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different rays of the natural light, when combined, appear but one brightness--so the many rays of that spiritual light, when combined, appear but one Sun of Mercy--and the beams which this Sun shoots forth, are pardons, which heal the hearts they enter.

In order then to the believing of the Gospel, it is necessary that the plan of justification by faith should be understood; because this is the prominent feature of the Gospel, and because the benefits bestowed by the Gospel, are communicated to the soul through the knowledge of this doctrine.

What is the difference between knowledgeor understanding, and faith? Our understanding of a thing means the conception which we have formed of it, or the impression which it has made on our mind, without any reference to its being a reality in nature independent of our thought, or a mere fiction of the imagination: And faith is a persuasion, accompanying these impressions, that the objects which produced them are realities in nature, independent of our thought or perception. This persuasion of reality accompanies all the different modes in which our knowledge is acquired, as well as the testimony of others. When an object is presented to my eye, the impression which it makes upon me is accompanied by the persuasion, that the object which produced it is truly described by the impression which it has made, and that it is a reality independent of myself. When a proposition in mathematics is demonstrated to me, a persuasion accompanies my un

derstanding of it, that these relations of quantities are fixed and unalterable, and altogether independent of my reasoning. When the generous or kind conduct of a friend meets my difficulties, my impression of the fact is accompanied by a persuasion of the reality of that generosity or kindness, as qualities existing in my friend's heart altogether independent of my thought or feeling on the subject. When I hear through a channel which appears to me authentic, of some melancholy or some joyful event, there is an accompanying persuasion that there is a real cause for joy or sorrow.

Faith, then, is just an appendage to those faculties of the mind by which we receive impressions from external objects, whether they be material or immaterial. It stands at the entrances of the mind as it were, and passes sentence on the authenticity of all information which goes in. Now as faith is merely an appendage to another faculty, is it not evident that its existence and exercise, with regard to any particular object, must depend on the existence and exercise of that faculty to which the object is addressed? A man born blind has no impressions from light, and therefore he can have no faith with regard to such impressions. He has not the slightest conception of what is meant by a coloured body, and therefore he cannot believe in a coloured body. He may believe that bodies have a quality which he is incapable of perceiving, but what that quality is he does not know, and therefore cannot believe in it. Faith is the persuasion that the impression on the

mind was produced by a real object. But if no impression is made upon the mind, what room is there for the exercise of belief? If he, like another blind man, has formed an idea that red is like the sound of a trumpet, the impression is a false one, and the belief appended to it is also false, that is, it is appended to a false impression. For faith must always derive its character from the impression to which it is appended.

If the impression is correct, the faith is correct; and if the impression is incorrect, the faith is incorrect. And when we are considering impressions as produced by objects supposed or known to be real, we may very properly explain faith to be the impression made on our minds by some such object.

A man altogether destitute of the faculty of discerning the relation of numbers and quantities, could not understand how two and two make four; there could be therefore no impression on his mind corresponding to this truth, and therefore there could be no faith in it. There are many persons whose minds have been so little exercised in this way, that, though they may not by nature be incapable of receiving such impressions, it would yet be absolutely impossible to make them comprehend a mathematical process of any intricacy. These persons may believe certain abstract truths on the authority of others; but they never can believe in the processes by which they are demonstrated, because there are no impressions on their minds corresponding to these processes. The same reasoning holds good with regard to our knowledge and belief on subjects which address our moral faculties, and other internal sensations. We must have impressions made on our minds corresponding to moral qualities, or to the conditions which address our sensitive nature, before we can believe in those qualities, or in the meaning of those events and conditions. How, for instance, do we become acquainted with the idea of danger, but by an impression of fear produced in our minds? Can we become acquainted with it by any other way? Impossible; for the only meaning of danger is, that it is something fitted to excite fear. How do we become acquainted with the meaning of generous worth and excellence, but by the love, esteem, and admiration which they excite in us? To a man whose heart is utterly dead to kindness, what meaning could kindness convey? Where there are no moral impressions on the mind, there can be no belief on moral subjects; and according to the degree of the impression is the measure of the belief: For, in fact, the impression is the belief, and the belief is the impression.

In illustration of this, let us suppose two men travelling together whose minds are differently constituted. One has the ordinary degree of alarm at the idea of death; the other is entirely devoid of any such feeling. They come into a situation in which their lives are endangered. A stranger passing by interposes between them and the danger, and saves their lives, but at the

expense of his own. Our two travellers have both of them the use of their eyes and their ears, they have both of them seen and heard precisely the same things, and when they tell their story, their two narratives agree most minutely: And yet they believe two essentially different things. The one believes that the disinterested and heroic generosity of a stranger has saved them from what he cannot but consider as a dark and awful fate. In consequence of this, he rejoices in his safety as far as his sorrow for his noble benefactor will permit-he feels himself laid under the most sacred obligation to reverence the memory of this benefactor, and to repay to his surviving friends or family that debt of gratitude which he owes for his deliverance. The other understands nothing and consequently believes nothing of all this-he saw no evil in the death with which they were threatened, and of course no generosity in him who rescued them from it by encountering it himself-he neither feels joy, nor sorrow, nor gratitude, excited by any part of the history. These two men do not believe the same thing in two different ways; they in fact believe two different things. Examine the two impressions. They may be compared to the traces left by the same intaglio on two different substances-the one substance too solid to yield to the pressure, or receive the mould of the sculpture, exhibits nothing perhaps but the oval outline of the stone -whilst the other, possessing the right consistency, and coming in contact with every por

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