the power of examining them; touching, tasting, handling them, and satisfying ourselves that it is no delusion but a reality.

This view of the structure of the Bible brings us at once to two questions. First, Is the history which the Bible contains authentic history? And, secondly, Is the religion of the Bible necessarily connected with its history, or fairly deduced from it? If these two questions can be answered in the affirmative, then the religion of the Bible must be divine, for it is self evident that God alone could bring to pass the events recorded in the Bible.

The answers to these questions, however, do by no means contain the whole of the argument. For if the doctrine respecting spiritual and eternal things connected with the history be really of God, it may be expected to bear upon it the evidences of its own divine original, both in its own structure and in its adaptation to the circumstances and necessities of mankind. This, then, is the general plan which I propose to follow in these letters: I. To examine the Scripture history viewed as a whole: II. The Scripture doctrine respecting spiritual and eternal things, which is built upon the history or indissolubly connected with it: and, III. Notice and answer a few of the objections usually brought against the divine origin of the Scripture, whether drawn from the historical facts or the religious doctrine. An explanation of the means which the Bible furnishes for determining the canon of Scripture, that is, for determining whether any book is or is not a genuine portion of it, with a summary and application of the argument, will finish our disquisitions.' Carlile, Vol. I. pp. 30-37.

We have cited this passage at length, which is complete in itself, both as an able statement of a very striking argument, and as affording, at the same time, a view of the general plan of the Letters. The series is arranged under the following heads. Part I., Preliminary Statement. Part II., On the Truth of Scripture History. Sect. 1, Internal Evidences of its Truth. Sect. 2, External Confirmations of its Truth. Sect. 3, On the Prophecies and Types interwoven with the History. Part III., On the System of Doctrines contained in the Bible, and the principles upon which it is connected with its History. Part IV. On the Adaptation of the Religious System of Scripture to Human Nature and the Exigencies of Mankind. Part V. On the Wisdom manifested in the outward Religious Ordinances of the Bible. Part VI. Objections briefly considered. Part VII. On the Principles on which the Canon of Scripture is determined.Summary and application of the Argument.

From the extensive range of investigation which these subjects comprise, Mr. Carlile has found himself compelled to treat them, for the most part, briefly, referring to such writers as have entered into the several topics more at length. This was the most desirable plan in such a work; and the familiar, and sometimes miscellaneous character of the Letters, will render them the more adapted to keep up the attention and to interest the feelings of

young persons, to whom they are more peculiarly suited. It is, in our judgement, a strong recommendation of the work, that it does not presuppose the reader to be an infidel or a sceptic; but, while it supplies an answer to the plausible sophistry of unbelievers, it is more especially designed and calculated to unfold 'to those who already revere and love the Bible as the book of God, a portion of the surpassing wisdom which has been employed in its formation.' The tendency of the work to produce, not simply conviction, but the fruit of genuine conviction, piety, is much more direct, than that of many valuable works which seem to concede that the truth of Christianity is questionable, by starting, as it were, in the course of argument, from infidelity. If Christianity be true, it must be Divine; and yet, some persons who have admitted its truth, to a certain extent, upon the strength of the historic evidence, have not bowed to its Divine authority. But shew it to be Divine, and you have established not merely its truth, but its authority also; with this advantage, that, at every step, the genuine claims of the Religion are brought distinctly in view; not simply its credibility, but its moral credentials. By one method, you first testify a fact, and then prove it. By the other, you suppose the fact to be deducible only as a conclusion from the process of argument. We will not venture to say that the latter method has not its use, and may not prove successful; but we feel warranted in affirming that common experience is in favour of the superior efficiency of the former. It is a law of human nature, let sceptical philosophers say what they please, that testimony should be more convincing than logic. The language of doubt breeds doubt: that of conviction has at least a tendency to convince. Christianity is placed in a false position, when, even for the sake of establishing its truth, it is made to rank among hypotheses.

