OF PALEY'S EVIDENCES ОР CHRISTIANITY, IN THE FORM OF QUESTION AND ANSWER, WITH THE SENATE-HOUSE PAPERS FOR THE YEAR 1854. BY CHARLES H. CROSSE, M.A., OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE. Cambridge: MACMILLAN AND CO. LONDON: GEORGE BELL. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. WHY does Paley consider it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a revelation? Because, he says, no serious person thinks that, even under the Christian revelation, we have too much light, or any superfluous degree of assurance. In judging of Christianity, why does the question lie between this religion and none at all? Because, if the Christian religion be not credible, no one, with whom we have to do, will support the pretensions of any other. Upon what suppositions does Paley conclude that a revelation was not improbable? Suppose the world we live in to have had a Creator; suppose it to appear from the predominant aim and tendency of the contrivances observable in the universe, that the Deity, when he formed it, consulted for the happiness of his sensitive creation; suppose a part of the creation to have received faculties from their Maker, by which they are capable of rendering a moral obedience to His will; suppose the Creator to intend for these His rational and accountable agents a second state of existence, in which their situation will be regulated by their behaviour in this; suppose it to be of the utmost importance for them to know what is intended for them, that is, that such knowledge would be highly conducive to the general happiness of mankind; suppose, nevertheless, almost the whole race, either by the imperfection of their faculties, the misfortune of their situation, or the loss of some prior revelation, to want this |