elf, is incomplete and inadequate. The third hypothesis overrates
_feeling_; the fourth, _reason_; the fifth, _verbal instruction_. The
first extreme is Mysticism, the second is Rationalism, the last is
Dogmatism. Reason, feeling, and faith in testimony must be combined, and
mutually condition each other. No purely rationalistic hypothesis will
meet and satisfy the wants and yearnings of the heart. No theory based
on feeling alone can satisfy the demands of the human intellect. And,
finally, an hypothesis which bases all religion upon historical
testimony and outward fact, and despises and tramples upon the
intuitions of the reason and the instincts of the heart can never
command the general faith of mankind. Religion embraces and
conditionates the whole sphere of life--thought, feeling, faith, and
action; it must therefore be grounded in the entire spiritual nature of
man.

Our criticism of opposite theories has thus prepared the way for, and
obviated the necessity of an extended discussion of the hypothesis we
now advance.

_The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the a priori
apperceptions of reason, and the natural instinctive feelings of the
heart, which, from age to age, have been vitalized, unfolded, and
perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations_.

There are universal facts of religious history which can only be
explained on the first principle of this hypothesis; there are special
facts which can only be explained on the latter principle. The universal
prevalence of the idea of God, and the feeling of obligation to obey and
worship God, belong to the first order of facts; the general prevalence
of expiatory sacrifices, of the rite of circumcision, and the observance
of sacred and holy days, belong to the latter. To the last class of
facts the observance of the Christian Sabbath, and the rites of Baptism
and the Lord's Supper may be added.

The history of all religions clearly attests that there are two orders
of principles--the _natural_ and the _positive_, and, in some measure,
two authorities of religious life which are intimately related without
negativing each other. The characteristic of the natural is that it is
_intrinsic_, of the positive, that it is _extrinsic_. In all ages men
have sought the authority of the positive in that which is immediately
_beyond_ and above man--in some "voice of the Divinity" toning down the
stream of ages, or speaking through a p