A treatise of faith divided into two parts. The first showing the nature, the…A treatise of faith diuided into two parts. The first shewing the nature, the…

§. 2. Faith presupposeth knowledge, and yields assent to the word of grace,¹ relying upon the authority of God, who is true in all his sayings, sincere, faithful, constant in all promises, and can neither deceive nor be deceived. ⟨p. 20⟩Abraham believed God; ²the word imports, he thought the words of God to be sure, certain, stable and constant. Moses saying,³ Israel will not believe me, meaneth, they would not assent or give credit to his words. And when it is said, Israel believed the Lord, and his seru•nt Moses, thereby is understood, that they gave credit to the word of the Lord spoken by his servant Moses. This is clear in the exhortation of Jehoshaphat unto the people, saying,⁴ Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established, believe his Prophets, so shall ye prosper. And that of David, ⁵I believed, therefore have I spoken. Belief is always grounded upon the authority and reputation of him for whose word sake we believe, and must needs have reference to some uttered word or revelation as the object: but it may be sustained and strengthened by other motives and inducements, experiments and probabilities. Many objects of faith may also be evident, and that which is believed may also be seen.⁶ Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. There is a compossibility of faith and evidence in divers respects, whereby they may both stand together in the same man, about the same object, albeit faith rest not upon that evidence, but upon divine revelation. Faith and Science are habits that may stand together. Faith by authority revealed Knowledge or Science by evident demonstration. For albeit faith exceed the dimension of reason, yet reason is subordinate to it, as sense is to understanding: And therefore as it is no inconvenience to say, we understand the thing we see, no more then is it to say, we believe that which is evident, in divers respects. Many divine things touching God which are received by faith, may also be found out by natural reason. And if things credible by the manifest likelihood of truth which they have in themselves, be made more credible by the known condition and quality of the utterer, faith relying upon the authority of the revealer, may be strengthened by the probability of