be likened to the element of heat, whose central source is above, and whose subtle agency pervades all the parts of this wondrous wholethe generator of life, without which all that grows would decay, and all that lives would die; while reason, like the other element of water, stands at the two extremes, to guard the life which only heat can generate. When the heat becomes excessive, water evaporates, and in this very process envelopes, innocuous, the fiery particles, which else would consume every living thing, and so it guards life at this extreme; and when winter comes, water congeals, and, in its very congelation, sends out its latent warmth to animate the forms that otherwise would perish, and so it guards life at this extreme also. And even thus, it seems to me, that we may say of human reason, that it has a two-fold office in the guardianship of faith; from the extreme of formality it may quicken it into a new life by the stimulus of argument, and, by unfolding the symmetry and sublimity of the creed which is repeated with cold lips; and, in the other extreme of unhallowed glow, it may guard it, not only by the restraints of prudence, but also by the pervading and calm influence of a profound and clear exhibition of all the parts and checks of the Christian system. We may add, that an intimate persuasion of the inherent unanimity of faith and reason has been a prominent trait of the grandest intellects of the Christian church. Philosophy they have repelled by philosophy. Such was Augustine, when he refuted the vain pretension that man could regenerate himself, not on grounds of Scripture alone, but from the depths of the human consciousness. Such was Anselm of Canterbury, when, at the hour of the sacred vigils, there was revealed to him his sublime speculation upon the being of God: or when, with holy zeal, he wrote upon that high argument, why did God become incarnate? and first on rational grounds, showed the necessity of an atonement. Such too was that holy French recluse, that sublime ascetic, who felt as hardly did another of his age, the intense conflict between faith and reason, because he had both in their fulness, and who, in immortal fragments, has left us a sketch of a philosophical apology for Christianity, which has never been completed, because Pascal has had no successor. The wisest of English Christians, while he elaborated with patient thought, through many years, his unsurpassed vindication of Christianity, on the ground of the Analogies of nature, was ever animated by the conviction, that there must be harmony in all the works of God, that in their origin, their principles and their aims, nature and Christianity are in unison; and that this can be rationally evinced. And him the mighty man of our New-England theologic host, when, with capacious intellect - 1849.] Objections considered. 685 and whole souled love, he meditated, in the fairest village on the banks of our noblest river and in his remoter missionary retreat, upon those two great problems, which have given their distinctive character to all our subsequent theological discussions, upon the Nature of True Virtue, and the Freedom of the Human Will, what impulse moved him, if not the necessity of bringing the subtlest researches of human reason into harmony with the truths which lie at the basis of all piety. Without philosophy how could he have attempted the reconciliation of divine sovereignty with the consciousness of freedom: without deep speculative insight how could he have discerned, as no one did before him, the radical identity of virtue and religion. Intellect and faith acted together in him, distinct yet as consentaneous as are the principle of life and the organic structure in our animal economy. Thus, on various grounds, we have contended that it is no sound sense to say that faith and philosophy are foes. On the highest grounds it is false; on the lowest, it is bad policy. It is unwise to do it even in the heat of discussion, even when opposing a fatal error, even to gain an urgent end. For we should be obliged to recant before the first rational man we encountered in calm debate. Nor do we forget either man's depravity, or the dangers of philosophy. Man is depraved-alas! that we should say it, man is depraved; human passions are the source and defence of many a false system but I am afraid to allow to depravity the fearful advantage of claiming for itself full possession of our intellectual natures, as well as of the wish and the will; for the evidence of depravity is increased when we show that it is against a man's own reason; and we lose one of our most potent means of assailing it when we grant that reason is its bulwark and not its foe. And philosophy, too, is dangerous; all philosophy is dangerous. But the simple, sober fact in the case is this, that there are some dangers which can be avoided only by being incurred, and by pressing right through the danger to the victory. And there is one peril that, in our times, is more imminent, and that is, the opposing so dangerous an enemy as is false philosophy, by the only weapons to which it is invulnerable. Our philosophical infidels are calm men, men of nerve; their infidelity is not fed by their passions alone, nor is it vented only in execrations. They are men of thought and system. They do not feel the force of a bare assertion; they yield to no popular clamor; they fear no ecclesiastical denunciation. They are scrutinizing; and profoundly conscious of holding principles which deliberately exclude VOL. VI. No. 24. 58 the realities of the Christian faith. They accept the philosophic horn of the dilemma, philosophy or faith; until they can see that the formula should read, faith and philosophy. IV. And it is with this formula that we make our transition to the fourth part of this discussion: and that is, an attempt to exhibit the real relations and the rightful claims of faith and philosophy. To say that both have rights, and that we should attempt to reconcile them, is only to gain a clear field for the most important portion of our work, the adjustment of their respective claims, of their relative supremacy. And if the limits of the occasion make it necessary to omit much of great importance, they may perhaps allow a statement of the points. most needing consideration. And it may be well at the outset to disown some vague attempts at reconciliation which only smother the difficulties. Thus to faith is assigned one whole sphere, God and the Bible; to philosophy another and a distinct department, nature and the human mind; but philosophy has an intense interest in God and the Bible, and faith cannot do without man and providence. Neither the dispute nor adjustment is territorial. Nor can we any better say, that revelation gives us all our ideas of God; and that philosophy must accept them, without anything further. For this either takes revelation in so broad a sense, that a philosophical infidelity might be based upon it; or else it puts man in a position in which we cannot see how a revelation could possibly be made to him in an intelligible manner. A revelation takes for granted that he to whom it is made has some knowledge of God, though it may enlarge and purify that knowledge. In point of fact, faith and philosophy are employed about the same great subjects, God, man, providence and human destiny. 