To this new and potent influence Paul gave the name of _faith_. More fully he calls it: 'Faith that worketh _through love_.'[57] The word _faith_ points, no doubt, to 'coming by hearing,' and has possibly a reminiscence, for Paul, of his not having with his own waking eyes, like the original disciples, seen Jesus, and of his special mission being to Gentiles who had not seen Jesus either. But the essential meaning of the word is 'power of holding on to the unseen,' 'fidelity.' Other attachments demand fidelity in absence to an object which, at some time or other, nevertheless, has been seen; this attachment demands fidelity to an object which both is absent and has never been seen by us. It is therefore rightly called not constancy, but faith; a power, pre-eminently, of _holding fast to an unseen power of goodness_. Identifying ourselves with Jesus Christ through this attachment we become as he was. We live with his thoughts and feelings, and we participate, therefore, in his freedom from the ruinous law in our members, in his obedience to the saving law of the spirit, in his conformity to the eternal order, in the joy and peace of his life to God. 'The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus,' says Paul, 'freed me from the law of sin and death.'[58] This is what is done for us by _faith_. [Footnote 57: _Gal._, v, 6.] [Footnote 58: _Rom._, viii, 2.] It is evident that some difficulty arises out of Paul's adding to the general sense of the word faith,--_a holding fast to an unseen power of goodness_,--a particular sense of his own,--_identification with Christ_. It will at once appear that this faith of Paul's is in truth a specific form of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness; and that while it can properly be said of Abraham, for instance, that he was justified by faith, if we take faith in its plain sense of holding fast to an unseen power of goodness, yet it cannot without difficulty and recourse to a strained figure be said of him, if we take faith in Paul's specific sense of identification with Christ. Paul however, undoubtedly, having conveyed his new specific sense into the word faith, still uses the word in all cases where, without this specific sense, it was before applicable and usual; and in this way he often creates ambiguity. Why, it may be asked, does Paul, instead of employing a special term to denote his special meaning, still thus employ the general term faith? We are inclined to think it was from that desire to get for his words and thoughts not only the real but also the apparent sanction and consecration of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we have called his tendency to Judaise. It was written of the founder of Israel, Abraham, that he _believed_ God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The prophet Habakkuk had the famous text: 'The just shall live by _faith_.'[59] Jesus, too, had used and sanctioned the use of the word _faith_ to signify cleaving to the unseen God's power of goodness as shown in