_on_," common in St. John and rare elsewhere, shows that the word is
taking a new meaning. Faith, in St. John, is no longer regarded
chiefly as a condition of supernatural favours; or, rather, the
mountains which it can remove are no material obstructions. It is an
act of the whole personality, a self-dedication to Christ. It must
precede knowledge: "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know
of the teaching," is the promise. It is the "_credo ut intelligam_" of
later theology. The objection has been raised that St. John's teaching
about faith moves in a vicious circle. His appeal is to the inward
witness; and those who cannot hear this inward witness are informed
that they must first believe, which is just what they can find no
reason for doing. But this criticism misses altogether the drift of
St. John's teaching. Faith, for him, is not the acceptance of a
proposition upon evidence; still less is it the acceptance of a
proposition in the teeth of evidence. It is, in the first instance,
the resolution "to stand or fall by the noblest hypothesis"; that is
(may we not say?), to follow Christ wherever He may lead us. Faith
begins with an experiment, and ends with an experience.[65] "He that
believeth in Him hath the witness in himself"; that is the
verification which follows the venture. That even the power to make
the experiment is given from above; and that the experience is not
merely subjective, but an universal law which has had its supreme
vindication in history,--these are two facts which we learn
afterwards. The converse process, which begins with a critical
examination of documents, cannot establish what we really want to
know, however strong the evidence may be. In this sense, and in this
only, are Tennyson's words true, that "nothing worthy proving can be
proven, nor yet disproven."

Faith, thus defined, is hardly distinguishable from that mixture of