mas. The genius of
Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve them. It is a mistake to
imagine that subtle speculations touching the divine attributes, the
origin of evil, the necessity of human actions, the foundation of moral
obligation, imply any high degree of intellectual culture. Such
speculations, on the contrary, are in a peculiar manner the delight of
intelligent children and of half-civilized men. The number of boys is
not small who, at fourteen, have thought enough on these questions to be
fully entitled to the praise which Voltaire gives to Zadig. "Il en
savait ce qu'on en a su dans tous les ages; c'est-a-dire, fort peu de
chose." The Book of Job shows that, long before letters and arts were
known to Ionia, these vexing questions were debated with no common skill
and eloquence, under the tents of the Idumean Emirs; nor has human
reason, in the course of three thousand years, discovered any
satisfactory solution of the riddles which perplexed Eliphaz and Zophar.

Natural theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of
our origin and of our destiny which we derive from revelation is indeed
of very different clearness, and of very different importance. But
neither is revealed religion of the nature of a progressive science. All
divine truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant churches,
recorded in certain books. It is equally open to all who, in any age,
can read those books; nor can all the discoveries of all the
philosophers in the world add a single verse to any of those books. It
is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress
analogous to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology,
and navigation. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is neither
better nor worse situated than a Christian of the nineteenth century
with a Bible, candor and natural acuteness being, of course, supposed
equal. It matters not at all that the compass, printing, gunpowder,
steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other discoveries and
inventions, which were unknown in the fifth century, are familiar to the
nineteenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has the smallest
bearing on the question whether man is justified by faith alone, or
whether the invocation of saints is an orthodox practice. It seems to
us, therefore, that we have no security for the future against the
prevalence of any theological error that ever has prevailed in time past
among Christian me