Bishop Challoner's Meditations - Friday after Low Sunday

ON FAITH

Consider first, that 'Without faith it is impossible to please God,’ Heb. xi.6. This virtue is the groundwork and first foundation of all our good; here we must begin the work of our salvation. But, what is faith? Not, as some vainly imagine, a presumptuous confidence of the remission of our sins, and of our justification and eternal beatitude, excluding that humble fear, with which the Christian is taught to work out his salvation, Philip. ii. 12, Rom. xi. 20; but a firm belief of all those things that God has any ways revealed or promised; a close adhesion of the soul to all the divine truths, as coming from the eternal Truth; a firm assent, a bowing down of the soul to all that God has taught, how much soever above our comprehension or understanding. ‘Faith,’ says the Apostle, Heb. xi. i, 'is the substance’ (that is, the strong foundation) ‘of things to be hoped for; the evidence of things that are not seen.’ These good things we hope for, these truths unseen, are made as it were visible to the soul by faith; she embraces them, she adheres to them with a strong and undoubted assent, she casts down all proud thoughts and imaginations that raise themselves up against these truths of God, and she directs the whole conduct of her life according to this heavenly rule. This is that divine virtue of faith, to which the Apostle gives those great encomiums, Heb. xi. This it was that brought forth so many wonderful fruits in the ancient Saints, and made them the friends and favourites of God.

Consider 2ndly, that the merit of faith, which makes it so acceptable to God, consists in this, that it pulls down the pride of man, by captivating his understanding, and obliging it to believe what it cannot see, to adore what it cannot conceive, and to submit to truths that it can no ways reach to. Man fell originally from God by proud affectation of superior and more excellent knowledge than God was pleased to allow him, and which might make him like to God, Gen. iii. 5. And therefore it has pleased his divine majesty, that the first and most essential step for man to arise from sin, and to return to him, should be the humble assent of divine faith, which makes a sacrifice of what is most dear to our pride, that is, of the liberty we are so fond of; of thinking as we please in all matters, without restraint or control; and casts down all the powers of the soul to worship in the dark, truths, generally speaking, most incomprehensible to the understanding, most shocking to the will, and most humbling to the whole man.

Consider 3rdly, that the faith which God requires of us, and without which we can neither please him here, nor be happy with him hereafter, must be catholic, that is, it must be universal; it must extend itself to all revealed truths without exception. For as they all equally come from God by divine revelation, and are all built upon the same foundation, are all recommended to our belief by the same authority of the church of God, and all supported by those strong testimonies and evidences, by which the Scripture and Christianity itself are supported; it would be calling in question the divine veracity to dispute the truth of any one article duly proposed by the church; it would be in effect, the utter loss of all divine faith; because it would be believing by humour, and not by divine authority. Here we may say with St. James, ii. 10, 'He that offends in one point, becomes guilty of all;’ because he is a rebel against that truth by which they are all delivered. O! never suffer us, dear Lord, to be rebels to thy divine truth, or proudly to oppose our petty reasoning against any part of thy word, or the authority established by thee!

Conclude to lay this strong foundation of faith, if thou hopest to raise a spiritual building within thee in which God may choose to dwell, and which may entitle thee to an everlasting dwelling with God. To build upon any other foundation is to build upon sand.