason out and putting faith in its place. ”

“ Fourth, We are all (through faith) one body in Him. The thought may be put in other ways, but all to the same purpose. The doctrine of sin, and the doctrine of grace; or the universality of sin and the universality of grace. ”

“ This duty is seen in the judgments which God has visited upon those parents and children who have neglected to obey the Lord in this particular.-- (1 Samuel 2: 34.)
3. We are, in the third place, to enquire what it is to "deny the faith." Much is said in the Scriptures about faith. Much depends upon it. We are said to be "justified by faith," and "saved by faith;" we "live by faith." ”

“ Faith, as the foundation of the rest, holds the first place among the theological virtues, and is a habit of the understanding infused by God, by which the believer is enlightened to assent and adhere to those things which are revealed and proposed by God himself, through the Church. ”

“ We have "the faith" as a system of salvation through Christ, and faith as a personal state of the mind and heart. So, also, have we righteousness as a plan of salvation which we accept from God, and righteousness as a personal quality—a state of personal freedom from sin. And the one leads to the other, as a revelation of "the faith" produces personal faith. ”

“ The sole position which I here advance is this: true believers are saved from inward and outward sin by faith. By faith alone the love of God and all mankind is shed abroad in their hearts, bringing with it the mind that was in Christ, and producing all holiness of conversation. ”

“ So let me just for a moment try to clear up the terms of this apparently paradoxical statement that faith is a work. What do we mean by faith? What do you mean by saying that you have faith in your friend, in your wife, in your husband, in your guide? ”

“ According to the inspired writer, faith is recognising the will of God, taking it and doing it; that is faith, and nothing else is—no theories about God, no rules, and laws, and definitions about God's government of the world, no intellectual adherence to any explanation of theology. Faith, real and living, means that the God who comes into contact with you in your life and your world has a will, and shows it to you. ”