we ask him, how he would act, if the experiment, which he conducts under the most perfect sameness of circumstances, were to land him in opposite results? He would vary and repeat his experiments. He would try to detect the inconsistency, and would rejoice, if he at last found that the difficulty lay in the errors of his own observation, and not in the inexplicable nature of the subject. All this he would do in anxious and repeated endeavours, before he inferred that nature persevered in no law, and that that constancy, which is the foundation of all science, was perpetually broke in upon by the most capricious and unlooked for appearances, before he would abandon himself to scepticism, and pronounce philosophy to be an impossible attainment. does it touch upon the historical evidence | we knew him to be forty, would not this of the New Testament? The credibility of have made us stumble at all his pretensions, the Gospel miracles stands upon its own and, in spite of every other argument and appropriate foundation, the recorded testi- appearance, would we not have withdrawn mony of numerous and unexceptionable our confidence from him as a teacher from witnesses. The only way in which we can God? This we allow would have been a overthrow that credibility is by attacking most serious dilemma. It would have been the testimony, or disproving the authenticity that state of neutrality which admits of of the record. Every other science is tried nothing positive or satisfying on either side upon its own peculiar evidence; and all we of the question; or rather, what is still more contend for is, that the same justice be done distressing, which gives me the most posito theology. When a mathematician offers tive and satisfactory appearances on both to apply his reasoning to the phenomena of sides. We could not abandon the truth of mind, the votaries of moral science resent the miracles, because we saw them. Could it as an invasion, and make their appeal to we give them up, we should determine on the evidence of consciousness. When an a positive rejection, and our minds would amateur of botany, upon some vague analo- find repose in absolute infidelity. But as gies, offers his confident affirmations as to the case stands it is scepticism. There is the structure and parts of the human body, nothing like it in any other department of there would be an instantaneous appeal to inquiry. We can appeal to no actual exthe knife and demonstrations of the anato- ample; but a student of natural science may mist. Should a mineralogist, upon the ex-be made to understand the puzzle, when hibition of an ingenious or well-supported theory, pronounce upon the history of our Saviour and his miracles; we would call it another example of an arbitrary and unphilosophical extension of principles beyond the field of their legitimate application. We would appeal to the kind and the quantity of testimony upon which that history is supported. We would suffer ourselves to be delighted by the brilliancy, or even convinced by the evidence of his speculations; but we would feel that the history of those facts, which form the ground-work of our faith, is as little affected by them, as the history of any storm, or battle, or warrior, which has come down to us in the most genuine and approved records of past ages. But whatever be the external evidence of testimony, or however strong may be its It is our part to imitate this example. If visible characters of truth and honesty, is Jesus Christ has, on the one hand, performed not the falsehood or the contradiction which miracles, and sustained in the whole tenor we may detect in the subject of that testi- of his history the character of a prophet, mony sufficient to discredit it? Had we and, on the other hand, asserted to be true been original spectators of our Saviour's what we undeniably know to be a falsemiracles, we must have had as strong a con- hood, this is a dilemma which we are called viction of their reality, as it is in the power of upon to resolve by every principle, that can testimony to give us. Had we been the eye- urge the human mind in the pursuit of witnesses of his character and history, and liberal inquiry. It is not enough to say, caught from actual observation the impres- that the phenomena in question do not fall sion of his worth, the internal proofs that within the dominion of philosophy; and we no jugglery or falsehood could have been therefore leave them as a fair exercise an intended, would have been certainly as amusement to commentators. The mathestrong as the internal proofs which are now matician may say, and has said the same exhibited to us, and which consist in the thing of the moralist, yet there are moralists simplicity of the narrative, and that tone of in the world who will prosecute their specuperfect honesty which pervades, in a man-lations in spite of him; and what is more, ner so distinct and intelligible, every com- there are men who take a wider survey position of the apostles. Yet, with all these advantages, if Jesus Christ had asserted as a truth, what we confidently knew to be a falsehood; had he for example, upon the strength of his prophetical endowments, pronounced upon the secret