Restricted, then, to its proper function our R or condensing quality is
an essential factor in the work. But if it be allowed to take the form
of doubt or unbelief, then it renders the flow of the current from the
Spirit ineffective to the extent to which the doubt is entertained; and
if doubt be allowed to degenerate into total unbelief and denial of the
Power of the Spirit, we thereby cancel the originating force altogether.
To put it in terms of the electrical formula, we make R greater than E,
in which case no current can flow. We thus find that the words
"According to your faith be it unto you" are actually the statement of a
Mathematical Law, having nothing vague about them. This may be a
somewhat original application of Ohm's Law, but the parallel is so
exact, that I cannot help thinking it will appeal to some of my readers
who may be conversant with Electrical Science. For those who are not, a
simpler simile may be, that you cannot deliver a more powerful stream of
water than the bore of the pipe through which it flows will admit of;
or, to employ a legal truism, delivery on the part of the donor must be
met by acceptance on the part of the donee before a deed of gift can
become operative; or, in still simpler language, "you may take a horse
to the water but you can't make him drink."
We see, then, that there is a Law of Faith, and that Faith is not a
denial of the universal reign of Law, but the perception of its widest
generalization, and therefore giving scope to its highest
specialization. The opposition between Faith and Law, of which St. Paul
so often speaks, is the opposition between this broad view of the
ultimate Principle of the Creative Law and that narrower view of
restriction by particular laws, which prevents us from grasping the Law
of Faith; but that he does not deny the _Principle_ of Law, that is the
relation between C and E, is clear from his own statement in Rom. viii,
where he says: "The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus sets me
free from the law of Sin and Death;" in other words: the Law of the Good
sets us free from the Law of Evil; and for the same reason St. James
says, that the perfect law is the law, of Liberty (Jas. i, 25).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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