SECT. I.—SYMPTOMS OF INTENDED RESTORATION.

Our argument under this particular section is far from being very consecutive or conclusive. It is safer, to say the least of it, to establish a posteriori that God has afforded a means of restoration, than to waste ingenuity in proving a priori that such an interposition of heaven is probable. In the conducting of this latter argument, we find invariably, that not a little is assumed which could have been discovered or rendered certain only by the revelation itself.

The few scattered observations which we have to offer are of an a posteriori and inductive character. We are to point to some facts which seem to indicate that God did intend to institute a method of restoring the race. In order to attain even such a presumption or probability, we must take into account two apparently opposite classes of facts.

First, we must carry along with us a deep sense of human guilt, and of God's enmity to sin. Without doing so, we cannot advance a step in the argument. Proceed on the idea that man is very much what God would have him to be, and it is impossible to find a ground on which to build an expectation of the interposition of heaven. It is at this point that the argument of those who would demonstrate a priori, the necessity for a Divine revelation, is felt to be the weakest.