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bear upon the mind, which is proof against the considerations to which I have thus adverted.

Here, then, may safely terminate our inquiry into the inspiration of Scripture. We have ascertained that it is the Word of God: and, if we read it attentively, we shall soon find it profitable "for doctrine, "for instruction, for reproof." Let us, therefore, my friend, believe and rejoice "that the grace of God "which bringeth salvation hath thus appeared to all "men; to the end that, denying ungodliness and "worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, "and godlily, in the present world; looking for that "blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of our great "God, and Saviour Jesus Christ." (w)

(w) Tit. ii. 11-13.

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LETTER XI.

On some of the most plausible Objections urged against the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures.

IT has been my object, in the preceding letters, to convince you that the collection of writings received by Christians as sacred and authoritative, are indeed genuine, authentic, and inspired. I shall be happy if this great object be obtained. At all events, I trust I have shown that the Christian religion has the strongest probability in its favour; and, if that be the case, you will at once see that the rejection of it is the height of folly. In the economy of human life we act almost entirely upon probabilities; and in most instances I believe it will be found that the more important the tendency or the result of a particular action or series of actions may be, the slighter need be the preponderance of probability to determine our adopting it. It is probable, for example, that we may be heirs at law to a valuable estate: therefore we examine into the legal instruments which ascertain our title to such estate. It is probable a particular line of conduct will be successful: therefore we pursue it. It is probable a certain commercial speculation will be productive: therefore we put it in practice. It is probable a certain regimen will be highly injurious to our health: therefore we abandon it. It is probable a particular medicine will be beneficial to the constitution: therefore we have recourse

to it. It is probable the house we inhabit will fall: therefore we quit it. And thus it might be shown in a variety of other instances, that where there appears a presumption however low on one side of an inquiry, and none on the other, where there appears a preponderancy however slight in favour of one side,-this determines the point, even in matters of speculation, and usually impels to action in matters of practice. But alas! this wise and prudential rule of conduct is only applied generally in regard to the things of the present world: for although it is probable, nay, infinitely probable, that the Christian religion is true, that the evils against which we are warned in the Bible will be our portion unless we "flee from the wrath to "come," that the ineffable and interminable happiness it promises believers may be ours, unless we thoughtlessly or contemptuously spurn it from us; yet, in direct opposition to the conduct discreet persons adopt in every other concern, men disbelieve the evidence, despise the warnings, laugh at the threatenings, reject the blessings, held out to them in the Scriptures, go through life wrapped in an impenetrable insensibility to eternal things; and at death "rush upon the thick "bosses of God's buckler," and plunge naked into "fierceness and darkness," instead of bathing in those perennial "rivers of pleasure" which flow from the throne of God, and to which the condescending Deity had invited them!

We do not deny that the scheme of revelation has its difficulties for if the things of nature are often difficult to comprehend, it would be strange indeed if

supernatural matters were so simple, and obvious, and suited to finite capacities, as never to startle or puzzle us at all. Origen remarked, with his usual sagacity, that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded "from him who is the Author of Nature, may well

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expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as 66 are found in the constitution of nature:

99 and this obviously suggests the reflection, that he, who denies the Bible to have come from God on account of these difficulties, may, for exactly the same reason, deny that the world was formed by him. Indeed the Bible could not have been, as many declarations included in it show it to be,-a touchstone by which to try men's honest dispositions, (x) were it so free from difficulties that every man's faith would be inevitably excited on the first perusal.

To reject Christianity, therefore, on account of its difficulties, is unreasonable: because it is to reject it for possessing what its own writings declare to be essential to its nature and purpose: and to proceed by way of objections drawn from these difficulties is unfair; because it is walking in a path in which a man can never be stopped unless he please, and in which, though he travel for ever, it is impossible he can arrive at truth and certainty. Let him propose a thousand objections in succession, and suppose nine hundred and ninety-nine of them to be answered satisfactorily; still the one which he retains, and which he supposes to be unanswerable, because he has not received an

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(x) Ut ita sermo evangelii tanquam lapis esset Lydius ad quem ingenia sanabilia explorarentur. Grotius De Ver. Rel. Christ. lib. ii. sect. 19.

answer to it, will be deemed a sufficient plea to justify his continuing incredulous. He will boast of this single objection, though probably the point to which it relates may be one which it is impossible for us to place in a proper light, unless we could see and know as God does. "Many and painful are the researches "usually necessary to be made for settling points of "this kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a ques❝tion in three lines, which it will cost learning and "ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is “ done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been "written upon the subject. And as people in general, "for one reason or another, like short objections bet❝ter than long answers, in this mode of disputation "(if it can be styled such) the odds must ever be 66 against us; and we must be content with those for our friends, who have honesty and erudition, can"dour and patience, to study both sides of the "question." (y)

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You must not, however, infer from these observations, that I wish to avoid all discussion of the objections urged against Scripture. They are, it is true, too'multifarious in their nature to render it possible we should meet them all; and many of them would lead us into too wide a field of inquiry, to admit of their being considered in the compass of a letter. Still it may be proper to select a few which you have probably heard advanced, and to present you with such answers as have been given, or may be given to (y) Horne's Letters on Infidelity, p. 82.

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