oppose them; it cannot eclipse them. They are no sparks of reason's striking, but they are flaming darts of Heaven's shooting, that both open and enamour the soul. They are stars of Heaven's lighting; men behold them at a great distance twinkling in the dark. Whatsoever comes in God's name does aut invenire viam aut facere' (p. 223.) Faith is thus a disposition, faculty, or exercise, which is special, distinctive, and superadded to reason. "This withal lays down a higher and nobler principle than reason is; for in things merely natural, every rational being is there a competent judge; in those things that are within the sphere and compass of reason, the reason of all men does agree and conspire, so as that which implies an express and palpable contradiction cannot be owned by any: but in things above nature and reason, a paucity here is a better argument than a plurality, because Providence uses to open His cabinets only for His jewels. God manifests these mysterious secrets only to a few friends-His Spirit whispers to a few, shines upon a few, so that if any tell us that evangelical mysteries imply a contradiction, because they cannot apprehend them, it is no more than for a blind man confidently to determine, that it involves a contradiction to say there is a sun, because he cannot see it' (p. 231). This strong assertion of the essential supernaturalism (philosophically speaking, mysticism) of Christian illumination is in Culverwel no Puritanic peculiarity, but the echo of a profound conviction, which has expressed itself in all schools of Christian thought, from Augustine to Schleiermacher-a conviction proportioned in depth to the degree in which Christianity has not been a speculation, but a

living fact of experience. Nevertheless, it may be questioned, whether the difference between faith and unbelief is not exhibited by him too much in an intellectual, and too little in a moral point of view. He seems to lay hold of faith at its highest stage, where it resembles the action of the eye, and to overlook its lower, where it is better described by metaphors borrowed from the ear. Nor are the elements of faith intellectually considered so wanting apart from grace, as this style of representation would imply; for upon the highest authority, unbelief is not the negation, but the rejection of light. The universal attainableness of Christian faith, as conditioned by humility and prayer, a point not less vital to Christian theology than its more exclusive or mystical aspect, can apparently thus alone be maintained; and though this possibility is not denied in Culverwel's theory, it certainly does not receive its just prominence.

3. The operation of faith is throughout consistent with reason, and so far from superseding it, demands its constant exercise. The first part of this proposition, viz., that the operation of faith is throughout consistent with reason, has been incidentally vouched for in some of the passages already brought forward. Thus, the operation of faith in receiving a revelation is ultimately based upon a principle of reason, that God is true; and upon a further principle of reason, that God may communicate with His creatures by special channels. It is also by a principle of reason that faith repels the objection to the possibility of special illumination, viz., the principle of reliance upon personal experience rather than the experience of others;

and the further principle of analogy, which shows, that every kind, even of natural light, is not extended to all. These principles of reason warrant the procedure of faith in admitting any mysteries of revelation, however transcendent, that do not contradict reason, which, of course, no true revelation can do, and which our author intended to prove at length that the mysteries of Christianity had not done. As it is, he protests with equal justness and emphasis against the very idea of such a collision as nothing less than blasphemy. True religion never was, nor will be, nor need be, shy of sound reason, which is thus far lumen dirigens, as that it is obliged, by the will and command of God himself, not to entertain any false religion, nor anything under pretence of religion, that is formally and irreconcilably against reason; reason being above human testimony and tradition, and being only subordinate to God himself, and those revelations that come from God. Now it is express blasphemy to say that either God, or the Word of God, ever did, or ever will, oppose right reason' (p. 218.)

While the one half of the proposition is thus true, that reason entirely warrants faith, the other half is equally true, that faith constantly demands the services of reason. Faith demands the services of reason, according to the scattered notices of our author, in the following respects:

(1.) To evince the necessity of revelation. 'Consider, that the very apprehending the weakness of reason, even this in some measure comes from reason. Reason, when awakened, feels her own wounds, hears her own jarrings, sees the dimness of her own sight. It is a glass that dis

covers its own spots, and must it therefore be broken in pieces ?' (p. 20.)

(2.) To test the evidence of revelation. On this head our author unanswerably puts down the outcries of a blind faith: 'If they tell us that all reason is distorted, whether, then, is theirs so in telling us so? If they say that they do not know this by reason, but by the Word of God; whether, then, is reason, when it acknowledges the Word of God, distorted or no ?' (p. 22.) Though, as has been observed, our author exalts the internal evidence of the Gospel, as compared with the external, yet it is as evidence apprehensible by reason, apprehensible even by its superior splendour, that reason has to deal with it. And external evidence also, he admits, may be so great, as in the case of Abraham's offering his son Isaac, that reason must confess its force, and yield to its authority: 'All the stress and difficulty will be to know whether God reveals such a thing or not' (p. 226). Thus the whole evidence of revelation must come before the tribunal of reason.

Cul

(3.) To assist the interpretation of revelation. verwel, indeed, holds, with all Protestants, that the Spirit of God is the ultimate interpreter of revelation, in the sense of being the author of the certainty of faith; but he also urges the claim and need of reason to check and expose all departures from the verbal and literal sense. Though they be not come to such a height as this, yet, either by their flat and frigid explicating, they do endeavour to dispirit and enervate the Word of God; or else, in a more violent and injurious manner, they do even ravish it, and deflower the virginity of it; or else, in a more subtle and

serpentine manner, they seek to bend the rule, and expound it to their purposes and advantages. The letter of the Word, the vagina verbi, that does not wound them, that does not strike them; and as for the edge, they think they can draw that as they please, they can blunt it as they list, they can order it as they will. But the law of sound reason and nature does oppose such unworthy dealings as these are; for men look upon it very heinously to have their words misinterpreted, to have their meaning wrested and violenced' (pp. 226, 227).

(4.) To vindicate and harmonize the doctrines of revelation. This was our author's chosen task; and he magnifies his office in one prolonged strain of eloquence. As a sample of this vindication, he instances, as already stated, the reasonableness of Abraham's sacrifice, since human life depends entirely on the will of God, and His command altogether altered the moral character of this act; whereas an act absolutely condemned by reason, such as an act of blasphemy, is not enjoined anywhere in Scripture. Thus ought reason to deal with all the aspersed facts and mysteries of revelation. 'It will be employment enough, and it will be a noble employment too, for reason to redeem and vindicate them from those thorns and difficulties with which some subtle ones have vexed them and encompassed them. It will be honour enough for reason to show that faith does not oppose reason; and this it may show, it must show this; for else oi eow, those that are within the enclosure of the Church will never rest satisfied, nor oi ew, Pagans, Mahometans, Jews, ever be convinced. God, indeed, may work upon them by immediate revela