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IT would be superfluous to expatiate on the excellences of a work so well known as Dr. Paley's Evidences. But it appeared to me desirable to republish it with some additions, in order to meet the new shapes (though without any substantial novelty) which opposition to the Gospel has of late years assumed. As was observed by an able Writer in the Cautions for the Times (No. 28), 'Infidelity—or at least that approach to Infidelity, the absence of a well-grounded and firm belief-is among the chief causes of the present evils under which we suffer. Men's faith was not fixed upon that foundation of rational evidence upon which Christ and his Apostles placed it. No proportionate care was taken to make men's knowledge of that evidence keep pace with the advance of their knowledge of other things; and then, when doubts began to spread, it was sought to restore or to confirm belief, by appealing to the imagination and the feelings, rather than to the reason. Those who hardly agreed in any thing else, agreed in dreading to take the only safe course. While one party told men to trust the Church on its own word, and the other to trust the Scripture without one intelligible reason for believing it divine, what wonder is it that so many have made up their minds to trust neither, and so many more are vainly struggling to maintain a firm faith without a firm foundation for it?

'The strength indeed of the Infidel is in our weakness and folly; and it is our groundless fears which make him formidable. For, the truth is, that against the substance of Christianity itself, as distinguished from human perversions of it, modern Infidelity-however it may boast of new discoveries

-has nothing more to say than has been said and refuted a thousand times. It may seem to present a terrible form in the obscurity which German metaphysics have thrown around it; but upon a nearer view, the spectre will resolve itself into the old worn-out clothes of Collins, and Toland, and Chubb, and Hume, which are now too soiled and threadbare to be exhibited openly in the day-light.'

To Paley's Evidences, and his Hora Pauline, and to the little book of Introductory Lessons on Christian Evidences, published several years ago, no answer, as far as I know and believe, has ever been brought forward. The opponents of Christianity always choose their own position; and the position they choose is always that of the assailant. They bring forward objections; but never attempt to defend themselves against the objections to which they are exposed.

The cause of this it is easy to perceive. Objections-not only plausible, but real, valid, and sometimes unanswerable objections may be brought against what is nevertheless true, and capable of being fully established by a preponderance of probability;-by showing that there are more and weightier objections on the opposite side. If, therefore, any one can induce you to attend to the objections on one side only, wholly overlooking the (perhaps weightier) opposite ones, he may easily gain an apparent triumph. A barrister would have an easy task if he were allowed to bring forward all that could be said against the party he was opposed to, and to pass over in silence all that could be urged on the other side, as not worth answering.

And many of the best-established and universally admitted historical facts might in this way be assailed, by showing that they are in many respects very improbable. The history, for instance, of Napoleon Bonaparte has been shown to contain a much greater amount of gross and glaring improbabilities than any equal portion of Scripture-history; or perhaps even than all the Scripture-Narratives together. And yet all believe it; because the improbability of its being an entire fabrication is incalculably greater.

And practically, all reasonable men proceed on the maxim of an ancient Greek author, which is repeatedly cited by Aris

totle; that 'it is probable that many improbable things will happen.'

Indeed, were it not so, every intelligent and well-informed man would be a prophet. By an extensive study of History, and observation of Mankind, he would have learned to judge accurately what kind of events are probable. And if nothing ever happened at variance with probabilities,—if every thing was sure to turn out conformably to reasonable expectations (which is just what is always assumed by anti-christian writers), then such a person might sit down and write a prospective history of the next century; and do this as easily and as correctly as he could write a history of the last century: even as astronomers can calculate forwards the eclipses that are to come, as easily as they can calculate backwards those that are past.

Let those objectors then, who are merely objectors, try the experiment of writing a conjectural prophetic history. Their histories, I conceive, would be found a good deal at variance with each other; and all of them, when the time arrived, at variance with the events.