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Little is gained by extorting an assent that Christianity is true. Multitudes of nominal believers have no conception, as Dr. M'Ilvaine remarks, 'what a truth that is, which they so care'lessly acknowledge; how impressively it is true; with what ' awful authority it is invested; what a wonder is involved in professing to believe, and refusing to obey it. On the other hand, multitudes of real believers have no adequate conceptions of the majestic evidence by which their faith is attested and authenticated. In the admirable volume which we have next to notice, the learned Writer thus urges upon all who are experimentally convinced of the preciousness of the Gospel, the duty and advantage of studying the various arguments which illustrate the divinity of its original.

I would urge it on considerations of personal pleasure and spiritual improvement. There is a rich feast of knowledge and of devout contemplation to be found in this study. The serious believer who has

not pursued it, has yet to learn with what wonderful and impressive light, the God of the Gospel has manifested its truth. Its evidences are not only convincing, but delightfully plain; astonishingly accumulated, and of immense variety as well as strength. He who will take the pains not only to pursue the single line of argument which may seem enough to satisfy his own mind; but devoutly to follow up, in succession, all those great avenues which lead to the gospel as the central fountain of truth, will be presented, at every step, with such evident marks of the finger of God; he will hear from every quarter such reiterated assurances of, this is the way; walk thou in it "; he will find himself so enclosed on every hand by insurmountable evidences shutting him up into the faith of Christ, that new views will open upon him of the real cause and guilt and danger of all unbelief; new emotions of gratitude and admiration will arise in his heart, for a revelation so divinely attested; his zeal will receive a new impulse to follow and promote such heavenly light.

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'But I would urge this study on all serious believers, who have the means of pursuing it, as a matter of duty. It is not enough that they are well satisfied. They have a cause to defend and promote, as well as a faith to love and enjoy. It is enjoined on them by the authority of their Divine Master, that they be ready to give to every man that asketh them, a reason of the hope that is in them. They must be able to answer intelligently the question, Why do you believe in Christianity? For this purpose, it is not enough to be able to speak of a sense of the truth arising from an inward experience of its power and blessedness. This is excellent evidence for one's own mind; but it cannot be felt or understood by an unbeliever. The Christian advocate must have a knowledge of the arguments by which infidelity may be confounded, as well as an experience of the benefits for which the gospel should be loved. To obtain this in proportion to his abilities, he is bound by the all-important consideration, that the religion of Jesus cannot be content while one soul remains in the rejection of her light and life. She seeks not only to be maintained, but to bring all mankind to her blessings. The benevolence of a Christian should stimulate him to be well armed for the controversy with unbelievers. Benevolence, while it should constrain the infidel most carefully to conceal his opinions, lest others be so unhappy as to feel their ague and catch their blight, should invigorate the believer with the liveliest zeal to bring over his fellow-creatures to the adoption of a faith so glorious in its hopes and so ennobling in its influence.' M'Ilvaine, pp. 11–13.

We must not, however, part with Mr. Carlile, before we have given a specimen or two of the contents of the Letters, and of the very pleasing style in which they are written. The Letter 'On 'the Sublimity and Spirituality of the Doctrines of Scripture', is a very beautiful and striking one: we do not recollect to have seen the Temptation of Our Lord' placed in so just and vivid a light.

We find in the New Testament a contest between the principal character of the Scripture narrative and his adversary, which was to decide the fate of millions of rational immortal creatures for eternity.

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Had any uninspired writer undertaken to invent such a contest, we should have seen two gigantic antagonists confronted with one another, armed from head to foot, and using such weapons as were calculated to destroy material bodies, as swords, javelins, thunderbolts, or rocks torn from their bases. But in Scripture we have nothing of all this. When Jesus and Satan are brought into collision, there is indeed a deadly contest, but it is purely of a spiritual kind. Satan employs all his artifice to introduce sin into the soul of our Lord, and Jesus repels it by the word of God, which is the proper "sword of the Spirit And the contest is ended, not by Satan's being felled to the ground, or driven from the verge of a precipice into a gulf of fire-incidents which would have left his spirit untouched; but by his being repulsed with a look and expression of abhorrence like a detected felon, carrying with him the agony of remorse and shame, mortified pride, baffled ambition, disappointed revenge, and unquenchable but fruitless rage. These were wounds that entered more directly and more deeply into his spirit, than any pain that could be occasioned to him by a wounded body.

