happiness? Is not supernaturalism, as a faith, necessary to produce that effect? I answer as before, that I can see no necessary connexion between these things; and that I see none such pointed out in the book. The simple truth is represented as the great regenerating agent. "The truth shall make you free," not the origination of that truth. We are taught that he who stands in the field of nature, he who is a law to himself, and acts up to its light,-is "accepted." Much more may he who thus stands in the field of Scripture, and acts up to its light, be accepted. But are we not saved by faith, it may be said. Yes; but we must learn, if we have not yet learnt, that Bible faith is the heart's faith. It is not a belief in miracles; it is not a belief in supernaturalism; it is a belief in truth. And I know, as far as I can know anything from observation, that the deepest and most devoted faith in Jesus, may co-exist with a mode of speculation, that divests his character of everything but its self-evident and soul-entrancing beauty. I may think that it errs; but I should no more think of charging it with vital unbelief and irreligion, than I should the faith of John or Polycarp.

I have thus attempted, in very few words, to assign to the inquiry before us, its proper place in Christianity. Do I then say, that it is of no importance? Certainly not. It is of vast importance, as I conceive, to the body of believers. It is possible for us, no doubt, to penetrate into the heart of Christianity, unaided by any thoughts of its supernatural origin. But such thoughts are fitted justly and powerfully to influence our minds; and therefore, if they be true, they assume at once a high practical importance. Besides; what God hath done to teach his earthly children, it concerns our gratitude and piety to know. Moreover, my own view of the question makes it of greater interest than I have represented it, in justice to those who differ from me. For I conceive that the claim of Jesus and his Apostles, to be the teachers that they were, was avouched by miracles; that all the peculiarity, in kind, that distinguished them from other teachers, is based upon miracles, either of fact or of experience; that their special mission has no other logical support. In fine, and at any rate, the truth, whatever it be, has its own value as truth, and every honest mind will seek to know it. And although I cannot contend for the truth, or what I conceive to be the truth, on this point, as I would contend for the spiritual foundations of religion, yet certainly it is not in-3D S. VOL. VIII. NO. II.

VOL. XXVI.

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different to me, whether I judge rightly of the conditions under which Christianity is presented to me; and this is the question before us.

What, then, are we to understand by a revelation from heaven? Or, in what light do we regard that succession of teachers, and that series of communications, of which we have an account in the Bible?

Now, there are two views of this question, clearly distinguishable, broadly contrasted, and covering the whole ground, that either is, or can be, in controversy. Either the Bible is a revelation, or it is not. Either the teachers were inspired, or they were not inspired. To speak more definitely; either the teachers were sent from God on a special mission to instruct the world, or they were such men, such reformers as are, in every age, springing up from the occasions and exigencies of society. Either the light that was in them, came from an extraordinary influence of heaven, or it came from the natural and unaided operations of their own minds. There is no middle ground. On the one hand, we see a succession of special messengers from God, supernaturally endowed, and clothed with more than human authority; and on the other, we see men, whose claims are, in their kind, to be completely confounded with those of Socrates and Confucius.

Let not this inquiry be mixed up with matters that do not belong to it. The question is not about the degree of the inspiration, the divinity of the style, or the universal infallibility of the teaching. The whole inquiry, the only inquiry of any interest to me, I confess, turns upon a single point. Is there, or is there not, to be recognised in these writings, in these dispensations, the element of supernatural aid? Did they come from God, only as all things come from God, only as the inspiration of genius or the energy of heroism comes from him? or, did they come in some special manner, with traits and signatures not to be found in any of those manifestations? Are these writings but the choice and venerated compositions of their respective ages? or are they special divine communications? In other words, suppose that when God had made the world, and established the laws of the human mind, he had left all things to work out their natural results, had left all to the natural course of his general providence; should we then have had such writings as the Psalms and the Gospels? — should we

then have ever heard of such teachers, in their respective ages, as David and the prophets, as Jesus and the Apostles?

But let me attempt still further to define the idea which I entertain of a revelation. I maintain, certainly, that the element of the supernatural is in it. But I do not say that any supernatural inspiration was requisite to the true narration of facts, histories, miracles. I do not say that every spiritual truth written in the Bible was then first revealed. I do not say that it ever was revealed. Moral first truths are a portion of the original stock of every man's ideas. It is most gratuitous injustice to charge the supernaturalist with saying or implying that these truths are to be reached only through a miraculous revelation. And, on the other hand, it is a mere carelessness in language, on this subject, to talk about a revelation of truth in consciousness. We might as well talk about a revelation of truth in sensation. The ideas of a God and of moral rectitude are pre-supposed in a revelation. When the sacred teacher recognises the truth that there is a God, when he says that God is love, when he says that men ought to love and obey him, he does not teach them that which they do not know, but he takes for granted that which they do know. If this is all that is meant by those who so strenuously insist, that human consciousness interprets and verifies Scripture truth, that there is a light within us which opens a way to that truth, and that it needs no miracle to reveal it, the wonder is, not that they know it, but that they say it. One is tempted to ask where they have lived all this time, amidst what books they have passed their lives, when, upon this recognised doctrine of all ages and of all theologies, they insist as if it were some new discovery of their own, and gave them some new claim to the appellation of Christian believers.*

