excels in the art of communicating knowledge, who can exert the same patience in detailing it, as he was forced to use in acquiring it; who can consent to retrace the process of his own investigations; and supposes the same course of inquiry in the mind of him he would instruct, as that which ended in convincing and satisfying himself.

To consult, therefore, the natural course of inquiry in answering the objections to the Christian system, let us suppose a man perfectly uninstructed. Such a one, before he would consent to admit a revelation, would look into the nature of things, to see if there appeared any grounds for concluding that there was any such thing as religion at all. After having seen and acknowledged the necessity for such a thing, and being put upon the consideration of the Christian scheme, before he would admit such a scheme, he would ask, "To what purpose is this system which you propose to me? where is it wanting? and what is its design?" This being shown to him, he would consider next the general aspect and character of this religion; he would attentively regard its external constitution, its stamp and its impressions, and examine if there was any thing on the first view which condemned it. Its miraculous establishment would be the question here. Being convinced on this point, he would naturally ask what the analogy of nature, and of that scheme of natural religion to which he had first been induced to give his assent, suggested on the subject? Let us try if this great question can be satisfactorily answered.

The objections to the Christian scheme, as distinguished from objections to its evidence, are generally such as these: Revelation is deficient; it contains many absurd propositions; it sometimes leads men into enthusiasm and superstition; it has been made,

to serve the purposes of tyranny and wickedness; it is moreover extended through but a contracted sphere; its evidence is less convincing and satisfactory than it might have been.

of ar

It will serve as a general answer to this way guing, that, upon a supposition of a revelation, it were highly credible, beforehand, that we should be incompetent judges of it to a great degree, and also that it would contain many things appearing to us to be liable to objections, in case we were to judge otherwise than by the analogy of nature. If the natural and revealed dispensation of things be both from God, if they coincide with each other, and together make up one scheme of Providence, our being incompetent judges of the one, must make it credible that we may be incompetent judges of the other; and since, upon experience, the acknowledged course and constitution of nature is found to be greatly different from what before experience would have been expected, it were reasonable to presume that the revealed dispensation likewise, judging of it as of the constitution of nature, would be very different from the expectations formed beforehand, and liable in appearance to great objections. We cannot comprehend the wisdom of God's ordinary administration : how then shall we be judges of the extraordinary? Reasoning thus, we come to perceive that the only question concerning the truth of Christianity, is, whether it be a real revelation, not whether it be attended with any circumstances we should not have looked for; and whether the authority of Scripture be what it claims to be, not whether the Scripture itself be a book of such sort and so promulged as our weak understandings might have led us to expect.

With respect to the manner and the measure in

which revelation is communicated, we are very incompetent judges, since we are unable to say what supernatural instruction was to have been expected; so, before experience, we should be incapable of pronouncing any thing in regard to the circumstances and degrees, and the whole manner of that instruction which is afforded by the ordinary course of nature. Were such a scheme as that of nature proposed to us, supposing no experience to have been had of it, we should probably be tempted to reject it as incredible, on account of the many seeming disproportions, limitations, and necessary conditions it contains. Would it not have been thought highly improbable that men should be so much more capable of discovering the general laws of matter, and the magnitudes, paths, and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, than the causes and cures of distempers, and many other objects in which human life seems to be so much more deeply interested? How capricious and variable a thing is invention, by which nature instructs us in matters of the very highest importance to our comfort and security! How inadequate, how ambiguous, how liable to abuse, is language, the only vehicle by which our thoughts, our desires, or knowledge, is communicated!

Thus it is plain, from the whole course and constitution of nature, that God does not dispense his gifts according to our notion of their advantage or importance.

But still an objection may be framed, on a supposition that it is incredible how an event of such signal importance to man should take place so late; that it should then extend over so small a part of the world; and that at best it should be involved in obscurities, and be liable to the same perversions and objections as the light of nature itself. Without determining

how far this may be admitted to be so, it is by no means incredible that it might be so if the light of nature and revelation be from the same hand. We are naturally liable to disease, for which God has provided natural remedies. But remedies existing in nature have remained unknown to mankind for several ages; are even at this day known but to few; probably many are not yet discovered; many, after absolute rejection, have been found extremely useful; many are very partial in their operations; many occasion dreadful disorders, if unskilfully applied. In a word, the remedies which nature provides are neither certain, perfect, nor universal.

To what do all these arguments tend? Not surely to prove that reason has no pretensions to judge of what is offered to us as being of divine revelation; we are not to conclude that we are incapable of judging of any thing, because we are incapable of judging of all things. It is the privilege of reason to judge of the evidence of revelation, and of the objections urged against that revelation. It may fairly judge of the morality of the Scripture, that is, not whether it contains things different from what we might have expected from a wise and good being; but whether it does actually, as it is offered to us, contain things contrary to wisdom, justice, or good- to what the light of nature teaches us of

ness

God.

N° 77. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2.

Adhibita est ars quedam extrinsecus ex alio genere quodam, quod sibi totum Philosophi assumunt, quæ rem dissolutam, divulsamque conglutinaret, et ratione quâdam constringeret.

CIC. de Orat.

A certain art is supplied from a foreign source, and claimed by the philosophers as belonging wholly to their province, which binds in a fast union, and under certain laws of arrangement, those loose principles which lie scattered through nature.

As I promised my readers something more on the subject of Taste, I shall dedicate this Number to the inquiry; and by taking up the question at a point still nearer its source, endeavour to throw upon it some fresh illustration. In the compass of my reading I have never met with any analysis of the human mind which has contented my curiosity on that subject; and this perpetual disappointment in my expectations from other men, has forced me upon considering for myself; and I shall here lay down the fruits of my own investigation.—Instead of inquiring what names have been invented to express the different properties of the soul, I shall begin with considering the nature of those properties themselves, and then refer them to the distribution already made, as far as the import of the terms invented agrees with the character and office I shall assign to each.

There is certainly a power in the mind of perceiving ideas, and the several relations which subsist

VOL. XLIV.

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