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statesmen have failed; that this singular fact should have happened, that the most barbarous people should give to mankind the only intelligible notices of God, and that a dozen Galilean peasants should have devised a scheme of imposture to overthrow all the true, and all the false systems of religion in the world. The infidel moreover deems it probable that there is no God; or that death is an eternal sleep; or that we have no souls; or that man is but an improved and educated ape, or that all virtue is vain, that all vice stands on the same level, and may be committed at any man's pleasure; or that man's wisdom is to disregard the future, and live to eat and drink and die; and all this too, when his conscience tells him there is a God, when he does act for the future, and expects happiness or woe as the reward of virtue or vice; when he is palsied, as he looks at the grave, with fears of what is beyond, and turns pale in solitude as he looks onward to the bar of God. Now we hazard nothing in saying, that the man who is compelled to act as the infidel is, who has all these probabilities to cheer him with the belief that infidelity is true, and this when it has no system to recommend as truth, and when it stands opposed to all the analogy of things, is engaged in a most singular employment, when he denounces men for acting on the probability that there is a heaven, a God, a Savior, and a hell. It seems to us that there is nothing more at war with all the noble and pure feelings of the soul, than this at-tempt to "swing man from his moorings," and send him on wild and tumultuous seas, with only the infidel's probability that he will ever reach a haven of rest. It is lanching into an ocean-without a belief that there is an ocean; and weathering storms, without professing to believe that there may be storms; and seeking a port of peace, without believing that there is such a port, and acting daily with reference to the future, at the same time that all is pronounced an absurdity. And when we see all this, we ask instinctively, can this be man? Or is this being right after all, in the belief that he is only a semi-barbarous ape, or a half-reclaimed man of the woods?

But we are gravely told, and with an air of great seeming wisdom, that all presumption and experience are against the miraculous facts in the New Testament. And it was, for some time, deemed proof of singular philosophical sagacity in Hume, that he made the discovery, and put it on record to enlighten mankind. For our part, we think far more attention was bestowed on this sophistry than was required; and but for the show of confident wisdom with which it was put forth, we think the argument of Campbell might have been spared. It might safely be admitted, we suppose, that all presumption and experience, were against miracles before they were wrought,-and this is no more than saying that they were not wrought before they were. The plain matter of

fact, apart from all labored metaphysics, is, that there is a presumption against most facts until they actually take place, because till that t'me all experience was against them. Thus there were many presumptions against the existence of such a man as Julius Cæsar. No man would have ventured to predict that there would be such a man. There were a thousand probabilities that a man of that name would not live-as many that he would not cross the Rubicon-as many that he would not enslave his country-and as many that he would not be slain by the hand of such a man as Brutus,--and all this was contrary to experience. So there were innumerable improbabilities, in regard to the late Emperor of France. It was once conteinplated, we are told, by a living poet who afterwards wrote his life in a different place, to produce a biography grounded on the improbabilities of his conduct, and showing how, in fact, all those improbabilities disappeared in the actual result. The world stood in amazement indeed for a few years at the singular grandeur of his movements. Men saw him ride, as the spirit of the storm, on the whirlwind of the revolution; and like the spirit of the tempest, amazed and trembling nations, knew not where his power would strike, or what city or state it would next sweep into ruin. But the world has since become familiar with the spectacle, men have seen that he was naturally engendered by the turbid elements-that he was the proper creation of the revolution-and that if he had not lived, some other master spirit like him would have seized the direction of the tempest, and poured its desolations on bleeding and trembling Europe. So any great discovery in science or art, is previously improbable and contrary to experience. We have often amused ourselves with contemplating what would have been the effect on the mind of Archimides, had he been told of the power of one of the most common elements,—an element which men who see boiling water must always see-its mighty energy in draining deep pits in the earth, in raising vast rocks of granite, in propelling vessels with a rapidity and beauty of which the ancients knew nothing, and in driving a thousand wheels in the minutest and most delicate works of art. To the ancient world all this was contrary to experience, and all presumption was against it, as improbable certainly as that God should have power to raise the dead; and we doubt whether any evidence of divine revelation would have convinced mankind three thousand years ago, without the actual experiment, of what the school-boy may now know as a matter of sober and daily occurrence, in the affairs of the world. So not long since, the Copernican system of astronomy was so improbable, that for maintaining it, Galileo endured the pains of the dungeon. All presumption and all experience it was thought were against it. Yet by the discoveries of Newton, it has been made, to the great mass of man

kind, devoid of all its improbabilities, and children acquiesce in its reasonableness. So the oriental king could not be persuaded that water could ever become hard. It was full of improbabilities, and contrary to all experience. The plain matter of fact, is, that in regard to all events in history, and all discoveries in science, and inventions in the mechanic arts, there may be said to be a presumption against their existence, just as there was in regard to miracles; and they are contrary to all experience, until discovered, just as miracles are, until performed. And if this be all that infidelity has to affirm in the boasted argument of Hume, it seems to be ushering into the world, with very unnecessary pomp, a very plain truism, that a new fact in the world is contrary to all experience, and this is the same as saying that a thing is contrary to experience until it actually is experienced.

