no force in the one case, so neither are they in the other."

It may, therefore, be the trial most appropriate to our state of probation, that some of the evidences of Christianity should be thought liable to objections, which, though trifling in themselves, when discussed, yet may puzzle an inexperienced mind, and may carry it off from truth and holiness.

The state of things as to the evidences of Christianity, is precisely what it is as to many of the most important truths of natural religion. They do not all lie upon the surface, some of them are open to many exceptions, they are collected only from the whole of a series of considerations, are of little weight unless men will be serious, devout, attentive; they are not seen, if men will begin on the side of objections."

Indeed, the human mind is so constituted, or is so weakened since the fall, that moral and religious truth can be received in no other way than by beginning with positive evidences, and overlooking objections and difficulties. The mind can always frame subtilties, perceive obstacles, present plausible sophisms. Something may always be said by a perverse or weak or over-curious disputant. But why did I say, in moral

18 Butler.

19 We see, in fact, from the Scriptures, that objections were ever made against truth. The history of the Jews is a history of the cavils and difficulties advanced by that people against Moses and Samuel, and the other prophets. The gospels abound with the discourses of our Lord against the objections of the Jews of his day. The Acts and the Epistles are much engaged in answering or silencing the vain disputations of men. The language of St. Peter, in the passage which I read as my text, is conclusive on the same subject. The scoffers are there described, first, in their moral state-they walk after their own lusts; and then in their objections against Christianityand saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they did from the creation of the world. All this goes to prove that vain reasonings are to be expected as a trial of our faith.

and religious questions ?-in every question, in matters even of conscience, as we before observed, the fruitful mind of man can excite a host of imaginations. It is one of our primary duties to Almighty God, to subdue these treacherous risings of our minds, to view a great question like Christianity, in its right light, to begin with plain matters of fact in its historical proofs, to leave difficulties and speculative reasonings till the student, being well furnished with knowledge and imbued with the spirit of Christianity, is able to cope with them safely.

Thus, on the whole, these objections are clearly only trials of our sincerity and submission of heart to God. They are really in favour of the Evidences of our faith. That Christianity should seem open to them, is an argument that it is a part of the same divine government which lies open to the same objections in the natural order of the world. That men should be exposed to them, is an argument to prove the divine origin of the Revelation: all is consistent and harmonious in the manifestations of the same glorious God to man.

And when the nature of the reasonings against Revelation is considered, the argument turns yet more entirely in favour of the religion they would oppose.

For we may be sure that every thing that can be urged against so holy and sublime a Revelation as Christianity, has been diligently sought for. We have all that can be said. If then the objections of unbelievers amount to nothing more than a certain number of speculative difficulties, which might as easily be raised against natural religion, as against Revelation; if it appears that these objections are bottomed upon mere airy opinions of the human mind; if, besides the vanity of the objections in themselves, they are directed to a wrong point, and are altogether inadmissible, so long as the mass of historical evidences remains untouched; if, moreover, they

are full of contradictions and inconsistencies; and after all, are frivolous and futile,-if all this be so, then I say, such objections rather confirm than weaken the Christian evidences-then I say, it is no small argument in favour of Christianity, that after two thousand years, nothing solid, nothing tangible, nothing resting upon facts, should be substantiated against it.

Nay, I assert further, that such vapid objections turn completely against those who advance them, because, whilst they make nothing against the evidences of Christianity, which they do not venture to touch, and as little against its contents, which they cannot shake they leave all the facts unaccounted for which have existed before the eyes of men, in all ages, and stare every man full inthe face, in the present. Infidelity, whilst framing speculations against Christianity, leaves her own citadel undefended. We take her up on her own ground. We ask her, supposing her objections to be granted, and Christianity to be accounted not of divine authority, Whence the religion arose ? Who were the authors of it? What was its origin? Who was its founder? What gave success to the unarmed apostles? What made the weakest and most despised of causes to triumph over the most powerful and most honoured? What produced the greatest revolution in the human mind which the world ever witnessed,the overthrow of heathenism, and the establishment of Christianity? What has preserved the religion, and carried on its triumphs to the present hour? What has infused into its inward frame-work such an adaptation to the state and wants of man-such a sublimity of doctrine-such a purity of morals-such a beneficial tendency? What accounts for the preeminent holiness and loveliness of the character of Christ? What gives the religion the actual glory and efficacy of which every humble inquirer may make a trial upon himself, and in his own case?

The credulity of unbelief is the most extraordinary of all phenomena in the moral world. It can repose on mere speculative objections, in the teeth of history and experience; and yet it can believe all the absurdities and impossibilities which the consequences of rejecting Revelation bring with them! It can reject all the mighty credentials of Revelation, on the footing of imaginary difficulties; and yet it can believe that Christianity had no founder, no origin, no cause, no author-but was the product of chance and accident!

No! such objections prove the truth of the religion which they impugn; such reasonings go to confirm the evidences they would destroy. The weapons of unbelief are thus wrested from its feeble grasp, and are turned against itself. Our foes fall by their own arms. Infidelity cannot stand, if left to its own cause. Its suicidal hand inflicts the mortal blow. Never was there such a case as that of infidelity exhibited before the eyes of mankind. Let the young and candid inquirer judge.

Christianity comes forth surrounded with facts, historical proofs, an apparatus of magnificent miracles, a series of prophecies fulfilling before the eyes of mankind a supernatural propagation and preservation of the gospel in the world, prominent and obvious good effects as to every thing that touches human happiness: Infidelity comes forth with petty objections, speculative reasonings, vain imaginations. Christianity invites you to believe on far stronger grounds of faith than men are governed by every day: Infidelity tempts you to disbelieve, on grounds which no single human being ever acted upon in common life. Christianity draws her arguments not from mere human reasonings, but from God, from facts, from experience, from the plainest dictates of moral duty, from proofs tangible and level to our capacity of judging: Infidelity draws her objections from the corrupt heart of man,

from theory, from conjecture, from the plainest contradictions to common sense, from reasonings out of our reach and beyond our capacities. Christianity calls on us to obey her Revelation, as the remedy of our maladies, and a stupendous salvation from eternal death; and makes all her discoveries and mysteries intelligible and simple in respect to our duties and wants: Infidelity calls us to speculation and presumption; denies the malady; concerns herself with finding fault with the mysteries which she will not apply aright, and leaves man without salvation, without guidance, without consolation, without hope—a wanderer in the wilderness of the world.

Such is the real character of Infidel objections, or rather, such are the arguments in favour of Christianity, which objections so weak and unreasonable furnish.

What, then, practically, is the hold which such objections have of men? How is it that they still prevail with so many? Whence is it that infidelity, with such a miserable destitution of argument, still triumphs so widely amongst the young? The answer is, that the objections fix themselves in unfurnished and vain minds; that they follow upon vicious habits; that they are the judicial infliction of the provoked Spirit of God; that they carry off those who have no real hold of Christianity; that they are the great stratagem of the spiritual adversary; that they are the most fatal product of the corrupt and proud reason of a fallen creature.

Let us, in conclusion, touch on these topics.

I. I say these wretched sophisms of infidelity FIX

THEMSELVES IN UNFURNISHED AND VAIN MINDS.

Curiosity, admiration of mere talents, the love of novelty, the prurient desire to know what unbelievers have to say, open the mind to the arts of the scoffer. Men are unfurnished with the full knowledge of the