of nature; and the true conclusion to which it leads is this—­that to inquire what the Deity might have done, could have done, or, as we even sometimes presume to speak, ought to have done, or, in hypothetical cases, would have done; and to build any propositions upon such inquiries against evidence of facts, is wholly unwarrantable.  It is a mode of reasoning which will not do in natural history, which will not do in natural religion, which cannot therefore be applied with safety to revelation.  It may have same foundation in certain speculative a priori ideas of the divine attributes, but it has none in experience or in analogy.  The general character of the works of nature is, on the one hand, goodness both in design and effect; and, on the other hand, a liability to difficulty and to objections, if such objections be allowed, by reason of seeming incompleteness or uncertainty in attaining their end.  Christianity participates of this character.  The true similitude between nature and revelation consists in this—­that they each bear strong marks of their original, that they each also bear appearances of irregularity and defect.  A system of strict optimism may, nevertheless, be the real system in both cases.  But what I contend is, that the proof is hidden from us; that we ought not to expect to perceive that in revelation which we hardly perceive in anything; that beneficence, of which, we can judge, ought to satisfy us that optimism, of which we cannot judge, ought not to be sought after.  We can judge of beneficence, because it depends upon effects which we experience, and upon the relation between the means which we see acting and the ends which we see produced.  We cannot judge of optimism because it necessarily implies a comparison of that which is tried with that which is not tried; of consequences which we see with others which we imagine, and concerning many of which, it is more than probable, we know nothing; concerning some that we have no notion.

If Christianity be compared with the state and progress of natural religion, the argument of the objector will gain nothing by the comparison.  I remember hearing an unbeliever say that, if God had given a revelation, he would have written it in the skies.  Are the truths of natural religion written in the skies, or in a language which every one reads? or is this the case with the most useful arts, or the most necessary sciences of human life?  An Otaheitean or an Esquimaux knows nothing of Christianity; does he know more of the principles of deism or morality? which, notwithstanding his ignorance, are neither untrue, nor unimportant, nor uncertain.  The existence of Deity is left to be collected from observations, which every man does not make, which every man, perhaps, is not capable of making.  Can it be argued that God does not exist because if he did, he would let us see him, or discover himself to man kind by proofs (such as, we may think, the nature of the subject merited) which no inadvertency could miss, no prejudice withstand?