Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1881-02-10
z Attn.
A Sermon by Rev. r. M. Webster.

ana DelleI as II tney were the
same things. They are not the same,
Belief is not moral quality. Faith
is nothing else but moral quality.
Belief is the assent of the intellect to
statements or facts that are proved, or
thought to be proved.
Strictly speaking-what one believes
he can't help believing. Belief is not
voluntary. No man rills to believe.
| Whatever a man believes, he believes
in view of evidence that makes the
belief spontaneous, necessitated, inev-
liable. No man aciHs to believe that
the Sun gives light to the earth: that
the earth is round; that food and
sleep are essential to health; that gov
ernments exist; that they collect taxes;
that churches exist; that some teach
one thing and some another; that
there is a book called the bible; that
it has history; that there is such a
thing as pain and such thing as
pleasure, and that all the thousand
facts and truths that are before US
every day, are what they are. Men
believe these things in spite of them
selves, it may be. They cannot help
it any how.
A man is not free to say he will, or
he will not, believe what he sees to be
true. If he sees it to be true, he
believes it, even if he says he does not.
AS was the case with Calico who
when made to say the earth did not
move-mumbled to himself "and yet
it moves" He saw that to be true,
and all the inquisitions in the world
could not make him believe that the
earth stood still. They might by
thumb-screws, pincers and fire, make
him tell lie, but they could not
change his belief.
When Harvey saw that blood circu-
lated through the body, from the
heart back to the heart again; When
Jenner saw that cowboys affected by
a virus from cow-pox never had small
pox; When Watt saw the kettle lid
lift and dance and saw the expansive
power of steam; When Montgolfer
saw smoke and hot air rise up, and
thus saw how they might carry up a
balloon; when Columbus saw that the
earth is round and that so one might
get to India by sailing west ward as
we'll as by going eastward, these men
were not free to say they would, OIL
would not, believe They had to be.
lisve. 1t was not voluntary thing
not choice, but the necessitated,
compelled assent of the mind
Hence if man truly does not be,
lieve thing it is because he does not
see it. Perhaps he ought to see it and
,oould see it if he were true of heart
and open to evidence and ready to
look at all facts and to be guided by
others who do see.
But this is another matter; this has
to do with his will, with his temper
and spirit, with the roots Of character
The belief is still ma tier of the in
telIect, the unavoidable assent to the
truth of what is seen to be true But
there are many things which we dc
not see to be facts or truths, but which
at the same time-ve do not see to
be not So We have good reasons fol-
treating them as facts, or truths though
we cannot prove them. Indeed, since
we don't diS6elieUe them, and find more
reasons for accepting them as truths
than for rejecting them, one may say
that we believe them. If we treat
them as true it is practically the same
as believing them. Hence we some
times hear the expression, II don t
hnoU it, but [ believe it." Now
strictly speaking the expression is in
correct, for one believes only so far as
he knows; not to know a thing is not
to believe it. But one may know SO
many things that are good reasons for
treating the unknown thing as true,
that he may be quite satisfied to treat
it So, and this, for all practical pur-
poses is as good as knowing it, and
warrants the use of the expression Il
don't knoac it but I believe it
This prepares US for general def
milton of Faith. Faith as the choice,
for good reasons, to treat as true,
aOhot as get IS not knoo0n to be so.
This definition is general and covers
all sorts of faith. AL faith is a
choice, for good reasons, to treat as
true, what, as yet, is not known to be
SO. But there is an agricultural faith,
a commercial faith, political faith, a
a religious faith, according as the I'M
known things, which yet are treated