appealed to miracles was owing neither to their ignorance nor their
doubt of the facts, it is, at any rate, an objection not to the truth of
the history, but to the judgment of its defenders.

CHAPTER VI.

WANT OF UNIVERSALITY IN THE KNOWLEDGE AND RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY, AND
OF GREATER CLEARNESS IN THE EVIDENCE.

Or, a Revelation which really came from God, the proof, it has been
said, would in all ages be so public and manifest, that no part of the
human species would remain ignorant of it, no understanding could fail
of being convinced by it.

The advocates of Christianity do not pretend that the evidence of their
religion possesses these qualities. They do not deny that we can
conceive it to be within the compass of divine power to have
communicated to the world a higher degree of assurance, and to have
given to his communication a stronger and more extensive influence. For
anything we are able to discern, God could have so formed men, as to
have perceived the truths of religion intuitively; or to have carried on
a communication with the other world whilst they lived in this; or to
have seen the individuals of the species, instead of dying, pass to
heaven by a sensible translation. He could have presented a separate
miracle to each man's senses. He could have established a standing
miracle. He could have caused miracles to be wrought in every different
age and country. These and many more methods, which we may imagine if we
once give loose to our imaginations, are, so far as we can judge, all
practicable.

The question therefore is, not whether Christianity possesses the
highest possible degree of evidence, but whether the not having more
evidence be a sufficient reason for rejecting that which we have.

Now there appears to be no fairer method of judging concerning any
dispensation which is alleged to come from God, when question is made
whether such a dispensation could come from God or not, than by
comparing it with other things which are acknowledged to proceed from
the same counsel, and to be produced by the same agency. If the
dispensation in question labour under no defects but what apparently
belong to other dispensations, these seeming defects do not justify us
in setting aside the proofs which are offered of its authenticity, if
they be otherwise entitled to credit.

Throughout that order then of nature, of which God is the author, what
we find is a system of beneficence: we are seldom or