s fullest
quotation stood thus, given only in an after-chapter:--"What God
reveals to us, he reveals _within_, through the medium of our moral
and spiritual senses." "Christianity itself has practically confessed
what is theoretically clear, _(you must take Mr. Newman's word for
both,)_[7] that an authoritative external revelation of moral and
spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man." "No book-revelation
can, without sapping its own pedestal, &c. &c."

These three sentences are what Mr. Rogers calls the three cracked
bells, and thinks by raising a laugh, to hide his fraud I have
carefully looked through the whole of his dialogue concerning Book
Revelation in his 9th edition of the "Eclipse" (pp. 63-83 of close
print). He still excludes from it every part of my argument,
only stating in the opening (p. 63) as my conclusions, that a
book-revelation is impossible, and that God reveals himself from
within, not from without In his _Defence_ (which circulates far less
than the "Eclipse," to judge by the number of editions) he displays
his bravery by at length printing my argument; but in the "Eclipse" he
continues to suppress it, at least as far as I can discover by turning
to the places where it ought to be found.

In p. 77 (9th ed.) of the "Eclipse." he _implies_, without absolutely
asserting, that I hold the Bible to be an impertinence. He repeats
this in p. 85 of the "Defence." Such is his mode. I wrote: "_Without_
a priori _belief_, the Bible is an impertinence," but I say, man
_has_ this _a priori_ belief, on which account the Bible is _not_
an impertinence. My last sentence in the very passage before us,
expressly asserts the value of (good) external teaching. This my
critic laboriously disguises.

He carefully avoids allowing his readers to see that I am contending
fundamentally for that which the ablest Christian divines have
conceded and maintained; that which the common sense of every
missionary knows, and every one who is not profoundly ignorant of the
Bible and of history ought to know. Mr. Rogers is quite aware, that
no apostle ever carried a Bible in his hand and said to the heathen,
"Believe that there is a good and just God, _because_ it is written
in this book;" but they appealed to the hearts and consciences of
the hearers as competent witnesses. He does not even give his reader
enough of my paragraph to make intelligible what I _meant_ by saying
"Christianity has practically confessed;" and ye