Faith and Social Controveries

Strong faith has the tendency to remove undue fears and anxieties, in relation to existing public evils. The man of strong faith does all that he can to remove such evils, and to prevent the extension of their results; but having done this, he is willing to leave every thing calmly and patiently in the hands of God. His soul is at rest in the consciousness of having done his duty. He remains silent in the Lord. 

But the anxieties of the man, who is weak in faith, never end. He is looking, first, in one direction and then in another, addressing one with denunciations and appealing to another’s sympathy, making a world of trouble by the constant use of his tongue, without effecting his ultimate object and probably with injury to it. His tongue does not rest, because his heart does not rest. And his heart does not rest, because he has little or no faith. And the movement of the tongue, founded upon the sin of a too weak faith, is necessarily unsanitary. In relation, therefore, to existing public evils, strong faith, having first led persons to do all their duty, leaves them in a state of patient and quiet waiting upon God. “I waited patiently for the Lord,” says the Psalmist, “and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” Psalm 40:1.

Inordinate speech, the utterance of the wrong thing or in the wrong spirit, is one of the evils of controversy. Even religious men, as the history of theological controversies evidently shows, are not exempt from it. Faith enables us to give the calm and peaceful answer, which, as it has the power to correct the judgment as well as the spirit or temper, is likely to be the correct answer. 

We would not have it understood, that the person, who has faith, is indifferent to his opinions; but merely, that having faith he is in that state of mind, which enables him to reply calmly, cheerfully, and thoughtfully. 

“He has confidence in the truth, because he has confidence in God. ‘GOD IS TRUE;’ and being what he is, God can have no fellowship with that which is the opposite of the truth. He knows, that, if his own sentiments are not correct, they will pass away in due time; because every thing, which is false, necessarily carries in itself the element of its own destruction. He knows too, that, if the sentiments of his adversaries are false, they bear no stamp of durability. God is arrayed against them, and they must sooner or later fall. Hence it is, that his strong faith in God, and in the truth of which God is the protector, kills the eagerness of nature. He is calm amid opposition; patient under rebuke.” [Interior Life, 2d. Ed. p. 338.] 

— edited from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 14.