The whole of the DEIST’S scheme is, as he imagines, built upon REASON; and, so far as right reason goes, the CHRISTIAN agrees with him: but the difference between them is this, The DEIST maintains, that nothing is to be admitted but what he can assign a proper reason for, or, in other words, what falls in with the ideas which he has, or has made for himself: whereas the humble CHRISTIAN believes that there are things of which he neither has, nor can have, adequate ideas; that things may be true, though he does not justly know how, or why, they are so; and that, for the reality and truth of such things as do not depend upon reason, or fall within his knowledge, he must depend upon such evidence as is sufficient to induce the belief of any matter of fact.
Duncan Forbes, Some Thoughts Concerning Religion, Natural and Revealed (corrected ed., 1743 (first pub 1732)), p. 60.
