p. 40.
The former authorities on this subject I had quoted from the Gospel
according to St. Luke: that Gospel most positively and most solemnly
declares the 'repentance' of sinners to be the 'condition' on which
'alone' salvation can be obtained. But the doctors of the new divinity
'deny' this: they tell us distinctly 'it cannot' be. For the future,
the Gospel according to Calvin must be received as the truth. Sinners
will certainly prefer it as the more comfortable of the two beyond all
comparison.
Mercy! but only to read Calvin's account of that repentance, without
which there is no sign of election, and to call it "the more comfortable
of the two?" The very term by which the German New-Birthites express it
is enough to give one goose-flesh--'das Herzknirschen'--the very heart
crashed between the teeth of a lock-jaw'd agony!
Ib.
What is 'faith'? Is it not a conviction produced in the mind by
adequate testimony?
No! that is not the meaning of faith in the Gospel, nor indeed anywhere
else. Were it so, the stronger the testimony, the more adequate the
faith. Yet who says, I have faith in the existence of George II., as his
present Majesty's antecessor and grandfather?--If testimony, then
evidence too;--and who has faith that the two sides of all triangles are
greater than the third? In truth, faith, even in common language, always
implies some effort, something of evidence which is not universally
adequate or communicable at will to others.
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