'
And this leads us to notice a saying of that comprehensive genius,
which we do not 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.
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