Brakel and Comrie.1
“If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” —Phil. iii. 15.
We call the attention of our readers to the two lines which in the last century were most correctly drawn by Brakel and Comrie respectively; and we do not deny that of the two, Comrie was the more correct.
This is not intended to hurt the friends of Brakel, for then we should wound ourselves. However, altho the name of “Father Brakel” is still precious to us; altho we appreciate his courageous protesting against church tyranny, and heartily acknowledge our indebtedness to his excellent writings; yet this does not render him infallible, neither does it alter the fact that in the matter of faith Comrie judged more correctly than he.
To do justice to both men, we will cite their respective arguments, and then show that Comrie, who did not always see correctly either, was more strictly Scriptural, and therefore more strictly Reformed, than Brakel.
In the chapter on Faith (“Rational Religion,” ii., 776, ed. 1757), Brakel writes:
“The question is: What is the essential, fundamental act of faith? Is it the assent of the mind to the Gospel and its Promises, or is it the trusting of the heart in Christ for justification, sanctification, and redemption? Before we answer this question we wish to say:
“First, that by ‘trusting’ we do not understand a Christian’s assurance and confidence that he is in Christ and a partaker of Christ and of all His promises; nor his peace and rest in Christ, for that is a fruitof faith which some have more than others; but by trusting we understand the act of the soul, whereby a man yields himself to Christ and accepts Him, entrusting Him with body and soul, as, *e.g.,*one man entrusts his money
to another, or as one entrusts himself to and leans on the strong shoulders of the man that carries him across a stream.
“Second, that such trust necessarily requires a previous knowledge of evangelical truth and assent to its credibility; and that, after that, faith exercises itself on and by its promises.
“We now answer the question already stated as follows: True, saving faith is not the act of the mind assenting to evangelical truth, but the trusting of the heart to be saved by Christ on the ground of His voluntary offering of Himself to sinners and of the promises to them that trust in Him. And we say also that *faith has its seat, not in the understanding, but in the will;*not being the assent to the truth it can not be in the understanding, and since it is trust it must have its seat in the will.
“The truth of what we have said is evident:
“First, from the name itself. What we call ‘to believe’ Scripture calls ‘to trust,’ ‘to confide,’ ‘to entrust.’ Speaking of divine things revealed to us in the Word alone, we must not be confined to our own language, for this would cause many to fall into error; but we should adapt our speech and understanding to the nature and character of the original Hebrew and Greek. For in our language ‘to believe’ means to accept promises and the narrative of events on the strength of another man’s word; but according to the force of the original languages the words, (GR. pi iota sigma pi epsilon w/tronos upsilon omega, HEB. He w/segol Aleph w/hataf segol Mem w/hiriq Yod Nun, KAf w/qamats Mem w/patah lamed, other text ) are translated not only ‘to believe,’ but ‘to trust,’ ‘to entrust,’ ‘to lean upon.’ They are used, not to denote the nature of trust, but by trusting yielding oneself to Christ, relying on Him.
“Secondly, the Scripture ascribes the act of faith to the heart: ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness’ (Rom. x. 10); ‘If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’ (Acts viii. 37). Trusting and believing are both acts of the heart, the will. If it be said that the heart refers also to the understanding, we answer, very rarely, and even then it refers not to the understanding alone, but also to the will, or to the soul with all its workings.
“Thirdly, if the act of faith did consist in the assent of the mind to the truth, it would be possible to have saving faith without accepting Christ, without trusting Him; and you may know and acknowledge Christ as the Savior as long as you please, but what union and communion with Christ does that afford? To accept Christ and to trust and lean on Him would be only an effect of faith, but an effect does not complete the being of a thing which is complete before the effect; and saving faith would not differ from historic faith, but be the same in its nature. For historic faith, is also the assent of the mind to the truth of the Gospel, and even the devils and the unconverted have this faith. If it be said that the knowledge
of the one is spiritual and that of the other is not, we answer: (1) While it is true that the knowledge of the converted is different from that of the unconverted, yet the matter remains the same. Their historical knowledge, if assented to, is historic faith in the one as well as in the other. (2) The Scripture never makes the spirituality of historic knowledge the distinctive feature of saving faith. (3) This is certain that the knowledge of faith of an unconverted person is not spiritual. And from faith itself one can never ascertain whether he truly believes; this he can learn only from the fruits, and that would be altogether wrong.