The principle on which these remarks are made has the sanction of some of the deepest of English Divines. Bishop Butler, for instance, who has so often been quoted here, thus argues in behalf of Christianity itself, though confessing at the same time the disadvantage which in consequence the revealed system lies under. "Probable proofs," he observes, "by being added, not only increase the evidence, but multiply it. Nor should I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the contrary side. . . . The truth of our religion, like the truth of common matters, is to be judged by all the evidence taken together. And unless the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies), then is the truth of it proved; in like manner, as if, in any common case, numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any other event disputed, the truth of the disputed event would be proved, not only if any one of the acknowledged ones did of itself clearly imply it, but though no one of them singly did so, if the whole of the acknowledged events, taken together, could not in reason be supposed to have happened, unless the disputed one were true. "It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united force of the whole argument in one view."[109:1] In like manner, Mr. Davison condemns that "vicious manner of reasoning," which represents "any insufficiency of the proof, in its several branches, as so much objection;" which manages "the inquiry so as to make it appear that, if the divided arguments be inconclusive one by one, we have a series of exceptions to the truths of religion instead of a train of favourable presumptions, growing stronger at every step. The disciple of Scepticism is taught that he cannot fully rely on this or that motive of belief, that each of them is insecure, and the conclusion is put upon him that they ought to be discarded one after another, instead of being connected and combined."[109:2] No work perhaps affords more specimens in a short compass of the breach of the principle of reasoning inculcated in these passages, than Barrow's Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy. 10.