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have been established, and they have been established by -what ! By 
observation. But what is observation 1 It is all testimony ; it is the 
evidence of personal knowledge and observation. It will be found that 
science is full of mysteries, which, in themselves, are as improbable, not 
to say incredible, as any mystery which the Gospels rest upon, and they 
rest also upon the same basis of observation and testimony as the volume 
upon which our religion rests. We have to investigate these things on 
the ground where they took place, just as we have to investigate our 
Lord’s life, and thus we gradually unfold mysteries whether of science 
or of faith which we must accept, though it is impossible for us to conceive 
or to understand them. I beg pardon for having occupied the ground, I 
am afraid, a little too long. (Hear, hear.) 
The Rev. Principal Angus. — I feel deeply our obligation to Professor 
Wace, and I very cordially concur in many of the sentiments that 
are incidentally expressed in the paper itself. If I do not give a 
more formal expression of concurrence, it is because I think it is more 
to the purpose of our meeting that we should discuss the points which 
are open to objection. For my own part, beginning with the argument 
with which the paper closed, I doubt the wisdom or the propriety of distin- 
guishing so pointedly between belief in a proposition and belief in a person. 
It is a very familiar distinction I know, and it is one which has a very deep 
significance ; but I believe it is liable to considerable misapprehension. Of 
course there is a wide distinction between fides and fiducia — between faith 
and trust. To believe in a person is to have fiducia in relation to him, 
whereas to believe in a truth is simply to have fides in relation to it. It may 
have been the purpose of Professor Wace to set that forth ; but I think not. 
I believe in the proposition that God is love ; that is fides : I trust that love : 
that is fiducia ; but that may be one meaning of belief in the proposition 
itself. The distinction in fact is not strictly between a proposition as true 
and a person, but between a proposition as believed in by the intellect, and 
as accepted by the heart. I believe it will be found that when I have said 
I believe in God, it really means that I believe a number of propositions in 
relation to Him — that God is Almighty, that He is holy, that He is loving, 
He is true. My belief in Him is really a belief in all parts of His character, 
in all He has done, and in all He will do ; whereas my belief in a proposition 
may be simply a belief in a particular fact. If, for example, I say that God 
sent His Son into the world, the proposition embodying that particular fact 
is less wide and less influential as it stands in that naked form, than is the 
belief in God. But the two mental states may not differ, except in extent. 
To believe in God is to believe in a large number of propositions, whereas 
to believe in a simple proposition is to believe in one only. If it be held 
that a belief in God means trust in Him ; so also may a belief in the proposi- 
tion that God is love. Mere belief in God, say in the proposition, is fides : 
and trust in God, or in God as love, is fiducia. I think it unwise, however, 
o call one belief in a truth, and the other in a person. The fact is, that 
