r_.

"I wish to be understood as considering Christianity in the
present Essay rather in its relation to the intellect, as
constituting the higher philosophy, than in its far more
important bearing upon the hearts and destinies of us all. I
shall propose the question in this form, 'Is there ground for
believing that the existence of moral evil is absolutely
necessary to the fulfilment of God's essential love for Christ?'
(_i. e._, of the Father for Christ, or of {ho pater} for {ho
logos}).

"'Can man by searching find out God?' I believe not. I believe
that the unassisted efforts of man's reason have not established
the existence and attributes of Deity on so sure a basis as the
Deist imagines. However sublime may be the notion of a supreme
original mind, and however naturally human feelings adhered to
it, the reasons by which it was justified were not, in my
opinion, sufficient to clear it from considerable doubt and
confusion.... I hesitate not to say that I derive from
Revelation a conviction of Theism, which without that assistance
would have been but a dark and ambiguous hope. _I see that the
Bible fits into every fold of the human heart. I am a man, and I
believe it to be God's book because it is man's book._ It is
true that the Bible affords me no additional means of
demonstrating the falsity of Atheism; _if mind had nothing to do
with the formation of the Universe, doubtless whatever had was
competent also to make the Bible_; but I have gained this
advantage, that my feelings and thoughts can no longer refuse
their assent to _what is evidently framed to engage that assent;
and what is it to me that I cannot disprove the bare logical
possibility of my whole nature being fallacious? To seek for a
certainty above certainty, an evidence beyond necessary belief,
is the very lunacy of skepticism_: we must trust our own
faculties, or we can put no trust in anything, save that moment
we call the present, which escapes us while we articulate its
name. _I am determined therefore to receive the Bible as
Divinely authorized, and the scheme of human and Divine things
which it contains, as essentially true._"

"I may further observe, that however much we should rejoice to
discover that the eternal scheme of God--the necessary
completion, let us remember, of his Almigh