that which our curiosity may desire; and accordingly when we launch into questions and speculations of mere curiosity, our pride is rebuked, and we are reminded that "we are of yesterday, and know nothing." The gospel, by the provision which it has made for the change in our original condition, has opened to us a state of things in many respects new, by which we perceive how very limited the range of our natural knowledge was. But this state of things is intimated, only in so far as the provision for our condition renders an intimation necessary; and while all the facts of real importance to our comfort and hope are published with the most satisfying evidence, we are checked in our speculations concerning this new state of things, by the very scanty measure of light which is afforded us to guide them. This is a view of the extent of our knowledge not very flattering to our pride. But it may be favourable both to our happiness and to our improvement; and if we are wise enough to cultivate the temper of mind which such a view is peculiarly calculated to form, we may derive much profit from the bounds which are set to our inquiries, as well as from the enlargement which is given to our hopes. There does arise, however, from this view of our knowledge, one most interesting and fundamental question, which is the subject of my third preliminary observation, What is the use of reason in matters of religion?

CHAPTER V.

USE OF REASON IN RELIGION.

If the Christian religion contain many points which we do not fully comprehend, and if we be required to believe these points, a difficulty seems to arise with regard to the boundaries between reason and faith. This is a subject upon which it is of very great importance to form distinct apprehensions, before we proceed to a particular consideration of the doctrines of Christianity. When you study church history, you will find that this question has been agitated in various forms from the beginning of Christianity to this day. It is not my province to relate the progress of this dispute, or the different appearances which it has assumed. And, in truth, many of the controversies to which it has given occasion are insignificant, because when they are examined they appear to be purely verbal. Those who said. that reason was of no use in matters of religion, sometimes meant nothing more than that religion derived no benefit from that which is really the abuse of reason, false philosophy, and the jargon of metaphysics. The argument was kept up by the equivocation between reason and the abuse of reason; and had the disputants shown themselves willing to understand one another by defining the terms which they used, it would have appeared that there was very little difference in their opinions.

But this account will not apply to all the controversies that have turned upon this question. The sublime incomprehensible nature of some of the Christian doctrines has so completely subdued the understanding of many pious men, as to make them think it presumptuous to apply reason any how to the revelation of God; and the many instances in which the simplicity of truth has been corrupted by an alliance with philosophy, confirm them in the belief that it is safer, as well as more respectful, to resign their minds to devout impressions, than to exercise their understandings in any speculations upon sacred subjects. Enthusiasts and fanatics of all different names and sects agree in decrying the use of reason, because it is the very essence of fanaticism to substitute, in place of the sober deductions of reason, the extravagant fancies of a disordered imagination, and to consider these fancies as the immediate illumination of the Spirit of God. Insidious writers in the deistical controversy have pretended to adopt those sentiments of humility and reverence, which are inseparable from true Christians, and even that total subjection of reason to faith which characterises enthusiasts. A pamphlet was published about 20* 2 G

the middle of the last century, that made a noise in its day, although it is now forgotten, entitled, Christianity not Founded on Argument, which, while to a careless reader it may seem to magnify the gospel, does in reality tend to undermine our faith, by separating it from a rational assent; and Mr. Hume, in the spirit of this pamphlet, concludes his Essay on Miracles, with calling those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. "Our most holy religion," he says, with a disingenuity very unbecoming his respectable talents, "is founded on faith, not on reason," and "mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity." The Church of Rome, in order to subject the minds of her votaries to her authority, has reprobated the use of reason in matters of religion. She has revived an ancient position, that things may be true in theology which are false in philosophy; and she has, in some instances, made the merit of faith to consist in the absurdity of that which was believed.

The extravagance of these positions has produced, since the Reformation, an opposite extreme. While those who deny the truth of revelation consider reason as in all respects a sufficient guide, the Socinians, who admit that a revelation has been made, employ reason. as the supreme judge of its doctrines, and boldly strike out of their creed every article that is not altogether conformable to those notions which may be derived from the exercise of reason.

These controversies, concerning the use of reason in matters of religion, are disputes not about words, but about the essence of Christianity. They form a most interesting object of attention to a student in divinity, because they affect the whole course and direction of his studies; and yet, it appears to me that a few plain observations are sufficient to ascertain where the truth lies in this subject.

1. The first use of reason in matters of religion is to examine the evidences of revelation. For the more entire the submission which we consider as due to every thing that is revealed, we have the more need to be satisfied that any system which professes to be a divine revelation, does really come from God. It is plain from the review which we took of the evidences of Christianity, that very large provision is made for affording our minds a rational conviction of its divine original; and the style of argument, which pervades the discourses of our Lord, and the sermons and the writings of his apostles, is a continued call upon us to exercise our reason in judging of that provision. I need not quote particular passages; for that man must have read the gospels and the Acts of the apostles with a very careless or a very prejudiced eye, who does not feel the manner in which our religion was proposed by its divine author and his immediate disciples, to be a clear refutation of the position which I mentioned lately, that Christianity is not founded on argument. You will recollect, too, that all the different branches of the evidence of Christianity are ultimately resolvable into some principle of reason. The internal evidence of Christianity is only then perceived, when you try the system of the gospel by a standard which you are supposed to have derived from natural religion. The argument which miracles and prophecies afford is but an inference from the power, wisdom, and holiness of God, all of which you assume as premises that are not disputed; and

