disposition to rise to
the belief of the interference of Deity; the same feeling of contempt for
positive religions; the same sensation of heart-weariness,--the utterance
as it were of the desponding feeling, "Who will show us any good?" the
same lofty theory of stoic morality, and disposition to find perfection in
obedience to nature's laws, physical and moral; the same approximation to
the Christian ideal of perfection, while destroying the very proof of the
means by which it is to be acquired. And if it be true that the state of
intellectual men presents so marked a parallel, so in like manner the
study of the arguments by which the early fathers in their apologetic
treatises met the doubts of such minds, becomes a question of great
practical as well as literary interest.(1028)

What then are the doubts which are most likely to meet us, either
insinuating themselves into our own minds, or offering their difficulty to
those who intend to become ministers of Christ? and what are the means by
which they may be most effectually repelled?

The main difficulties may be summed up as three:--

(1) The question of the relation of religion, and more particularly of
Christianity, to the human soul; whether religion is anything but
morality, and Christianity its highest type.

(2) The question of the relation of the work of Christ to the human race,
whether it involves a secret mystery of redemption known only to God, and
hidden from the ken of man, except so far as revealed; or whether it is to
be measured by the human mind, and reduced to the proportions which can be
appropriated or understood by man.

(3) The question of the relation of the Bible to the human mind, whether
it is to be that of a friend or a master; and its religious teaching to be
a record or an oracular authority.

The history of recent doubt has brought before us some whose minds doubt
wholly of the supernatural. In the case of a few of these, but only of a
few, the doubt has passed into positive unbelief; their convictions have
become so fixed that they manifest a fierce spirit of proselytism, and can
dare to point the finger of scorn at those who still believe in the unseen
and supernatural relations of God to the human soul. Between these and
religious men the struggle is internecine. We can have no sympathy with
them: we can rejoice that they retain a moral standard, where they have
rejected many of the most potent motives which support it; but must