The Reason of Faith
I. Look first at two kinds of faith which are universally practised; for if faith is, in the nature of things, absurd or unintelligent, we shall be as likely to discover the fact here as anywhere. And we may discover, possibly, that the very persons who discard faith, as an offence to intelligence, are not even able to do the commonest acts of intelligence without it. (1) We begin, then, with the case of sight, or perception by sight. In our very seeing we see by faith, and without the faith we should only take in impressions to remain as lost things in the brain. Hence, perhaps, the word perception,a through-taking,because we have taken hold of objects through distances, and so have bridged the gulf between us and reality. Is, then, sight itself unintelligent because it includes an act of faith? Or, if we believe in realities, and have them by believing, would it be wiser to let alone realities, and live in figures and phantasms painted on the retina of our eyes? (2) But there is another kind of faith, less subtle than this, which also is universally practised, and admitted universally to be intelligent. It is that kind of faith which, after sensation is past or perception is completed, assigns truth to the things seen, and takes them to be sound historic verities. Thus, after Christ had been seen in all the facts of His life, it became a distinct question what to make of the fact whether, possibly, there was any mistake in the senses, or any sleight-of-hand by which they were imposed upon. If God were to burn Himself into souls by lenses bigger than worlds, all you could say would be that so much impression is made, which impression is no historic verity to the mind, till the mind assents on its part, and concludes itselfupon the impression. Then the impression becomes to it a real and historic fact, a sentence of credit passed. (3) We now come to the Christian, or third kind of faith. First, we complete an act of perception only by a kind of sense-faith, moving from ourselves, and not from the objects perceived. Next, we pass on to the historic verity, the moral genuineness, of what we see; and our act of credit, so passed, is also a kind of faith moving from us, and is something over and above all the impressions we have received. A third faith remains, that is just as intelligent, and, in fact, is only more intelligent than the others, because it carries their results forward into the true uses. This distinctively is the Christian faith, the faith of salvation, the believing unto life eternal. It is the act of trust by which one being, a sinner, commits himself to another being, a Saviour. It is the faith of a transaction.
II. Note some of the lessons this subject yields. (1) The mistake is here corrected of those who are continually assuming that the Gospel is a theory, something to be thought out not a new premiss of fact communicated by God, by men to be received in all the threefold gradations of faith. (2) We discover that the requirement of faith, as a condition of salvation, is not arbitrary, as many appear to suppose, but is only a declaration of the fact, before existing, that without faith there can be no deliverance from sin. (3) We perceive, in our subject, that mere impressions can never amount to faith. (4) Finally, it is very plain that what is now most wanted in the Christian world is more faith.
H. Bushnell, The New Life,p. 44.
References: John 6:37. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. x., No. 599; vol. xxx., No. 176 2 John 1:6 :37. Homilist,new series, vol. iii., p. 385.John 6:39. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 361; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xix., No. 1117; Homilist,new series, vol. iv., p. 390.