The word here employed by the apostle signifies precisely that. And, finally, That it a grace peculiar to believers and not common to other men; “it is given to you,” says he, opposing them to others, and particularly to the adversaries of whom he spoke in the preceding verse. That faith is a gift of God, is a truth so evident, that there is no Christian who does not acknowledge it to be so. And you will see it easily, if you consider for a moment, on the one side, what is the object of faith; and, on the other, what is the power of our nature. FAITH is a certain and assured knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel; it is “to believe in Jesus,” to see, with open eyes, the mercy, the wisdom, the power, and the justice of God displayed in their highest degree on the cross of his Son for the redemption of men. The things which are the objects of faith are all heavenly and Divine; viz. the purpose of God to send his Son into the world, and to clothe him with our flesh, and to deliver him up to the death of the cross, the price of his sufferings, and the expiation of our sins; his resurrection, and his triumph, a blessed immortality, the exquisite and singular example of holiness and of love which the gospel presents to us. Never had the eye of man seen any of these things, his ear had never heard them, nor had they ever entered into his heart to conceive.
John Daille, The Epistle of Saint Paul to the Philippians (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1843), 40.