Let us further remark, that since it seems inevitable that pretended revelations of ancient date should pledge themselves to a false science, the presumption must be strong that an ancient revelation of great multiplicity of detail, which has _not_ so pledged itself, is not a false, but a true revelation. Nay, if we find in it the line drawn between what man can know of himself and what he cannot know, and determine that this line was traced in a remote and primitive age, we have positive evidence in the circumstance, good so far as it extends, of its Divine origin. Now, it will be ultimately found that this line was drawn with exquisite precision in the Hebrew Scriptures,--not merely the most ancient works that profess to be revelations, but absolutely the most ancient of all writings. Unfortunately, however, what God seems to have done for his Revelation, influential theologians of both the Romish and Orthodox Churches have labored hard to undo; and, from their mistaking, in not a few remarkable passages, the scope and object of the vouchsafed message, they have at various times striven to pledge it to a science as false as even that of Buddhist, Teuton, or Hindu. And so, not only has the argument been weakened and obscured which might be founded on the rectitude of the line drawn of old between what ought and what ought not to be the subject of revelation, but even a positive argument has been furnished to the infidel,--ever ready to identify the glosses of the theologian with the enunciations of revelation itself,--similar to that which the Christian missionary directs against the false religions of India. It may be well briefly to inquire how this unlucky mistake has originated.