roughly imbued with its just and liberal principles?

Were it possible to forget Christians, and look only at Christianity, the astonishment which many pious people feel at the fact that there are unbelievers, would be fully justified, and the low estimate formed of their minds or characters would be greatly palliated. If impartially weighed, how can the evidences for the divine mission and resurrection of Jesus be resisted? They leave, indeed, the possibility of error, and so does all moral evidence; yet on that evidence man continually acts without hesitation, and must, if he acts at all; nor is it deemed a valid objection, in any similar case, that we cannot arrive at mathematical demonstration. The variety, multiplicity, and cogency of the proofs of the divinity of the Christian religion, place us on the highest ground of conviction which can be reached by this species of evidence. It is possible, but barely possible, that the predictions of ancient prophets, who announced the calamities or prosperity of various countries; who foretold the coming of the Messiah, the place and time of his birth, his character and conduct, the brilliance of his miracles, the purity of his doctrines, the severity of his sufferings, and the triumphs of his cause, were words spoken at random, and that, notwithstanding the

history forms so striking a counterpart to them, all is to be accounted for by fortunate guesses and accidental coincidences: it is possible, but barely possible, that Jesus should form of himself a notion of the office of the Messiah completely unlike that which his countrymen entertained, and act upon this fancy, though certain that his imposture would bring neither wealth, honour, nor enjoyment, but hatred, persecution, and death; that his miracles were merely delusions, though his acute and bitter enemies did not attempt to deny or disprove the facts, but fully allowed them, and ascribed his powers to the agency of evil spirits it is possible, but barely possible, that a clan of ignorant deceivers should frame a religion with delineations of the character of God, and the duties and prospects of man, infinitely superior to what the wisest and best philosophers ever taught; should propagate it at the peril of every thing dear to man, and succeed in establishing it in the world, in defiance of the opposition of priests and potentates, of the wise, the wealthy, and the powerful of that age: it is possible, but barely possible, that a system so framed and propagated should prevail over all hostility, and become the admiration of the wisest, the delight of the virtuous, the refuge of the afflicted, the source of knowledge, holiness and joy, to the

world. But if this bare possibility be fact, how wretched is our condition! Where shall we look for truth, when accumulate sufficient proof, or, in the moral world, what solid resting-place shall we ever find? It appears to me, that we must admit such evidence, or we must admit nothing: must own no proof whatever, except that of our senses, if indeed that is to be excepted, and incarcerate ourselves in the dark dungeon of eternal scepticism.

Christians! draw not too hastily the inference that, if the conclusiveness of these and other proofs be not seen, it can only be attributed to the mental perception being dimmed by the effluvia of a corrupted heart. He to whose sight alone the heart is open, who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust, can alone be qualified to pronounce such a condemnation; and to him much may be visible which you cannot perceive, productive of an effect so undesirable without inculpating the individual. Nay, you may imagine various pleas which, in the judgment of charity, ought to be admitted, for the claims of an avowed and active Deist not to be ranked, in sincerity and rectitude, materially below an honest and active Christian.

Is there not in some minds an inherent and constitutional tendency to scepticism, a tendency resulting from that physical organization which

combines, in some unknown proportion, with early association to form character? I would much rather believe that there is, than believe that every Deist, in a Christian country, is made hostile to truth by the love of iniquity, because it is not only more charitable but more plausible. In every every department of science and history, and where neither the love of virtue nor of vice could be gratified by the conclusion, there have been men who could not yield credence without a greater degree of evidence than sufficed to produce conviction in others. Amongst those who alike admit the authority of the Scriptures there is a gradation of creeds, indicative of a variety of estimates of the evidence requisite to prove a doctrine scriptural. Even the most orthodox leave some few points on which it is allowed to believe or disbelieve, without the imputation of moral turpitude, and thus, in fact, admit the principle, that the conclusiveness of evidence may be modified by causes for which we are not responsible. To call this human frailty is saying nothing; for who is frail, he who requires the greater, or the lesser quantum of proof? Each, the other being made a standard; both, compared with a third; all equally, in the judgment of him who tracing variety in all the other works of God, believes its natural existence in the mental constitution

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of man. This diversity exists amongst the believers in Christianity, even as to the proofs on which they admit the divinity of their religion. Suppose those proofs could be represented by a given number, say 50. That which produces conviction in one may be represented by 10; another requires 20; a third 40; another, not satisfied with less than 60, remains an unbeliever. More evidence would have included some who are Unbelievers; less would have excluded some who are Christians. But whether Providence had seen fit to give more or less, their moral characters would have been precisely the same; the Christian who, on the one supposition, would have been a Deist, would not have been less meritorious; the Deist who, on the other supposition, would have been a Christian, would not have been less depraved. I could easily find, amongst you, two firm Christians, of whom the one had required twice as much evidence for his faith as the other. Does the latter attribute the total rejection of Christianity to depravity of heart? He is equally liable to the same charge from the more facile believer. No man can indicate for another the mathematical point at which culpable credulity ends, and culpable scepticism begins. He might as well profess to tell the depth to which a ball, with any given momentum, would penetrate into any