ndfather?--If testimony, then
evidence too;--and who has faith that the two sides of all triangles are
greater than the third? In truth, faith, even in common language, always
implies some effort, something of evidence which is not universally
adequate or communicable at will to others. "Well! to be sure he has
behaved badly hitherto, but I have faith in him." If it were otherwise,
how could it be imputed as righteousness? Can morality exist without
choice;--nay, strengthen in proportion as it becomes more independent of
the will? "A very meritorious man! he has faith in every proposition of
Euclid, which he understands."

Ib. p. 41.

"I could as easily create a world (says Dr. Hawker) as create either
faith or repentance in my own heart." Surely this is a most monstrous
confession. What! is not the Christian religion a 'revealed' religion,
and have we not the most miraculous attestation of its truth?

Just look at the answer of Christ himself to Nicodemus, 'John' iii. 2,
3. Nicodemus professed a full belief in Christ's divine mission. Why? It
was attested by his miracles. What answered Christ? "Well said, O
believer?" No, not a word of this; but the proof of the folly of such a
supposition. 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee; except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God',--that is, he cannot have faith
in me.

Ib. p. 42.

How can this evangelical preacher declaim on the necessity of
seriously searching into the truth of revelation, for the purpose
either of producing or confirming our belief of it, when he has
already pronounced it to be just as possible to arrive at conviction
as to create a world?

Did Dr. Hawker say that it was impossible to produce an assent to the
historic credibility of the facts related in the Gospel? Did he say that
it was impossible to become a Socinian by the weighing of outward
evidences? No! but Dr. Hawker says,--and I say,--that this is not,
cannot be, what Christ means by faith, which, to the misfortune of the
Socinians, he always demands as the condition of a miracle, instead of
looking forward to it as the natural effect of a miracle. How came it
that Peter saw miracles countless, and yet was without faith till the
Holy Ghost descended on him? Besides, miracles may or may not be
adequate evidence for Socinianism; but how could miracles prove the
doctrine of Redemption, or the divinity of Christ? But this is the creed
of the Church of England.