God to make us a revelation through inspired messengers, or otherwise than through our natural reason. It is equally a mistake to suppose that belief or an external infallible authority is simply a volition or an act of the will, without any intellectual assent. We might as well argue that the credit a jury yields to the testimony of a competent and credible witness is simply a volition without any conviction of the understanding. Infallible authority convinces the understanding as well as moves the will. We do not believe the revealed truth on the authority of the pope; we believe it on the word of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived; but we believe on the authority of the pope or church the fact that God has revealed it. The church or the pope is not authority for the truth of what is revealed--for God's word suffices for that; and we believe it on his veracity--but is the infallible witness of the fact that God has revealed or said it. {221} If God has made a revelation of supernatural truth, as all Christians hold, the fact that he has made it, since it confessedly is not made to us individually, must be received by us, if at all, on the testimony of a witness. This is what is meant by believing on authority. If we believe the fact at all, we must believe it either on some authority or on no authority. If on no authority, we have no reason for believing it, and our belief is groundless. If on some authority, then either on a fallible or an infallible authority. A fallible authority is no authority for faith. Then an infallible authority, and as the authority must be duly accredited to us--therefore, be itself outside of us--it must be an infallible external authority. The Puritan journal should therefore have headed its article, not Pope or People, but, Pope or no Faith. Without the infallible authority or witness, we may have opinions, conjectures, guesses, more or less probable, but not faith, which excludes doubt, and is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The Puritan is able, but has not mastered his subject. There are many things for him yet to learn.