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?
If Christianity be regarded as a providential instrument the melioration
of mankind, its progress and diffusion that of other causes by which
human life is improved diversity is not greater, nor the advance more
slow, in than we find it to be in learning, liberty, government, laws.
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