ican
Prayer Book, you will find definite _credenda_, as well as definite
_agenda_; but in proportion as the Lutheran leaven spread, it became
fashionable to say that Faith was, not an acceptance of revealed doctrine,
not an act of the intellect, but a feeling, an emotion, an affection, an
appetency; and, as this view of Faith obtained, so was the connexion of
Faith with Truth and Knowledge more and more either forgotten or denied.
At length the identity of this (so-called) spirituality of heart and the
virtue of Faith was acknowledged on all hands. Some men indeed disapproved
the pietism in question, others admired it; but whether they admired or
disapproved, both the one party and the other found themselves in
agreement on the main point, viz.--in considering that this really was in
substance Religion, and nothing else; that Religion was based, not on
argument, but on taste and sentiment, that nothing was objective, every
thing subjective, in doctrine. I say, even those who saw through the
affectation in which the religious school of which I am speaking clad
itself, still came to think that Religion, as such, consisted in something
short of intellectual exercises, viz., in the affections, in the
imagination, in inward persuasions and consolations, in pleasurable
sensations, sudden changes, and sublime fancies. They learned to believe
and to take it for granted, that Religion was nothing beyond a _supply_ of
the wants of human nature, not an external fact and a work of God. There
was, it appeared, a demand for Religion, and therefore there was a supply;
human nature could not do without Religion, any more than it could do
without bread; a supply was absolutely necessary, good or bad, and, as in
the case of the articles of daily sustenance, an article which was really
inferior was better than none at all. Thus Religion was useful, venerable,
beautiful, the sanction of order, the stay of government, the curb of
self-will and self-indulgence, which the laws cannot reach: but, after
all, on what was it based? Why, that was a question delicate to ask, and
imprudent to answer; but, if the truth must be spoken, however
reluctantly, the long and the short of the matter was this, that Religion
was based on custom, on prejudice, on law, on education, on habit, on
loyalty, on feudalism, on enlightened expedience, on many, many things,
but not at all on reason; reason was neither its warrant, nor its
instrument, and science had as li