believer admits Christianity to be a revelation from God on the following several grounds.

A revelation from heaven is, in the abstract, a circumstance clearly possible.

From a consideration of the wisdom of the Creator and the ignorance of the created, the fact of a divine revelation is highly probable.

The evidence in favour of Christianity being a divine revelation is so strong, that it cannot be reasonably controverted; more especially as the arguments, upon which the evidence rests, have never yet been confuted.

Mere difficulties, even if unanswerable, cannot set aside direct and positive evidence: still less, therefore, can they set it aside, when they have been fully and repeatedly solved.

Numerous pretended revelations, like copious issues of base coin, are no proof of the non-existence of that which is genuine but the false may be readily distinguished from the true by a careful and honest examination of their respective evidences.

Finally, as our unassisted reason is an insufficient teacher, a matter long since acknowledged by the wisest of the Greeks; a revelation from God is no less necessary in the abstract, than the claim of Christianity to be received as such a revelation is well-founded in the concrete.

III. On the other hand, still in the present stage of the argument, the unbeliever denies Christianity to be a revelation from God on the following several grounds.

Although a revelation may perhaps in itself be possible, yet the fact of one is very highly improbable: because it is to the last degree unlikely, that an all-wise Creator should deem it necessary to give any instructions to a rational but inevitably ignorant being, whom he had created.

The evidence, in favour of Christianity being a divine revelation, is insufficient; though no infidel has hitherto been able to confute the arguments, on which it rests.

Insulated objections to a fact, notwithstanding they may have been repeatedly answered, are quite sufficient with a reasonable inquirer to set aside the very strongest unanswered evidence.

As many pretended revelations are confessedly impostures, therefore all alleged revelations must clearly be impostures likewise.

Lastly, as our unassisted reason is held by some philos ophers to be a sufficient teacher, while others declare it to be wholly insufficient; a revelation from God is quite unnecessary: nor ought any claim of this character to be admitted, though it may rest on the very strongest unconfuted arguments.

IV. Such are the principles, and such the systems, of the Christian and the infidel.

Whether it argues a higher degree of credulity to receive, as a divine revelation, Christianity thus evidenced; or, in order to the rejection of it, contentedly to bow beneath such an extraordinary mass of contradictory diffi culties, as the theory of the infidel is constrained to support: let the prudent inquirer judge and determine for himself.

SECTION II.

THE DIFFICULTIES ATTENDANT UPON DEISTICAL INFIDELITY IN THE ABSTRACT REJECTION OF ALL REVELATION FROM GOD.

MR. VOLNEY and other writers of the same school, in plain defiance of the more modest confession of Socrates, contend, that the light of nature alone is an amply sufficient teacher: so that, by its sole aid, an authentic and immutable code, which shall readily command the assent of all mankind, may very easily be formed. Show us, say the people freed (as Mr. Volney expresses it) from their fetters and prejudices, the line that separates the world of chimeras from that of realities; and teach us, after so many religions of error and delusion, the religion of evidence and truth. To this humble request the French philosopher kindly assents; and, for the instruction of the disabused multitude, draws up, what he styles, The Law of Nature, or principles of morality deduced from the physical constitution of Mankind and the Universe.

Now, unfortunately, some of the very first principles on which this, with other similar schemes of natural religion, is founded, cannot themselves be certainly known without the aid of a revelation from heaven. Hence it is clear, that such a system, instead of being a religion of evidence and truth (the character much too hastily claimed for it by Mr. Volney), is in fact nothing better than a religion of vague conjecture and unauthorized speculation.

I. The deist, as his very title implies, lays it down as the

basis of that natural religion which he advocates: that There is one God, the Creator and Moderator of all things.

This dogma may appear so obvious, that few, it might be suspected, would controvert it, even placing revelation altogether out of the question, save the atheist and, laboriously to answer his folly, might equally, both by the deist and by the Christian, be well deemed labour thrown away. Yet the very first objection, which I would make to the deistical scheme, is the defect of legitimate proof under which its leading dogma most certainly labours.

There is one only God, says the deist, the Creator and Moderator of all things; by whom the universe was brought originally into being, and through whom it subsists.

In reply, I request to be informed, upon his principles, how he knows, that there is only one God, respecting whom such matters may be truly predicated.

His answer, no doubt, will be, that the existence of a God is decidedly proved by the very frame of the universe. Evident design must needs imply a designer. But evident design is conspicuous in every part of the universe: and, the wider our physical researches are extended, the more conspicuously does this design appear. Therefore, just as we argue the existence of a watchmaker from the evident design which may be observed in a watch, so we argue the existence of a Creator from the evident design which may be observed in the universe. To bring out any other conclusion involves the same palpable absurdity, as to contend, that a watch assumed its orderly form by chance and that it certainly never had a maker.

The cogency of this argument I most readily allow, so far as its principle is concerned: but I must be permitted to doubt, how far it will serve the purpose of a deist, who depends solely upon his own reason and who rejects the

authority of revelation. It is perfectly true that evident design must needs imply a designer: and it is equally true that evident design shines out in every part of the universe. But we reason inconclusively, if, with the deist, we thence infer the existence of one, and only one, supreme designer. That a universe, upon which design is so evidently impressed, must have been created, is, indeed, abundantly clear; nor will this point be ever controverted, save by the gross folly of Atheism. But, that a universe, thus characterized, was created by one Supreme God, is not at all clear upon the principles of deistical Infidelity. It may, for aught the deist knows to the contrary, have been created by a collective body of Gods, perfectly harmonizing in design, and jointly bringing the great work to a completion. The argument, from the evident design impressed upon the universe, proves, indeed, that the universe must have been first designed and then created; but it is incapable of proving, that the universe had no more than a single designer. Whether we suppose one designer or many designers, and thence one creator or many creators, the phenomenon of evident design in the creation will be equally accounted for: and, beyond this, the argument in question, as managed upon deistical principles, neither does nor can reach. The deist, I allow, can prove very satisfactorily, and without the aid of revelation, that the universe, marked as it is in all its parts by evident design, must have been itself designed, and therefore created; but he never did, and he never can, prove, without the aid of revelation, that the universe was designed by a single designer.* He rejects, however, the aid of revelation: therefore, on his own principles, he

* I think, with Dr. Waterland, that the attempt to demonstrate the being of a God à priori involves a contradiction in terms.