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"'Verily, verily, I say unto you,' says the Divine Speaker, 'I am the Door of the sheep … I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine.'
'Ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal Life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand.'
'He that entereth in by the door is the Shepherd of the sheep. To Him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from Him, for they know not the voice of strangers.'
What is here said about exercises of Reason, in order to believing? What is there not said of sympathetic feeling, of newness of spirit, of love? It was from lack of love towards Christ that the Jews discerned not in Him the Shepherd of their souls. 'Ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and follow Me.' It was the regenerate nature sent down from the Father of Lights which drew up the disciples heavenward,—which made their affections go forth to meet the Bridegroom, and fixed those affections on Him, till they were as cords of love staying the heart upon the Eternal. 'All that the Father giveth Me, shall come to Me. No man can come unto Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him. It is written in the Prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.' It is the new life, and not the natural reason, which leads the soul to Christ. Does a child trust his parents because he has proved to himself that they are such, and that they are able and desirous to do him good, or from the instinct of affection? We believe, because we love (This means, not love precisely, but the virtue of religiousness, under which may be said to fall the 'pia affectio,' or 'voluntas credendi'). How plain a truth! What gain is it to be wise above that which is written? why, O men, deface with your minute and arbitrary philosophy the simplicity, the reality, the glorious liberty of the inspired teaching? Is this your godly jealousy for Scripture? this your abhorrence of human additions?
It is the doctrine, then, of the text, that those who believe in Christ, believe because they know Him to be the Good Shepherd; and they know Him by His voice; and they know His voice, because they are His sheep; that they do not follow strangers and robbers, because they know not the voice of strangers: moreover, that they know and follow Christ, upon His loving them. "I am come that they might have life … The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep." The divinely-enlightened mind sees in Christ the very Object whom it desires to love and worship,—the Object correlative of its own affections; and it trusts Him, or believes, from loving Him." —St. John Henry Newman, 'Sermon 12: Love the Safeguard of Faith against Supersititon' n. 17-21
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This talk was delivered on October 16, 2021 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
About the speaker:
Dr. Nathaniel Peters, Senior Fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, is the Executive Director of the Morningside Institute and a lecturer at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in linguistics, with a focus on French and Latin, his M.T.S. from the University of Notre Dame, and his Ph.D. in the history of Christian thought and Christian ethics from Boston College. At Boston College, he taught courses in the department of theology and lectured in the Perspectives Program, BC’s great books program. He is currently working on an English translation of letters of William of Saint-Thierry and has published articles and reviews in Religious Studies Review, America, Commonweal, First Things, and Plough Quarterly. A native of Edgartown, MA, he lives in Harlem with his wife and son.
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