tion; we feel it, and we know it, as a part of our own self-consciousness.

I am far from saying that there are not difficulties connected with our belief in the present government of the world by an Omnipotent and Infinitely Benevolent Spirit, arising out of the long continuance of those moral and physical evils under which the righteous have continually suffered, often for their very virtues, and the wicked have prospered even through the practice of their very villainy. Such difficulties have tasked the reason of philosophers in every age. Yet, while the problem remained unsolved, it never robbed the more thoughtful heathen of their innate conviction that human conscience was amenable to moral law. It is true that questions were sometimes asked like that proposed by Prudentius,

"Si non vult Deus esse malum, cur non vetat ?"

Indeed the same difficulty still remains to perplex us. Nevertheless there lies deep down within our own moral consciousness, even by the light of nature alone, intuitions of the reality of a moral government by God, which, if they do not silence our doubts, make us, at least, ever more and more satisfied that, in some way or other, they will be finally capable of solution.

This being so, we now come to the question whether it is not probable that God would make some discovery of His own character and purposes

C

to man in order to guide his judgment? That, under the antagonism of good and evil which has undeniably existed in the world from the very dawn of human history (let the cause of that antagonism be what it may), some idea of revelation has been indigenous to the mind of man is obvious from ancient heathenism, the whole of whose earliest literature, alike in Chaldæa, Egypt, India, Persia, and Greece, unmistakably bears witness to it.

This, then, is the next question we have to investigate. Was such a revelation probable ? and does it appear to have been, à priori, desirable? And have we any good reason for supposing that such a revelation ever was communicated?

The discussion of these points will bring us to the following chapter.

Questions Proposed.

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II.

CAUTIONS FOR THE DOUBTERS OF A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION.

It is important to draw a distinction between revelation that is natural and that which is supernatural. According to the first use of the word it is admitted, even by many Deists themselves, that all inspirations of human genius by which men have been enlightened either with moral or scientific truth, may be regarded as an inner revelation of the Divine wisdom. In that sense, most probably, we should be all agreed. There are very few persons of any mental culture, and even very few intelligent readers of Scripture, who would, I suppose, deny this.1 The ends of religion are in no way served by creating a wider chasm between ourselves and our opponents than is necessary. We may therefore well concur in this view of the subject. But here our agreement ends. We are not content to place the wisdom of Moses and Solomon, or of Isaiah and St. Paul, on the same level with that of Socrates and Plato, or of Buddha and Confucius. In the case of the former

1 Job xxxii. 8.

we contend for the gift of a supernatural revelation, by which we mean a Divine communication of truth, revealed in a miraculous manner, either by the Spirit of God or by other superhuman agency.

This question has been the great battle-field between Christianity and Infidelity ever since the days of Lord Herbert of Cherbury; nor will it cease to be to the end. Modern thought may add to it later and more subtle forms of doubt; but this will always be the primary and fundamental principle, the citadel and stronghold, of scepticism.

I shall assume, then, that many of my readers have already had their early faith in Scripture rudely shaken by the reasonings of infidelity against supernatural revelation. Not that they have as yet flung away their Bibles, and openly avowed themselves unbelievers, but that the difficulties of belief have become so great, they know not how to answer them. Addressing myself, therefore, to these, I shall endeavour to do justice to their scruples and to resolve their doubts; at all events, I shall try to provide them with careful and well-considered cautions, which may possibly save them from the folly of any rash and impulsive surrender of their faith.

These difficulties are threefold :—

I. IS NOT A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION IMPROBABLE?

Questions Proposed.

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II. IS IT NOT ALSO UNNECESSARY?

III. SUPPOSING IT TO BE GIVEN, IS IT NOT TOO UNCERTAIN AND UNKNOWABLE TO BE OF USE?

Many minds are powerfully influenced by the first of these difficulties :

I. IS NOT A SUPernatural ReVELATION IMPROBABLE?

This is a difficulty which not only touches Revelation (whether oral or written), but even all miraculous interpositions with the course of man's moral and physical being. Modern philosophy has established, beyond a doubt, that the whole of our material universe is governed by laws which are ordinarily fixed and invariable; and it argues that, as all our observation and experience now go to prove that these laws are never arbitrarily interfered with by the Creator, so it is à priori extremely improbable that they ever have been interfered with. It then applies the same philosophical principle of fixed and uniform law to the mental and moral world; and it maintains that, just as we have no sensible experience of any supernatural intervention with the present invariableness of these mental and moral laws, so it is likewise improbable that they ever have been subject to such intervention. Consequently, everything of a supernatural character in the mental or moral world is to be discredited as unlikely and unreasonable.

In meeting this line of reasoning, let me observe