of a person's age, and told us that he was thirty, when than either, who rise above these professional prejudices, and will allow that, in each department of inquiry, the subjects which offer are entitled to a candid and respectful consideration. The naturalist may pronounce the same rapid judgment upon the difficulties of the theologian; yet there By adopting a decisive infidelity, we reject a testimony, which, of all others, has come down to us in the most perfect and unsuspicious form. We lock up a source of evidence, which is often repaired to in other questions of science and history. We cut off the authority of principles, which, if once exploded, will not terminate in the solitary mischief of darkening and destroying our theology, but will shed a baleful uncertainty over many of the most interesting speculations on which the human mind can expatiate. ever will be theologians who feel a peculiar | of our religion no farther than to the length interest in their subject; and we trust that of an ambiguous and midway scepticism. there ever will be men, with a higher grasp of mind than either the mere theologian, or the mere naturalist, who are ready to acknowledge the claims of truth in every quarter,-who are superior to that narrow contempt, which has made such an unhappy and malignant separation among the different orders of scientific men, who will examine the evidences of the Gospel history, and, if they are found to be sufficient, will view the miracles of our Saviour with the same liberal and philosophic curiosity with which they would contemplate any grand phenomenon in the moral history of the Even admitting, then, this single objecspecies. If there really appears, on the face tion in the subject of our Saviour's testiof this investigation, to be such a difficulty mony, the whole length to which we can leas the one in question, a philosopher of the gitimately carry the objection is scepticism, order we are now describing will make or that dilemma of the mind into which it many an anxious effort to extricate him- is thrown by two contradictory appearself; he will not soon acquiesce in a scep- ances. This is the unavoidable result of ticism, of which there is no other example admitting both terms in the alleged conin the wide field of human speculation; he tradiction. Upon the strength of all the will either make out the insufficiency of reasoning which has hitherto occupied us, the historical evidence, or prove that the falsehood ascribed to Jesus Christ has no existence. He will try to dispose of one of the terms of the alleged contradiction, before he can prevail upon himself to admit both, and deliver his mind to a state of un-mony. We may deny the truth of the certainty most painful to those who respect truth in all her departments. we challenge the infidel to dispose of the one term, which lies in the strength of the historical evidence. But in different ways, we may dispose of the other which lies in the alleged falsehood of our Saviour's testi geological speculation; nor is it necessary to be an accomplished geologist, that we We offer the above observations, not so may be warranted to deny it. We appeal much for the purpose of doing away a dif- to the speculations of the geologists themficulty which we conscientiously believe to selves. They neutralize one another, and have no existence, as for the purpose of leave us in possession of free ground for exposing the rapid, careless, and unphiloso- the informations of the Old Testament. phical procedure of some enemies to the Our imaginations have been much regaled Christian argument. They, in the first in- by the brilliancy of their speculations, but stance, take up the rapid assumption, that they are so opposite to each other, that we Jesus Christ has, either through himself, now cease to be impressed by their evior his immediate disciples, made an asser- dence. But there are other ways of distion as to the antiquity of the globe, which, posing of the supposed falsehood of our upon the faith of their geological specula- Saviour's testimony. Does he really astions, they know to be a falsehood. After sert what has been called the Mosaical anhaving fastened this strain upon the sub-tiquity of the world? It is true that he ject of the testimony, they by one sum- gives his distinct testimony to the divine mary act of the understanding, lay aside all legation of Moses; but does Moses ever say, the external evidence for the miracles and that when God created the heavens and general character of our Saviour. They the earth, he did more at the time alluded will not wait to be told, that this evidence to than transform them out of previously is a distinct subject of examination; and that, if actually attended to, it will be found much stronger than the evidence of any other fact or history which has come down to us in the written memorials of past ages. If this evidence is to be rejected it must be rejected on its own proper grounds; but if all positive testimony, and all sound reasoning upon human affairs, go to establish it, then the existence of such proof is a phenomenon which remains to be accounted for, and must ever stand in the way of positive infidelity. Until we