Whatever is against right reason, that no faith can oblige us to
believe. For though reason is not the positive and affirmative measure
of our faith, and our faith ought to be larger than our
[_speculative_] reason, and _take_ something into her heart, that
reason can never take into her eye; yet in all our creed there can be
nothing _against_ reason. If reason justly contradicts an article, it
is not "of the household of Faith." In this there is no difficulty,
but that in practice we take care that we do not call _that_ reason,
which is not so (_see_ p. 122). For although reason is a right
judge,[138] yet it ought not to pass sentence in an inquiry of faith,
until all the information be brought in; all that is within, and all
that is without, all that is above, and all that is below; all that
concerns it in experience, and all that concerns it in act: whatsoever
is of pertinent observation and whatsoever is revealed. For else
reason may argue very well and yet conclude falsely. It may conclude
well in logic, and yet infer a false proposition in theology (p. 115).
But when our judge is fully and truly informed in all that whence she
is to make her judgment, we may safely follow her whithersoever she
invites us.
[138] Which it could not be, in respect of spiritual truths and
objects super-sensuous, if it were the same with, and merely another
name for "the faculty judging according to sense"--that is, the
Understanding, or (as Taylor most often calls it in distinction from
Reason) _Discourse_ (_discursus seu facultas discursiva vel
discursoria_). The Reason, so instructed and so actuated as Taylor
requires in the sentences immediately following, is what I have called
the Spirit. [See also note near the end of Aphorism VIII.--ED.]