and it is to this that I would direct attention; for if, as cannot be denied, we have an inclination prompting us to trust more than is reasonable to Experience, and less than is reasonable to the proofs of a revelation opposed to it, we are bound in common prudence to watch ourselves as narrowly in deciding what to believe, as if we were deciding how to act, when under the influence of temptation. A wise man will be as jealous in believing what Experience tells him against the slightest semblance of a revelation opposed to it, as an honourable man would be [cautious of] avoiding danger when there was the slightest doubt whether it might not be his duty to face it; or as a temperate man [of] indulging pleasure when there was a chance that the better course was abstinence.

That such an inclination to trust Experience really exists, and is not a fancy of those who suppose themselves to overcome it, must, I think, be granted even by the most sceptical, when they consider how different are the feelings with which they regard opinions opposed to Experience, from those with which persons of a different turn regard opinions opposed to what they own for revelation.

It must be clear to every one, that, with respect to questions involving the opposition of Sight [Experience] to Faith, men think and argue

almost with the same keen feelings as on questions where Pleasure is opposed to Faith. Take, for instance, two men who have undergone an opposite change in religion; one who has learned

to trust Experience where he formerly trusted a supposed revelation contrary to it; the other who has come to think a revelation real which he formerly rejected. A man who has resisted or unlearned any views of religion founded on questionable revelation and against Experience, always feels and talks as if he had disencumbered himself as [of] a burden, whereas one who has undergone the opposite change feels and talks as if he had escaped a snare; ways of speaking which would absolutely suggest no idea, unless it was felt by both parties that the alternative of belief and disbelief was not indifferent to them, that the one was a burden and the other a relief. If at a place where his road divided into two, a traveller wholly unacquainted with either, and to whom each seemed to offer equal advantages, was to be advised by one countryman to take the right hand, and by another the left, it certainly would never occur to him to think that the one was imposing on him nor the other ensnaring him. Such a thought would only be natural and intelligible, if the one was smooth, inviting, and apparently straight, the other rugged and circuitous. And thus, if the two ways, that of Faith and that of Sight [Experience] were at first sight equally inviting, no one would have ever dreamed of attributing opposite motives to their advocates1.

1 [The following passage occurs in a rough copy of Chapter i.] Most persons who will be at trouble to examine their own hearts, will find in themselves, however mixed with counter

[Hitherto the extreme case has been taken of belief and disbelief in revealed religion; but]

acting feelings, a dislike to believe any thing in the dispensations of Providence, which is unlike the known course of things, and not discoverable without a revelation. I do not deny that to many minds the belief in such things is a source of positive pleasure; in this respect they seem to resemble many other things, which, though upon the whole painful, and such as no one would voluntarily expose himself to, yet are in some way or other fascinating to the imagination, and often when unwillingly enjoyed, leave nevertheless behind them a strange impression of delight. All I mean is, that after making every allowance for such fascination, the bias of all minds disinclines them to believe whatever differs from, or is (as they call it) contrary to their experience. They take a pleasure in getting rid of such things themselves, and are not indifferent spectators of credulity in other people. Every man who has been brought up in religious opinions that he learns afterwards to regard as superstitious, feels and talks as if he was relieved from a burden; and if he sees able men inculcating such opinions, or simple ones admitting them, his impulse is to be angry against the one, and to contemn the other. I do not say he indulges this impulse, but it crosses him, which it would not do, if such opinions were indifferent to him. Now I do not speak of this feeling to find fault with it, but merely to remind people that, in deciding between two opinions, the one in conformity to the ordinary course of things, and the other different from it, they are not unbiassed judges, nor unlikely to deceive themselves, and that unless they make allowances for it they will infallibly do so. Religion is offered to them in a variety of forms, some more, some less in accordance to our notions of what is natural, some stopping short at what is discoverable by reason and experience, others making almost unlimited demands on our credulity.... As it is the principle of the Deist that he who believes least is wisest, so it is the principle of the Romanist that he who believes most is safest.

*Sight [as Scripture calls Experience] and Faith' are opposed to each other in many ways and degrees, some of which are more perplexing to some minds, some to others, according to their various turn of thought, natural or acquired, and have given rise in consequence to a great variety of religious opinion. It is no more correct to speak of the Deists as the only persons who trust Sight against Faith, than it would be to speak of the Roman Catholics as the only ones that trust Faith against Sight2. Between the two extremes of those who believe nothing and who believe every thing, there are a vast variety of shades, melting into one another almost imperceptibly, and constituting the various denominations of Protestants.

In one sense Sight and Faith may be said to be opposed, whenever we are called on to believe any thing not discoverable without a revelation and unlike the ordinary course of things, because we feel within us a strong propensity to assume that the ordinary course of things is the only course of things, that the system of nature is permanent and uniform, or in other words "that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Yet this assumption is so purely an assumption,

1 [In the M.S. it stands thus: " 'Sight then and Faith, not reason and faith, are opposed," &c. The whole of this Paragraph between the asterisks is apparently crossed out by the Author.]

2 [The Roman Catholics, however, in many ways indulge a spirit of Rationalism; as must be evident to any one who has studied their system.]

that serious persons generally feel it to be untenable even against a low degree of positive evidence : thus it is seldom, that a person with any show of religion disbelieves any miraculous parts of the Scripture history, only on the ground that it is different from what we now experience. A miracle recorded simply as an historical fact, and affecting only persons who lived in distant ages, appears credible to many persons, who nevertheless feel differently with respect to miracles spoken of as abiding continually, and affecting ourselves in our relation to God and the future world: I mean "the invisible Dispensation of Providence, carrying on by God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, for the recovery and salvation of mankind, who are represented in Scripture to be in a state of ruin'." Again, it must be observed with respect to this Dispensation itself, that some understand it to be only so far miraculous, as it relates to the nature of God, and to the invisible world; while others believe that the very world on which we live, and the order of things in which we are engaged, is at this day the scene of invisible miracles, which take place within us and around us, through the operation of powers transmitted to our time in an appointed manner, from our Lord, through His Apostles and their successors. Persons who feel no difficulty in admitting the doctrine of the Ever Blessed Trinity, the Atonement made for the sins

VOL. I.

1 Butler's Analogy, part ii. c. i.

D