Faith, whether by word or sign, opens the eyes and ears of the heart. Those who believe are said to see and hear because faith is a light and a word.
It is light, in accordance with what the Apostle says, God who told the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Christ Jesus. The time that God told the light to shine out of darkness was when he called us from darkness to his own wonderful light, when he dispersed the darkness of ignorance and said, “Let there be light”–and there was light.
Faith is a word, in accordance with what the apostle James says: Receive the inborn word of meekness. The word is “inborn” because when God speaks within, it is implanted in our heart. The Apostle speaks of this when he says: But what does scripture say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.
From Baldwin of Ford’s The Commendation of Faith, CF 59, p. 97