Perhaps it will be better to clear away a misconception existing in
some minds arising from a confusion of thought between the exercise of
personal faith and the facts themselves of which the Christian
revelation consists. The two are quite distinct. "The Faith" means
the facts of revealed religion made known to us through the Church and
interwoven into the very texture of the Creeds and the Book of Common
Prayer,--originally the content of the oral gospels. We speak of the
Articles of the Christian Faith, meaning the Apostles' Creed. The
doctrine of the Holy Communion or of the Ministry of the Church, etc.,
are parts also of "The Faith"; of this "faith" the Church is the
guardian and the teacher. This is essentially different from that
inward personal movement of the soul towards God which we are now
considering. The former may be thought of collectively as an objective
thing--something quite apart from the individual,--which he may
disregard or fail to understand; whereas personal faith is a movement
of the soul of man which as we shall see vitalizes his being and calls
into operation all his capacities. It is possible to be thoroughly
instructed in the verities of "The Faith", and at the same time to be
devoid of personal faith; while on the other hand persons are to be met
with who possess an intense personal faith in the Three Persons of the
Blessed Trinity who have through no fault of their own but a very
slight intellectual grasp of the contents of "The Faith" as it has been
committed to the Church of God. Yet "The Faith", "the Christian Faith"
must be cherished by faith (that movement in the soul of man towards
God) if the believer is to grow up unto the knowledge of God.