Now the universality of this mercy hath God enlarged and extended very far, in that he proposes it even to our knowledge; sciant, let all know it. It is not only credant, let all believe it; for the infusing of faith is not in our power; but God hath put it in our power to satisfy their reason, &c.
A question is here affirmatively started of highest importance and of deepest interest, that is, faith so distinguished from reason,
credat
from
sciat
, that the former is an infused grace 'not in our power;' the latter an inherent quality or faculty, on which we are able to calculate as man with man. I know not what to say to this. Faith seems to me the coadunation of the individual will with the reason, enforcing adherence alike of thought, act, and affection to the Universal Will, whether revealed in the conscience, or by the light of reason, however the same may contravene, or apparently contradict, the will and mind of the flesh, the presumed experience of the senses and of the understanding, as the faculty, or intelligential yet animal instinct, by which we generalize the notices of the senses, and substantiate their
spectra
or
phænomena
. In this sense, therefore, and in this only, I agree with Donne.