dispose of it, we can carry our opposition to the claims existing materials? Or does he ever say, that there was not an interval of many ages between the first act of creation, described in the first verse of the book of Genesis, and said to have been performed at the beginning; and those more detailed operations, the account of which commences at the second verse, and which are described to us as having been performed in so many days? Or, finally, does he ever make us to understand, that the genealogies of man went any farther than to fix the antiquity of the species, and, of consequence, that they left the antiquity of the mind on a subject on which it is much exercised, and which lies completely within the range of its observation. On the Internal Evidence, and the Objections of Deistical Infidels. THERE is another species of evidence for feel and understand the powerful evidence Christianity, which we have not yet noticed, which lies in the tone, the manner, the cir-what is commonly called the internal cumstantiality, the number, the agreement evidence, consisting of those proofs that of the witnesses, and the consistency of all Christianity is a dispensation from heaven, the particulars with what we already know which are founded upon the nature of its from other sources of information. Now doctrines, and the character of the dispen- it is undeniable, that all those marks which sation itself. The term "internal evi- give evidence and credibility to spoken dence" may be made, indeed, to take up testimony, may also exist to a very impresmore than this. We may take up the New sive degree in written testimony; and the Testament as a human composition, and argument founded upon them, so far from without any reference to its subsequent being fanciful or illegitimate, has the sanchistory, or to the direct and external testi- tion of a principle which no philosopher monies by which it is supported. We will refuse; the experience of the human may collect from the performance itself such marks of truth and honesty, as entitle | us to conclude, that the human agents employed in the construction of this book We cannot say so much, however, for were men of veracity and principle. This the other species of internal evidence, that argument has already been resorted to, and which is founded upon the reasonableness a very substantial argument it is. It is of of the doctrines, or the agreement which is frequent application in questions of gene- conceived to subsist between the nature of ral criticism; and upon its authority alone the Christian religion and the character of many of the writers of past times have the Supreme Being. We have experience been admitted into credit, and many have of man, but we have no experience of God. been condemned as unworthy of it. The We can reason upon the procedure of numerous and correct allusions to the cus-man in given circumstances, because this is toms and institutions, and other statistics of an accessible subject, and comes under the the age in which the pieces of the New cognizance of observation; but we cannot Testament profess to have been written, reason on the procedure of the Almighty in give evidence of their antiquity. The art- given circumstances. This is an inaccessible less and undesigned way in which these subject and comes not within the limits of allusions are interwoven with the whole direct and personal observation. The one, history, impresses upon us the perfect sim- like the scale, and compass, and measureplicity of the authors, and the total absence ments of Sir Isaac Newton, will lead you on of every wish or intention to palm an im-safe and firm footing to the true economy of posture upon the world. And there is such the heavens; the other, like the ether and a thing too as a general air of authenticity, whirlpools, and unfounded imaginations of which, however difficult to resolve into Des Cartes, will not only lead you to misconparticulars, gives a very close and power-ceive that economy, but to maintain a stubful impression of truth to the narrative. born opposition to the only competent eviThere is nothing fanciful in this species of dence that can be offered upon the subject. internal evidence. It carries in it all the We feel that in thus disclaiming all supcertainty of experience, and experience port from what is commonly understood too upon a familiar and well-known sub- by the internal evidence, we do not follow ject, the characters of honesty in the the general example of those who have written testimony of our fellow men. We written on the Deistical controversy. Take are often called upon in private and every- up Leland's performance, and it will be day life to exercise our judgment upon the found that one half of his discussion is exspoken testimony of others, and we both pended upon the reasonableness of the doc trines, and in asserting the validity of the argument which is founded upon that reasonableness. It would save a vast deal of controversy, if it could be proved that all this is superfluous and uncalled for; that upon the authority of the proofs already insisted on, the New Testament must be received as a revelation from heaven; and that, instead of sitting in