Statement of the modes of viewing the question in different ages. (p. 373.) The Bible an authority; but the importance shown of using wisdom in not pressing the difficulties of scripture on an inquirer, so as to quench incipient faith. (p. 374.) The mention of the emotional causes of doubt conjoined with the intellectual, a warning that, in addition to all arguments, the help of the divine Spirit to hallow the emotions must be sought and expected. (p. 375.) Final lesson to Christian students, that in all ages of peril, earnest men have found the truth by the method of study united to prayer. (pp. 376-379.) LECTURE I. ON THE SUBJECT, METHOD, AND PURPOSE OF THE COURSE OF LECTURES. LUKE vii. 51. _Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division._ The present course of lectures relates to one of the conflicts exhibited in the history of the Church; viz. the struggle of the human spirit to free itself from the authority of the Christian faith. Christianity offers occasion for opposition by its inherent claims, independently of accidental causes. For it asserts authority over religious belief in virtue of being a supernatural communication from God, and claims the right to control human thought in virtue of possessing sacred books which are at once the record and the instrument of this communication, written by men endowed with supernatural inspiration. The inspiration of the writers is transferred to the books, the matter of which, so far as it forms the subject of the revelation, is received as true because divine, not merely regarded as divine because perceived to be true. The religion, together with the series of revelations of which it is the consummation, differs in kind from ethnic religions, and from human philosophy; and the sacred literature differs in kind from other books. Each is unique, a solitary miracle of its class in human history. The contents also of the sacred books bring them into contact with the efforts of speculative thought. Though at first glance they might seem to belong to a different sphere, that of the soul rather than the intellect, and to possess a different function, explaining duties rather than discovering truth; yet in deep problems of physical or moral history, such as Providence, Sin, Reconciliation, they supply materials for limiting belief in the very class of subjects which is embraced in the compass of human philosophy. A conflict accordingly might naturally be anticipated, between the reasoning faculties of man and a religion which claims the right on superhuman authority to impose limits on the field or manner of their exercise; the intensity of which at various epochs would depend, partly upon the amount of critical activity, and partly on the presence of causes which might create a divergence between the current ideas and those supplied by the sacred literature.