And so with regard to religious matters. There is nothing like
omniscience,--nothing like infinite or absolutely perfect knowledge or
infallibility in any man: yet every one may have all the information and
all the assurance on things moral and spiritual needful to his comfort
and salvation.
Our assurance of the truth and excellency of Christian doctrine rests on
something better, surer, than theological and metaphysical niceties. You
who fancy that your strong and heart-cheering faith rests on theological
theories, and that if those theories were exploded, it would perish,
are, happily, under a great mistake. Your faith, and hope, and joy,
rest on the harmony between Christianity and your souls. My faith and
trust in the outward world, and my infinite appreciation of its
arrangements, rest, not on any philosophical theory; but on the
wonderful, the perfect adaptation of every thing to my nature, to my
wants, to my comfort and welfare. Nature answers to me, fits into me, at
every point. I am just the kind of being nature was made for; and nature
is just the kind of world my being requires. They match. They answer to
each other exactly, all round, and make one glorious and blessed whole.
And this is the secret of my trust in nature.
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