ous plesion aei. But we hope we shall not see our
metaphysical 'puppies' amusing themselves--as so many 'old dogs' amongst
neighbours (who ought to have known better) have done,--by tearing into
tatters the sacred leaves of that volume, which contains what is better
than all their philosophy.

____

This is easily said, and we know is often said, and loudly. But the
justice with which it is said is another matter; for when we can get
these cloudy objectors to put down, not their vague assertions of
profound difficulties, uttered in the obscure language they love, but a
precise statement of their objections, we find them either the very same
with those which were quite as powerfully urged in the course of the
deistical controversies of the last century (the case with far the
greater part), or else such as are of similar character, and
susceptible of similar answers. We say not that the answers were always
satisfactory, nor are now inquiring whether any of them were so; we
merely maintain that the objections in question are not the novelties
they affect to be. We say this to obviate an advantage which the very
vagueness of much modern opposition to Christianity would obtain, from
the notion that some prodigious arguments have been discovered which
the intellect of a Pascal or a Butler was not comprehensive enough to
anticipate, and which no Clarke or Paley would have been logician enough
to refute. We affirm, without hesitation, that when the new advocates of
infidelity descend from their airy elevation, and state their objections
in intelligible terms, they are found, for the most part, what we
have represented them. When we read many of the speculations of German
infidelity, we seem to be re-perusing many of our own authors of the
last century. It is as if our neighbours had imported our manufactures;
and, after re-packing them, in new forms and with some additions,
had re-shipped and sent them back to us as new commodities. Hardly an
instance of discrepancy is mentioned in the 'Wolfenbutted Fragments,'
which will not be found in the pages of our own deists a century ago;
and, as already hinted, of Dr. Strauss's elaborate strictures, the vast
majority will be found in the same sources. In fact, though far from
thinking it to our national credit, none but those who will dive a
little deeper than most do into a happily forgotten portion of our
literature, (which made noise enough in its day, and created very
superfluo