t recollect having seen quoted in connexion with recent
controversies, but which is well worthy of being borne in mind, as
teaching us to beware of hastily assuming that objections to Revelation,
whether suggested by the progress of science, or from the supposed
incongruity of its own contents, are unanswerable. We are not, he says,
rashly to suppose that we have arrived at the true meaning of the whole
of that book. 'It is not at all incredible that a book which has been
so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as
yet undiscerned. For all the same phenomena and the same faculties of
investigation, from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge
have been made in the present and last age, were equally in the
possession of mankind several thousand year's before.' These words are
worthy of Butler: and as many illustrations of their truth have been
supplied since his day, so many others may fairly be anticipated in the
course of time. Several distinct species of argument for the truth
of Christianity from the very structure and contents of the books
containing it have been invented--of which Paley's 'Horae Paulinae' is a
memorable example. The diligent collation of the text, too, has removed
many difficulties; the diligent study of the original languages of
ancient history, manners and customs, has cleared up many more; and by
supplying proof of accuracy where error of falsehood had been charged,
has supplied important additions to the evidence which substantiates the
truth of Revelation. Against the alleged absurdity of the laws of
Moses, again, such works as that of Micholis have disclosed much of that
relative wisdom which aims not at the abstractedly best, but the best
which a given condition of humanity, a given period of the world's
history, and a given purpose could dictate. In pondering such
difficulties as still remain in those laws, we may remember the answer
of Solon to the question, whether he had given the Athenians the best
laws; viz. that he had given them the best of which they were capable:
or the judgment of the illustrious Montesquieu, who remarks, 'When
Divine Wisdom said to the Jews, "I have given you precepts which are not
good," this signifies that they had only a relative goodness: and this
is the sponge which wipes out all the difficulties which are to be found
in the laws of Moses.' This is a truth which we are persuaded a profound
philosophy will understand the better