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it is confirmed by Revelation, another standard of Truth 
given to man after his fall, by the same Being who established 
the first standard, after man was in a state which shut out 
from him the possibility of his reaching all the knowledge 
necessary for his eternal salvation. 
Every believer knows that “ the world by nature knew not 
God,” and that we cannot by this means find Him out to 
perfection. 
“ Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find 
out the Almighty to perfection ? It is high as heaven, what 
canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?” 
Yet that man in his natural state had every inducement to 
believe that by the light of nature, when unassisted by any 
other standard of truth, by which he was to arrive at a higher 
fuller meaning of the word, I must deny. 
If in this belief he was otherwise to be instructed, if he 
was to learn that up to a certain point only his conclusions 
might be right, and that wisdom, order, and unchangeableness 
were in this direction to be the only evidences which natural 
philosophy would afford him in finding out the ways of God ; 
it is no discredit to him that he had overrated this standard as 
an evidence of truth, and had given it a power of unfolding 
more definite and important truths which it really had no 
means of accomplishing. This fact has never been placed 
before the mind of the natural philosopher in its true 'light, 
but too often opprobrium and contempt have taken the place 
of that reasoning which it was in the power of their opponents 
to use with so much success. If the natural philosopher were 
ever to be convinced that he had at this point taken a devious 
path, it would have to be accomplished only through a well- 
considered and well-conducted argument, too sound to be 
refuted, and too unmistakeable to need any mixture of ridicule 
or abuse. For if we know our adversary is in error, this calls 
the more strongly on our part for forbearance and patience, 
but above all for circumspection, lest in our zeal to correct 
others, upon so difficult a question, where faith plays so im- 
portant a part, we display a mind and a temper which badly 
recommend the truth, and are totally at variance with that far 
higher knowledge which we profess to believe in, but which, 
by our want of charity, we have failed to recommend to others. 
But now, for the sake of argument, I will ask you hypotheti- 
cally to believe, that no other knowledge but that which we 
derive from nature, has been placed within our reach ; and 
that man has been provided with no other source whence to 
discover the truth of his real destiny. Let us, for the sake of 
preserving the hypothesis, suppose him to proceed to investi- 
