CONTENT S. CHAPTER I. THE Sentiments of Religion natural to the human Heart-The natural Reason unequal to the Investigation of remote religious Truth-A Revelation is therefore necessary-The authenticity of any presumed Revelation to be determined upon according to external and internal Evidence-Christianity the only System of religious Belief which is supported by any substantial Weight of Proof... CHAPTER II. Of the Prejudices commonly entertained by Men of the World against Revelation Page 13 23 CHAPTER III, Of the Difficulties which attach in common to natural, no less than revealed Religion; and of those which belong exclusively to Christianity. CHAPTER IV. Of the Necessity, as demonstrated by experience, of the Existence of a written Revelation of the Divine Will.. 28 36 Of the History of the general Deluge, and the Confusion of Tongues 65 Pago Of the internal Probability of the peculiar Revelation of the Divine Will contained in the Jewish Scriptures, and of the moral Ten- Of the Evidence afforded to the Authenticity of the Levitical Insti- tutions by the onerous Nature of its Ritual, and the present State Consistency between the Covenant of Moses and that of Christ, as having an Expiation for Sin as their leading Object-The Leviti- cal Expiations were confessedly ineffectual-It must be pre- sumed, therefore, that the great Purpose of the Gospel Dispensa- tion was to correct this Deficiency-The popular Objections to THE CONSISTENCY OF REVELATION WITH HUMAN REASON. CHAPTER I. The sentiments of Religion natural to the human heart-The Natural Reason unequal to the Investigation of remote Religious Truth-A Revelation is therefore necessary-The authenticity of any presumed Revelation to be determined upon according to external and internal Evidence-Christianity the only system of Religious Belief which is supported by any substantial weight of proof. ALL modifications of religious belief are, or at least profess to be, solutions, so far as our means of information extend, of the apparent anomalies discernible in the works of Divine Providence. As, then, that religion can only be the true one which really accords with those acknowledged facts in the physical and moral universe, which are established by positive experiment, it necessarily follows, that the true course for arriving at a correct system of belief, is that of studying our own nature carefully and impartially under every possible aspect; of ascertaining its real and most prominent wants, and of determining which of the many theories offered to its choice, most satisfactorily accounts for the numerous perplexing circumstances which the most cursory survey cannot fail to recognise in the existing order of nature. The Christian dispensation will, we conceive, be found upon inquiry, to be the one which best-it would, in fact, be no exaggeration to say, which exclusively |