too.

bong to it which contradict either our clear, intuitive knowledge, or the evident principles and dictates of reason.) I speak only of difficulties which attend the belief of the Gospel in some of its pure and essential doctrines, plainly and evidently delivered there, which being made known to us by a revelation supported by proofs that our reason ought to admit, and not being such things as it can certainly know to be false, must be received by it as objects of faith, though they are such as it could not have discovered by any natural means, and such as are difficult to be conceived, or satisfactorily explained by its limited powers. If the glorious light of the Gospel be sometimes overcast with clouds of doubt, so is the light of our reason But shall we deprive ourselves of the advantares of either, because those clouds cannot, perhaps, be entirely removed while we remain in this mortal life? Shall we obstinately and frowardly shut our eyes against that day-spring from on high that has visited us, because we are not, as yet, able to bear the full blaze of his beams? Indeed, not even in heaven itself, not in the highest state of perfection to which a finite being can ever attain, will all the counsels of Providence, all the height and the depth of the infinite wisdom of God, be ever disclosed or understood. Faith even then will be necessary, and there will be mysteteries which cannot be penetrated by the most exalted archangel, and truths which cannot be known by him otherwise than from revelation, or believed upon any other ground of assent than a submissive confidence in the divine wisdom. What then, shall man presume that his weak and narrow understanding is sufficient ‘o guide him into all truth, without any need of reve

lation or faith? Shall he complain that the ways of God are not like his ways, and past his finding out? True philosophy, as well as true Christianity, would leach us a wiser and modester part. It would teach us to be content within those bounds which God has assigned to us, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor. 10: 5.

THE END

REPLY TO GIBBON;

CR, AN

APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY;

IN

LETTERS TO EDWARD GIBBON, Esq.

Author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

WITH AN APPEAL TO INFIDELS.

BY R. WATSON, D. D). F. R. S.

Bishop of Landaff, and Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge.

16

Infidelity.

REPLY TO GIBBON.

LETTER I.

SIR:-It would give me much uneasiness to be reputed an enemy to free inquiry in religious matters, or as capable of being animated into any degree of personal malevolence against those who differ from me in opinion. On the contrary, I look upon the right of private judgment, in every concern respecting God and ourselves, as superior to the control of human authority; and have ever regarded free disquisition as the best means of illustrating the doctrine and establishing the truth of Christianity. Let the followers of Mahomed, and the zealots of the church of Rome, support their several religious systems by damping every effort of the human intellect to pry into the foundations of their faith; but never can it become a Christian to be afraid of being asked "a reason of the hope that is in him ;" nor a Protestant to be studious of enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance; or to abandon that moderation by which she permits every individual et sentire quæ velit, et quæ sentiat dicere: [both to think what he will, and to speak what he thinks.]

It is not, sir, without some reluctance, that, under the influence of these opinions, I have prevailed upon myself to address these letters to you; and you will