Page:Essence of Christianity (1854).djvu/266

 Faith, being inherently external, proceeds even to the adoption of outward fact as its object, and becomes historical faith. It is therefore of the nature of faith that it can become a totally external confession; and that with mere faith, as such, superstitious, magical effects are associated. The devils believe that God is, without ceasing to be devils. Hence a distinction has been made between faith in God, and belief that there is a God. But even with this bare belief in the existence of God, the assimilating power of love is intermingled;—a power which by no means lies in the idea of faith as such, and in so far as it relates to external things.

The only distinctions or judgments which are immanent to faith, which spring out of itself, are the distinctions of right or genuine, and wrong or false faith; or in general, of belief and unbelief. Faith discriminates thus: This is true, that is false. And it claims truth to itself alone. Faith has for its object a definite, specific truth, which is necessarily united with negation. Faith is in its nature exclusive. One thing alone is truth, one alone is God, one alone has the monopoly of being the Son of God; all else is nothing, error, delusion. Jehovah alone is the true God; all other gods are vain idols.

Faith has in its mind something peculiar to itself; it rests on a peculiar revelation of God; it has not come to its possessions in an ordinary way, that way which stands open to all men alike. What stands open to all is common, and for that reason cannot form a special object of faith. That God is the creator, all men could know from Nature; but what this God is in person, can be known only by special grace, is the object of a special faith. And because he is only revealed in a peculiar manner, the object of this faith is himself a peculiar being. The God of the Christians is indeed the God of the heathens, but with a wide difference:—just such a difference as there is between me as I am to a friend, and me as I am to a stranger, who only knows me at a distance. God as he is an object to the Christians, is quite another than as he is an object to the heathens. The Christians know God personally, face to face. The heathens know only—and even this is too large an admission—“what,” and not “who,” God is; for which reason they