AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY; OR, THE CREDIBILITY OBTAINED TO A SCRIPTURAL REVELATION, FROM ITS COINCIDENCE WITH THE FACTS OF NATURE. BY THE REVEREND RENN D. HAMPDEN, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. what if earth Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought? PARADISE LOST, V. 574. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXXVII. PREFACE. ADMIRATION of the celebrated treatise of Bishop Butler,-" The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature",-and a desire to obtain a full comprehension of the character and force of the particular evidence exemplified in that work, have been the primary inducements to the following attempt to elucidate the principle on which that evidence proceeds, and the importance of its application to such a religion as Christianity. A discussion of this kind appeared the more necessary, as the evidence of the natural world has been greatly underrated in the general estimate, as a constituent of the great Christian Argument. It is usual to speak of it, indiscriminately, under the general head of the internal evidence, a |