We
shall say to those who the most widely dissent from us, what Augustine
said to the worst heretics of his age; "Illi in vos saeviant, qui
nasciunt, cum quo labore verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur
errores;---qui nesciunt, cure quanta difficultate sanetur oculus
interioris hominis;--qui nesciunt, quibus suspiriis et gemitibus fiat ut
ex quantulacumque parte possit intelligi Deus.". (Aug. contra. Ep. Fund.
Cap. ii. n. 2,3.)
A judgment, moreover, which is once pretty well satisfied of the general
truth of the religion will not only thus discriminate in its doctrines,
but will possess sufficient strength to overcome the reluctance of the
imagination to admit articles of faith which are attended with
difficulty of apprehension, if such articles of faith appear to be truly
parts of the revelation. It was to be expected beforehand, that what
related to the economy and to the persons of the invisible world, which
revelation profess to do, and which, if true, it actually does, should
contain some points remote from our analogies, and from the
comprehension of a mind which hath acquired all its ideas from sense and
from experience.
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