Bible is true, and he relies upon it with unwavering confidence. If such a man will take the trouble to read the following pages with attention, he will be gratified to find this feeling analyzed, and shown to be as philosophical a ground of belief as any other.

But this is not all. I have remarked above, that, in the study of the external evidences of revelation, we consider merely the proofs, without any regard to the matter, of the divine record. This is merely an intellectual process, and takes no hold upon the moral affections. Hence, it has not unfrequently happened that religious men have undervalued this branch of investigation, because, though it was in fact connected with religion, it seemed to benumb their feelings towards the subject of religion itself. Now, without stopping to examine the correctness of this decision, it will be sufficient for my purpose to remark, that no such effect need be feared from the study of the internal evidences of the Bible. In this case, we commence with the examination of the matter of the book itself. We cannot proceed a step in our investigation, unless our eye is fixed upon

the holy oracle. And yet further, the more thorough is our acquaintance with its contents, the more deeply we are imbued with its spirit, and the more powerfully our imaginations are exalted by its conceptions, and our consciences aroused by its disclosures, the more powerful will be the conviction of its truth. upon our understandings. Hence, no man was ever known to be thoroughly penetrated by the truths of the Bible, who was not also thoroughly convinced of its Divine original. Thus, every attempt to improve ourselves in piety, increases the materials of our evidence of the truth of our religion.

I shall now, in conclusion, offer a few remarks upon the manner in which this subject should be studied.

I remark, in the first place, then, that studies of this nature require thought.

As this announcement may seem discouraging to some of my readers, I beg to be allowed a few words by way of explanation.

I fear that it is too often the case that works upon the evidences of religion are productive of much less practical effect than might be

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reasonably anticipated. Otherwise, why is it the fact, that, while books, and good ones, on this subject, are abundant, and are frequently read, very few persons are able to exhibit the proofs on which the authenticity of revelation depends? Men read works of this kind, as they would read a novel or a newspaper; after they have laid the book aside, they remember neither the individual facts nor their bearing, upon each other, nor upon the question at issue, and then feel surprised that they are not more deeply impressed than before with a conviction of the divine authority of the scriptures. Let us not deceive ourselves. There is no magic in looking upon a book. If after we have closed it, we know nothing that is in it, we are in the same mental state as before, and it is surely no cause of wonder that we are so.

We hear much said, in the present day, of the march of mind, and of the glorious intellectual achievements of the passing age. Now, while we should cherish a very benevolent sympathy with the exulting views of youthful orators and legislators when discoursing upon this subject, it might be well to remember, that

the cause of truth would perhaps be as successfully promoted, if the indications of this progress were specified with somewhat more of exactness. In so far as intellectual progress is to be measured by desire of change and impatience of restraint, by contempt for precedent and love for experiment, by thirst for individual facts and intrepidity in forming conclusions, the present age is doubtless pre-eminent. But in so far as that progress is to be determined by careful observation and exactitude of knowledge, by patient thought and thorough investigation, the facts in the case might perhaps admonish us to be somewhat ashamed in this same confident boasting.'

Let us not be deceived. The laws of the universe are not to be altered, either by the modifications of society or by our opinions/respecting ourselves. Valuable knowledge cannot now be obtained without intellectual effort; nor could it ever. The exercise of the imagination will always differ from the exercise of the understanding, until the constitution of human nature be changed. In the one case, conceptions spontaneously arise in our minds,

as we peruse the pages of the poet or novelist or traveller; we are pleased or displeased with them, and here our labor, or rather our amusement, ends. In the other case, from individual facts we deduce general principles, or, pursuing a connected series of premises, arrive at a certain conclusion. This latter process requires the exercise of memory, abstraction, generalization, and of that power of the mind by which we decide, at every step, whether, in the words of Bishop Butler, 'the thing proposed to be made out be really made out or not.' Now, the study of the evidences of revelation belongs to this latter class of mental exercises, and it requires the same kind of labor as any other investigation after truth.* Let us not, then, neglect these studies because the subjects in which they are employed may seem obscure,

*It must be acknowledged, that some of the following discourses are very abstruse and difficult, or if you please obscure: But I must take leave to add, that those alone are judges, whether or no and how far this is a fault, who are judges whether or no and how far it might have been avoided. Those only who will be at the trouble to understand what is here said, and to see how far the things here insisted upon, and not other things, might have been put in a plainer manner; which yet I am very far from asserting that they could not. Bp. Butler's preface to sermons preached at the Rolls.