in giving a course of lectures historical rather than
polemical, evincing the critic rather than the advocate, seeking for truth
rather than victory, analysing processes of evidence rather than refuting
results, my humble contribution toward the knowledge of the argument of
the Christian evidences will be considered to come fairly within the
design intended by the founder of the lecture.

It may well be believed that in the execution of so large a scheme I have
felt almost overwhelmed under a painful sense of its difficulty. If even I
may venture to hope that a conscientious study in most cases of the
original sources of information may save me from literary mistakes, yet
there is a danger lest the size of the subject should preclude the
possibility of constant clearness; or lest the very analysis of the errors
of the systems named, may produce a painful, if not an injurious,
impression. In an age too of controversy, those who speak on difficult
questions incur a new danger, of being misunderstood from the
sensitiveness with which earnest men not unreasonably watch them. The
attitude of suspicion may cause impartiality to be regarded as
indifference to truth, fairness as sympathy with error. I am not ashamed
therefore to confess, that under the oppressive sense of these various
feelings I have been wont to go for help to the only source where the
burdened heart can find consolation; and have sought, in the communion
with the Father of spirits which prayer opens to the humblest, a temper of
candour, of reverence, and of the love of truth. In this spirit I have
made my studies; and what I have thus learned I shall teach.

LECTURE II. THE LITERARY OPPOSITION OF HEATHENS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY IN
THE EARLY AGES.

1 COR. i. 22-24.

_The Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified;
unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called,
Christ the wisdom of God._

It has been already stated(120), that in the first great struggle of the
human mind against the Christian religion the action of reason in
criticising its claims assumed two forms, Gnosticism or rationalism within
the church, and unbelief without.

The origin and history of the former of these two lines of thought were
once discussed in an elaborate course of Bampton Lectures;(121) and though
subsequent investigation has added new sources of information,(122) and it
would be consonant to our general object to trace b