Essays 2 Author:Henry Rogers Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EEASON AND FAITH; THEIE CLAIMS AND CONFLICTS. ' Reason And Faith,' says one of our old divines, with the quaintness characteristic of his day, 'resemble the ... more »two sons of the patriarch ; Reason is the first-born, but Faith inherits the blessing.' The image is ingenious, and the antithesis striking ; but nevertheless the sentiment is far from just. It is hardly right to represent Faith as younger than Reason : the fact undoubtedly being, that human creatures trust and believe, long before they reason or know. The truth is, that both Reason and Faith are coeval with the nature of man, and were designed to dwell in his heart together. They are, and ever were, and, in such creatures as ourselves, must be, reciprocally complementary ; neither can exclude the other. It is as impossible to exercise an acceptable faith without reason for so exercising it, that is, without exercising reason, while we exercise faith f, as it isto apprehend by our reason, exclusive of faith, all the truths on which we are daily compelled to act, whether in relation to this world or the next. Neither is it right to represent either of them as failing of the promised heritage, except as both may fail alike, by perversion from their true end, and depravation of their genuine nature; for if to the faith of which the New Testament speaks so much, a peculiar blessing is promised, it is evident from that same volume that it is not a 'faith without reason ' any more than a ' faith without works,' which is commended by the Author of Christianity. And this is sufficiently proved by the injunction 'to be ready to give a reason for the hope,' and therefore for the faith ' which is in us.' 'Edinburgh Review,' Oct. 1849 ; with an Appendix. 1. Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte. Eighth editio...« less