d if thus proved erroneous
in one instance, why might they not be so likewise in another? But
though by these and similar arguments we might at length silence our
objector, we could not much expect to bring him over to our opinions. We
should probably do better, if we were to endeavour rather to draw him
off from these dark and slippery regions, (slippery in truth they are to
every human foot) and to contend with him, where we might tread with
firmness and freedom, on sure ground, and in the light of day. Then we
might fairly lay before him all the various arguments for the truth of
our holy religion; arguments which have been sufficient to satisfy the
wisest, and the best, and the ablest of men. We should afterwards
perhaps insist on the abundant confirmation Christianity receives from
its being exactly suited to the nature and wants of man; and we might
conclude, with fairly putting it to him, whether all this weight of
evidence were to be overbalanced by this one difficulty, on a subject so
confessedly high and mysterious, considering too that he must allow, we
see but a part (O how small a part!) of the universal creation of God,
and that our faculties are wholly incompetent to judge of the schemes of
his infinite wisdom. This, if the writer may be permitted to offer his
own judgment, is (at least in general) the best mode, in the case of the
objection now in question, of dealing with unbelievers; and to adopt the
contrary plan, seems somewhat like that of any one, who having to
convince some untutored Indian of the truth of the Copernican system,
instead of beginning with plain and simple propositions, and leading him
on to what is more abstruse and remote, should state to him at the
outset some astonishing problems, to which the understanding can only
yield its slow assent, when constrained by the decisive force of
demonstration. The novice, instead of lending himself to such a mistaken
method of instruction, would turn away in disgust, and be only hardened
against his preceptor. But it must be remembered, that the present work
is addressed to those who acknowledge the authority of the holy
Scriptures. And in order to convince all such that there is somewhere or
other, a fallacy in our objector's reasoning, it will be sufficient to
establish that though the word of God clearly asserts the justice and
goodness of the Supreme Being, and also the natural depravity of man,
yet it no less clearly lays down that this natu