ESSAY II.

Of the Power of Human Reason to judge of the Internal Evidence of Truth in the Doctrines and Precepts of Religion.

As far as we can distinctly trace the manner in which Christianity has commended itself to the obedience and affections of its disciples in these later ages, whether we look to the history of its triumphs over pagan superstition, or obr. serve the grounds upon which the great body of sincere but unlearned Christians amongst our-. selves rest their belief, it will be found that, so far as religion is an object of the reason, (and where it is genuine it must be so to some extent in all men) its internal evidence, or, that character of truth and excellence impressed upon its greater and more prominent doctrines and precepts, forms, to most persons, the chief source of rational conviction, and their firmest ground of reliance. Yet it is very remarkable that several writers, and some of them among the ablest and most zealous defenders of our faith, have, in stating the proofs of our religion, either passed by in silence, or else explicitly and decidedly

rejected, all reference to this head of evidence. Taking this opinion in its full extent, and in the unqualified manner in which it has frequently been stated, it has always appeared to me to be in plain contradiction to common sense, and to all observation and experience. But as the erroneous opinions of wise and honest men upon important subjects of moral and theological speculation, are seldom wholly unmixed with some portion of truth, and are very often the extremes and excess of right rather than positively wrong, it is certainly an interesting and may be a useful inquiry to examine the reasons of this rejection, and to see whether it be not founded in part upon sound principles-whether the arguments by which it is supported do not involve or lead to some valuable truth; and if so, how far, and with what limitations, it may be safe to adopt or modify this conclusion.

The latest, and at present the best known and most popular of these writers, is Dr. Chalmers, who has devoted to the consideration of this question, a whole chapter of his eloquent and ingenious essay on the "Evidence and Authenticity of the Christian Revelation," besides frequently touching upon it or alluding to it in other parts of his work. He appears to be so fully satisfied with the overwhelming force and abundance of the historical argument, and at the same time so deeply im

pressed with the sense of the impotence and vain wanderings of human reason, whenever it aspires to sit in judgment upon the ways of God to man, and to theorize upon, or to anticipate by conjecture, the laws of its Author's providence and government, that he boldly and decidedly hurries on to the conclusion of disclaiming all support from what is commonly understood by the internal evidences of revelation.

"We can reason," says he, "upon the procedure of man in given circumstances, but we have no experience of God. We can reason upon the procedure of man in given circumstances, because that is an accessible subject, and comes under the cognizance of observation; but we cannot reason on the procedure of the Almighty in given circumstances. That is an inaccessible subject, and comes not within the limits of direct and personal observation. We must take our lesson as it comes to us, provided we are satisfied beforehand that it comes from an authentic source. We must set up no presumption of our own against the authority of the unquestionable evidence that we have, and reject all suggestions which our defective experience can furnish, as the follies of a rash and fanciful speculation." "It is not for man to assume what is right, or proper, or natural, for the Almighty to do. It is not in the mere

spirit of piety that we say so-it is in the spirit of the soundest experimental philosophy."*

. These views Dr. Chalmers dilates upon and enforces at large, with his usual fervid and copious logic; arguing from the principles of the Baconian philosophy, which teaches that, as man is ignorant of all things antecedent to observation, it is upon observation alone that true science can ever be founded-from the errors into which the mind blindly plunges the moment it ceases to observe, and begins to excogitate or to theorize-from the past and the present state of all human science, experimentally witnessing and proving this humiliating but salutary truth. Thence he infers that, if caution and humility be esteemed philosophical when employed in our narrow field of investigation, in this low nook of the universe, and "upon this little bank and shoal of time," they should be thought equally so when exercised upon a subjeet so vast, so awful, and so remote from direct and personal observation as the government of God; and that it is accordingly in direct hostility to all true wisdom for beings of a day to assume to sit in judgment upon the Eternal, and to apply their paltry experience to the counsels of his unfathomable wisdom. He therefore maintains

*Chalmer's Evidence and Authenticity, ch, viii.