Meditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many years sinceMeditations on the holy sacrament of the Lords last Supper Written many yeares since

The second medium formerly proposed for the trial of Faith was the nature, and essence of it. To find out the formal nature of Faith we must first consider that all Faith, is not a saving Faith. For there is a Faith that worketh a^a trembling as in the Devils, and there is a Faith which^b worketh life, and peace as in those that are justified. Faith in general is an assent of the reasonable soul, unto revealed truths. Now every medium, or in ducement to an assent is drawn^c either from the light which the object it self proposeth to the faculty, and this the blessed^d Apostle contradistinguisheth from faith by the name of light; or else ⟨p. 201⟩it is drawn from the authority, and Authenticalnes of a narrator, upon whose report while we rely without any evidence of the thing it self, the assent which we produce is an assent of faith or credence. The^e Samaritans did first assent unto the miracles of CHRIST by the report of the woman, and this was faith, but afterwards they assented because themselves had heard him speak, and this was sight. Now both those assents have annexed unto them, either evidence, and infallibility, or only probability admitting degrees of fear, and suspicion. That faith is a certain assent, and Certitudine rei in regard of the object, even above the evidence of demonstrative conclusions is on all hands confessed: because howsoever qantum ad certitudinem mentis, in regard of our weakness, and distrust we are often subject to stagger, yet in the thing it self it dependeth upon the infallibility of Gods own Word, which hath said it, and by consequence is nearer unto him who is the Fountain of all truth, and therefore doth more share in the properties of truth which are certainty, and infallibility, then any thing proved by mere natural reasons, and the assent produced by it is differenced from suspicion, hesitancy, or dubitation in the opinion of ⟨p. 202⟩