ledge, and its teftimony. But Paul tells us that faith, in the proper fenfe of the word, fo far as it is diftinguifhed from what is held to be true, is juftly oppofed to feeing, either with the eyes, or with the underftanding. We walk by faith, not by fight, 2 Cor. v. 7. This is also confirmed by the definition of faith, Heb. xi. 1. Now faith is the fubftance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not feen. If faith be the fubftance, or ground of hope, it must be produced by the actual fight of the thing hoped for, by reasoning and our proper knowledge, or by the credible teftimony of another. But that the latter is the cafe here, and that confequently the apoftle understands by faith a conviction of things unfeen, founded not on our own discovery, but on the affertions of a credible witness, and arifing from our confidence in him, appears to me altogether inconteftable: more especially, if, as what precedes and what follows feem to indicate, we are not to understand by the unfeen things hoped for the happiness of a future ftate, which might, in fome measure, be previously discoverable by the light of reason, but approaching liberations from temporal oppreffions and perfecutions. For thefe the chriftians could hope on no other grounds than their trust in the promises of Jesus, and only fo far as they relied on his word: thus confidence is here the principal idea of faith. This clearly appears, too, in all the. inftances of faith fubfequently adduced by the apostle, particularly in what is faid of Abraham, ver. 8. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which be fhould after receive for an inheritance obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. He must have had an abfolute reliance, then, on the promifes of God. Still more clearly is it expreffed of Sara, ver. 11. Through faith alfo Sara herself received ftrength to conceive feed, and was delivered of a child when he was past age, because he judged bim faithful who had promifed. Of Abrahám it is faid,

ver.

ver. 17. that be offered up Ifaac by faith; and ver. 19. accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead. Thefe are fufficient examples of faith without fight or knowledge, in which the believers held fomething to be true, through confidence in the power, wisdom, and goodnefs of God, which they had not feen, and which in their judgment must have appeared moft improbable.

Though of the things which Chrift has teftified to us, either by his word, or by his actions and fufferings, there are many that may be conjectured or inferred by reafon, and which therefore, as it feems, we do not properly believe, or deem to be true from confidence in his word; fo that the term faith is not strictly applicable to them: let it ftill be remembered that they are, and will remain objects of faith to the greater part of mankind, and must be believed by all who have not cultivated and exercised their reafon, through confidence in credible teftimony. This is no objection to my idea and ufe of the word faith. The question is not what is capable of being difcovered by reafon, but what actually has been, or will be, by that of the majority of mankind. It is a moft inestimable benefit of God, and a fervice for which we can never be fufficiently thankful to Chrift, that the important truths of God's paternal affection to man, of a future life, &c. which fome few philofophers might have difcovered by the help of reafon, with more or lefs certainty, but which the far greater number of men would have remained ignorant of, or must have believed on flight authority, are, by means of a rational and well-founded faith, known to all, and rendered inftruments of their improvement and confolation. Those important doctrines, which otherwife would have found a place in the religion of a few true philofophers at moft, may now be known by those who are no philofophers, and received into the

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the established systems of religion of whole nations, not weakened and disfigured by fables, not refting on doubtful traditions, but clad in their original purity, and fupported by rational principles.

The most specious objection that can be made to the orthodoxy of my idea of faith, and which has actually been made by an ingenious friend of mine, is taken from the oppofition betwixt faith and the law, betwixt the Mofaic and Chriftian difpenfations, which occurs in different parts of St. Paul's Epiftles, and particularly Galatians iii. If faith, obferved my friend, be a confidence in the judgment of a fuperior guide, under the law it must have applied eminently to the Ifraelites, who were led by Mofes. How then can the law be oppofed to faith, or the Mofaic difpenfation to the Chriftian, as the principle of faith was equally neceffary in both, and the Ifraelites were led by faith in Mofes, as the Chriftians by faith in Chrift?

