It is, I am persuaded, evidently agreeable to ftrict propriety to confider Faith, or Belief, in this fimple manner, and to refer all those other fignifications which the term has acquired unto this, as the original fource from which they have been derived. It is indeed a fufficient ar gument in its favour, that it is most conducive to perfpicuity; for it is unquestionably the only mean of preventing confufion, which, as it is obvious, muft follow an undetermined latitude, and in no small degree; and which has in this cafe particularly arifen from an indiscriminate ufe of the term, while we do not preserve the fimplicity of the primary notion, and keep clear in our minds the relation to it, through which its derivative acceptations take their respective force and extent of meaning.

There are indeed, according to the well known ufage of all languages, many fecondary ideas expreffed by the word Faith. These there is no occafion at prefent to exemplify. It is however material to mention a diftribution of them into two claffes. Of thefe the firft may comprehend all thofe acceptations which refpect the existence or confequences of belief, as a matter of the Intellect only: fuch are the belief of any particular tenet, an affurance of the verity of particular witneffes. The other may include the Conduct which is the refult of belief, or of

thofe

those effects which it produces in the mind. It is my purpose in the present discourse to confine myself to intellectual Faith, the first of these divisions, and to confider its propriety and importance as a fpecies of human knowledge.

We are taught by the great Writer on this fubject,* that man is born with nothing more at first than a capacity of receiving ideas; which are impreffed upon the mind by fenfation and reflection; and afterwards are by its operation farther abftracted and compounded. Nor, as I prefume, do experience and obfervation tend to disprove this opinion, but are the ground on which it fafely refts.

But, if we apply this doctrine to the concerns of each individual man, and deduce the progrefs and confequence of fuch principles, it will be an obvious remark on this statement, that the channel of information derived from fuch a fource is confined within narrow bounds, and that the accumulation of human knowledge thus obtained will be of small amount. It limits the materials on which the mind may exercise its powers to the scanty pittance of each man's fingle experience, and restrains him in the

*Locke, B. II. c. i, and xii.
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purfuit

pursuit after truth to the folitary exertion of his own abilities. To To prove this remark shortly, it will be only neceffary to fuggeft the almost infinite number and variety of propofitions, which are received generally among the learned part of mankind, and form the bulk of human science. It will thence appear to those who investigate the subject, how fhort and inefficacious would be the unaffifted powers of the most fubtile or induftrious of men.

As human fcience is widely diffufed, it will not be improper here to lead our recollection unto fome particular inftances. Among the great number that offer themfelves, one, as I conceive, not ill chosen, is the ftudy of the natural world or what is termed Natural Philosophy, on account of the confeffed propriety of the rules and method of its procedure. I truft that in this science it will occur how few of the individual facts, from which the induction is made unto general truths, are fuch as fall within any one perfon's knowledge; very few indeed comparatively with the number requifite to a legitimate inference, and ftill much lefs on all the parts of that extensive system. I may even be justified in faying that in no one inftance is a fingle perfon's experience fufficient to this end without the concurrence, in fome degree, of that of others. Some facts in particular might be mentioned,

tioned, as being most evidently beyond difpute; being neceffarily out of the reach of the generality of men in any one age or country of the world, as they happen in a different quarter of the globe, or have taken place at a different period of time. Among fuch, to name no more, are observations on many appearances of the heavenly bodies. It follows therefore that most of these facts are applicable only on belief of the testimony of others, and are matters of Faith: without which, as there would not be an adequate collection of Phænomena for obfervation to proceed on, so we may also observe that an appeal could not be made to the fimplicity and Analogy of nature; the aid of Geometry could not be called in to any purpose; and, in fine, this fyftem of philofophy, the boast of modern science, which has advanced the knowledge of man to fo wonderful a height, would not have been at all established.

To go yet farther: it may perhaps be queftioned, whether even those sciences that are denominated purely abstract and unmixed can exist without a reference to teftimony. Such are, particularly, all mathematical ftudies. These are undoubtedly the fyftems, wherein the human mind, if in any, has a free fcope for its exertions, and a fair title to boast of its proper and fingle acquirements. All these theories are

well

At

well known to depend on a small number of fpeculative and practical axioms, which, once admitted, the propofitions deduced from them follow with indifputable certainty. But fuch axioms, although now immediately and without any doubt received on their enunciation, I prefume to suppose, fuch is the weakness of our nature, that no fingle understanding could originally on its own conviction fully and inflexibly determine to be felf-evident and infallible. leaft, fince fome have been denied to be fo, and others doubted, for even these a sceptic will difpute, it is plain that a most important acceffion of confidence, fuch as fills up the measure of our certainty, arifes from the generality of their reception. And then it is obvious, that the mean of communicating this general confent is the teftimony that men bear to their own conviction, and is thus matter of Faith.

From thefe inftances, which are defigned to exemplify the cafe of all fcience, either purely theoretical, or blended with observation and experience, we might proceed to the confideration of that species of knowledge which Faith claims as its own peculiar province; namely, that which is contained in History of all kinds, properly fo called, or the communication of facts and opinions removed from us by the distance of space and of time. But, as it is needless to prove that

Faith