An Help for the Ignorant, WSC Question 3
By John Brown of Haddington
QUEST. 3. What do the scriptures principally teach?
ANSW. The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.
Q. What things do the scriptures chiefly teach?
A. Matters of faith and practice.
Q. What doth faith or believing mean?
A. An assenting to the testimony of another.
Q. How may faith, as to the authority on which it depends, be distinguished?
A. Into human and divine.
Q. Wherein do human and divine faith differ?
A. In their foundation and firmness.
Q. How do they differ as to their foundation?
A. Human faith believes a report on the testimony of man; but divine faith believes it upon the footing of God’s testimony.
Q. How do they differ in their firmness of assent?
A. Human faith admits, that what report it credits may possibly be false; but divine doth not, Titus 1:2.
Q. With what faith ought we to believe the whole Scriptures, and them only?
A. With a divine faith.
Q. How may faith as to its effects be distinguished?
A. Into historical faith, the faith of miracles, temporary, and saving faith.
Q. What is historical faith?
A. The believing scripture-truths as we do historical reports, wherein our own welfare is not deeply concerned.
Q. What is the faith of miracles?
A. The believing that God will work such a miracle upon or for us.
Q. What is temporary faith?
A. An affecting persuasion of divine truths, and presumptuous leaning on the promises for a time, without receiving Christ as our only Saviour, Matthew 13:20.
Q. What is Saving faith?
A. That whereby we credit [believe in; trust in] the whole word of God, and receive Christ in it to the saving of our souls.
Q. What call you matters of practice or duty required of man?
A. Whatever man owes to God, to himself, or to others, Micah 6:8.
Q. Whether must duty or faith be first in order?
A. Faith: for till we believe the love of God, and receive Christ as our strength, it is impossible for us to please God.
Q. Will true faith produce true obedience?
A. Yes; faith worketh by love, Galatians 5:6.
Q. Who shine most in obedience ?
A. These that are strongest in faith, Romans 4:20.