heists and Pantheists that moral Theism which
Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans have in common, and which underlies
every attempt of any of the three religions to establish its peculiar
and supernatural claims; I have no need of entering on that argument
here. It is not true, that, as a Theist, I evade the objections urged
by real atheists or sceptics; on the contrary, I try to search them to
the very bottom. It is only in arguing with Christians that I disown
the obligation of reply; and that, because they are as much concerned
as I to answer; and ought to be able to give me, _on the ground of
natural theology_, good replies to every fundamental objection from
the sceptic, if I have not got them myself. To declare the objections
of our common adversaries valid against those first principles
of religion which are older than Jesus or Moses, is certainly to
surrender the cause of Christianity.

If this need more elucidation, let it be observed, that no Christian
can take a single step in argument with a heathen, much less establish
his claim of authority for the Bible, without presuming that the
heathen will admit, on hearing them, those doctrines of moral Theism,
which, it is pretended, _I_ can have no good reason for admitting.
If the heathen sincerely retorts against the missionary such Pagan
scepticism as is flung at me by Christians, the missionary's words
are vain; nor is any success possible, unless (with me) he can lay
a _prior_ foundation of moral Theism, independent of any assumption
concerning the claims of the Bible. It avails nothing to preach
repentance of sin and salvation from judgment to come, to minds which
are truly empty of the belief that God has any care for morality. I
of course do not say, and have never said, that the doctrine of the
divine holiness, goodness, truth, must have been previously an active
belief of the heathen hearer. To have stated a question clearly
is often half the solution; and the teacher, who so states a high
doctrine, gives a great aid to the learner's mind. But unless, after
it has been affirmed that there is a Great Eternal Being pervading the
universe, who disapproves of human evil and commands us to pursue
the good, the conscience and intellect of the hearer gives assent, no
argument of moral religion can have weight with him; therefore neither
can any argument about miracles, nor any appeal to the "Bible" as
authoritative. Of course the book has not as yet any influence