The inference may be true, but it is
not we who have a right to think, much less to utter it.
But I must now come to the more precise point on which we
differ--the meaning of a single expression, which I think I have
named in a former letter. I allude to the word FAITH, which, as I
was always taught to interpret it, appeared to my apprehension
analogous to CREDULITY, or a blind belief without question;--an
explanation which went against my conscience and conviction
whenever it occurred to me from time to time. As I grew older I
felt it to be wrong, although I was not sufficiently informed to
explain it differently. What perplexed me was that St. Paul should
advocate such a servile submission of the intellectual faculties
which God has bestowed upon man; such an apparent degradation of
the human mind to the level of the lower creation as to call upon
us to lay aside our peculiar attributes of reason, common sense,
and reflection, and to receive without inquiry any doctrine that
may be offered to us. On this principle, we should be as likely to
believe in the impostor as in the true saint, and having yielded up
our birthright of judgment, become incapable of distinguishing
between them.
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