Chapter I

FAITH.
PAGE
I. Faith; its situation; its behaviour; challenged by novel
experiences; alarmed at its own perplexity 3-5

Yet why alarmed? 5

Perplexity consistent with faith, when faith is stripped of
its habitual corroborations from without: and summoned to
submit itself to internal observation 5-8

For faith is an elemental act of personal self: and,
therefore, like all such acts, e.g. of thought; will; love;
is, necessarily, incapable of offering itself for
scientific examination 8-11

II. What is faith? 11-12

The motion in us of our sonship in the Father; the
conscious recognition, and realization, of our inherent
filial adhesion to God 13-15

This intimacy of relationship is capable of indefinite
growth, of 'supernatural' development 15

The history of faith is the gradual discovery of this
increasing intimacy 16-18

The demand for faith is (_a_) _universal_, for all are sons;
(_b_) _urgent_, as appealing to a vital fact;
(_c_) _tolerant_, as reposing on existent fact 18-21

III. Faith, an act of _basal_ personality, at the root of
all outflowing activities; is present, as animating force,
within all natural faculties. When summoned out, into
positive or direct action on its own account = Religion,
i.e. the emergence, into open manifestation, of Fatherhood
and sonship, which lie hidden within all secular life 21-28

Faith, an energy of basal self, using, as instruments and
material, the sum of faculties; therefore, each faculty,
_separately_, can give but a _partial_ vindication of an
integral act of faith 28-29

This applies to _Reason_; compare its relation to acts
of affection, imagination, chivalry; all such acts are acts
of _Venture_, using evidence of reason in order to go
beyond evidence 30-34

So faith makes use of all knowledge, but is, itself, its
own motive. It uses, as its instrument, every stage of
science; but is pledged to no one particular stage 34-38

IV. Faith, simple adhesion of soul to God; yet, once begun, it
has a history of its own; long, complicated, recorded in
Bible, stored up in Creeds 38-41

This involves difficulties, intricacies, efforts; all this,
the necessary consequence of our being born in the 'last
days' 41-45

Yet to the end, faith remains an act of personal and
spiritual adhesion 45-46

V. Faith, not only covers a long past, but anticipates the
future; it pledges itself ahead, e.g. in the case of
'ordination vows.' Such pledges justified, because the act
of faith is personal; and the object of faith is final,
i.e. 'Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever' 46-54