of them, and receive an account of their conduct upon some particular occasion, we give our unhesitating belief at once, if the account coincides with that abstract view which we have taken of their characters. But if the history recounted to us varies very considerably from or is directly opposed to our view of them, we refuse our immediate belief, and wait for further evidence. Thus, if we hear that a friend, in whose integrity we have perfect confidence, has committed a dishonest action, we place our former knowledge of our friend in opposition to the testimony of our informer, and we anxiously look for an explanation. Before our minds are easy on the subject, we must either discover some circumstance in the action which may bring it under the general principle which we have formed with regard to his character, or else we must form to oursevles some new general principle which will explain it.

We reason in the same way of the intelligence of actions as we do of their morality.When we see an object obtained by means of a plan evidently adapted for its accomplishment, we refer the formation of the plan to design. We reason in this case also from the cause to the effect; and we conclude, that a strong intelligence, when combined with a desire after a particular object, will form and execute some plan adapted to the accomplishment of that particular object. An ambitious man of talents will, we are sure, fix his desires on some particular situation of eminence, and

will form some scheme fitted for its attainment. If an intimate and judicious friend of Julius Cæsar had retired to some distant corner of the world, before the commencement of the political career of that wonderful man, and had there received an accurate history of every circumstance of his conduct, how would he have received it? He would certainly have believed it; and not merely because he knew that Cæsar was ambitious, but also because he could discern that every step of his progress, as recorded in the history, was adapted with admirable intelligence to accomplish the object of his ambition. His belief of the history, therefore, would rest on two considerations,-first, that the object attributed by it to Cæsar corresponded with the general principle under which he had classed the moral character of Cæsar; and, secondly, that there was evident, through the course of the history, a perfect adaptation of means to an end, He would have believed just on the same principle that compelled Archimedes to believe the history of the steam-boat.

In all these processes of reasoning, we have examples of conviction, upon an evidence which is most strictly speaking, internal,—an evidence altogether independent of our confidence in the veracity of the narrator of the facts.

Surely, then, in a system which purports to be a revelation from heaven, and to contain a history of God's dealings with men, and to develop truths with regard to the moral government of the universe, the knowledge and belief of which will lead to happiness here and here

after, we may expect to find (if its pretensions are well-founded) an evidence for its truth, which shall be independent of all external testimony. But what are the precise principles on which the internal evidence for or against a Divine revelation of religion must rest? We

cannot have any internal evidence on a subject which is in all its parts and bearings and relations entirely new to us; because, in truth, the internal evidence depends solely on our knowledge that certain causes are followed by certain effects: Therefore, if a new train of causes and effects perfectly different from any thing which we have before known, be presented to us, all our notions of probability, all our anticipations of results, and all our references to causes, by which we are accustomed to judge of theories and histories, become utterly useless. In the hypothetical case of Archimedes deciding on the story of the steam-boat, the judgment which he may be supposed to have given was grounded on his belief that similar causes would produce similar effects, and on his experience that the causes which the traveller specified were actually followed in nature by the effects which he specified. The philosopher had never seen this particular combination of causes; but he knew each distinct cause, with its distinct train of consequents; and thus he anticipated the general result of the combination.

So also the credit attached to the narrative of Cæsar's exploits, by his distant friend, was grounded on the conviction that ambition would lead Cæsar to aim at empire, and on the know

ledge that this object could not be attained except by that course which Cæsar pursued. Although the circumstances were new, he could almost have predicted, from analogy, that, whether the design proved finally successful or not, Cæsar would certainly form the design, and construct some such plan for its accomplish

ment.

Our acquaintance, then, with certain causes as necessarily connected with certain effects, and our intuitive conviction that this same connexion will always subsist between these causes and effects, form the basis of all our just anticipations for the future, and of all our notions of probability and internal evidence, with regard to the systems or histories, both physical and moral, which may be presented to us.

If, then, the subject matter of Divine revelation be entirely new to us, we cannot possibly have any ground on which we may rest our judgment as to its probability. But is this the case with that system of religion which is called Christianity? Is the object which it has in view an entirely new object? Is the moral mechanism which it employs for the accomplishment of that object, different in kind from that moral mechanism which we ourselves set to work every day upon our fellow creatures whose conduct we wish to influence in some particular direction, or from that by which we feel ourselves to be led in the ordinary course of Providence? Is the character of the Great Being to whose inspiration this system is ascribed, and whose actions are recorded by it, en

tirely unknown to us, except through the medium of this revelation? Far from it. Like Archimedes in the case which I have supposed, we have never before seen this particular combination of causes brought to bear on this particular combination of results; but we are acquainted with each particular cause, and we can trace its particular train of consequents; and thus we can understand the relation between the whole of the combined causes and the whole of the combined results.

The first faint outline of Christianity presents to us a view of God operating on the characters of men through a manifestation of his own character, in order that, by leading them to participate in some measure of his moral likeness, they may also in some measure participate of his happiness. Every man who believes in the existence of a Supreme Moral Governor, and has considered the relations in which this belief places him, must have formed to himself some scheme of religion analogous to that which I have described. The indications of the Divine character, in nature, and providence, and conscience, were surely given to direct and instruct us in our relations to God and his creatures. The indications of his kindness have a tendency to attract our gratitude, and the indications of his disapprobation to check and alarm us. We infer that his own character truly embodies all those qualities which he approves, and is perfectly. free from all which he condemns. The man who adopts this scheme of natural religion,