Paul justly replies:'--If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable.' 1827. INTRODUCTION TO ASGILL'S DEFENCE UPON HIS EXPULSION FROM THE HOUSE OP COMMONS. EDIT. 1712. P. 28. For as every faith, or credit, that a man hath attained to, is the result of some knowledge or other; so that whoever hath attained that knowledge, hath that faith, (for whatever a man knows, he cannot but believe:) So this 'all faith' being the result of all knowledge,'tis easy to conceive that whoever had once attained to all that knowledge, nothing could be difficult to him. This whole discussion on faith is one of the very few instances, in which Asgill has got out of his depth. According to all usage of words, science and faith are incompatible in relation to the same object; while, according to Asgill, faith is merely the power which science confers on the will. Asgill says,--What we know, we must believe. I retort,--What we only believe, we do not know. The 'minor' here is excluded by, not included in, the 'major'. Minors by difference of quantity are included in their majors; but minors by difference of quality are excluded by them, or superseded. Apply this to belief and science, or certain knowledge. On the confusion of the second, that is, minors by difference of quality, with the first, or minors by difference of quantity, rests Asgill's erroneous exposition of faith. NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWN'S RELIGIO MEDICI, MADE DURING A SECOND PERUSAL. 1808. [1] Part I. S.1. For my religion, though there be several circumstances that might perswade the world I have none at all, 'as the generall scandall of my profession', &c. The historical origin of this scandal, which in nine cases out of ten is the honour of the medical profession, may, perhaps, be found in the fact, that Ænesidemus and Sextus Empiricus, the sceptics, were both physicians, about the close of the second century. [2] A fragment from the writings of the former has been preserved by Photius, and such as would leave a painful regret for the loss of the work, had not the invaluable work of Sextus Empiricus been still extant. S. 7. A third there is which I did never positively maintaine or practise, but have often wished it had been consonant to truth, and not offensive to my religion, and that is, the prayer for the dead, &c. Our church with her characteristic Christian prudence does not enjoin prayer for the dead, but neither does she prohibit it. In its own nature it belongs to a private aspiration; and being conditional, like all religious acts not expressed in Scripture, and therefore not combinable with a perfect faith, it is something between prayer and wish,--an act of natural piety sublimed by Christian hope, that shares in the light, and meets the diverging rays, of faith, though it be not contained in the focus. S. 13.