Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/155

Rh Here desire after Truth is considered as irreconcileable with acquiescence in doubt. Now if we do not believe in a First Cause, then indeed we know nothing except so far as we know it clearly, consistency and harmony being the necessary evidence of reality; and so we may reasonably regard doubt as an obstacle in the pursuit of Truth. But, on the other hand, if we assume the existence of an unseen Object of Faith, then we already possess the main truth, and may well be content even with half views as to His operations, for whatever we have is so much gain, and what we do not know does not in that case tend at all to invalidate what we do know.

A few words may be necessary to bring together what has been said. Rationalism then, viewed in its essential character, is a refusal to take for granted the existence of a First Cause, in religious inquiries, which it prosecutes as if commencing in utter ignorance on the subject. Hence it receives only so much as may be strictly drawn out to the satisfaction of the reason, advancing onwards in belief according to the range of the proof; it limits Truth to our comprehension of it, or subjects it to the mind, and admits it only so far as it is subjected. Hence again it considers faith to have reference to a thing or system, far more than to an agent, for an agent may be supposed as acting in unknown ways, whereas a system cannot be supposed to have existence beyond what is ascertained of it. Hence moreover it makes the credibility of any alleged truth to lie solely in its capability of coalescing and combining with what is already known.

Mr. Hume, as has been observed, avowed the principle of Rationalism in its extent of Atheism. The writers, I shall have to notice, have religious sensibilities, and are far less clear-sighted. Yet even Mr. Erskine maintains or assumes that the main object of Christian faith is, not Almighty God, but a certain work or course of things which He has accomplished; as will be manifest to any reader either of His Essay on Internal Evidence, or on Faith. He says, for instance, in the latter of these works,

"I may understand many things which I do not believe: but I cannot