The purpose and value of what may be called the corroborative evidence as distinguished from that founded on miraculous agency can hardly be overlooked. Between the highest degree of certainty with which a fact can be invested by evidence, and the faintest probability, there is room for every shade of assurance.
Now it is notonons both that different minds are differently affected by the same evidence, and that some minds seem peculiarly constituted by nature to admit the full force of one mode of proof, whilst they are comparatively insensible to another; so that it might happen that whilst to one inquirer the testimony which supported the story of the miraculous facts seemed so strong an to supersede the necessity of confirming his belief in the revelation by the evidence which the matter of it might sappy', and which perhaps lie might be little able to appreciate, another might rather feel that the miracles were so far proved as to complete the satisfaction which he had already derived from the other source.
The Chriatiartrevelation, which may be considered as forming one subject with the Jewish, from the wide field over which it is 'Tread and the miscellaneous character of its contents, must necessarily supply, in large abundance, matter for examination in the way of evidence. An enumeration, which however does not pretend even to approach completeness, of the constituent parts of the body of evidence belonging to it, together with the proper mode of using them and estimating their joint force, may be found shortly but very clearly proposed in the first of Mr. Davison'. Discourses on Prophecy.' Before we leave this part of the subject, we would observe, whet seems sometimes to be overlooked, that an action may itself be a revelation. It would not be improper to say that the birth, death, and actions, even more than the discourses of Jesus Christ, were a revelation, of which the Apostles, who taught what are called the doctrine., of Chris tianity ,wero only the interpreters. Of these doctrines it is not our business to treat, but we will select one as the subject of a few obser vation., merely with a view to illustrate the disposition of mind with which we must necessarily regard the pretensions and evidence. of a professed revelation, according as we recognise, or not, a need which men have of extraordinary information on the subject of religion. The doctrine we select is that of the immortality of the soul and a future etato of rewards and punishments. Without twinning the probability or improbability of this doctrine, we suppose it to be notorious that the immortality of the soul, or ROM kind of continued existence after bodily death, with liability to a state of happineaa or stuttering, has been very generally believed, in one shape or other, in all parts and at all periods of the world ; and that this doctrine is distinctly delivered and prominently set forth in the Now Teatament. There in as little doubt that before the time of Christianity, either the notions com monly received of a future state were so irrational, or the belief of it so faint and unaaaured, that for the moat part it had comparatively little effect on the moml feelings and conduct of men; and that on the other hand, wherever the Christian revelation has been published, this doctrine has not only been firmly received with little variation in the manner of understanding it, but has influenced the conduct of many, happily or not, in the most important respects, and regulated the whole course of their lives. It is plain that those who regarded
the distinct and authoritative announcement of this doctrine to be among the things especially needed by mankind, and those who con sidered it to be either useless or mischievous, would be very differently impressed by the general body of evidence in favour of the revelation.
Among professed revelations which have been the ground of it national religion, it may be doubtful whether wo should place the mythological systems of ancient Greece and Rome. They are indeed avowedly founded on traditional accounts of certain transactions between gode and men ; but from the nature of the transactions, of the supernatural beings concerned in them, and the purposes of the interference, we may doubt whether the discoveries supposed to be made belong to the notion of a revelation according to our definition of the word, or the usual acceptation of it. The same for the most part may be said of the mythology of the I findus and of the northern nations of Europe. But there can be no doubt that the religion of Mohammed, as taught in the Konln, professes to be founded on a revelation In the strict sense of the word, retch as may be subjected to the same tests which we have supposed to be applicable to all revelations, In passing from the Christian revelation itself to the written reeord of it, a new and important question is opened to us. The revelation may have been made to the persons who profess to have received it; but in recording it also, were they preternaturally assisted, or were they left to the use of their .natural memories, and the guidance of their unassisted judgment ? In other words, we are met by a question respecting what is called the inspiration of the books of Scripture, or, inure properly, of the persons who wrote them. By this word we are to understand, not the preternatural infusion of revealed truths into the minds of the writers (which however would not be inconsistent with the original meaning of the word), but preternatural assistance in recording what had been so infused. This distinction should be observed. St. Paul, if we believe his own declaration, received immedi ately from God a message to men. He may be supposed to have delivered this message orally or in writing to others from memory ; and in that case he would have been a deliverer and they receivers, in the strictest sense of the words, of a divine revelation ; but the message, so delivered, would not in theological language have been an inspired message, that is, spoken or written under inspiration. It is beside our purpose to defend or impugn the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture generally, or, out of the various theories which have been put forth, to advocate one in preference to the others. We only wish to do some thing towards clearing away certain fears and difficulties, which seem to beset and mislead many in the very outset of the inquiry, and to offer a few suggestions as to the principle on which the inquiry should be conducted, to those who are not very conversant with the subject.