But in order to
the knowledge of divinity, my inclination was most to logic and
metaphysics, with that part of physics which treateth of the soul,
contenting myself at first with a slighter study of the rest: and
there had my labour and delight.
What a picture of myself!
Ib. p. 22.
In the storm of this temptation I questioned awhile whether I were
indeed a Christian or an Infidel, and whether faith could consist with
such doubts as I was conscious of.
One of the instances of the evils arising from the equivoque between
faith and intellectual satisfaction or insight. The root of faith is in
the will. Faith is an oak that may be a pollard, and yet live.
Ib.
The being and attributes of God were so clear to me, that he was to my
intellect what the sun is to my eye, by which I see itself and all
things.
Even so with me;--but, whether God was existentially as well as
essentially intelligent, this was for a long time a sore combat between
the speculative and the moral man.
Ib. p. 23.
Mere Deism, which is the most plausible competitor with Christianity,
is so turned out of almost all the whole world, as if Nature made its
own confession, that without a Mediator it cannot come to God.
Excellent.
Ib.
All these assistances were at hand before I came to the immediate
evidences of credibility in the sacred oracles themselves.
This is as it should be; that is, the evidence 'a priori', securing the
rational probability; and then the historical proofs of its reality.
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