e that, supposing him to have
given any, he could have given no other, unless his omnipotence
had been immediately exerted separately upon each individual of the
human race, and then in such a way as to supersede all the moral
discipline which Christians affirm is involved in its reception.
Supposing this discipline (as those who believe in a revelation
contend) to be an essential condition, I cannot conceive God himself
to give a document which man's ingenuity cannot easily misinterpret.
You see man plays the same trick equally well with that faculty of
'spiritual insight,' which some say is the sole source of religious
truth, and which you say is the sole arbiter of an external revelation!
We cannot find two of you who think alike, or who will give us the
same transcript of religious truth. Similarly, we see the same
ingenuity manifested by man whenever it is his interest to find in
a document a different meaning from that which it apparently carries
on its face. Does not the endless controversy, the perpetual
litigation of men, respecting the meaning of seemingly the plainest
documents, assure us that, if a revelation were really given, the
like would be possible with that? It is doubtful with me, therefore,
whether God himself could give a revelation, such that men could not
misrepresent and pervert it; that is, as long as they were rational
creatures," he continued bitterly. "But the mischief of your theory
is, that it charges the inevitable result of man's perverseness or
ignorance on God, and the revelation he has been supposed to construct,
and that is to me an absurdity."

"I do not see that these answers are satisfactory," said the other.

"I must leave you to judge of that," said Harrington, "or to contest
it with my uncle here. I am keeping my next friend waiting, who, I can
see, is impatient to run a course in favor of his view of revelation.
He tells us, too, that a divine revelation, as conveyed in the New
Testament, is to be admitted, but he cannot away with the notion that
its certainty extends to any thing more than to what he calls the
'religious element.' Is not that your notion?"

"It is."

"You think, for example, that it is possible that the Apostles and
writers of the New Testament (in fact, whoever had the charge of
recording and transmitting to posterity the doctrines of this
revelation) were left liable, just as any other men, to all sorts
of errors, geographical, chronological, logical,