It will perhaps be urged, that the acceptance of propositions, such as the doctrinal statements of the New Testament, is an act of faith which stands out in manifest contra‐distinction to an act of reason. It would be so unquestionably, if we accepted them on insufficient evidence; but when we do so with the knowledge that others have a full acquaintance with the subject on which they speak, it is in the highest degree rational to accept and to act on their testimony. A large portion of the business of life is conducted on this principle. A man is ignorant on some subject, or he distrusts his own judgment respecting it: he consults one who knows, or on whose judgment he relies. For example: let us suppose that I have a bottle full of a certain substance; I do not know whether it is a medicine that I am in need of, or a deadly poison. I consult my chemist, and without hesitation I act on his opinion. In all such cases (and they are spread over the entire sphere of life) we act on faith; but it is a faith which is in conformity with the dictates of reason. The function of the latter is to ascertain the adequate knowledge and the veracity of the person whose assurance we accept. If it is a rational act thus to receive truths on the testimony of man, whose knowledge must be imperfect, it must be still more so to accept them on the authority of him who knows all things, _i.e._ God. I am aware that certain writers have given such a representation of faith as to produce the impression that it is one of its special functions to accept certain dogmas, the terms of which are extremely obscure, or absolutely incomprehensible. But no rational evidence can be adduced in support of this position. To exert actual belief in a proposition the terms of which are incomprehensible, is an impossibility, and we only deceive ourselves when we imagine that we can. All that we can do in such cases is to repeat words, but if they have no definite meaning we cannot believe them: for the act of faith or conviction is founded on the affirmation that the two terms of a particular proposition agree. It is quite true that the facts and statements of the New Testament run up into principles which transcend our limited power of reason; but this is common to it, and every system of science or philosophy; and forms no peculiarity of religion. I am far from wishing to affirm that theologians have not fallen into this practice; but my concern is not with them, but with the statements of the New Testament. One of the most important acquisitions made to our mental science in the present day is that we have ascertained that there are limits to our mental powers beyond which we cannot penetrate. This was imperfectly realized by many of the reasoners of earlier times, and the result has been that they have fallen into a hazy mysticism, or logomachy.