William Adams (1706 – 1789)
Fellow and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.
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There is a boundary to the understanding, and when it is reached, faith is the continuation of reason.
What do we know about the world unseen? What reasonings, what curiosity, what misgivings there have been concerning that impenetrable mystery! Out of this mystery and vagueness and vastness comes the human form of the Divine Redeemer. He assures us that there is an unmixed and endless life, and that all we have to do to secure it is, to trust ourselves to Him who came to declare it and to confer it.
Lov'est thou me? This is the one test question of our religion; for he that loveth is born of God.
The only qualification for knowing Divine things is to love them; to know Christ and to see the light of His revelation, we have only to aspire after a filial temper.
Do you ask why Mary Magdalene was the one chosen to whom first of all Christ should show Himself after the resurrection? This we know — she trusted in Him, and she loved Him; she waited at His sepulchre; she sought, she looked, she wept; and if we would have Christ reveal Himself to us, we, too, must seek and wait and long and trust and love.
Eternal life does not depend upon our perfection; but because it does depend upon the grace of Christ and the love of the Spirit, that love shall prompt us to emulate perfection.
But how shall this love be demonstrated? After what method shall it be expressed? Not by secret musings alone; not by the chanting of religious sonnets alone; not by grateful remembrances of Him — at His table only — but by deeds of love towards those who in a real sense represent Him, because partakers of that nature, our common humanity, which He condescended to assume.
Faith is a simple trust in a personal Redeemer. The simpler our trust in Christ for all things, the surer our peace.
Our Lord does not praise the centurion for his amiable care of his servants, nor for his generosity to the Jews, nor for his public spirit, nor for his humility, but for his faith.
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