supported with "self-evident truths"--they are plainly "beside
themselves." They have lost the use of reason. They are not to be
argued with. They belong to the mad-house.



"COME NOW, LET US REASON TOGETHER, SAITH THE LORD."

Are we to honor the Bible, which Professor Stuart quaintly calls
"the good old book," by turning away from "self-evident truths" to
receive its instructions? Can these truths be contradicted or denied
there? Do we search for something there to obscure their clearness,
or break their force, or reduce their authority? Do we long to find
something there, in the form of premises or conclusions, of arguing
or of inference, in broad statement or blind hints, creed-wise or
fact-wise, which may set us free from the light and power of first
principles? And what if we were to discover what we were thus in
search of?--something directly or indirectly, expressly or impliedly
prejudicial to the principles, which reason, placing us under the
authority of, makes self-evident? In what estimation, in that case,
should we be constrained to hold the Bible? Could we longer honor
it as the book of God? _The book of God opposed to the authority of_
REASON! Why, before what tribunal do we dispose of the claims of the
sacred volume to divine authority? The tribunal of reason. _This
every one acknowledges the moment he begins to reason on the subject_.
And what must reason do with a book, which reduces the authority of
its own principles--breaks the force of self-evident truths? Is he
not, by way of eminence, the apostle of infidelity, who, as a
minister of the gospel or a professor of sacred literature, exerts
himself, with whatever arts of ingenuity or show of piety, to exalt