us, from the very
familiarity of the word, have only a dim conception of what it means. It
may not be profitless, then, to remind you, first of all, that this
faith is neither more nor less than a very familiar thing which you are
constantly exercising in reference to one another--that is to say,
simple confidence. You trust your husband, your wife, your child, your
parent, your friend, your guide, your lawyer, your doctor, your banker.
Take that very same emotion and attitude of the mind by which you put
your well-being, in different aspects and provinces, into the hands of
men and women round about you; lift the trailing flowers that go all
straggling along the ground, and twine them round the pillars of God's
throne, and you get the confidence, the trust, of the praises and
glories of which the New Testament is full. There is nothing mysterious
in it, it is simply the exercise of confidence, the familiar cement that
binds all human relationship together, and makes men brotherly and
kindred with their kind. Faith is trust, and trust saves a man's soul.

Then, remember further that the faith which is the foundation of
everything is essentially personal trust reposing upon a person, upon
Jesus Christ. You cannot get hold of a man in any other way than by
that. The only real bond that binds people together is the personal bond
of confidence, manifesting itself in love. And it is no mere doctrine
that we present for a man's faith, but it is the person about whom the
doctrine speaks. We say, indeed, that we can only know the person on
whom we must trust by the revelation of the truths concerning Him which
make the Christian doctrines; but a man may believe the whole of them,
and have no faith. And what is the step in advance which is needed in
order to turn credence into faith--belief in a doctrine into trust? In
one view it is the step from the doctrine to the person. When you grasp
Christ, the living Christ, and not merely the doctrine, for yours, then
you have faith.

Only remember, my brother, if you say you trust Christ, the question has
immediately to be asked: What Christ is it that you are trusting? Is it
the Christ that died for your sins on the Cross, or is it a Christ that
taught you some great moral truths and set you a lovely example of life
and conduct? Which of the two is it? for these two Christs are very
different, and the faith that grasps the one is extremely unlike the
faith that grasps the other. And