are incomprehensible; consequently through the will. What, then, is meant by “to appropriate by an effort of will”? Speaking plainly, it means “to obey.” Thus faith, according to this definition, is reduced to obedience. Precisely in this way the word “faith” is understood in the Theology, though farther down, to obscure the definition, another misty definition is made, in which faith is mixed up with charity and hope. (p. 301.)
“The necessity of faith for our sanctification and salvation is comprehensible also from considerations of reason. Without faith we cannot appropriate to ourselves the truths of the divine revelation; consequently we shall not know what God has done for our salvation, nor what we are obliged to do. In this manner revelation, together with the whole house-management of salvation, will remain foreign to us, and we shall be foreign to revelation and salvation. In believing in Christ the Saviour and in his revealed word, we, so to speak, open our soul for all divine actions of salvation upon us; and in not believing, we shut ourselves up against these actions, and repel the divine assistance. For this reason, although faith is roused in us by premonitory grace and in its origin is a divine gift, it becomes on our part, the moment it is germinated in us, with our free consent, the first instrument for the actual acceptance in our soul of the saving grace, or of the divine powers that pertain unto life and godliness (2 Peter i. 3), the very first condition for our regeneration, sanctification, and salvation through grace.” (pp. 303 and 304.)
Heretofore I understood faith as the foundation of man’s whole activity, but here faith is spoken of as an activity. Involuntarily the question arises: on what is the activity based, which is seeking the faith and even choosing in advance the faith, which it is seeking? Strangest of all is the fact that nothing has been said about faith so long as the revealed, fundamental truths
