DANVILLE REVIEW.

No. 1.

MARCH, 1862.

ART. I.-Reason and Faith: or, the right use of Reason with regard to Revelation.

On no subject is there put forth more confused and crude thought joined to arrogant pretension, more ignorance and superficiality united with presumptuous claims to superior wisdom, than on that of Reason and Faith-their relation the one to the other, and the nature, limits and legitimate sphere and use of each. By a certain class of persons, not few in number, the independence and almost, or quite, divinity of reason is boastfully asserted, and set over against an unquestioning faith in the word of God. They set reason up above that Word, put it in the stead of the Spirit of God himself, and make it the supreme arbiter of truth-forgetting that its only legitimate province is to find out and deal with the facts that are, and as they are. To know the truth is to be free. John viii: 32. What a man may assert, however boldly, is nothing to me. I want-not his opinion, not what, in his judgment, ought to be-I want to know what is the fact. Fact, and not opinion, or the pretended oracular utterances of deified reason, is that which will stand. Notwithstanding some men may affect to despise it, and no matter though it may seem humble and unpretending, as did the Truth himself when he appeared the Word made flesh, fact,

and it alone will stand and abide steadfast, when the boldly advanced opinions-the boasted triumphs of reason-shall have vanished like the empty, painted soap-bubbles-the gaudy, glittering nothings-which they resemble and are.

We propose to inquire a little into the real province and the limits of reason, with special reference to things revealed. The importance of this inquiry in a day when reason is, by many, unduly exalted, and forced from its proper place of subjection to the Divine mind and will into the place of supreme authority which belongs to the Divine mind alone, will, we do not doubt, be regarded as a sufficient excuse for this inquiry, notwithstanding the numerous abler and more elaborate discussions of the subject which have been put forth and are frequently appearing.

We are far from indulging the disposition or purpose to degrade or revile reason-for it is a high and noble faculty. Our purpose is to try to find out its place and use. It is not to degrade or revile it to say that out of the place assigned it by its and our Creator, it is weak and helpless. Within its proper sphere it can do marvelous things. And joined to faith, and held in subjection to the word of God, it can do more by far than when it is sought to be made supreme. What we propose is to show that it has simply to find out and deal with facts, and not to say to the fact, "Thou art not so-thou art otherwise!" It has to deal with two classes of facts, viz.: those of nature and those of revelation. Of the latter, and its manner of dealing with them, we are to speak. And allow the remark here, that whereas we say it has simply to find out and deal with facts, this is not to confine it within straitened limits and to impose on it only an easy and ignoble work. As will more fully appear hereinafter, it has here ample room wherein to exercise itself, and a work to do which will task it to the very uttermost of its power. It is here it has gathered all its substantial treasures, achieved all its real triumphs, and secured all that will abide as lasting monuments of its great excellence. The universe is its.

In a day when denials are made, on grounds of pretended reason, of many or all of the great cardinal truths of revelation, as, for example, in regard to sin, its nature and punishment, the total depravity of the heart of man, the necessity of an atonement and its nature, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, the tri-personality of the Godhead, the resurrection of the body, the general judgment, the future punishment of the wicked, etc.,—it is of the last importance that we should understand what is the real province of that reason, or wisdom of man, of which the Scriptures thus speak: "The world by wisdom knew not God." "Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise." "Oppositions of scienceguosis-falsely so called." "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men."

Those persons who exalt reason to the place of supreme authority, are loud in their boast of having attained to a peculiarly large measure of liberty, on the ground of having emancipated themselves from a childlike-which they are pleased to confound with a childish-faith in the Bible, on the teachings of which they assert the right of reason to sit in judgment. They contradict the great Teacher in regard to that declaration of his: "If ye continue in my word, ye are my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin. . . . If the son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John viii: 81, 32, 34, 36. True independence consists in knowing things as they are, and in acting in entire agreement with their known nature. In regard to natural things, liberty consists in knowing them and in the power to act according to the known laws which govern them. In regard to things social and political, liberty consists in having knowledge of them and in the power to act according to the known relations and duties they involve. Many who confess this, no sooner turn to the great subject of revealed religion, of the nature, attributes and claims of God, and of the spiritual

and moral state of man and his relations to the law of God, and of the way of salvation, than they adopt the very elements of bondage in theory and practice, and, while boasting they are free, become slaves, by substituting their own prejudices and lusts, and baseless assertions-miscalled reasonfor the discarded, sure word of God, which is a collection of truths, shown to be so by evidence most abundant and satisfactory. They reject the infinite truth, and yield willing obedience to the feeble creation of their own perverted understanding, calling it God, and putting it in the place of God-and glory in this as independence. They will not have a God within whose thought eternity lies comprehended, and whose being fills immensity, but they will have a God whom their reason can comprehend, and whose word and work they can subject to their understanding; a God born of their own brain, and knowing no more than they can know. They will have for, and worship as God, their own thought, or idea, or conception, externalized, or projected outwardly, and given by them his being and qualities, and they will receive as his word, only what they have given, or permitted him to speak. And this is independence! And as for man, so far from human nature being what the Scriptures represent to a simple, plain-minded, unsophisticated reader, to one reading while he runs, to a wayfarer who may be a fool, it is anything which their closet-dream, or romantic philanthropy, may choose to have it. Instead of being altogether vile, totally depraved, enmity against God, as the word of God declares it is, it is essentially good, lovely, and loving, only too often overlaid with vices and wickednesses, the incidental consequence of surrounding evil influences, or temptations, which are to be rejoiced at, because they exercise inherent virtue for its advantage and for its development through conflict unto a more robust strength. This discovery they have made-not, as we have said, in the word of God, nor yet by going out among men and collecting the facts of human conduct, nor yet by careful examination of their own hearts, but by sentimental theorizing,

which they call reasoning, and on which they build their claim of independence.

The boasters of the supremacy of reason, beginning with calling in question the truth of some certain facts, or doctrines, of revelation, are in danger of ending with calling in question, or plainly denying, the existence of God-which is the logical result of their theory. The atheism which prevailed so largely during the latter part of the last and beginning of this century, in France especially, was the consistent result of the dogma, that all things are to be tested by reason, in order to ascertain their truth, or whether they are what they assume to be, and have a right to be so accepted: that belief is not to be admitted until reason, made supreme judge, has delivered its decision upon the merits of the matter proposed for our believing assent; not upon grounds of experiment and demonstration, or testimony, but accordingly as it harmonizes, or otherwise, with our preconceived notions. of the fitness of things. Atheism is the consistent result, we say, of such a dogma. For there is nothing so incomprehensible, so incapable of being grasped by our reason, as the eternal self-existence and omnipresence of God, as an intelligent, independent Being, without any reliance upon the visible world or universe, of which he is the creator and upholder by the word of his power, the existence or annihilation of which leaves him unaffected by increase or diminution.

The legitimate use of reason is to discover truth, not to create it. This is very important to be remembered, for, if we mistake not, the want of a clear conviction of this very obvious proposition, is the point of departure toward much fatal error. Reason can not make anything, nor unmake anything; nor make anything that is other, in the very least measure, or kind, than it is. It is not a creator at all. Reason is simply an explorer and discoverer, a finder of things that are already. Its use is to lead us to the fact, to bring us where the fact is, to lift up the veil behind which the fact dwells, and to place us in its presence; and not to make that fact, not to dispute with it, not to contradict it, not to deter