other denomination. Would we know in what manner the truth of our religion may be most successfully defended, let us consider in what way it hath been most strenuously attacked. Upon a careful examination of all the multifarious assaults that have been made by argument against the christian institution by its adversaries, they are almost all reducible to these two classes. They are either attempts against the character of the institution itself, and are produced to evince that it is unworthy of God, and unsuitable to those original sentiments of right and wrong which we derive from natural conscience; or they are levelled against the positive proofs of revelation, and proposed to invalidate its evidence. In the first the subject may be said to be considered as a question of right, in the second as a question of fact. Accordingly objections of the former kind are properly philosophical, of the latter historical and critical.

As to those of the class first mentioned, upon the most impartial examination I have ever been able to make of them, I have always found, that the much greater part proceeded from a total misapprehension of the subject. The spirit of the church, or rather of churchmen, of the hierarchy, hath been mistaken for the spirit of the gospel; and the absurd glosses of corrupt and fallible men have been confounded with the pure dictates of the divine oracles. To the candid and intelligent inquirer, there will appear in many of the boasted arguments produced by the most renowned champions in the deistical controversy, a manifest ignoratio elenchi, as the logicians term it. And I will take upon me to say, than an intimate acquaint

ance with the mind of the spirit as delivered in holy writ, in its native simplicity and beauty, unadulterated by the traditions and inventions of men, will do more to dissipate the clouds raised by such objectors, than whole torrents of scholastic chicane and sophistry. And even in those objections, in which we cannot say there is a mistake of the subject, we shall often find a woful mistake of the natural powers and faculties of man. Nor do I know a better method of answering cavils of this nature, than that which has been so successfully employed by Bishop Butler in his admirable treatise entitled, "The Analogy of Religion natural and revealed "to the Constitution and Course of Nature." Now as a great many of the arguments of our sceptics and unbelievers are aimed against the genius and character of our religion, so on the other hand it is proper to observe, that to some persons of the most acute discernment and most delicate sensibility, there has appeared in this same subject the character of religion, an intrinsic but irresistible evidence of its divinity. The spirit it breathes, the doctrines it teaches, the morals it inculcates, when candidly examined in the fountain, the New Testament, and not in the corrupted streams of human comments and systems, have an energy which no feeling heart can withstand, and which seems not to have been withstood by some who have even dared to combat all its other evidences. the late Rousseau is an eminent example.

Of this

As to the second class of objections, which are levelled against the external proofs of revelation, they differ according to the different branches of evidence against which they are aimed. The two

principal branches of external evidence, by which the christian doctrine is recommended to our faith, are prophecy and miracles. The latter of these were strongly urged by the apostles for the conviction of the Gentiles; both were insisted on in their reasonings with the Jews. The pagans knew nothing of those books in which the prophecies were contained, and consequently arguments drawn from these would have been unintelligible to them. Now as the miracles which were wrought in support of our religion, with us stand on the evidence of testimony conveyed in history, and as the fulfilment of most of the prophecies urged in support of the same cause, are vouched to us in the same manner, the argument with regard to miracles is entirely, and with regard to prophecy is in a great measure, of the historical kind. I say with regard to prophecy it is only in a great measure historical. My reason for making the distinction is plainly this. The prophetic style hath something peculiar in it. It is both more figurative, and more obscure, than that of simple narration. Whereas, therefore, with regard to the performance of such a miracle, there can be only one question, and a mere question of fact; with regard to the accomplishment of such a prophecy, there naturally arise two questions. First, is the meaning of the prophecy such as hath been assigned to it? This is a question of criticism; secondly, Was the event, by which it is said to be accomplished, such as is alleged? This again is a question of fact. Before I dismiss this topic of the different ways wherein the truth of revelation has been assailed by its adversaries, it is necessary to take notice of an inter

mediate method, by which indeed the external proofs are struck at, but in a different manner. It is not the reality of individual facts alleged, namely miracles and prophecies, but the possibility of the kind, as being supernatural, which is made the question. Again, the fitness of these, though admitted true, to serve as evidence of doctrine, hath been also questioned. Both these inquiries are of the philosophic kind. Their solution depends on a just apprehension of the nature of evidence.

Would I, now, that you should be particularly acquainted with all the trite and all the novel topics, that have been, or are insisted on by the enemies of our religion, and that you should read and remember exactly all the most approved answers that have been made by its defenders. I should in that case be under a necessity of assigning you a very frightful task, sending you to consult an innumerable multitude of volumes, written on both sides of the question. And should any of you happen to be blest with a tenacious memory, he might in this way at very little expense of judgment, be qualified for encountering any ordinary caviller he might meet with. But in truth, the task is, in my opinion, especially for a novice in theology, both too laborious and unpleasant, and by no means sufficiently profitable to recompense the time and pains that would be bestowed upon it. And though I think that such controversial pieces may be perused occasionally as they fall in one's way, I would by no means recommend a regular prosecution of this study; a method which would tend only to form a habit of turning every thing into matter of wrangling and logomachy, those noxious

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weeds, those briars and thorns with which almost all the walks of theology have been so unhappily pestered. In my judgment, a habit of this kind greatly hurts the rational powers, when in appearance it only exercises them; it doth worse, it often greatly injures an ingenuous and candid temper; it infects one with a rage of disputation, the cacoethes of pedants; it inclines the mind to hunt more for the specious than the solid, and in the ardour of the combat to sacrifice truth to victory. Not that I would dissuade any one, who may have doubts of his own, to consult impartially whatever authors may be of use to remove them, and to examine the question freely. It is not truth, but error, that shuns the light, and dreads to undergo an impartial trial. It is the liberal advice of an apostle, "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," an advice which breathes nothing of that narrow, jealous, sectarian spirit, which hath so long and so generally prevailed among christians of all denominations, and hath proved the greatest pest of the cause. Or in case one's situation exposes him to the attacks of wranglers, it may be necessary also on this account to furnish himself with armour where he soonest can, that he may neither be seduced by their sophisms, nor give them the appearance of a triumph at the expense of truth. But where neither of these is the case, I am not satisfied that this summary way of proceeding is the best. Would you then have the theological student to neglect this most important question, concerning the truth of revelation, the foundation of all the rest? By no means. I dissuade only from his taking this hasty way of overloading his