What, then, is the great note of Mary's character? It is faith, manifesting itself in meekness, obedience, and love. If the Incarnation is difficult for us to believe, it was a thousandfold more difficult for Mary; yet she believed it with all the energy of a pious and a simple heart. Faith is the ground of all greatness in human character, but never was there faith so pure, so firm, or so hardly tried as hers.
If we are to apply this sure principle to Mary's case, “according to your faith be it unto you,” then Mary must surely wear the crown as the mother of all who believe on her Son. If Abraham's faith has made him the father of all who believe, surely Mary's faith entitles her to be called their mother. If the converse of our Lord's words holds true, that no mighty work is done where there is unbelief; if we may safely reason that where there has been a mighty work done there must have been a corresponding and a co-operating faith; then I do not think we can easily overestimate the measure of Mary's faith. If this was the greatest work ever wrought by the power and the grace of Almighty God among the children of men, and if Mary's faith entered into it at all, then how great her faith must have been! Elisabeth saw with wonder and with worship how great it was. She saw the unparalleled grace that had come to Mary, and she had humility and magnanimity enough to acknowledge it. “Blessed art thou among women: Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” “Blessed is she that believed,” said Elisabeth, no doubt with some sad thoughts about herself and about her dumb husband sitting beside her. “Blessed is the womb that bare thee,” cried on another occasion a nameless but a true woman, as her speech bewrayeth her, “and the paps which thou hast sucked.” But our Lord answered her, and said, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” And again, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
I remember well one conversation that Dr. Martineau and I had concerning the nature of religious faith. I told my friend the old story of the schoolboy or schoolgirl who defined faith as “the power we have of still believing what we know to be untrue.” He laughed very heartily at this unintentionally sarcastic definition; and he declared that the state of mind implied by it is a wholly impossible one. In this opinion he was in full agreement with the view of his old acquaintance, Dr. Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, who considered that belief, as regards abstract or purely speculative matters, is entirely involuntary, and therefore looked on the “impious threats”-as he called them-of the Athanasian Creed as quite meaningless. I think, however, that many people really have a power of believing in some degree what they suspect to be untrue. Some men deliberately suppress their doubts, and turn their thoughts exclusively to such considerations as favour their cherished convictions. Professor Huxley seems habitually to have looked on religious faith as a more or less discreditable state of mind, as a kind of unwarranted prejudice, as an effect of intellectual indolence. He regarded doubt as a kind of beneficent demon sent to trouble the stagnant waters of stupid conventionalism. Some doubt unquestionably is of this sort. St. Augustine thought that none really believe deeply save those who have first doubted profoundly. Yet there is also much truth in the teaching of Coleridge, who declared that there never was a real faith in Christ which did not in some measure expand the intellect, whilst simplifying the desires. In moral and spiritual matters Martineau certainly thought that a man's character largely determines his belief, that we must be pure in heart if we would in any degree know God. On this subject he agreed with Pascal that divine truths must to some extent pass through our hearts on their way into our intellects.1 [Note: A. H. Craufurd, Recollections of James Martineau, 37.]
