"There is no unbelief:For thus by day and night unconsciouslyThe heart lives by the faith the lips deny,—God knoweth why."
"There is no unbelief:For thus by day and night unconsciouslyThe heart lives by the faith the lips deny,—God knoweth why."
"There is no unbelief:For thus by day and night unconsciouslyThe heart lives by the faith the lips deny,—God knoweth why."
A man can live by a faith of which he has not full assurance—so said the sensible old Puritan, Richard Baxter—he can live on it though it take him nearly all his life to gain assurance; and I am certain he would have added, had he been asked, that if assurance never came, and our heart condemn us, "God is greater than our heart."
The carefully written paragraph in Lincoln's hand appears to indicate that the thought was one which deeply impressed Lincoln. Perhaps he felt that his own faith was of that sort, a faith on which a man could live, while going forward in the study and pursuit of the will of God, not seeking one's own comfort or the joy of complete assurance, but finding in the daily performance of duty the essential quality of true faith.