In this single period we have religion, the spirit,--philosophy, the
soul,--and poetry, the body and drapery united;--Plato glorified by St.
Paul; and yet coming as unostentatiously as any speech from an innocent
girl of fifteen.
Ib. p. 158.
The chief point of obedience is believing; the proper obedience to
truth is to give credit to it.
This is not quite so perspicuous and single-sensed as Archbishop
Leighton's sentences in general are. This effect is occasioned by the
omission of the word "this," or "divine," or the truth "in Christ." For
truth in the ordinary and scientific sense is received by a spontaneous,
rather than chosen by a voluntary, act; and the apprehension of the same
(belief) supposes a position of congruity rather than an act of
obedience. Far otherwise is it with the truth that is the object of
Christian faith: and it is this truth of which Leighton is speaking.
Belief indeed is a living part of this faith; but only as long as it is
a living part. In other words, belief is implied in faith; but faith is
not necessarily implied in belief. 'The devils believe.'
Ib. p. 166.
Hence learn that true conversion is not so slight a work as we
commonly account it. It is not the outward change of some bad customs,
which gains the name of a reformed man in the ordinary dialect; it is
new birth and being, and elsewhere called 'a new creation. Though it
be but a change in qualities', yet it is such a one, and the qualities
so far distant from what they before were, &c.
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