such as to receive benefit
from the imposition of an external rule of religious authority and
doctrine, in the same manner that individuals, when in a state of
childhood, need a rule, not a principle; a law, not a reason.(1030) This
method however was unsuited when the mind of Europe awoke, and when free
thought could no longer be suppressed by force.

The history of evidences since the spread of modern unbelief exhibits not
only the return to the ancient Christian weapon of argument instead of
force; but not unfrequently to the ancient mode of presenting the
philosophical proof prior to the historical.

An attempt of this kind was intermingled with the English school of
evidences of the last century; and the argument of analogy used by Butler,
if viewed as constructive, and not refutative, may be considered to have
for its object to prepare the mind for accepting revealed religion, by
first showing the probability of it on the ground of its similarity to
nature. (48) And in the German movement, where the doubt thrown by
criticism over the historical evidences even still more compelled the
resort to the philosophical argument on the part of those who strove to
defend the faith, we have seen various attempts to reconstruct
Christianity from the philosophical side.(1031) Both methods, the
philosophical and the historical, have had their place; but their use has
varied with the wants of the age. In proportion as the pressure of doubt
left less opportunity for the constraining force of the latter, the
persuasiveness of the _a priori_ moral argument has been used.

The history of the means which have been successful in removing doubts
lends little support to the opinion which would save the faith by the
sacrifice of the reason, or would imperil the truth of religion by
throwing discredit on the immutability of moral distinctions, perceived by
the conscience which Providence has placed in the human mind; to which the
great writers on evidence have been wont to make their appeal; and which
they have justly perceived must lie at the basis of the evidences
themselves. "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness!"

The two periods in church history among those here named, which offer most
instruction to us in consequence of affording examples of the same class
of difficulties as those which we encounter, are, the struggle in the
early centuries, and that in Germany during the present. The line of
arg