judgment over it, nothing remains on our part but an act of unreserved submission to all the doctrine and information which it offers to us. It is conceived, that in this way the general argument might be made to assume a more powerful and impressive aspect; and the defence of Christianity be more accommodated to the spirit and philosophy of the times. Since the spirit of Lord Bacon's philosophy began to be rightly understood, the science of external nature has advanced with a rapidity unexampled in the history of all former ages. The great axiom of his philosophy is so simple in its nature, and so undeniable in its evidence, that it is astonishing how philosophers were so late in acknowledging it, or in being directed by its authority. It is more than two thousand years since the phenomena of external nature were objects of liberal curiosity to speculative and intelligent men. Yet two centuries have scarcely elapsed since the true path of investigation has been rightly pursued, and steadily persevered in; since the evidence of experience has been received as paramount to every other evidence, or, in other words, since philosophers have agreed that the only way to learn the magnitude of an object is to measure it, the only way to learn its tangible properties is to touch it, and the only way to learn its visible properties is to look at it. Nothing can be more safe or more infallible than the procedure of the inductive philosophy as applied to the phenomena of external nature. It is the eye, or the earwitness of every thing which it records. It is at liberty to classify appearances, but then in the work of classifying, it must be directed only by observation. It may group phenomena according to their resemblances. It may express these resemblances in words, and announce them to the world in the form of general laws. Yet such is the hardihood of the inductive philosophy, that though a single well-attested fact should overturn a whole system, that fact must be admitted. A single experiment is often made to cut short the finest process of generalization, however painful and humiliating the sacrifice; and though a theory, the most simple and magnificent that ever charmed the eye of an enthusiast, was on the eve of emerging from it. In submitting, then, to the rules of the inductive philosophy, we do not deny that G certain sacrifices must be made, and some of the most urgent propensities of the mind put under severe restraint and regulation. The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction; and to gain this repose, it will often rather precipitate its conclusions, than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system-a prejudice of the understanding, which disposes it to include all the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities-an indolence, which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory, rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences a painful reluctance to the admission of facts, which, however true, break in upon the majestic simplicity that we would fain ascribe to the laws and operations of the universe. Now, it is the glory of Lord Bacon's philosophy, to have achieved a victory over all these delusions; to have disciplined the minds of its votaries into an entire submission to evidence; to have trained them up in a kind of steady coldness to all the splendour and magnificence of theory, and taught them to follow, with unfaultering step, wherever the sure though humble path of experiment may lead them. To justify the cautious procedure of the inductive philosophy, nothing more is necessary than to take a view of the actual powers and circumstances of humanity; of the entire ignorance of man when he comes into the world, and of the steps by which that ignorance is enlightened; of the numerous errors into which he is misled the moment he ceases to observe, and begins to presume or to excogitate; of the actual history of science; its miserable progress, so long as categories and principles retained their ascendency in the schools; and the splendour and rapidity of its triumphs, so soon as man understood that he was nothing more than the disciple of Nature, and must take his lesson as Nature offers it to him. What is true of the science of external nature, holds equally true of the science and phenomena of mind. On this subject, too, the presumptuous ambition of man carried him far from the sober path of experimental inquiry. He conceived that his business was not to observe, but to speculate; to construct systems rather than consult his own experience and the experience of others; to collect the materials of his theory, not from the history of observed facts, but from a set of assumed and excogitated principles. Now the same observations apply to this department of inquiry. We must admit to be true, not what we presume, but what we find to be so. We must restrain the enterprises of fancy. A law of the human mind must be only a Let us therefore endeavour to evince the success and felicity with which Lord Bacon's principles may be applied to the investigation before us. series of well-authenticated facts, reduced to | investigation, theology is the only subjeci one general