strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of
the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her
friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that
any writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or
wisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom
the offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have
told you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my
bidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME."




THE BIBLE.


Whilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should
be just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I
must expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the
likelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its
expectable form and character.

The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our
heavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures
unaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so
needful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or
of brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an _à
priori_ probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable
pretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever
existed in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name
have not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge