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inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing object than the hero."*

Let attention be devoted

4. To the coincidence of Christianity with the character of God, and the actual condition of man."+

* J. J. Rousseau, vol. xxxvi. of his works, p. 36, Ed. Paris, 1788-1793.

"L'évangile, ce divin livre, le seul nécessaire à un chrétien, et le plus utile de tous à quiconque ne le serait pas, n'a besoin que d'être médité pour porter dans l'âme l'amour de son auteur, et la volonté d'accomplir ses préceptes. Jamais la vertu n'a parlé un si doux langage; jamais la plus profonde sagesse ne s'est exprimée avec tant d'energie et de simplicité. On n'en quitte point la lecture sans se sentir meilleur qu'auparavant. Voyez les livres des philosophes avec toute leur pompe : qu'ils sont petits auprès de celui-la! Dirons nous que l'histoire de l'évangile est inventée à plaisir ? Ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on invente ; et les faits de Socrate, dont personne ne doute, sont moins attestés que ceux de Jesus Christ. Au fond, c'est reculer la difficulté sans la détruire. Il seroit plus inconcevable que plusieurs hommes d'accord eussent fabriqué ce livre, qu'il ne l'est qu'un seul en ait fourni le sujet. Jamais les auteurs Juiss n'eussent trouvé ni ce ton ni cette morale; et l'évangile a des caractères de vérité si frappans, si parfaitement inimitables, que l'inventeur en seroit plus étonnant que le héros."-See Dr. J. P. Smith's admirable answer to a printed paper entitled " Manifesto of the Christian Evi

dence Society."

The Author is greatly indebted, in this part of his essay, to a work entitled "Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth of Revealed Religion." By Thomas Erskine, Esq., Advocate.

There is a marked tendency in the human mind to trace results to some adequate cause. Hence our dissatisfaction in the mere perception of facts which, in our present state of knowledge, we cannot account for; and hence also the restless effort made by us to discover some principle of causation sufficient to produce the phenomena beheld. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies must impress every one endowed with reason that there is some mighty impulse to which they are all obedient; and the feeling we have of the existence of such an impulse has roused that inquiry into the laws of the material universe which has led to all the discoveries of modern science, and which has enabled us to trace, in the one pervading law of gravitation, the reason of certain revolutions and appearances, which without such an application of the human faculties must have been hid in perpetual obscurity.

Nor is the tendency in man to reason from effects to causes the only one discoverable in the examination of what may be called his mental instincts. It is obvious that he is equally prone

to reason from causes to effects; so that when he has satisfied himself as to the existence of a particular cause, and has acquired some knowledge of the mode in which it operates, he is prepared to concede that other effects may be attributed to it besides those which he has already discovered, provided they are in no way inconsistent with the facts and relations now perceived.

Now, the tendencies thus described will be found equally to manifest themselves in reference to mental and moral science, as in reference to the phenomena of the material universe. It is to these laws of our nature that we are indebted for many of those inductions by which we are enabled to judge of the characters and actions of men, and to predicate what may or may not be reasonable to anticipate in certain given circumstances.

Apply these general principles to the investigation of the subject in hand. The Bible is a book professing to come from heaven. Is it, then, a communication possessing anything in common with our ordinary associations? or is it

a book so entirely new as to furnish us with no means of judging of it by the exercise of that ordinary tendency of our nature which leads us to judge of causes by their effects, and of effects by their causes ? The slightest examination of the Christian scheme will convince any impartial mind that the view of the divine character and government which it presents is in strictest harmony with what may be deduced from the survey of nature, the phenomena of divine providence, and the dictates of natural conscience. The particular modifications of divine perfection which are seen displayed in the pages of revelation may be to a great extent new, but the great question is,-Are not these modifications such as to fall in and harmonize with all that the reason of man would suggest to him, as suited to the character of God and the condition of human nature ? I am satisfied that the discoveries of the Bible, though so transcendently glorious, are, in their great outline, answerable to all our natural conceptions of the Most High, as the supreme moral governor.

Two things seem necessary to authenticate

a religion as coming from God,-first, that the facts and representations which it contains should be such as to exhibit all that is lofty in wisdom, mighty in power, awful in purity, and subduing in kindness; and, second, that the representation thus afforded of the divine character should, when contemplated and believed by man, be fitted, by the laws of his being, to transform him into the divine image, and to make him a partaker of the divine happiness. The very first shewing of Christianity is to this effect. It proposes, by an overwhelming manifestation of the character of God in the great scheme of redemption, to raise man from his present state of sin and rebellion, and to confer on him that elevated species of blessedness which arises from conformity to the will of an infinitely perfect Being.

"When," says an eloquent writer, "we read a history which authoritatively claims to be an exhibition of the character of God in his dealings with men,-if we find in it that which fills and overflows our most dilated conceptions of moral worth and loveliness in the Supreme

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