general action (or whatever else we may choose to call it) in consequence of an original fiat, while the Supreme Cause remains in a state of inactivity, would be nearly as absurd...The first Great Cause must act, if at all (and what is power without agency?) in some mode or other. The mode in which He acts (and which we, I may say, necessarily, see in its effects) we call a chain of natural causes.-W. Danby.

370.

God does not expect us to submit our faith to Him without reason, or to subdue us to Himself by tyranny. But He does not intend to give us a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contrarieties, He is pleased clearly to shew us those divine characters of Himself which may convince us of what He is, and to establish His authority by miracles and evidences that we shall be unable to resist,-in order that we might, afterwards, believe without hesitation whatever He teaches us, when we find no other reason to reject it, but because we are unable to know of ourselves whether it be true or not.-Pascal.

371.

We are not to submit our understandings to the belief of those things that are contrary to our understanding. We must have a reason for that which we believe above our reason.-Dr. Whichcote.

372.

He that useth his reason doth acknowledge God.-Dr. Whichcote.

373.

What has not reason in it or for it, if held out for religion, is man's superstition: it is not religion of God's making.-Dr. Whichcote.

374.

If a man has wrong suppositions in his mind concerning God, he will be wrong through all the parts of his religion.-Dr. Whichcote.

375.

Sincerity of heart is a great advance towards orthodoxy of judgment.-Dr. Whichcote.

376.

There is nothing in religion necessary which is uncertain.-Dr. Whichcote.

377.

Let all uncertainties be by themselves, in the catalogue of disputables, matters of further inquiry; let the certainties of religion settle with the constitution and issue in life and practice.Dr. Whichcote.

378.

Where the doctrine is necessary and important, the Scripture is clear and full; but where the Scripture is not clear and full, the doctrine is not necessary nor important.-Dr. Whichcote.

379.

Religion is not a system of doctrines, an observance of modes, a heat of affections, a form of words, a spirit of censoriousness.-Dr. Whichcote.

380.

Religion is unity and love; therefore it is not religion that makes separation and disaffection.-Dr. Whichcote.

381.

The first act of religion is to know what is true of God, the second act is to express it in our lives.-Dr. Whichcote.

382.

A man hath his religion to little purpose, if he doth not mend his nature and refine his spirit by it. Dr. Whichcote.

383.

The best way to find out what is religion in us, is to inquire, what is true concerning God: for religion in us is our resemblance of God, who is ever best pleased with those things in His creatures which are most eminent in Himself. Dr. Whichcote.

384.

He that believes what God saith without evidence that God says it, doth not believe God, while he believes the thing which comes from God.-Dr. Whichcote.

385.

The sophistry is very superficial which represents mankind as not responsible for their belief, because that, it is alleged, is dependent on reason, not on the will; just as if the degree of attention, and other circumstances that influence the operation of the reason, were not affected by the moral qualities of the mind.— W. B. Clulow.

386.

To believe there is a God, is to believe the existence of all possible good and perfection in the universe.-Dr. Whichcote.

387.

The greatest and truest nobility is, to be a servant of the great God. He is nobly descended who is born from above.-Dyer.

388.

Sin is an attempt to control the immutable and unalterable laws of everlasting righteousness, goodness, and truth upon which the universe depends.-Dr. Whichcote.

389.

From the Existence of God, to His Providential agency over the affairs of men, there is a

chain of reasoning, the links of which are inseparable.-W. Danby.

390.

In one sense, the idea of a Supreme Being must be an abstract one to us; for we can only see Him through His works, assured as we are of His existence by our reason, our feelings, and by the authorities which are given to us.W. Danby.

391.

Wisdom may be unfathomable, as Divine wisdom undoubtedly is; and if so, its results may be equally beyond our comprehension, or (consequently) reception; that is, as truths that may be comprehended, but not as such as may not be attested by comprehensible evidence. -W. Danby.

392.

If Providence works always by human means, men are only its instruments as far as is consistent with their free agency, and with the extent (little indeed as it is) of their reasoning powers.-W. Danby.

393.

If in the examination of mysterious subjects, we adopt ideas that common sense cannot authorise, we run great risk, to say the least, of falling into error; for neither imagination nor our feelings are to be trusted, unless they are sanctioned by our reason.-W. Danby.

394.

Want of comprehension would be a strange reason for disbelieving a thing, as that very want deprives us of the power of choosing between reception and rejection, unless there are other substitutes for the comprehension wanted. A negative proof may be as valid as a positive one, where we can examine either side of a

question, which we must be able to do, to give us the power of judging between them. If one side is highly objectionable, can we hesitate in our choice, supposing it necessary that we should make it, and supposing also that our reason and feelings are both of the right kind?W. Danby.

395.

If there be an analogy or likeness between that system of things and dispensation of Providence, which revelation informs us of, and that system of things and dispensation of Providence, which experience, together with reason, informs us of, that is the known course of nature; this is a presumption that they have both the same author and cause; at least, so far as to answer objections against the former's being from God, drawn from anything which is analogical, or similar to what is in the latter, which is acknowledged to be from Him.-Bp. Butler.

396.

Now I think that the Christian doctrine of the resurrection meets the Materialists so far as this; that it does imply that a body, or an organization of some sort, is necessary to the full development of man's nature. Beyond this we cannot go; for, granting that the brain is essential to thought,-still no man can say that the whole pulp which you can see, and touch, and anatomize, can itself think, and by whatever names we endeavour to avoid acknowledging the existence of mind, whether we talk of a subtle fluid, or a wonderful arrangement of nerves, or any thing else-still we do but disguise our ignorance; for the act of thinking is one sui generis, and the thinking power must in like manner be different from all that we commonly mean by matter.—Dr. Arnold.