that complication of circumstances which constitutes the historical evidence for Christianity, derives its weight from those laws of probability which experience and reflection suggest as the guide of our judgment. It is not easy to conceive that a creature, who is accustomed to exercise his reason upon every other subject, should be required to lay it aside upon a subject so interesting as the evidences of religion; and it is plain, that to substitute as the ground of our faith certain impressions, the liveliness of which depends very much upon the state of the animal spirits, in place of the various exercises of reason which this subject calls forth, is to render that precarious and inexplicable which might rest upon sure principles, and to disregard the provision made by the author of our faith, who hath both commanded and enabled us to " be always ready to give an answer to every one that asketh a reason of the hope that is in us."

2. After the exercise of reason has established in our minds a firm belief that Christianity is of divine original, the second use of reason is to learn what are the truths revealed. As these truths are not in our days communicated to any by immediate inspiration, the knowledge of them is to be acquired only from books transmitted to us with satisfying evidence that they were written above seventeen hundred years ago, in a remote country, and a foreign language, under the direction of the Spirit of God. In order to attain the meaning of these books, we must study the language in which they were written, and we must study also the manners of the times, and the state of the countries in which the writers lived, because these are circumstances to which an original author is often alluding, and by which his phraseology is generally affected: we must lay together different passages in which the same word or phrase occurs, because without this labour we cannot ascertain its precise signification; and we must mark the difference of style and manner that characterizes different writers, because a right apprehension of their meaning often depends upon attention to this difference. All this supposes the application of grammar, history, geography, chronology, and criticism in matters of religion, i. e. it supposes that the reason of man had been previously exercised in pursuing these different branches of knowledge, and that our success in attaining the true sense of Scripture depends upon the diligence with which we avail ourselves of the progress that has been made in them. It is obvious that every Christian is not capable of making this application. But this is no argument against the use of reason of which we are now speaking. For they, who use translations and commentaries, only rely upon the reason of others, instead of exercising their own. The several branches of knowledge, which I mentioned, have been applied in every age by some persons for the benefit of others; and the progress in sacred criticism, which distinguishes the present times, is nothing else but the continued application, in elucidating the Scriptures, of reason enlightened by every kind of subsidiary knowledge, and very much improved in this kind of exercise, by the employment which the ancient classics have given it since the revival of letters.

As the use of reason thus leads us into the meaning of the single words and phrases of Scripture, so it is equally necessary to enable us to attain a comprehensive view of the whole system of Scripture

doctrine. Our Lord said to his apostles a little before his death, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now." The Spirit guided them into all truth after the ascension of their master; and their discourses and epistles are the fruit of that perfect teaching, which they had not been able to receive during his life. The epistles of Paul to the different churches refer to points which he had explained to the Christians when he was with them, or to questions which had risen amongst them after his departure. They mention rather incidentally than formally the great truths of the gospel: and there is no passage in them which can be considered as a complete delineation of all that we are called to believe. Yet the apostles speak of" the form of sound words," of " the truth as it is in Jesus," of" the faith once delivered to the saints," for which Christians ought to contend. The knowledge of this form of sound words, this truth and faith, we are left to attain by searching the Scriptures, by comparing the discourses of our Lord, and the writings of his apostles, by employing expressions which are plain to illustrate those which are obscure, by giving such interpretations of the sacred writers as will preserve their consistency with themselves and with one another, by marking the consequences which are fairly deducible from their explicit declaration, and by framing, out of what is said and what is implied in their writings, a system that shall appear to be fully warranted by their authority. Without all this, we do not learn the revelation which is contained in the gospel; and yet this implies some of the highest exercises of reason, sagacity, investigation, comparison, abstraction; and it is the most important service which sound philosophy can render to Christianity, that it enables us by these exercises to attain a distinct and enlarged apprehension of the gospel scheme in all its connexious and consequences. It is very true, that many pious Christians derive much consolation and improvement from the particular doctrines of Christianity, although the narrowness of their views, and the distraction of their thoughts, render it impossible for them to form a just and comprehensive view of the whole. But it is the professed object of those who propose to be teachers of Christianity to attain such a view. It is an object for which they are supposed to have leisure and opportunity: and unless they thus know the truth, they are not qualified to show that Christ is indeed “the power of God and the wisdom of God," or to defend the gospel scheme against the objections, and rescue it from the abuses, to which a partial consideration has often given occasion.

3. After the two uses of reason that have been illustrated, a third comes to be mentioned, which may be considered as compounded of both. Reason is of eminent use in repelling the attacks of the adversaries of Christianity.

When men of erudition, of philosophical acuteness, and of accomplished taste, direct their talents against our religion, the cause is very much hurt by an unskilful defender. He cannot unravel their sophistry; he does not perceive the amount and the effect of the concessions which he makes to them; he is bewildered by their quotations, and he is often led by their artifice upon dangerous ground. In all ages of the church there have been weak defenders of Christianity; and the only triumphs of the enemies of our religion have arisen from