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formity witli our highest reason, her testimony is confirmatory 
of the truth of the Christian faith. The question whether 
philosophy has been able to discover all that Christianity has 
revealed may be directly answered in the negative. But this 
does not prove that it is not her duty to take cognizance of it, 
or that she is not able to afford us powerful assistance in deter- 
mining whether it is a true light or a fictitious one. 
35. I have made these observations, lest any one should 
suppose that I deny the existence of an inward spiritual 
influence, the laws of the action of which philosophy may be 
unable to trace. Our philosophy may be a true philosophy as 
far as it goes, although it may be unable to penetrate to the 
profundities of things, in the same manner as our natural 
science may be perfectly true, although it cannot give the 
rationale of the principle of life. One thing it ought to be 
able to accomplish : if a lacuna exists, it may point out where 
it is to be found, and thereby confer on us an inestimable 
service. 
36. I shall assume that that which distinguishes Christianity 
from all previous systems of moral teaching is the prominence 
which it assigns to the principle of faith as a power which is 
alone capable of effecting the regeneration of mankind ; that 
it is the great instrument which it employs for that purpose ; 
and that it is the mode by which the good man is to be 
strengthened in his goodness ; and the morally corrupt is to 
be rescued from his corruption. 
37. What, then, is faith ? No little confusion of thought 
prevails, both in popular philosophical and theological lan- 
guage, respecting the character of those mental phenomena, 
of which the term is the current designation. Philosophers 
have not unfrequently used language which implies that there 
is a radical distinction between those convictions which are 
designated by the word faith, and those which we arrive at by 
the instrumentality of reason. It has even been represented as 
possible to yield assent by faith where it is impossible to do so 
by reason. Some have gone so far as to designate by faith a 
class of truths of which, while we are unable to image to our 
minds a distinct conception, we are yet capable of believing 
in, by some peculiar mental power which they call faith. 
On the other hand, popular, and not unfrequently theological 
language, describes the incomprehensible as being the 
peculiar object matter of faith. Others restrict it to truths 
of which the evidence is imperfect ; while others go to the 
extent of saying, that the smaller the evidence is, the greater 
is the necessity and the merit of believing. Equally strong 