We have another remark to make on this subject. It relates to the ease with which the improbabilities of a case may be overcome by testimony. We doubt not that the wonders of the steam power may be now credited by all mankind, and we who have seen its application in so many forms, easily believe that it may accomplish similar wonders in combinations which the world has not yet witnessed. The incredulity of the age of Galileo on the subject of astronomy, has been overcome among millions who cannot trace the demonstrations of Newton, and who perhaps have never heard hisname. It is by testimony only that all this is done; and on the strength of this testimony, man will hazard any worldly interest. He will circumnavigate the globe, not at all deterred by the fear that he may find in distant seas or lands, different laws from those which the Copernican system supposes. We do not see why, in like manner, the improbabilities of religion may not vanish before testimony; and its high mysteries in some advanced period of our existence, become as familiar to us, as the common facts which are now the subjects of our daily observation. Nor can we see why the antecedent difficulties of religion may not as easily be removed by competent proof, as those which appalled the minds of men in the grandeur of the astronomical system, or the mighty power of the

arts.

We wish here briefly to notice another difficulty of infidelity. It is, that it is altogether improbable and against the analogy of things, that the Son of God, the equal of the Father of the universe, should stoop to the humiliating scenes of the mediation,--should consent to be cursed, reviled, buffeted, and put to death. We answer, men are very incompetent judges of what a Divine Being may be willing to endure. Who would suppose, beforehand, that God would submit to blasphemy and rebuke? Yet what being has been ever more calumniated? Who has been the object of more scorn? What is the daily offering that goes up from the wide world to the

Maker of all worlds? Not a nation that does not daily send up a dense cloud of obscenity and profaneness as their offering.

"The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
"Shout to each other; and the mountain tops
"From distant mountains catch the flying" curse,
Till nation after nation taught the strain,
"Earth rolls the" awful malediction "round."

Scarce a corner of a street can be turned, but our ears are saluted with the sound of blasphemy-curses poured on Jehovah, on his Son, on his Spirit, on his creatures, on the material universe, on his law. To our minds, it is no more strange that the Son of God should bear reproach, and pain, with patience for thirty years, than that the God of creation should bear all this from age to age, and as an offering from the wide world. We have only to reflect on what the blasphemer would do if God should be embodied, and reveal himself to the eye in a form so that human hands might reach him with nails, and spears, and mock diadems, to see an illustration of what they actually did do, when his Son put himself in the power of blasphemers, and refused not to die. The history of the blasphemer has shown that if he had the power, long ago the last gem in the Creator's crown would have been plucked away; his throne would have crumbled beneath him; his sceptre been wrested from his hand; and the God of creation, like his Son in redemption, would have been suspended on a "great central" cross! When we see the patience of God towards blasphemers, our minds are never staggered by any condescension in the Redeemer. We see something in the analogy, so unlike what we see among men, that we are strongly confirmed in the belief that they are a part of one great system of things.

We have thus presented a specimen of the nature of the argument from analogy. Our design has been to excite to inquiry, and to lead our readers to cultivate a practical acquaintance with this great work. We deem it a work of principles in theology—a work to be appreciated only by those who think for themselves, and who are willing to be at the trouble of carrying out these materials for thought into a daily practical application to the thousand difficulties, which beset the path of christians in their own private reflections, in the facts which they encounter, and in the inuendos, jibes, and blasphemies of infidels. We know, indeed, that the argument is calculated to silence rather than to convince. In our view this is what, on this subject, is principally needed. The question in our minds is rather, whether we may believe there is a future state, than whether we must believe it. Sufficient for mortals, we think is it, in their wanderings, their crimes, and their sorrows, if they may believe there is a place where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary may be forever at rest; and if the thousand

shades of doubt on that subject which thicken on the path of man, and which assume a deeper hue by infidel arts, may be removed. We ask only the privilege of believing that there is a world of purity; that the troubled elements of our chaotic abode may settle down into rest; and that from the heavings of this moving sea there may arise a fair moral system complete in all its parts, where God shall be all in all, and where all creatures may admire the beauty of his moral character, and the grandeur of his sovereign control. We watch the progress of this system, much as we may suppose a spectator would have watched the process of the first creation. At first this now solid globe was a wild chaotic mass. Darkness and commotion were there. There was a vast heaving deep-a boundless commingling of elements-a dismal terrific wild. Who, in looking on that moving mass, would have found evidence that the beauty of Eden would so soon start up on its surface, and the fair proportions of our hills, and vales, and streams, would rise to give support to millions of animated and happy beings. And with what intensity would the observer behold the light bursting on chaos-the rush of waters to their deep caverns-the uprising of the hills clothed with verdure, inviting to life and felicity. With what beauty would appear the millions sporting with new-created life in their proper elements. Myriads in the heaving ocean and gushing streamsmyriads melodious in the groves-myriads joyful on a thousand hills, and in a thousand vales. How grand the completion of the system-man lord of all, clothed with power over the bursting millions, the priest of this new creation rendering homage to its Great Sovereign Lord, and "extolling him first, him midst, and him without end." Like beauty and grandeur, we expect will come out of this deranged moral system. Our eye loves to trace its developement. With tears we look back on "Paradise Lost ;" with exultation we trace the unfolding elements of a process that shall soon exhibit the beauty and grandeur of "Paradise Regained."

Our limits compel us here to close. There is still a most important part of the subject untouched-the analogy of the christian scheme as we understand it, to the course of nature, and the fact that all the objections urged against Calvinism lie against the actual order of events. This part of the argument, Butler has not touched. To this, we propose in our next number, to call the attention of our readers-in some respects the most interesting and important part of "the analogy of religion natural and revealed, to the constitution and course of nature."

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