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though our reason be shocked at it. For if we should believe 

 only such things as are agreeable to our reason, we assent to the 

 matter, and not to the author : which is no more than we do to 

 a suspected witness. But the faith imputed to Abraham for 

 righteousness consisted in a particular, laughed at by Sarah,a 

 who, in that respect, was an image of the natural reason. And, 

 therefore, the more absurd and incredible any divine mystery 

 is, the greater honor we do to God in believing it ; and so much 

 the more noble the victory of faith : as sinners, the more they 

 are oppressed in conscience, yet relying upon the mercy of God 

 for salvation, honor him the more ; for all despair is a kind of 

 reproaching the deity. And if well considered, belief is more 

 worthy than knowledge ; such knowledge, I mean, as we have 

 at present : for in knowledge, the human mind is acted upon by 

 sense, which results from material things; but in faith, the 

 spirit is affected by spirit, which is the more worthy agent. It 

 is otherwise in the state of glory: for, then, faith shall cease, 

 and we shall know as we are known.& 



Let us, therefore, conclude, that sacred theology must be 

 drawn from the word and oracles of God ; c not from the light 

 of nature, or the dictates of reason. It is written, that " the 

 heavens declare the glory of God :" but we nowhere find it, that 

 the heavens declare the will of God, which is pronounced a law, 

 and a testimony, that men should do according to it, etc. Nor 

 does this hold only in the great mysteries of the Godhead, of 

 the creation, and of the redemption, but belongs, also, to the 

 true interpretation of the moral law. " Love your enemies, do 

 good to them that hate you," etc., " that ye may be the children 

 of your heavenly father, who sends his rain upon the just and the 

 unjust." d Which words are more than human 



" Nee vox hominem sonat." ' 



and go beyond the light of nature. So the heathen poets, es- 

 pecially when they speak pathetically, frequently expostulate 

 with laws and moral doctrines, (though these are far more easy 

 and indulgent than divine laws), as if they had a kind of ma- 

 lignant opposition to the freedom of nature 



" Et quod natura remittit 



Invida jura negant." Ovid/ 



according to the expression of Dendamis, the Indian, to the 

 messengers of Alexander ; viz., " That he had heard, indeed, 



