Thursday, February 02, 2006

FAITH AND PRIVATE JUDGEMENT by John Henry Newman

This essay is well worth a read! Here's a snippet:
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If, then, faith be now the same faculty of mind, the same sort of habit or act, which it was in the days of the Apostles, I have made good what I set about showing. But it must be the same; it cannot mean two things; the Word cannot have changed its meaning. Either say that faith is not necessary now at all, or take it to be what the Apostles meant by it, but do not say that you have it, and then show me something quite different, which you have put in the place of it. In the Apostles' days the peculiarity of faith was submission to a living authority; that is what made it so distinctive; this is what made it an act of submission at all; this is what destroyed private judgement in matters of religion. If you will not look out for a living authority, and will bargain for private judgement, then say at once that you have not the Apostolic faith. And in fact you have it not;

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