The Fullness of Faith: its Characteristics
Paper Sixth(TOC)
The Fullness of Faith: its Characteristics
"A man full of faith"—Acts 6:5
Faith is well defined to him who possesses it; it is but imperfectly apprehended until experienced. He who has faith in any degree, hungers and thirsts for it in a larger degree; a taste of faith makes the soul eager for a feast of it. Every believer has faith, but not every believer is full of faith; with much faith there may coexist much lack of faith. Therefore Paul longed to see the faces of the brethren at Thessalonica, that he might perfect that which was lacking in their faith. The soul may have saving faith, and still lack a fullness of faith. In this series of FAITH PAPERS we have hitherto been presenting the subject of saving faith; we now take up the subject of special faith, which, under various phases, is as clearly distinguished in the Scriptures from saving faith as saving faith is from unbelief.
Much of the misapprehension which exists respecting the nature of faith arises from confounding faith in its saving measure with faith in the measure of its fullness. SAVING FAITH is a voluntary act of the soul, by which it appropriates salvation THE FULLNESS OF FAITH is a state of the soul in which it apprehends divine and spiritual things; it is a temper of mind an entirely new fame of heart: it is faith shorn of none of its saving efficacy, graduated into the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of thing not seen by the baptism of the Holy Ghost in his indwelling presence received into the soul. Let us notice some of the characteristics of THE FULLNESS OF FAITH: