Enough has been said to show the true purpose of metaphysical philosophy, the nature of the subjects with which it is conversant, the kind of reasoning employed, and the proper limits of the discussion. Let us pass on, then, to a precisely similar inquiry respecting religion. What is the nature of religious belief, properly so called? and by what kind of testimony is it supported? Are we here concerned with realities, or with abstract speculations and do we look to demonstration, or to moral certainty, as the result of the inquiry? The question is not yet, be it observed, whether the belief is legitimate, or the testimony sufficient; of that, hereafter. I do not now ask whether religion be true, but how we are to prove or to disprove it; what arguments are to be admitted into the discussion, and what considerations shut out as irrelevant. I use the word religion here in its most comprehensive sense, including both theology, as a system of doctrines and principles, and practical piety.

I do

The central truth of religion, on which all its other doctrines and its practice depend, is the being of a God. Is there, in very truth, a creating and sustaining Deity, or is this universe an orphan, and we, most miserable, but accidental formations from the clod, living only to consume life, relying on no support but our own strength, and looking forward to painless extinction as the happiest possible termination of our short and troubled career? Surely, we are able to say that the Divine existence, if proved, is a fact, and the most momentous of all facts; it is at once the most consoling and the most awful of all realities. not forget that the name of the Supreme Being is often vaguely used; because it is said that his existence is a mystery, and his essence is unknown, for the finite creature cannot comprehend the Infinite. So neither can we comprehend ourselves; our own existence is a mystery, and we are surrounded with problems that we cannot solve. The lowest and the highest manifestation of life is alike a secret that baffles the most cunning researches of science; we can describe, meagrely and imperfectly, it is true, but we cannot explain it. If no knowledge is admissible, or deserves its name, except it be perfect, then indeed we are doomed

to hopeless and perpetual ignorance. In this respect the grand dogma of the being of a God is on a par with the simplest fact of physiology, or with a belief in the actual existence of any fellow-mortal whom we have never seen.

But I go much farther; considered as a truth of religion, the being of a God is a sufficiently definite and intelligible fact to enable us to pronounce at once on the general character of the evidence by which, if at all, it must be proved. If we discard all notion of an overruling Providence, and adopt only the Epicurean idea of the Supreme Being, as one sitting apart from his works, and allowing them to go on without interference, oversight, or regard, then indeed the question concerning the reality of such an existence is one of pure curiosity, to be ranked with other problems in science, as a matter of no immediate interest except to the student. We may sublimate that existence into an abstract conception, or identify it with material nature; and as either alternative is adopted, we may attempt to support it by physical or metaphysical reasoning. But the religious aspect of the subject compels us to bring down the question to the actual existence of a Moral Governor of the world. We care not whether the dogma, considered simply as a fact or a proposition in science, be established or refuted. Our only interest in the matter, looking at it, not as philosophers, nor as students of science, but as men, arises from the influence which the fact, if proved, will have upon our conduct and the regulation of our hearts and lives. The question does not affect us, unless it be understood to relate to the being of a personal God, the Creator of heaven and earth, really distinct from nature, though pervading it with his presence, all-wise and all-powerful, the conscious Cause and present Ruler of all things. I am not taking these attributes for granted, but simply stating the question, the only question which as moral beings we are concerned to answer. Whatever might be made of the philosophical conception of a Deity, or however curious and interesting to the merely rational mind might be the solution of the problem respecting the mode of his existence, or the reconcilement of his attributes with each other, it

does not affect us, considered simply as seekers after religious truth, or as endeavouring to satisfy the longings of that religious sentiment which, like the desire for society, or the domestic affections, or the inherent love of right, I firmly believe to be a constituent and ineradicable principle of human nature. The proper object of that sentiment is a person, a moral being; its natural and even irresistible expression is in worship and prayer. We must seek to gratify it, then, just as we might attempt, if suffering under a sense of loneliness, to appease our social cravings;-first, to ascertain the fact that a companion can be found, and then to draw near to him in that spirit of loving trust, and, if necessary, of self-sacrifice, which will be sure to make him, when found, our friend.

