Faith is the virtue by which, clinging-to the faithfulness of God, we lean upon him, so that we may obtain what he gives to us.
From William Ames
The good pleasure of God is an act of the divine will freely and effectively determining all things.
Therefore, the church is not absolutely necessary as an object of faith, not even for us today, for then Abraham and the other prophets would not have given assent to those things which were revealed to them from God without any intervening help of the church.
From faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion referring to God, there arises a double act which bears on the spiritual communion exercised between God and us; the hearing of the word and prayer.
Active creation is conceived as a transitive action in which there is always presupposed an object about which the agent is concerned; it is virtually but not formally transitive because it makes, not presupposes, an object.
Although the whole man partakes of this grace, it is first and most appropriately in the soul and later progresses to the body, inasmuch as the body of the man is capable of the same obedience to the will of God as the soul.
An idea in man is first impressed upon him and afterwards expressed in things, but in God it is only expressed, not impressed, because it does not come from anywhere else.
Everyone who understands the nature of God rightly necessarily knows that God is to be believed and hoped in, that he is to be loved and called upon, and to be heard in all things.
For this is our most perfect duty and yet least known to us by nature: Whatever we conceive or will should be joined with the good of our neighbor.
Hearing the word is the devout receiving of the will of God.
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