(a) Baptismal regeneration,
(b) Holy Communion.
Religion becomes largely a thing of rites and ceremonies.
2. You get it in Protestant form among Dissenters in the importance
attached to Church membership.
Outward acts of worship.
There is abroad a vague idea that somehow we get good from external
association with religious acts, and so on. This feeling is deep in
human nature, is not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and is not
the work of priests. There is a strange revival of it to-day, and so
there is need of protest against it in every form.
II. The blessing that comes to an erroneous faith.--The woman here was
too 'ritualistic.' How many good people there are in that same school
to-day! Yet how blessed for us all, that, even along with many errors,
if we grasp _Him_ we shall not lose the grace.
III. Christ's gentle enlightenment on the error.--'Thy faith hath
saved thee.' How wonderfully beautiful! He cures by giving the
blessing and leading on to the full truth. In regard to the woman, it
might have been that her touch _did_ heal; but even there in the
physical realm, since it was He, not His robe, that healed, it was her
faith, not her hand, that procured the blessing. This is universally
true in the spiritual realm.
(a) Salvation is purely spiritual and inward in its nature--not an
outward work, but a new nature, 'love, joy, peace.' Hence
(b) Faith is the condition of salvation. Faith saves because _He_
saves, and faith is contact with Him. It is the only thing which joins
a soul to Christ. Then learn what makes a Christian.
(c) Hence, the place of externals is purely subsidiary to faith. If
they help a man to believe and feel more strongly, they are good.
Their only office is the same as that of preaching or reading. In
both, truth is the agent. Their power is in enforcing truth.