We cannot, then, demonstrate the existence of a God. If there is any force in the considerations which I have tried to lay before you, this admission is not an alarming one. We do not here attempt to weigh the abstract argument for this end, and pronounce it to be weak or insufficient; opinions might differ on this point; we put it aside altogether, as illogical and irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the matter in hand. We reject it for the same reason that an historian would reject, as an idle exercise of ingenuity, an attempt, made without any reference to the testimony of persons, books, or monuments, to prove from abstract conceptions and the laws of the human mind, that a great battle must have been fought nearly twenty-five hundred years ago on the plains of Marathon, and that the Grecian forces in this battle must have been commanded by a general called Miltiades. say that metaphysical reasoning is inapplicable here, on the same principle on which the chemist, when about to investigate the affinities of a newly discovered substance, would refuse to substitute pure mathematical analysis for the logic of the crucible, the scales, and the blowpipe. He would say that the former mode of investigation was precluded by the nature of the case; and as the selection of the proper means of research is a question of pure logic, which is itself one of the metaphysical sci

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ences, it would not be going too far for him to assert that he could demonstrate the inapplicability of demonstration.

It may be asked, why I have taken so much pains with this preliminary matter, which is merely the logic of natural theology. Why seek to strike out abstract reasoning, and to bring the question down to the limits and principles of the inductive method, so that our researches may be governed by the rules of physical inquiry? Unquestionably, every sincere believer would be glad to accept a demonstration of the truths of religion, if it could be had; why endeavour to cut him off even from the hope of a possible future enlargement, in this way, of the grounds of his faith?

I answer, first, that it is of great importance so to arrange the system of our belief, that proofs of the same general character may be classed together, and the relative strength of different arguments may be clearly ascertained. They lose their proper weight in our estimation, if brought to a false standard, or tried by an insufficient test. A pretended demonstration of a matter of fact, if compared with the reasoning of Euclid or Laplace, must appear, I do not say feeble, but illogical and false; and the failure of a favorite argument is very likely to draw down with it, in the mind of the inquirer, all faith in the doctrine itself, its other supports being then disregarded or held in light esteem. I would save the earnest seeker after truth from the anguish of disappointment, in looking after what cannot be found, and thereby enable him duly to appreciate the strength of the proofs within his reach. There can be no fears for the strength of our religious faith, if it stands upon the same platform with the whole round of the physical sciences, so that no assault can reach even its outworks until the entire fabric of these shall be demolished, and it be made to appear that all the boasted attainments of the last three centuries in the study of nature have been unprofitable and vain.

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The theological argument is of the same kind with that which supports the conclusions of the physical inquirer; but it is superior, immeasurably superior, in degree. The proofs of design,

for instance, which form the basis of one portion of this argument, are numerous beyond calculation. They are diffused everywhere, above, around, and within us. They are not drawn only from a few scratches on mountains of rock, or from fossil remains here and there dug up from the earth, put together with slow toil, and their history with difficulty spelt out. They do not rest on a few experiments carefully devised and with great labor repeated. The study of years is not required before their import can be made known even to a few, while the bulk of mankind must ever remain ignorant of the doctrine, or receive it on trust. These are difficulties with which the geologist, the chemist, the astronomer, must contend. But the marks of contrivance that form the language' in which the sublime dogma of God's existence is written fill the earth and skies, and are open alike to the most elevated and the meanest capacity. They are equally obvious in the structure of every blade of grass, and in the mechanism of the heavens. They exist alike in the object perceived, and in the percipient mind; in the hand that fashions, the ear that hears, and the lungs that breathe. They are found in the bones ́of extinct races, and in the habits of all living things; in the skeleton of the mammoth, and in the instinct which teaches the bee to frame its wonderful cell, and guides the water-fowl to its

nest.

The atmosphere, that wraps the earth in a garment, testifies His presence; and the sun bears witness to Him who lighted up its fires. "There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."

Secondly, we seek to confine this inquiry within its legitimate boundaries, because the grounds which justify the exclusion of metaphysical proofs show also the irrelevancy of metaphysical objections. It needs but little study of the evidences of natural religion to convince one, that the arguments which have been brought against the doctrine of the being of a God are, almost without exception, abstract or metaphysical in character. They are founded on alleged imperfections in our knowledge of cause and effect; on a supposed inconsistency of the attribute of in