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energy other portions of my rational powers, and for investi- 
gating the foundation on which both my conclusions and such 
supposed assertions of revelation rest. A revelation which 
contradicts reason is at once proved to be incredible. 
It is quite possible that a revelation might have been 
so given as to have contained a theology. As this is obvi- 
ously not the case with the Christian revelation, we need not 
discuss an abstract possibility. If we want a system of theo- 
logy, we must seek it elsewhere than in revelation itself ; and 
the only instrument by which its elaboration is possible, is 
reason. It must be subject, therefore, to the same conditions 
as those to which science is subject, use the same organa of 
investigation, and be content to exclude from itself those 
indistinct conceptions respecting which we can never attain 
to any definite predication. In our efforts to attain to a 
true science, philosophy, or theology, it is hardly possible to 
overrate the importance of instituting such an analysis into 
the powers of the mind as will determine the definite limits 
within which its powers are bounded, and which will lead to 
the exclusion from each of impossible subjects of inquiry. 
Many will object, that revelation having been communicated 
once for all in its fulness, theology must differ from the sciences 
in being unprogressive. This objection is an extremely 
popular one, but it is founded on the confusion of thought, by 
which theology and revelation are identified. I answer, first, 
that a similar objection lies against the study of creation. 
Secondly, that it it is contrary to fact, for many dogmas which 
were once supposed to form essential portions of theological 
truth, have become utterly superseded, as the once prevalent, 
nay, all but universal belief in witchcraft, which has slaugh- 
tered human beings in greater numbers than many a destruc- 
tive war; and the disbelief in the possibility of the existence of 
antipodes, of the truth of which theologians were once as 
confident, as in modern times many have been of the utter 
falsehood of geology. The advance of human knowledge and 
the establishment of a better system of investigation, have 
cleared up many a dark cloud which once brooded over the 
surface of theology, and I feel confident that like influences 
will be attended with similar effects in years to come. Have 
not multitudes of eminent theologians in bygone ages believed 
that persecution was a religious duty ? The advocates of this 
are now as few as they once were numerous. Such examples 
may be almost indefinitely multiplied. 
As this subject is one of the greatest importance, and it is 
impossible in this paper that I should fully argue it, I shall 
shelter my position that theology ought to take rank among 
