does the prophet's
declaration that the righteous man of God will escape death by his faith
bear on the Apostle's arguments or help his strong appeals? The first
verse of the eleventh chapter is the reply. Faith _is_ assurance, with
emphasis on the verb.

But this is only a rhetorical connection, or at best a justification of
the use the author has made of the prophet's words. Indeed, he has
already in several places identified confidence with faith, and the
opposite of confidence with unbelief. "Take heed lest there be in any
one of you an evil heart of unbelief; ... for we are become partakers of
Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the
end."[246] "They could not enter in because of unbelief; ... let us
therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after
the same example of disobedience."[247] "Be not sluggish, but imitators
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."[248]
"Having therefore boldness to enter into the holy place, ... let us draw
near with a true heart in fulness of faith."[249]

Why, therefore, does the author formally state that faith is confidence?
The difficulty is a real one. We must suppose that, when this Epistle
was written, the word "faith" was already a well-known and almost
technical term among Christians. We infer as much as this also from St.
James's careful and stringent correction of abuses in the application of
the word. It is unnecessary to say who was the first to perceive the
vital importance of faith in the life and theology of Christianity. But
in the preaching of St. Paul faith is trust in a personal Saviour, and
trust is the condition and instrument of salvation. Faith, thus
represented, is the opposite of works. Such a doctrine was liable to
abuse, and has been abused to the utter subversion of morality on the
one hand and to the extinction of all unselfish greatness of soul on the
other. Not, most certainly, that St. Paul himself was one-sided in
teaching or in character. To him Christ is a heavenly ideal: "The Lord
is the Spirit;" and to him the believer is the spiritual man, who has
the moral intellect of Christ.[250] But it must be confessed--and the
history of the Church abundantly proves the truth of the statement--that
the good news of eternal salvation on the sole condition of trust in
Christ is one of the easiest of all true doctrines to be fatally abused.
The Epistle of St. James and the Epistle to the