Now this faith is not a matter of choice, so that a man may live without it, if he pleases; but is essential to his life, and altogether inseparable from it. For whatever the life drives at, to whatever it is given up, there is its living and powerful faith. Therefore, be a man given up to what he will, seeking, delighting, and acquiescing in whatever it be, temporal or eternal, whether it be Christianity, idolatry, Deism, or atheism; this is a certain conclusion, that every man in the world is a man of faith, lives by faith, and that equally so; because every man's life is equally given up to the seeking, and delighting in, and uniting itself to, something or other; and therefore every man equally lives by faith, and that in its highest degree. It matters not, whether a man delights and acquiesces in the philosophy of Epicurus, or Spinoza; whether he be given up to luxury and sensuality, or to syllogisms and definitions, to mysteries of redemption, or mysteries of atheism: he is neither more nor less a man of faith for all this; but is equally under the power of faith, whether it be divine, earthly, sensual, or devilish. For which way soever the life of man tends, or drives; to whatever he gives up himself; there he is, and lives by faith, and that in its highest degree; for no faith can rise higher than this. Nor can a man's faith be anywhere, but where his life is, and to which it belongs; nor can he be said to live to anything, but by faith. For faith is as much the one working power of life, as thought is the one working power of understanding; and the understanding of man may as easily proceed without being led by thought, as the life of man go on without being led by faith; that is, without giving itself up to something, or other, with which it would be united, and to which it would belong, as its desired good; which, as I said before, is the highest degree of the most living faith.