182 
there put beyond controversy. I am also sorry that Dr Bigg is not here, 
for when I read my paper “ On Dr. Newman’s Essay in Aid of a Grammai 
of Assent”* Dr. Rigg expressed himself in the discussion that followed 
eve"’ strongly thfn I did ; and I think it right to say that the article 
which I then alluded to-contained in the London Quarterly-one ot the 
most important that has appeared on this subject, is from Dr. Bigg s own 
pen. Now the author of the present paper personally alludes to Dr Irons 
and myself, and challenges us as holding opinions that tend to infidelity. 1 
will read the passage : — 
“ The man who puts 1 reason ’ for the basis of religion— 
I do not know that I have ever used that phrase. 
«. starts upon an incline whose bottom is infidelity. He cannot receive 
the doctrines of the Incarnation, the Resurrection, or the Ascension, with l all 
that belongs to each, as any consequence following logically from his first 
principles f those first principles therefore must be false, if Christianity be 
true P I must here, I know, differ from some statements made by memb ers 
of this Institute, particularly by Mr. Row, and I think Dr. Irons, on 
subject of ‘ reason/ and 1 do so upon strictly philosophical grounds. Faith 
is not the product of reason, it has a closer affinity with what ^ psychologic^ 
than with what is pneumatological. In any case it has not reason for 
basis. Reason gives us knowledge, not faith. 
Now if that is a true statement, I am in a very unfortunate position; 
because, having been trying to defend Christianity all my life, it, 
would follow that I had really been defending infidelity. There are 
certain points in Mr. English’s paper which I apprehend Mr. Graham will 
discuss, indeed he has taken them up in a paper to be read here a month 
hence ; therefore I will leave him to deal with them. There is but one 
section in the paper to which I can give my cordial assent, that is the third, 
and I must add one more illustration .to it ; — I have been struck by an accom- 
modation in the New Testament respecting the name of God ; God is only 
once called the Lord of Hosts there, in a passage where St. James is 
referring to the Old Testament ; but in the Revelation the phrase is altered 
from “ Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts,” to “ Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God Almighty.” 
At the end of his 17th section, Mr. English has this passage 
“ ‘ The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (his body), and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spirit), and. man became a living 
soul that is, having Psyche, a bodily frame with life in it. 
Now I cannot say it is fair to assert, that because the words are “ the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth,” that this means mere 
bodily organization, and that afterwards came the breath of life, and 
by the act of the union man became a living soul. As to the passage m 
* Yol. vi. p. 45. 