Before I proceed to explain the paffage on which this objection is chiefly grounded, permit me to obferve that it does not follow from the apostle's oppofing them to each other, that faith and the law are totally difcrepant, and exclude each other, and that faith could not poffibly fubfift under the law. This oppofition the apoftle took from the notions and opinions of the Jews, with whom he was difputing. They had made a diftinction betwixt faith and the law; and it feems to me that St. Paul, in his difpute with them, took up his ground on their mistaken ideas, and not on the true nature of the cafe. For it is undeniable that obedience to the law, delivered from mount Sinai, was lefs founded on the proper knowledge of its followers, than was obedience to the precepts of the gospel. Still that faith, that filial confidence which the gospel requires of its followers, in God as their father, in Jefus Chrift his fon, and in their elder and wifer VOL. III. 3 A brethren,

brethren, who were fent forth to bring them into the right way, is not the fame as the proper principle of obedience with the Jews. This appears, as I think, from the reproof which our Saviour gave the fcribes and pharifees, Matt. xxiii. that, in all their fcrupulous punctuality in fulfilling the letter of the law, they omitted the weightieft matters, namely judgment, mercy, and faith. In my opinion, the word faith here very well admits its ufual fignification, but by judgment we may understand either the virtue of juftice, or judging rightly of things in the mind. Either will give the paffage a good fenfe, and agree with the context. Ye observe the letter of the law with the moft fervile and fcrupulous exactnefs, in the most infignificant trifles: but ye omit the most important matters. Moral virtue, which confifts in juftice and mercy to your neighbour, and faith in God, which is the principle of all virtue and obedience, are wholly unheeded by you. Or, if judgment be rendered the act of judging rightly, the fenfe will be in your blind and fervile obedience ye neglect found judgment, &c. It is certain that the Jews did not found their obedience to the law on a rational faith, and a filial truft in God. They dif united faith and the law, by feparating an outward obedience from that its proper principle, by making the fign or external ceremonies of it the opus operatum, looking more to these ceremonies than to the intent from which they flowed, exalting a blind fuperftitious conformity to the rank of proper merit, forming no rational general plan of the whole of the obedience required by God to his commands, and thus, like ignorant flaves, fuffering themselves to be guided by the bare letter of the ordinances given them, without paying the leaft attention to the general spirit of the law. They preferred every particular act of the law to its grand defign: expected the reward of their blind and irrational obedience,

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more as an arbitrary recompenfe of each particular external act of it, than as a natural confequence of a juftnefs of fentiment, or of the faith from which it proceeded, to which it led, and in which it should be exercised; and, confequently, fhewed more obedience to the pofitive, than to the proper moral precepts in fhort, they fubftituted fuperftition inftead of faith. Taking it for granted that this was the way of thinking of the Jews, I confider the apostle's difpute with those who embraced the Jewish notions, as the conteft of reafon against superftition and thence I explain his oppofing faith to the law. For with refpect to men, who thought as the Jewish opponents of the apoftle in my opinion did, faith and the law were actually oppofites to each other, and he who would difpute with them fuccefsfully, muft confider the cafe in their point of view. We will now proceed to examine whether, on this fuppofition, the words of the apostle afford a natural and apt fenfe, and were adapted to the purpose of refuting his antagonists.

Let it be remembered, that the grand point which the apostle had to fubvert was this: the gofpel is unneceffary, and of no ufe; it is a fuperfluous innovation, as we may and must be righteous and faved by the law. Now it was an adroit, yet innocent artifice of the apoftle, in his controversy, to substitute, inftead of the faith of the gofpel a difputable word, and fufpicious to the Jews on account of its novelty, that which they already knew from the Old Teftament, which fignified fomething the value, power, and efficacy of which they could not deny, as they must admit that Abraham was juftified by faith, and that before the giving of the law it was the fole mean of obtaining juftification. Hence it is natural for us to expect that Paul, to make the greateft poffible ufe of this advantageous fubftitution of terms and ideas, would endeavour to unite and 3 A 2 combine