from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and reasonable
hope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth
all the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address
myself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor
thoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and
curious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor
to plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for
awhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me,
convinced of what ([Greek: kat' exochên]) is Truth, by far surer and
stronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as
auxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this
penning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise),
whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world
admit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on
the contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such
facts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and
so developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold
of faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have
rendered probabilities now certain.

4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of
this essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to
prepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts,
but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a
bed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not
receive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be
more prëdisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is
falling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the
mind--precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of
such fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence--is