Christianity and civilization coextensive; and why, even among the nations of Christendom, those are confessedly most advanced in all the arts which elevate our nature, whose modification of belief approaches nearest to the primitive purity of the Bible? Let him show, with such data before him, that the assertion of the special interference of the Deity for the illumination of the human race, involves an absurd or untenable proposition. All that he has

shown is, that, were man's nature differently constituted, such external helps might not, perhaps, have been necessary. A conclusion which no believer in revelation will deny, but which proves nothing with respect to the point at issue.

We will assume, then, as the basis of the following arguments, that an actual revelation of the Divine will cannot, under existing circumstances, be said to be otherwise than probable. But admitting thus much, there is an end of the objection alleged against such an arrangement, from the deviation which it implies from the established order of events. True, indeed, it is, that a distinct revelation, in order to be such, must be supposed to interfere in some degree with the ordinary course of nature. Ends are attainable only by means; and the means adopted must, in all cases, have reference to their specific object. A uniform and universal appeal to the moral feelings and reasoning powers of the human race, can be made only through the medium of one out of two distinct channels, oral or written communication. The adoption of either course on the present supposition implies a miracle, for the first promulgators of the presumed doctrines, even granting that they avail themselves of merely natural instruments for the delivery of their message, must of course be themselves specially inspired. To allow, however, the probability of one single miracle in this case, involves effectively the necessity of others. The Providence which once thus specially interferes with mankind,

must also be presumed to watch over its own arrangements, and to secure their adequate operation. It is not necessary to follow the obvious course of this argument into all its branches, to show that the prac tical form into which every real revelation must eventually settle, (because that form is the only one which could be equally efficient in all ages, and in every portion of the habitable globe,) is that of written expositions of the Divine will, definite in their form, and authoritative in their manner. Oral instruction, in order to be rendered uniform in its doctrines, and universally accessible to all conditions of mankind, would require an interminable continuity of miracle, which nothing less than the most inevitable necessity of the case would justify us in expecting. But the promulgation of a written revelation is like the single act of the creation of the universe, a miraculous agency at the moment, but which, having once taken place, leaves subsequent events to pursue their natural and established course.

If, then, it is not unreasonable to infer that God has, on some occasion or other, communicated his will to mankind, and if among the various professed revelations which have appeared at different periods of man's history, one only has come to us supported by an overpowering weight of evidence, whilst it has at the same time been productive in its effects of a vast, though confessedly incomplete, renovation of the human character, we have undoubtedly the strongest reasons for believing that revelation to be the true one. It is true that many persons may be found who, whilst they assent to the general probability of the fact of a revelation, will find what they imagine to be substantial objections to every religious theory which thus far has assumed that character. But objections of this kind are almost always traceable to the old fallacy, which has just now been alluded to, of dictating imaginary schemes of creation to Providence, instead of directing our judgment by what we know

to be actually established. We are all of us unwil ling to suppose the interposition of any seemingly elaborate means between the enunciation of the Divine will and the attainment of its end. But the great lesson taught us by experience is, that the anticipations of our judgments are ever more hasty than the course of God's proceedings. Why the workings of his providence move thus slowly, and by a thus apparently intricate process of contrivance, we cannot hope to explain, but we are experimentally certain that such is the fact. Those persons, then, who are inclined to believe generally, that God may, not inconsistently, communicate his will to mankind, and who yet are offended by the specific mode which the believer in Christianity asserts to have been actually adopted by him, would do well if, instead of building visionary schemes of presumed possibilities, they would but ask themselves how, admitting the actual circumstance of human nature, they can conceive the possibility of such a communication by any less improbable vehicle than that now supposed.

The appeal to human conviction must be made in some way or other, and yet every way which we can imagine must be attended with its respective apparent improbabilities, of which those who are disposed to cavil may readily take advantage. The candid mind will of course make its option on the side which presents the smallest sum total of diffi culty; and we have no hesitation in asserting, that upon a full examination of the circumstances, that side will be found to be the one which assumes, in the first place, that the fact of a revelation of God's will is intrinsically probable: and secondly, that the only professedly inspired documents, bearing the apparent stamp of authenticity, are those of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. This latter proposition it will now be our object to demonstrate to the best of our power.

In attempting to speculate upon the internal pro

bability of the truth of any alleged communication from heaven, the mind is necessarily compelled to occupy a peculiar position, and to lay down, at starting, certain primary propositions, without the admission of which it is obviously impossible to proceed. To derive our data from the facts which in this late period of the world are passing daily before our eyes, would evidently be irrelevant and unphilosophical. We must be prepared to meet with deviations from the presumed established laws of the creation, as a matter of course. At the same time, our experience of the fixedness and uniformity of the ordinary operations of nature, forbids our assuming that Providence, under any circumstances, would be unnecessarily lavish in the operation of miracles. So long as they might be wanted to give the first impulse in the launching of a new system, they might reasonably be looked for; but such operations as are obviously within the competency of natural causes to produce, might on the other hand be expected to occur, according to the more ordinary process. It is on this principle that a new scale of probabilities will suggest itself to the inquirer into the internal evidences of revelation. It would be a manifest contradiction to look for a perfect analogy between the first creation of a system, and its subsequent ordinary cause of operation, and yet the necessary deviation from order, thus occasioned, would not, it may be presumed, be disorderly. In other words, the quantum of necessity would be the measure of the quantum of miracle to be calculated upon. It is indeed manifestly impossible for the human mind to act upon this rule with any thing approaching to accuracy, and yet perhaps we may approximate to it sufficiently for the purpose of conjecturing how far the miracles, recorded in any given form of revelation, appear worthy of a wise Providence, and calculated to produce their respective objects. Every person at all acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, will perceive how strikingly this

observation applies to the preternatural incidents which we find there related. There is nothing in the miracles of the Bible which in the slightest degree, reminds us of the monstrous wonders of the imagina tive works of fiction. Be the narrative true or false, at all events the admixture of preternatural occur. rences is exactly, on all occasions, kept down to the strict necessity of the case, and natural instruments, where available, are made to contribute their share towards the production of the event. This prelimi nary observation it is quite necessary that we should make, in order that it may be distinctly understood what is the kind of probabilities which, in the course of the ensuing observations, we shall endeavour to trace in the narratives of the Old and New Testament. No Christian, who recollects the inscrutable mysteries which envelope Deism itself, will shrink from avowing the strict analogy which, in that respect, exists between the religion of unenlightened reason, and that of the Gospel. He knows that every particle of matter, every intellectual perception, teems with wonder. But still it should never be forgotten that the prevailing spirit of Scripture, even in its highest excitement, is that of unostentatious sobriety, and that a calm, candid, and teachable frame of mind is that which is alone adapted for taking a comprehensive view of the whole system of revelation, and pronouncing judgment upon its internal probability.

CHAPTER V.

Of the Mosaic History of the Creation.

To begin, then, with the scriptural account of the creation of the world. The doctrine of the past eternity of the universe is a necessary consequence of the principles of Atheism. If there exists no Creator,