to a mechanism upon which the Spirit plays. But this is false to Christian teaching and human experience. The prayers of Christ are invariably conditional upon the human response. They demand human co-operation. The prayer for Peter unquestionably implies that the resources needed to discharge his function would be placed at his disposal, provided that he yielded his will to the offered grace. But that Peter would invariably fulfil the essential conditions, Christ's petition does not affirm and cannot even suggest. It cannot mean unconditional security, exemption from the liabilities of human weakness and imperfection, apart from all considerations of personal effort and moral state.
ii. The second object for our analysis is Peter's Faith and here two points arise:—What is meant by "faith" and what is meant by "fail."
1. Now when our Lord says "faith," the meaning is in general not difficult to ascertain. The faith which, if present, could remove mountains, or, if absent, hinders His merciful works, is plainly not so much an intellectual assent to a number of propositions, as a moral relation to a Person; a devotion to Himself, demanding qualities, not only of the intellect, but also of the affections and of the will. It is a quality inseparable from love. It may exist in many varying degrees.
2. What, then, is meant by "fail"? The Greek term here translated "fail" sometimes describes an eclipse, which to the primitive imagination suggested death, much as we talk of the dying day. "Thou art the same and thy years shall not fail,"[1] means shall not cease, or come to an end.
3. Accordingly, by "a faith which should not fail,"
- ↑ Heb. i. 12.