1. But though employed about the same great subjects, we say that they are employed about them in a different way; and that the difference in the mode results from a difference inherent in the nature of philosophy and faith. And this is the first aspect in which their relations are to be considered. What then, we ask, is philosophy? what does it seek? what are its limits? And we answer as before, philosophy is a mode of human knowledge, not the whole of that knowledge, but a mode of it; the knowing things rationally; the knowing them in their causes, their relations, and their ends; the knowing them in the harmony and completeness of a system. It being only such a mode of knowledge, the materials, the substance, the facts must, from the nature of the case, exist before the philosophy, and be taken for granted by the philosophy, and be the limit and the test of the philosophy itself. 1849.] Nature of the Christian Faith. 687 These exist independently of philosophy, and their reality is, of course, to be attested on independent grounds. The facts of the material or of the intelligible world are the prime materials of all philosophical systems; and without them no system can be constructed. There is one thing, then, against which speculation is fruitless, and that is the majesty of fact, of all facts of the outward or inward world properly attested. Philosophy may explain and systematize realities; may show their rational grounds and connections; but it is not within its province to annul an item of history, any phenomena of nature, or any facts of consciousness. If it endeavor to falsify any reality, duly attested by sense, by internal consciousness, or by valid testimony, it is committing high treason against the majesty of fact. It may seek the rational grounds of all that is, but in doing this it assumes that what is, is; and so far as any system is inconsistent with what is, so far it is false; and so far as it cannot rationally explain what is, so far it is incomplete. And of all philosophy, Scotch or German, ideal or empirical, the independent realities of nature, of mind, and of history are not only the substance and the strength, but also the abiding test; taken for granted as such in all discussions. If this be so, we ask next, what is faith, what does it claim to be, in what does it rest? Faith, internally, is a state of trust; but it is always trust in something external. Its real character can only be determined by stating its objects. And the Christian's faith reposes, as we before said, upon a revelation, an historical revelation, a revelation historically attested, attested by miracle and by prophecy; a revelation recorded in a volume which claims to be inspired. It is not primarily a system of doctrines, nor a confession, nor a speculation; but it is a grand historical economy, a manifestation of God and his purposes, an annunciation of supernatural truth by natural agencies, by prophets and teachers, and, last of all, by Jesus Christ; a manifestation forming a part of human history, connected and progressive through thousands of years. And all this series of revelations comes to us in the Scriptures, which gives us both the facts and the divine interpretation of them. Christianity thus claims to be a real revelation of God, made in the best form in which we can conceive a revelation to be made, and made for the highest ends for which a revelation can be made, made to give the highest and most needed knowledge, made to redeem mankind. And this whole historic revelation bears with steady and concentrated aim upon one person, himself an historical personage, himself a man, in whom it is declared that heaven and earth are reconciled, that the great problems of human destiny are solved. And thus the Christian religion presents it self as adapted to man's highest wants in an exclusive sense, and with redeeming efficacy. This is the first aspect of the Christian economy; and here is the primary basis of faith. But this is not all; for faith claims an internal evidence, as well as an historical basis. Man is a believer, made to trust. The infirmities of his finite, and the necessities of his sinful condition, make faith necessary to the attainment of the great ends of his being. And the Christian finds in his own heart a profound experience, which fills and satisfies his soul, and which is entirely responsive to the substance of the divine revelation, as recorded in the word of God. And here is another series of facts, reaching through thousands of years, embracing men of every clime and degree, the sage and the simple, the civilized and barbarian, the young and the mature, the living and the dying, who all, with one consent, testify that in this revelation they have found their solace and support, that it is the source of the highest activity and blessedness of all their powers. And in the experience of believers also, all converges around the same divine person, who is the centre and the crown of the historic revelation. Nor is this all. That revelation, historically so grand in its origin, and confirmed by human experience, has also entered into and controlled the whole course of human history and of human thought, since the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. And here is another series of facts. History is the grand test of truth; it does not lie, for it is the ever unfolding providence of God. It is more authoritative than mere speculation, for it gives us the highest reality. And in history the Christian system has existed as a real and permanent power; it has been the centre of man's noblest thoughts and strongest feelings, in his most cultivated state, for eighteen hundred years; it has controlled the destinies and led the march of the nations; from its bitter contests it has ever emerged with added lustre, as though endowed with immortal energy. It is superior to defeat. Its power is now more intense and diffused than ever before. And thus is Christianity not only an historic revelation, and an internal experience, but also an organic, diffusive, plastic and triumphant force in human history; and in this history, as in the revelation, and as in the experience, the centre around which all revolves is the person of Jesus Christ. Nor yet is this all. This revelation has another aspect, which has already been hinted at, but which requires a fuller statement. If man were entirely satisfied with the course of nature with being born, living, and dying; if he had no sense of sin, if he had never sinned; he would not be ever asking those sublime questions, to which nature is deaf and reason is dumb. But he knows something of God, of law, |