Of those who profess Christianity in a certain 'non-natural sense,' while disbelieving what is commonly understood by that word, there are two principal sects, usually called the Mythic and the Naturalist; both of which arose in Germany (where, however, they are now out of fashion), but which are patronized by some English and American writers. The Mythics represent the whole of the Scripture History as a series of Parables, never designed to be believed as literally true, any more than Esop's Fables, though intended (like them) to convey some moral lessons. The Naturalists, on the contrary, maintain the general truth of the history, but explain the miraculous portions of it as natural events. A person, for instance, supposed to be dead, but in reality in a trance, happened to awake just when Jesus approached: a storm happened to abate at a critical moment: a fever-patient recovered health, and a blind man, sight, through the force of enthusiastic emotion: the five thousand, and the four thousand, were fed with bread which some of their number had brought with them: Jesus waded through a shallow part of the lake, and was supposed to be walking on the water: &c.

These systems, which are about equal in point of reasonableness, are as much opposed to each other as they are to ordinary Christianity. The Naturalists point out the absurdity of imagining that a party of Galilæan peasants giving out that they were messengers from Heaven, and reciting moral tales and maxims, could have ever been listened to, and could have induced great multitudes, both of Jews and of Gentiles, to contemn what they had been accustomed to hold most sacred, to forfeit what they held most dear, and to encounter bitter persecution in their cause. And the Mythics, again, expose the monstrous absurdity of the explanations framed by their opponents.1

I cannot but think there is much truth in what is said by each of these parties; that is, that each are fully borne out in what they say of the opposite.

There are some persons however, who, from various causes, deprecate the study of christian-evidences altogether, or at least would confine it to an exceedingly small number of learned men whose inclinations and opportunities have led them to devote their lives to it. I have heard even men of good sense in other points, remark that to investigate all the reasons for and against the reception of Christianity would be more than the labor of a whole life; and that therefore all except perhaps some five or six out of every million, had better not trouble themselves at all about the matter. It is very strange that it should fail to occur to any man of good sense, that it may be possible, and easy, and, in many cases, highly desirable, to have sufficient reasons for believing what we do believe; though these reasons may not be the twentieth part of what might be adduced, if there were any need for it. Any one of us, for instance, may be fully convinced, and on very good grounds, that he was in such and such places yesterday, and saw such and such persons, and said and did so and so. But all the evidence that might be collected of all this-supposing, for instance, that this was needful, with a view to some

1 In the Annotation on Part 2, ch. i. vol. i., I have offered some remarks on the advantage afforded to the advocates of these extravagances by the rash language of some enthusiasts.

* See Cautions for the Times, Nos. 11, 12.

trial that was going on-would perhaps fill a volume. Suppose, for example, you had to repel some charge by proving an alibi ; what a multitude of circumstances, and what a crowd of witnesses, you might bring forward to prove that you really were in such a place at such a time!

In every case, except perhaps the one case of religion, every one would perceive the absurdity of refusing to attend to any reasons at all, because there might be a multitude of other reasons also, which we had not the power, or the leisure to investigate. And since therefore it has pleased the All-wise to create Man a rational animal, and there is always some cause, though often a very absurd one, for any one's believing or disbelieving as he does, and since on all subjects men are often led to reject valuable truths, and to assent to mischievous falsehoods, it is surely an important part of education that men should be trained in some degree to weigh evidence, and to distinguish good reasons from sophistry, in any department of life, and not least in what concerns religion.

But when the mass of the unlearned people (it has been said) do believe in a true religion, no matter on what grounds, it is better to let them alone in their uninquiring faith, than to agitate and unsettle their minds by telling them about evidences. They should be kept in ignorance, we are told, that the truth of Christianity was ever doubted by any one; that is, they must be kept in ignorance not only of the world around them, but of all books of history, including the Bible. It has even been publicly maintained in a work which was the organ of a powerful and numerous party in our Church, that an ignorant rustic who believes Christianity to be true, merely because he has been told so by those he looks up to as his superiors, has a far better ground for his belief than Paley or Grotius, or any other such writer. Now this is the ground on which the ancient and the modern Pagans, and the Mahometans, rest their absurd faith, and reject the Gospel. The evidence therefore which has proved satisfactory to the most enlightened Christians is, it seems, absolutely inferior to that which is manifestly and notoriously good for nothing!

Yet it is possible that some of those who speak thus may really believe that Christianity itself can stand the test of evi