herish a skeptical spirit in
regard to religious or spiritual truths; and this, not because they have
examined and weighed the evidence to which Theology appeals, and found
it wanting, but rather because they have a lurking suspicion that men,
with their present faculties, are incapable of rising to the knowledge
of supernatural things, and that they could attain to no certainty,
while they might expose themselves to much delusion, by entering on the
inquiry at all. This is their apology for _ignoring_ Religion
altogether, and contenting themselves with other branches of knowledge,
which are supposed to be more certain in themselves as well as more
conducive to their present welfare. In this respect, it is deeply
instructive to remark that Infidelity has been singularly at variance
with itself. At one time, in the age of Herbert, human reason was
extolled, to the disparagement of Divine Revelation; it was held to be
so thoroughly competent to deal with all the truths of Theology, and to
arrive, on mere natural grounds, at such an assured belief in them, that
no supernatural message was needed either to illustrate, or confirm, or
enforce the lessons of Nature: but now, when the lessons of Nature
herself are called in question, human reason is disparaged as
incompetent to the task of deciphering her dark hieroglyphics, and while
she can traverse with firm step every department of the material world,
and soar aloft, as on eagle's wings, to survey the suns and systems of
astronomy, she is held to be incapable alike of religious inquiry and of
divine instruction! There is, indeed, a striking contrast between the
high pretensions of Reason in matters of philosophy, and the bastard
humility which it sometimes assumes in matters of faith.

But there is another, and a still more subtle, form of Partial or
Religious Skepticism. It does not absolutely deny the possibility of
religious knowledge, nor does it dogmatically affirm that man, with his
present faculties, can have no religious convictions; it contents itself
with saying, and attempting to prove, that the certitude of religious
truth cannot be evinced by any legitimate process of reasoning. It
examines the proof, and detects flaws in it. It discusses, with a severe
and critical logic, the arguments that have been employed to establish
the first and most fundamental article of Theology, the existence of
God; and discarding them one by one, it reaches the conclusion that,
wh