dogmas of revelation, is necessarily one of embarrassment, it is obviously unscientific and unphilosophical to adopt a theory so far only as it embraces the maximum of perplexity, and to become indolent and incredulous at the precise point where something like an explanatory process appears to be commencing. This, however, is really the line pursued by those persons who, having, as they imagine, from conviction, admitted the great principles of natural religion, are willing to take their final stand there, and advance no further. To the real consistent Atheist, of course, such arguments as the present do not apply. Contradictions and anomalies are the strong holds in which he loves to entrench himself. The more

absurdities he imagines that he discovers, the more unassailable his creed becomes. The defect of his theory is, not that seeming oversights are traceable in the established order of things, but that they are not to be found in sufficient quantities to make out his case. But the Theist commits the paralogism of admitting all the difficulties of belief whilst he rejects those antagonist and remedial propositions which would go far to remove them. Take, for instance, the perplexing fact already alluded to, of the existence of evil. Considered as an integral portion of mere rational theology, it presents nothing but unmixed embarrassment. Adopt the solution afforded by Christianity, and, though the original question remains unanswered, why a wise Providence has not proceeded at once more directly to its object, but has made ignorance and personal suffering a necessary step towards the attainment of ultimate good; still it follows, as a self-evident truth, that if our present life be, as Scripture asserts that it is, a state of probation, the existence of temporary evil is implied as a necessary constituent of the operation intended to be wrought. Thus much, at all events, the original difficulty is diminished. What the sceptic does not, and will not see in this, and in other similar cases is,

that the theory of revelation does not pretend to account for those primary facts which are evidently beyond the grasp of our apprehension to embrace, but that it suggests merely a practical rule of life, with a superaddition of fresh subsequent positions which, if we are willing to take the former one for granted, will, in some measure reconcile their contradictions, and establish their compatibility with th arrangements of Divine wisdom.

Considered in this point of view, many circumstances in the doctrines of the Gospel, which when considered by themselves would present only unmixed wonder, and which accordingly have ever been prominent marks for the assaults of infidelity, are, in reality, so far from adding to the general mass of improbabilities which meet the theologian in every step of his course, that they leave the general question far more clear than they found it. To demonstrate this fact, will be the object of the following pages. He assuredly must know, indeed, little of the impenetrable darkness which surrounds us, who would hope in this life to reduce the simplest propositions, even of physical science, much less the transcendental dogmas of theology, into the form of selfevident truths. All that any exposition of the Christian evidences can presume to effect, is merely to show that revelation accords, not with our abstract theories and capricious surmises of what we choose to assume that God's creation ought to have been, but with what experience tells us that it actually is. That it does so accord in all points; that the undisguised and unequivocal admission of the actual existence of what we have ventured to call the seeming anomalies in the constitution of the universe is one of its fundamental propositions, and that without attempting to explain them away, it affords the best solution of the difficulties they suggest, which is to be found in the annals of religious philosophy, is all that we can in fairness be called upon to show. Much, after all,

must be left to that principle of faith which, like its sister virtue, charity towards man, "believeth_all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." But that very residue of incurable ignorance, against which in this world we find it fruitless to struggle, is among the strongest pledges afforded us by Providence, that our present allotment is not intended to be final.

CHAPTER IV.

Of the Necessity, as demonstrated by experience, of the existence of a written Revelation of the Divine Will.

IF, then, the view now taken of the question at issue between the defenders and the assailants of Christianity be correct, it will appear, not only that that sublime theory is not in itself accountable for the facts which experience has shown to form part of the existing order of things, but, on the contrary, that the admitted existence of those facts gives a substantial probability to that theory, which it would not otherwise possess. That such is the case, will be more clearly shown by considering, separately and distinctly, the several component parts of the Christian system, and showing that, however improbable, à priori and humanly speaking, each of them may appear, when viewed in the form of detached propositions, they present themselves almost in the light of necessary remedial processes, the moment that we consider them with reference to those startling positions of natural religion, the certainty of which, by no subterfuge of the reason, we are capable of evading or denying. To begin, then, with what must at the first point of view be considered as an incident little likely to be expected in the arrangements of Providence, namely, the necessity of the communication of a dis

tinct written revelation of the Divine will, to crea tures whom their Maker has already endued with a moral sense and considerable reasoning powers.

We readily admit, that, were the creation of man still a thing in futuro, such an arrangement as that now contended for might appear to beings, reasoning as we do, far from probable. Why in the original allotment of the moral faculties of man, God chose to leave his work so far imperfect as that it should require a course of subsequent reparation and of special Divine interference for its correction, it is impossible to explain. The question, however, is here not one of argument or of speculation upon presumed possi bilities, but of fact. We appeal at once to that anomalous thing, human nature, and deny, because the testimony of history is uniform as to this point, that man, constituted, as we know him to be, can attain to any high degree of moral and spiritual elevation, independently of such adventitious help as that deriv able from a written communication of the Divine will. The thing has been, as we know, frequently and fairly tried. Nations, under almost every possible modifi cation of condition, have existed in ignorance of a Divine revelation, and the result has invariably been the same in character, if not exactly so in degree. In many cases man has sunk in real degradation far below the level of the brute creation, and in none has assumed that high moral elevation which is made attainable to us by Christianity. In every such instance the best and noblest powers of the human heart and head have lain dormant, and the grossest principles have constituted the main moving spring of social action; nor have the actual moral capabilities of our nature been at all apprehended until the promulgation of a positive law, under the most solemn sanctions, and professing to emanate from Divine authority, impressed a new character upon society. Now, it is easy to ask, "why was not man so con stituted as to begin his course at that advanced stage

of improvement to which it is the acknowledged object of revelation eventually to lead him?" But to this question the mere Deist is as much called upon to return a satisfactory answer as the Christian. Both must alike shelter themselves in their ignorance. The case, however, we repeat, is nevertheless one of acknowledged fact. It has been charged as an improbability against the Christian system, that the revelation of it was delayed until 4000 years of man's history had passed away: nor do we, any more than in the former case, attempt to give an explanation of this circumstance. One thing, however, has at all events been established by it: that is to say, it has by this means been irrefragably proved, that the highest powers of unassisted human reason are perfectly incapable of making any real discoveries in religion. Had we no other scale by which to estimate the value of revelation, the strange and innumerable modifications of error which prevailed, even in the most highly cultivated nations, during the period of its absence, would effectually supply one. If, however, it be now certain, and certain it appears to bé, as infinitely modified experiments can make it, that such is the natural feebleness of the human mental powers, what becomes of the favourite contemptuous argument of the Infidel, which assumes at once the à priori improbability of any Divine revelation whatever, the object of which should be the correction of those deficiencies?

It signifies nothing towards the discussion in question, whether or not Providence in its wisdom might not have arranged things otherwise. Our reference is to man as we know him to be constituted, and to the existing order of things. To say nothing of the Pagan ages of antiquity, and the moral abominations which pervaded every class of society in the most brilliant days of classic Greece and Italy, let the Infidel explain why at this moment, as we cast our eyes over the different portions of the globe, we find