deists and infidels, knew the nature and value of their objections, and had found that I was much better acquainted with this class of writers than many of their most ardent followers whom I had known. It was this consideration that had induced me, with such confidence, to enter upon the present discussion, knowing, on the one hand, the strength of Christianity, and, on the other, the weakness of its assailants, especially of those with whom I had originally undertaken the discussion. To show you, therefore, I said, the grounds on which I demand your attention to what I may say on the nature and evidences of Christianity, I shall mention the names of some of the authors whose works I have read or consulted. When I had mentioned all their names, Lord Byron asked me if I had read Barrow's and Stillingfleet's works. I said I had seen them, but that I had not read them.

The task, I said, that I had undertaken was attended with some peculiar difficulties; that I should have to talk of a change in my own mind and feelings, which I was conscious they had never felt in theirs, and that I could only convince them of this, not in the way of direct demonstration, but by testimony and analogy. The in which this discussion was to be conducted,

way

required on their part so much reading and reflection, and the knowledge of so many facts, of which I believed most of them were ignorant, that no other way of overcoming the difficulty presented itself, than by their giving their undivided attention to what was said. I requested them, for the first hour, not to consider themselves as disputants in the cause, or called upon to marshal arguments and invent objections, while I was speaking; but to divest themselves, if possible, of all prejudices and prepossessions, and to conceive themselves as about to give an honest judgment in a cause, the evidence in which would be clearly laid before them. Or, if they would divest themselves of all feelings of interest, their judgment would be more impartial, could they consider the question in an abstract point of view; as one, for instance, of mere science or philosophy. After I had finished all my preliminary observations, I would pledge myself to refute every objection which could be made against the Scriptures, by showing that those objections were not founded on fact, but on assumptions, suppositions, and conjectures, or on mere propositions without proof. I said that the truth of the Scriptures was as susceptible of demonstration as any

66

proposition in Euclid," though by a different kind of evidence, and by a different process of reasoning; and that the truth or falsehood of the Scriptures would produce the same unerring conviction, provided we would, or could, study the evidence with the same coolness, and freedom from prepossession, with which a mathematical problem can be stated, and its falsehood or truth demonstrated. The force of evidence does not depend upon the statement of the evidence itself; for a chain of evidences might be stated with the utmost conceivable precision and accuracy: yet if the hearer listen to it with inattention, forgetting, or not hearing, some of its most important points, and yet set himself to give his opinion, it is obvious, that his being right or wrong in his judgment does not depend upon the pure exercise of his reason. Besides this, if the hearer be incapable, from want of attention or capacity, to comprehend the nature and force of the evidence presented before him; if his conclusion be erroneous, as it must of necessity be, we have no right to blame the faculty of reason, or accuse the evidence of imperfection or obscurity. The power of evidence, therefore, to produce conviction, depends not merely on its own nature, but also on

the perfect attention and the perfect capacity of understanding it by the hearer; and where these qualities are combined, the conclusion is exempt from error. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find men who can thus divest themselves of all bias and feeling in matters relating to the religion in which their hopes and fears are necessarily concerned; yet this proceeds not from any defect in the evidence, but from the imperfection and prejudices of the human mind. Some are so sensible of these difficulties, and of the apparent impossibility of examining the subject with perfect coolness and impartiality, that they attempt to justify themselves for the total neglect of it, by throwing the blame on the difficulty and obscurity of the subject, instead of confining it, as they should do, to themselves. The nature of religion, directed to a being like man, born and educated in imperfection, and prejudice, and error, may appear, at first sight, not to have a foundation in the nature of things so clear and demonstrable as that of the mathematical sciences; but an attentive consideration of the subject will convince any one who examines it rightly, that the evidence of the truth of Christianity rests on a foundation as certain, and produces a more permanent and internal conviction, than that of any truth whatever, whether

moral, physical, or mathematical. In fact, this should be the case, judging from the nature of all things a priori; for the Creator of the minds of men, and of all material existence, can, as he is omnipotent, and must, we should infer from his attributes, give a revelation,—if he gave one at all, with that fulness of evidence which is perfect in its kind and degree, and capable of producing, when properly examined and understood, as perfect a conviction, as can be felt for any other abstract truth which we may please to call mathematical or scientific. To suppose that there is any imperfection in the nature of the evidence which he has given of the revelation of his will, is to suppose the Deity either imperfect in his attributes, or imperfect in the manifestations which he gives of them to his creatures.

There are two ways, I said, in which the discussion may be conducted. The first, by commencing with what is called the external evidence for the truth of the Scriptures, and then examining the internal; the second, by exactly reversing this order. The first method, which opens into a wide, varied, and no doubt interesting field of observation, and which requires or implies an extensive course of reading, is less adapted to our present meeting than the latter; and were I to