THE CONSISTENCY OF THE WHOLE SCHEME OF REVELATION WITH ITSELF AND WITH HUMAN REASON. BY PHILIP NICHOLAS SHUTTLEWORTH, D.D. WARDEN OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND RECTOR OF LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. & F. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 1832. PREFA CЕ. THE object of the following dissertation is to do justice to the internal evidences of Christianity, by disincumbering them of the weight of that class of objections, which, though in popular discussion generally considered as affecting the cause of revelation exclusively, stand in reality in no need of refutation, for the plain and simple reason that they are applicable in exactly the same degree. to every possible modification of religion whatever. There is certainly much confusion of idea displayed in the mode by which Sceptics for the most part make their assaults upon the credibility of revelation. the arguments alleged by them, far the greater proportion will usually be found to militate Of against principles already admitted by themselves, whilst almost all of them consist of isolated and desultory attacks upon some detached point of belief, rarely, if ever, at the same time taking an enlarged and impartial survey of the antagonist difficulties which attach to the opposite view of the same question. It is obvious, however, to every person who has paid the slightest attention to the topics of theology, that objections which, when considered separately, appear perfectly unanswerable, may often lose the greater part of their power of embarrassment when taken as integral portions of a complex system, and even, when viewed as a counterpoise to other propositions not less formidable, may contribute rather to the removal than the suggestion of doubt. Natural no less than revealed religion, in fact, consists of a mass of startling problems, each of which individually appears pregnant with insuperable difficulty, and yet, between the counteracting forces of which our faith, whether as philosophical Theists or as devout Christians, must be content to preserve its balance. Nothing, accordingly, is so easy of achievement as the task undertaken by the infidel, provided his object be to become the assailant. He has only to limit the discussion to one single view of a necessarily complex subject, and the perplexities which immediately suggest themselves will, of course, so long as we confine ourselves to the same restricted mode of defence, exceed our means of disentanglement. The obvious, and indeed the only remedy, for this species of misapprehension, to which the natural indolence and the less venial passions of mankind too easily dispose them, is that of acquiring, as much as possible, the habit of looking upon the subject matter of our religious belief as an entire and connected whole; and of considering no one proposition which it seems to involve as altogether inadmissible, until we have cautiously balanced it against that contradictory dogma which, in case of its rejection, we shall be obliged to substitute in its place. It is surely, however, no breach of charity to assert, that the sceptical disputant against re |