The circumstances that seem to me to prove most satisfactorily the reality of this transaction, are its extreme simplicity, combined with its unspeakable importance. It appears in the narrative of the Evangelist, as one of the most common-place ordinary transactions; yet it was a contest for the precious life. The aim of Satan was most deadly; and, had it succeeded, would have spread destruction and horror to an inconceivable extent.

The apparent simplicity of the contest necessarily arises from the high intellectual powers of the parties engaged in it. It appears a simple thing to us, because we do not fully understand it. When two generals of consummate skill are opposed to one another, their operations are unintelligible to persons unacquainted with military tactics: and some apparently insignificant movement-such as crossing a river, or taking possession of a road, or placing a few men on the summit of a hill many miles from either of the hostile armies-to which unskilled

spectators would attach no importance, may, in the eyes of the generals themselves, who can look forward to consequences, decide the fate of the campaign, nay, it may be, of the contending empires. A child witnessing a game at chess, or any other competition of mature intellect, would see nothing of the skill displayed by the antagonists; and a game on which much property might depend, might be decided by some little movement which, to an unskilled spectator, would seem to be of no particular importance. So the contest between Jesus and Satan was in some measure above our comprehension; and therefore the victory was decided by an act which, without some reflection, may seem to us to be trivial.

'Another cause of the apparent simplicity of this transaction, is, that the object of Satan necessarily led him to adopt a studied simplicity. His manifest aim was to betray our Lord into sin, and therefore it was necessary that he should endeavour to make sin appear as light and as trifling a thing as possible. If a villain of superior address and intellect get an unsuspecting youth under his influence, and endeavour to train him up to theft and robbery and murder, he does

not at once put a knife into his hands and urge him to plunge it into the bosom of a fellow-creature. His very purpose leads him to disguise his aim as much as possible. The first crime that he suggests to him, may be apparently a very trivial one, that will be more a subject of laughter than of serious thought; but that very act, light and trifing as it was made to appear, may be the commencement of a career of crime and of wretchedness; and may be by much the most important event in the life of the unfortunate youth that was betrayed into it.

Thus it was that Satan is represented in Scripture to have introduced sin into the world. The act which he suggested to our first parents, was apparently a very ordinary act-the eating of the fruit of a certain tree: yet when analysed, we can detect in it the seeds of every vice, ingratitude, dishonesty, intemperance, rejection of God's word, rebellion against his authority, disobedience of his commands, and a charge of falsehood against God--of falsehood employed for the meanest and most unworthy purposes. It is thus that Satan still tempts men to sin. He reconciles and inures them to it by little and little, till they can commit, with the utmost coolness, crimes from which they would, at an earlier period, have started back with terror.

But simple as this contest appears, we can comprehend enough of it to see in it a fearful importance. The thrust which Satan made at our Lord, was directed against the only point in which it was possible to injure a pure and holy spirit. We can form no conception of spiritual suffering, but as the effect of sin. All those internal passions and feelings which give us pain are either themselves sinful-as hatred, envy, revenge, rage, jealousy, disappointed pride or vanity; or they are the consequences of our being sinners-as fear, sorrow, remorse, shame, and despair. No perfectly holy being who reposes with full confidence in God, can be accessible to any of these passions, or to any others that are calculated to give him pain. The only suffering that we can conceive of, that does not seem immediately to flow from sin, is simple bodily pain; but even that suffering the Scripture teaches us to trace to the effects of sin, by which we became mortal. The aim of Satan, therefore, was the most deadly that can be imagined. It was by succeeding in a similar aim, that, according to the Scripture, he brought upon our original progenitors and their race, all the anguish that they experienced, and all the anguish that has filled the world since their day. And although we cannot trace the full extent of the mischief which Satan would have perpetrated had he succeeded in his attempt on the Lord Jesus; yet we can see, that, besides his own personal injury, it would have ruined the plan of mercy, on which he came into the world. Our sky would instantly have overcast; the earth would have shaken under our feet; and the countless myriads of the human race would have been consigned to the blackness of everlasting despair.

Viewing, then, this transaction in all its bearings, I conceive myself warranted in asserting, that it is quite above the reach of human invention, and bears upon it evident marks of being a great and awful reality.' Carlile, Vol. I. pp. 344-348.

In the concluding Letter, comprising the summary and appli