because conscious that, even with that aid, the proofs of Christianity are, after all, not more than enough to keep him steadfast to his Redeemer and his God.

But if the believer himself thus think, what can the unbeliever say? He who resists with such pertinacity the combination of both species of evidence, the union both of external and internal proof,—would with double boldness, and with much more reason, have rejected the former, if alone. Had there been no philological and historical difficulties to indicate the age and authors of the Bible, the sceptic would have pressed strongly, upon us the deficiency of those internal marks of genuineness and authenticity which we demand and find in every other work. He would have asked, why the Scriptures differed from every other composition of man, in being deprived of the characteristic features of the periods and countries in which they were said to be produced; and why they were left to work their way to our belief by the mere solitary and unassisted force of external evidence? And what could the Theologian have answered to these questions? Most hopeless would it have been for him to attempt to account for the absence of philological and historical difficulties, by urging the inspiration of the Scriptures as the cause; because the inspi

ration of a work can never be clearly established until its genuineness and authenticity have been allowed. If by first assuming the inspiration of a work its genuineness and authenticity would follow of course; and if by next assuming its genuineness and authenticity, its inspiration might be distinctly shewn; here, indeed, there would be a very high probability of both; but yet no solid proof of either. For in first reasoning for the genuineness of a work from its supposed inspiration, and then for its inspiration from its supposed genuineness, you do but argue in a circle, and, in fact, take for granted both the things to be proved. The Christian, therefore, would be manifestly premature in bringing forward the influence of God's holy Spirit as a means of accounting for the absence from the Scriptures of those philological and historical difficulties, which ought to have been present as a necessary part of the internal proof of their genuineness; because, until that genuineness has been first of all and independently established, the influence of the Spirit is but hypothetical.

Such would have been the effect of the absence of the historical and philological difficulties of Holy Writ. But still more unaccountable and objectionable would have been the absence of those of a mysterious and prophetic nature.

If the predictions of Scripture had been perfectly and universally clear, those already fulfilled would have been objected to as having been written after the event; an accusation which has actually been brought against some whose terms and object are more than commonly explicit. Those which are still to receive their accomplishment would, in like manner, when completed, be censured as having produced their own fulfilment. To the absence of mysteries, too, objections of equal force would have arisen. That God should speak with all the simplicity of a man, and never once introduce an allusion to matters unknown, or too high for man's ordinary perceptions, would have been deemed, and, I think, justly deemed, as inconceivable, as that a philosopher should speak with the homeliness of a rustic, and never once refer to principles of science which were unknown or incomprehensible to the labourer. Had the Scriptures, therefore, been destitute of these "secret things," which reason alone is sufficient to convince us must "belong unto the Lord our God," a strong presumption would have ensued that those who wrote the Scriptures were not the instruments of Heaven for communicating any extraordinary revelation of the Divine will. Speaking always and only as any uninspired men might have spoken, they would with much plausibility have been concluded to be

uninspired; and this conclusion would with much force have been insisted upon, not only as not strengthening, but as actually weakening the external evidence. The internal proof now enjoyed would, had there been no mysteries in Scripture, not only have been wanting, but positively opposed to that of an external kind.

Hence then, it is plain, that had the Bible been composed without its present difficulties, not only would much of its present internal evidence have been removed, but a new difficulty would in some instances have sprung up; whilst, in others, though the external evidences would have been numerically the same, they would have been deprived of much of their present force. The sufficiency of external evidence alone cannot, therefore, be alleged as any satisfactory objection to the existence of those " things hard to be understood" which are directly productive of internal evidence; because, without them, external evidence would sometimes not have been sufficient, and would always, by being weakened, have been rendered less influential upon the mind.

2. The second benefit of which I spoke as to be derived from Scripture difficulties, was that renewed confirmation of our sinking and

wavering faith which the elucidation of difficulties of an extraordinary and more arduous nature affords. I observed that when the direct and positive evidences of Christianity are beginning to lose their effect with their novelty,or to be forgotten in the hurry of life, or to be weakened by the arguments of infidelity, there is nothing which so immediately and decidedly operates to the restoration of our confidence in the Bible, as the explanation of some difficulty which seemed to be an objection to its truth. This benefit, however, may appear to some to be compensated, or perhaps even overbalanced, by the disadvantage of those doubts which difficulties must always create before their elucidation can acquire any great degree of evidential weight.

But is it then required that all causes of doubt should be taken away; or is it only to doubts arising from internal difficulties and

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things hard to be understood," that toleration is refused? If the former be intended; if men demand a demonstration of the truth of revelation so irresistible that perverseness itself cannot find a plea in justification of unbelief, they demand what, in religious matters, would destroy, virtually at least, the freedom of the will, and make life cease to be in intellectual, what it is