description, or grouped together that is suffered to remain the victim of preunder some general points of resemblance. judice, and of a contempt the most unjust, The business of the moral as well as of the and the most unphilosophical. natural philosopher is not to assert what he We do not speak of this feeling as an excogitates, but to record what he observes; impiety; we speak of it as an offence against not to amuse himself with the speculations the principles of just speculation. We do of fancy, but to describe phenomena as he not speak of it as it allures the heart from sees or as he feels them. This is the busi- the influence of religion; we speak of it as ness of the moral as well as of the natural it allures the understanding from the influinquirer. We must extend the application ence of evidence and truth. In a word, we of Lord Bacon's principles to moral and are not preaching against it; we reason metaphysical subjects. It was long before against it. We contend that it is a transthis application was recognized, or acted gression against the rules of the inductive upon by philosophers. Many of the conti- philosophy. All that we want is, the apnental speculations are still infected with plication of Lord Bacon's principles to the the presumptuous a priori spirit of the old investigation before us; and as the influschools; though the writings of Reid and ence of prejudice and disgust is banished Stewart have contributed much to chase from every other department of inquiry, away this spirit from the metaphysics of we conceive it fair that it should be banishour own country, and to bring the science ed from theology also, and that our subof mind, as well as matter, under the entire ject should have the common advantage of dominion of the inductive philosophy. a hearing, where no partiality of the heart These general observations we conceive or fancy is admitted, and no other influto be a most direct and applicable introduc-ence acknowledged than the influence of tion to that part of the subject which is evidence over the convictions of the underbefore us. In discussing the evidence of standing. Christianity, all that we ask of our reader is to bring along with him the same sober and inductive spirit, that is now deemed so necessary in the prosecution of the other sciences; to abandon every system of the- According to Bacon, man is ignorant of ology, that is not supported by evidence, every thing antecedent to observation; and however much it may gratify his taste, or there is not a single department of inquiry, regale his imagination, and to admit any in which he does not err the moment that he system of theology, that is supported by abandons it. It is true that the greater evidence, however repugnant to his feelings part of every individual's knowledge is deor his prejudices; to make conviction, in rived immediately from testimony; but it fact, paramount to inclination, or to fancy; is only from testimony that brings home and to maintain, through the whole process to his conviction the observation of others. of the investigation, that strength and in- Still it is observation which lies at the trepidity of character, which will follow bottom of his knowledge. Still it is man wherever the light of argument may con- taking his lesson from the actual condition duct him, though it should land him in con- of the thing which he contemplates; a conclusions the most nauseous and unpalatable. dition that is altogether independent of his We have no time to enter into causes; will, and which no speculation of his can but the fact is undeniable. Many philoso- modify or destroy. There is an obstinacy phers of the present day are disposed to in the processes of nature, which he cannauseate every thing connected with the- not controul. He must follow it. The ology. They associate something low and construction of a system should not be a ignoble with the prosecution of it. They creative, but an imitative process, which regard it, as not a fit subject for liberal in- admits nothing but what evidence assures quiry. They turn away from it with dis- us to be true, and is founded only on the gust, as one of the humblest departments lessons of experience. It is not by the exof literary exertion. We do not say that ercise of a sublime and speculative ingethey reject its evidences, but they evade the nuity that man arrives at truth. It is by investigation of them. They feel no con- letting himself down to the drudgery of viction; not because they have established observation. It is by descending to the the fallacy of a single argument, but be- sober work of seeing, and feeling, and excause they entertain a general dislike at the perimenting. Wherever, in short, he has subject, and will not attend to it. They not had the benefit of his own observation, love to expatiate in the more kindred fields or the observation of others brought home of science or elegant literature; and while to his conviction by credible testimony, the most respectful caution, and humility, there he is ignorant. and steadiness, are seen to preside over This is found to hold true, even in those every department of moral and physical sciences where the objects of inquiry are |