the blessings of His love, we in turn receiving His blessings by our voluntary act reciprocate His love. Then the fellowship is genuine; His salvation is made real by us and in us. The fellowship of the Spirit is complemented by the fellowship of faith.

5. The fellowship of faith presupposes and stands in the fellowship of the Spirit. The Spirit conditions the possi bility of Christian faith, but only its possibility. The fellowship of the Spirit does not of necessity originate faith. Because God in Christ loves the world with an unfathomable love, and by His Spirit adopts transgressors into His kingdom, it does not follow that they will acknowledge the great inheritance sealed to them and in turn love Him. The fellowship of Christ with men in His kingdom depends on His grace, not on human will; but the fellowship of faith, whilst conditioned on the work of the Spirit, and so far forth dependent on the Spirit, is also conditioned on human will. The subject may accept or may not accept the blessing to which by grace he is entitled. The salvation is sealed to him, and he may appropriate it or reject it. All that can be said in explanation of these momentous possibilities is that personality is relatively autonomous. Man is a self-determining agent. Divine blessing can avail for his spiritual good only in so far as he opens the door of his heart and chooses to make the blessing a part of himself.

It becomes evident that the fellowship of the Spirit may obtain by itself. It may not be followed by repentance, by sanctification and glorification. A person may by the Spirit be translated in Baptism into the kingdom, yet for lack of 'the obedience of faith' may fail both on earth and hereafter to experience salvation from sin. Like Esau he he may sell his own birthright' for a 'mess of meat.'

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But the fellowship of Christian faith cannot obtain by itself; it always presupposes the fellowship of the Spirit. The normal personal relation of the believer to Christ may be developed into fruitage only in virtue of the true objective relationship.

6. The true mystical communion between Christ and believers includes both forms of fellowship: the fellowship effected by the energy of the Holy Spirit, whether the subject be conscious of his translation into the kingdom or not, and the complemental fellowship effected by faith, which cannot be developed without the conscious or spontaneous exercise of human will.

The necessary work of the Spirit and the necessary work of faith are both taught with emphasis in Scripture. Sometimes the work of the Spirit is enforced by itself, as in John iii. 5: "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;" and in I Cor. xii. 3: "No man can say, Jesus is the Lord, but in the Holy Spirit."

Sometimes the work of faith is enforced by itself, as in John vi. 40: "This is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life;" and by Paul in Acts xvi. 31: "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved;" and in Romans x. 10: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

In very many places the work of the Spirit and the work of faith are enforced in conjunction, as in John i. 12: “As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them which believe in His name; which were begotten, not of blood, nor of the

will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The same conjunction appears in the first evangelical sermon preached by an apostle. In answer to the question put by men pricked' in their 'heart,' "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter gave the reply: "Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins." Two things were necessary: the one was, under the influence of the Gospel to turn from Judaism to Jesus Christ; the other was to accept Baptism administered by the apostles in the name of Jesus Christ, that they might have the remission of their sins.

From the many passages of like twofold import I select but two more, both from the Epistles of Paul. He says: "We through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness." It is through the Spirit' that we wait for the fulfilment of hope. The Spirit conditions the waiting; yet it is by 'faith' that we wait. Each is essential. In the other place he says: "By grace have ye been saved through faith." The grace of God in Christ by the Spirit is the ground and possibility of salvation, but this salvation becomes efficient 'through faith.' If there were no 'grace' there could be no salvation; if there be no 'faith' the salvation of the kingdom does not in reality deliver the sinner from his sins.

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The results of the argument I sum up in the following statement:

Whilst the Spirit on the one hand conditions the fellowship of faith, on the other hand faith conditions the actual ization of the fellowship of the Spirit. Faith is for all persons an indispensable necessity. If there be no faith, the work of the Spirit does not issue in fruition. Only 2 Eph. ii. 8.

1 Gal. v. 15.

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when the work of the Spirit is complemented by the work of faith does the mystical union between believers and Christ exist according to its idea. Then the communion issues in personal and eternal salvation.

§ 332.

From this doctrine respecting the office of Christian faith several inferences are deducible. Faith is an active faculty, not passive submission. Faith is related to 'the new man' as the natural senses are related to the body. Faith is the principle of good works, and grows with the growth of the Christian life.

1. Faith is not passive submission to the authority of the Church; nor is faith merely an intellectual assent to a propositional truth authoritatively pronounced; nor yet is faith either a passive or a blind surrender to the spoken word of Christ, or even to His Person. A surrender to Christ, if we suppose the surrender to have been brought about, not by the direct contact of Christ through the Spirit with the subject, but by the external authority either of His Person or of His word, would enslave the believer. He would be held subject to a person toward whom there is no heartfelt response. The response would be external and formal, not prompted by the soul. True faith always works by love, whether in relation to God or Faith is the immediate perception of truth, a perception which at the same time becomes an energy active from within. It is a power predicable of personality; when in exercise it not only is the action of personality directed toward the object which authorizes and warrants faith, but also it possesses its object. Being central, rooted in the Ego, faith imparts contents and tone to

to man.

reason and intelligence, and gives direction and character to the choices of the will. It is the witness in consciousness of the object confronting perception, and a self-acting force shaping ethical life conformably to the nature of its object.'

Natural faith in God is the act of the ethical being of 'the natural man.' Christian faith is the act of the ethical being of the spiritual man.' Christian faith in Christ differs from natural faith in Christ as the spiritual man differs from the natural man.

2. Faith is the eye of the soul correlative to spiritual truth. The light of truth authenticates itself to spiritual vision. Faith is not a blind act, any more than the normal use of the bodily eye is a blind act. Faith sees its object; the spiritual object in the element of light ad dresses the eye of the soul. It is the object that warrants and justifies faith. No reason for believing in its reality can be logically given other than the object itself. My mother begets my confidence in my mother; she herself justifies my judgment of her moral worth.

The same correlation exists between the bodily ear and the ordinary spoken word. The spoken word manifests its import to personality through the ear. In heeding the

What the author of Hebrews says of divine faith is predicable of all genuine belief: "Faith is the assurance of (the giving substance to) things hoped for, the proving (test) of things not seen." Whether confronting personality in the forms of promise and type as Messiah addressed the Jew, or in the forms of space as the external world addresses the sense, or in the forms of speech as moral and intellectual truths address the mind of a child, the object authenticates itself to the perceptive and receptive capacity of faith, and becomes a subjective principle, uplifting personality in the degree that the object itself is

noble.