universe, could of course so modify the ideas
of an intellectual being as to give them that form and character most
fitted for his existence; and I suppose in the early state of created man
he imagined that he enjoyed the actual presence of the Divinity and heard
His voice. I take this to be the first and simplest result of religious
instinct. In early times amongst the patriarchs I suppose these ideas
were so vivid as to be confounded with impressions; but as religious
instinct probably became feebler in their posterity, the vividness of the
impressions diminished, and they then became visions or dreams, which
with the prophets seem to have constituted inspiration. I do not suppose
that the Supreme Being ever made Himself known to man by a real change in
the order of Nature, but that the sensations of men were so modified by
their instincts as to induce the belief in His presence. That there was
a divine intelligence continually acting upon the race of Seth as his
chosen people, is, I think, clearly proved by the events of their
history, and also that the early opinions of a small tribe in Judaea were
designed for the foundation of the religion of the most active and
civilised and powerful nations of the world, and that after a lapse of
three thousand years. The manner in which Christianity spread over the
world with a few obscure mechanics or fishermen for its promulgators; the
mode in which it triumphed over paganism even when professed and
supported by the power and philosophy of a Julian; the martyrs who
subscribed to the truth of Christianity by shedding their blood for the
faith; the exalted nature of those intellectual men by whom it has been
professed who had examined all the depths of nature and exercised the
profoundest faculties of thought, such as Newton, Locke, and Hartley, all
appear to me strong arguments in favour of revealed religion. I prefer
rather founding my creed upon the fitness of its doctrines than upon
historical evidences or the nature of its miracles. The Divine
Intelligence chooses that men should be convinced according to the
ordinary train of their sensations, and on all occasions it appears to me
more natural that a change should take place in the human mind than in
the order of nature. The popular opinion of the people of Judaea was
that certain diseases were occasioned by devils taking possession of a
human being; the disease was cured by our Saviour, and this in the Gospel
is e