Appendix

APPENDIX.

From Pontoppidaris " Mirror of Faith."

PETrUsMoLiNiEUS (Du Moulin) has briefly and clearly shown,¹ that the special nature of faith consists merely in the repentant soul's recourse to Christ; and that the consolatory experience, with the strong assurance that arises therefrom, belongs not so much to the nature as to the perfectness of the faith: for the nature, or forma essentialis, of faith may be found in him who, like the father of the boy with a dumb spirit, is compelled to acknowledge with weeping eyes, " Lord, I belie%'e; help Thou mine unbelief." Du Moulin distinguishes in that respect a twofold assurance,—an assurance of refuge (confiance de reconrs), and an assurance of experience (confiance de sentiment), or, what is the same thing, fducia supplex and fiducia triumphans. The recourse of faith to Jesus, and the laying hold of His merits, is actio fidei directa; and the powerful experience that follows thereupon of the attestation and the firmness of faith, is actio fidei reflexa. The believer attains to reflex faith, i.e. to faith which recognises and experiences itself in the djvine light with joy, partly by trying himself according to God's word (2 Cor. xiii. 5), and finding himself standing in the faith (reflexio activa rationalis vel syllogistica); partly by receiving without his own agency impressions of the Holy Spirit, which in the ground of his heart give to him the sweet and comforting assurance of his faithful position, and assure him that he is a child of God (reflexio mere passim et supernaturalis). The reflex faith in this latter sense is separated from the direct faith, just as the repeating echo is distinguished from the voice that calls it forth.

¹ In his excellent Tralte de la Forme essentielle ou nature de la Foi justifiante, an appendix of his Traitede la Paix de CAme.