wise. Difficulties and discrepancies will disappear, as knowl edge and experience increase.

13. The dogmatic method of interpretation, which prevailed in the church during the seventeenth century, is now giving way to a method more enlightened, more philosophical, and much more powerful as an instrument of investigation. A new calculus, so to speak, has been introduced to aid our researches among the records of the past. Its efficacy has been tested in the composition of history; and in the hands of judicious men, such as Schleiermacher, Neander, Hengstenberg, Dorner, and others, it is destined to be of inestimable service for the ascertainment of Christian truth. Criticism does not merely imply, as till recently it did, a thorough acquaintance with the language in which an ancient author wrote; but, in addition to that, it implies a profound insight into the linguistic mode of the writer, and his individuality as a thinker. The latter is absolutely necessary to complete the sympathy between an author and his interpreter. You cannot successfully render the meaning of an author without a quick perception of the spirit of his age, the whole range of his ideas, and the train and genius of his thoughts as modified by the speculative conceptions amid which he lived, and with which he had to do. A threefold induction-critical, historical, and philosophical-must be made in order to arrive at his true mind and meaning. Nobody, for example, can understand, as Bunsen, speaking on this subject, observes, "the first three verses of St. John's Gospel, without being at home in those regions of thought, to which the questions respecting the Logos belong." Let it not be imagined, however, that the historical method of interpretation, when legitimately applied, can lead to any overturn in the great and essential doctrines of the Gospel. Its chief use is to elucidate those difficulties, and remove those stumbling-blocks, which unbelievers and freethinkers have so often paraded as fatal objections to the di vine authority of the Bible.

14. It will be observed that, in the following treatise, Dr.

Paley confines his argument to the claims of the New Testa ment Scriptures alone. That he was entitled to disunite the claims of the Old Testament from those of the New is extremely questionable. We think the two are so inseparably connected that they must stand or fall together. The utmost benefit that the disjunction secures is to shorten and simplify the argument; and on that ground alone it is justifiable. But this matter will be noticed more fully in its proper place. In these introductory remarks we have taken the unity of the two Revelations for granted. The Jewish and Christian dispensations are the same Religion in two different stages of development: the former being provisional and introductory, the latter perfect and permanent. The same God and Sa viour, the same faith, the same atonement, and the same re'wards belong to both; and the light of either is the best in which the other can be read.

PREPARATORY CONSIDERATIONS.

I DEEM it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious person who thinks that, even under the Christian revelation, we have too much light, or any degree of assurance which is superfluous.* I desire, moreover, that, in judging of Christianity, it may be remembered, that the question lies between this religion and none: for, if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other.t

* This is the common sense view of the question, and is givel with the author's characteristic plainness. Learned discussion would only perplex it. But such discussion is not wanting. See Leland on the " Necessity of a Divine Revelation;" in which work the Religion and Morality of the ancient Heathens is fully considered. Philosophy had been permitted to try her skill in Theology and Ethics during a period of four thousand years and failed. This was surely experiment enough. In the fulness of time, when the insufficiency of human reason had been practically and decisively demonstrated, Revelation was completed, and the Divine command issued for its universal promulgation. The student is referred to Alexander's Evidences of Christianity, chapters III. and IV., where the attempts of Modern philosophy in the same field, are admirably handled, and the necessity of a Divine Revelation proved from the nature of the case. See NOTE A at the end of this chapter.-Ed.

↑ By Religions are here meant Christianity and the various other systems-heathen and Mohammedan. The Religion of Nature, so far as it goes, is coincident with that of Revelation,-see Butler's Analogy,—but the Religion of Nature is imperfect, and cannot, by

Suppose, then, the world we live in to have had a Creator; suppose it to appear, from the predominant aim and tendency of the provisions and contrivances observable in the universe, that the Deity, when he formed it, consulted for the happiness of his sensitive creation; suppose the disposition which dictated this counsel to continue; * suppose a part of the creation to have received faculties from their Maker, by which they are capable of rendering a moral obedience to his will, and of voluntarily pursuing any end for which he has designed them; suppose the Creator to intend for these, his rational and accountable agents, a second state of existence, in which their situation will be regulated by their behavior in the first state, by which supposition (and by no other) the objection to the divine government in not putting a difference between the good and the bad, and in the inconsistency of this confusion with the care and benevolence discoverable in the works of the Deity is done away; suppose it to be of the utmost importance to the subjects of this dispensation to know what is intended for them, that is, suppose the knowledge of it to be highly conducive to the happiness of the species, a purpose which so many provisions of nature are calculated to promote: Suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imperfection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or by the loss of some prior revelation, to want this knowledge, and not to be likely without the aid of a new revelation to attain it: Under these circumstances, is it improbable that a revelation should be made? is it incredible that God should interpose for such a purpose? Suppose him to design for mankind a future state; is it unlikely that he should acquaint him with it?

Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by mira

any means, be substituted for the Religion of Christ. Moreover, the lessons of Nature when read in the light of Christianity, and when read without that light, are very different things. See NOTE В at the end of this chapter.-Ed.

* See Paley's Natural Theology.—Ed.

tles? In none which we are able to conceive.* Consequent ly, in whatever degree it is probable, or not very improbable, that a revelation should be communicated to mankind at all; in the same degree is it probable, or not very improbable, that miracles should be wrought. Therefore, when miracles are related to have been wrought in the promulgating of a revelation manifestly wanted, and, if true, of inestimable value, the improbability which arises from the miraculous nature of the things related, is not greater than the original improbability that such a revelation should be imparted by God.

I wish it, however, to be correctly understood, in what manner, and to what extent, this argument is alleged. We do not assume the attributes of the Deity, or the existence of a future state, in order to prove the reality of miracles. That reality always must be proved by evidence. We assert only, that in miracles adduced in support of revelation there is not any such antecedent improbability as no testimony can surmount. And for the purpose of maintaining this assertion, we contend, that the incredibility of miracles related to have been wrought in attestation of a message from God, conveying intelligence of a future state of rewards and punishments, and teaching mankind how to prepare themselves for that state, is not in itself greater than the event, call it either probable or improbable, of the two following propositions being true: namely, first, that a future state of existence should be destined by God for his human creation; and, secondly, that, being so destined, he should acquaint them with it. It is not necessary for our purpose, that these prop

* This, also, is a characteristic and common sense statement of the question, and will weigh more with the mass of honest men, than a hundred abstract speculations on the nature, possibility, probability, and credibility of Miracles, and on the relation which Miracles bear to Divine Revelation. Of such abstract arguments, however, there are plenty for 'hose who want them. See NOTE C at he end of this chapter.-Ed