* A writer in the Boston Quarterly Review affects to be sorry that Professor Norton, in his late most admirable work on the Genuineness of the Gospels, has proved himself to be an infidel! As a chain of reasoning, that work would be most admirable, though it proved the most indifferent thing on earth; but it does establish a point of great importance, and one most pertinent to the matter of Christian belief. I am not at all concerned to point out the disingenuity of that article; I suppose it is sufficiently obvious; but it certainly does surprise me, that a writer, who undertakes to discuss a point in Biblical criticism, should think himself entitled to speak with contempt, of a work in that department, of such extraordinary logical acumen and accurate learning.

This is not at all the question. Nobody ever pretended that it is the office of Scripture to reveal the primary truths of Natural Religion, or the original intuitions of human consciousness. As such it is not a revelation at all. As such it stands on the same ground as the works of Plato or Plotinus. The question is, Is there anything more in the Bible, anything higher, -anything peculiar-anything in it, or connected with it, that commends it to us as a special divine communication? I maintain that there is. First, there is something in it, that does not belong to the province of bare intuition, or of unaided reason; and that is, the relation of certain truths to certain facts. We knew that God is good, that is a truth, but we did not know the fact, that he would take that special interest in the spiritual welfare, in the salvation of the human race, that is taught in the Scriptures. And we did not know the fact, that his goodness would provide for us that future life that is brought to light in his word. These are momentous revelations; and to me I confess that they seem most needful. I might have hoped concerning these things, but without a communication from above, I could scarcely have believed. I should have seen reasons for them, but I should also have seen reasons against them. I could scarcely have expected to carry my confidence on these points, farther than Socrates and Plato did; and their state of mind would, to me, have been extremely unsatisfactory and painful, as it was to them. I should have wanted, as they did, some one to teach me. So needful, indeed, is the communication, that after all teachings, it seems to me that the faith of the Christian world is still most seriously defective on these two points, the paternal and personal relation of God to us, and our consequent filial and individual relation to him, and the overwhelming doctrine of a future life. The mission, the death, and the resurrection of Christ are the grand revelations and pledges of these truths, and the world needs far more deeply to study them than it has done.

In the next place, there is something connected with the Bible communication, which awakens a profound interest, and that is a special divine commission, attested by miracles. I shall consider, under another head, how pertinently miracles are related to this point; but, for the present, I wish to state what, as I conceive, belongs to the nature of the communication. I hold that it was clothed with a special sanction. The sacred teachers did not speak what they thought, with no other reason

229 for its being received, but that they thought so. They were sent, commissioned, authorized to speak. Their warrant was not merely that which the inspiration of genius or piety gives; it was something higher. And even if they had uttered nothing but intuitive truths, it would give an inexpressible interest to those truths to know that God had specially commissioned holy men to utter them, to re-affirm those verities which he had already uttered as oracles in the sanctuary of the human heart. Those verities, too, might have partly faded from the human mind, and needed to be impressed again by the stamp of miracle; I do not say to be revealed, but to be impressed. Besides; what are intuitive truths to other and barbarous ages, may not, to us, be quite so clear. It was far enough from being an intuitive truth to the Jews, that God was equally the Father and Friend of all mankind. It was far enough from being an intuitive truth to the Roman masters of the world, that the subjects and slaves trodden beneath their feet, had equal rights and interests with themselves, before the eye of heaven. And it is far enough from being an intuitive truth to the whole world,-scarcely yet is it a truth to the searching and passionate cry after good, that the suffering and forgiving patience of death, the glorified humiliation of the cross, the triumph of love and meekness, should be the power, to raise the world to purity and happiness.

may,

But be this as it the bare circumstance that the Almighty Being has been pleased to give extraordinary attestation to any truth, must, by itself, be ever a subject of profound interest. It is not an interposition without an object. Amidst rude ages, ever lapsing, on one hand or another, into idolatry and error, before the world, by the aids of freedom and the printing-press, had entered upon the great modern progress of knowledge and happiness, such interposition was most pertinent. And the facts that proclaim it, if they be received in this light, must forever be among the most precious treasures of human knowledge. The mighty shadow of the past is ever spread over us, and comes down upon us as a presence. I feel that the mind of the whole Christian world is, at this moment, impressed, and needfully impressed, by the bare conviction that God has spoken to it. The thunderings of Sinai have not yet died away in the ears of men, and the sighs of the cross, God's altar of sacrifice, are echoed from the stricken, confiding, and comforted hearts of millions. How different is our conviction