go to another
infallible authority to guarantee the infallibility of the first, and
this process will run on for ever.

But, in truth, there is more in the matter than the being justified or
not justified in calling our neighbour a heretic. The real point of
anxiety, I imagine, with many good and thinking men is this: whether a
reasonable belief can be fairly carried through; whether the notion of
the all-sufficiency of Scripture is not liable to objections no less
than the system of church-authority; whether, in short, our Christian
faith can be consistently maintained without a mortal leap at some part
or other of the process; nay, whether, in fact, if it were otherwise,
our faith would not seem to stand rather on the wisdom of man than on
the power of God.

I use these words, because these and other such passages of the
Scripture are often quoted as I have now quoted them, and produce a
great effect on those who do not observe that they are quoted
inapplicably; for the question is not between man's wisdom and God's
power, but simply whether we have reason to believe that God's power has
been here manifested; or, rather, to see whether we cannot give a reason
for the faith which is in us, such faith resting upon God's power and
wisdom as manifested in Christ Jesus; for if no reason can be rendered
for our faith, then our minds, so far as they are concerned, are
believing a lie; they are believing in spite of those laws by which God
has determined their nature and condition.

Yet, however we believe, blindly or reasonably, (for some men, by God's
mercy, are accidentally, as it were, in possession of the truth, the
falsehood of their own minds in holding it not being, it is to be hoped,
imputed to them as a sin;) however we believe, I never mean to say that
our faith is not God's gift, to be sought for and retained by constant
prayer and watchfulness, and to be forfeited by carelessness or sin.
That is no true faith in which reason does not accord; yet neither can
reason alone and without God ever become perfected into faith. For
although intellectually, the grounds of belief may be made out
satisfactorily, yet we are not able to follow our pure reason by
ourselves; and no work on the evidences of Christianity can by itself
give us faith; and much less can amid the manifold conflicts of life
maintain it. That faith is thus the gift of God, and not our own work, I
would desire to feel as keenly and continually, as wit