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    Such an apprehension has hitherto been rare ; such an appreciation very inadequate . The substance of Christian doctrine is the revelation of a future life of retribution . A . 11 other doctrines , admitted , supposed , or incidentally taught in the gospel , however true , however important , from no part of the new revelation . They were , or might have been , developed by the general , and ought not therefore to be referred to the special , process of education . This one distinguishing doctrine of Christianity is taught by fact .

    These propositions , brief and simple as they are , involve considerations of the highest interest and importance ; and modify , to an extent which , perhaps , will scarcely be anticipated , the views of the design of God in giving , and the prospects of mankind in receiving the Christian revelation .

    The provision by which the truths of the gospel are made of an inferential instead of an explicit nature confirms its analogy with the process of education . The facts which the gospel exhibits serve as guides to conduct the reason to the noblest objects ; while the act of inference quickens and develops the same faculty .

    It has been already observed that by the perception of any new truth , the perceptive faculty itself is invigorated . The more rapid the development of new facts and doctrines , the more speedy will be the growth of the reason which apprehends them . The doctrines of the Old Testament were such only as human reason must have discovered in time by natural means , such as , in fact , have been discovered by individual minds in Heathen countries ; and the grand purpose , therefore , which was to be answered by

    that revelation , must have been the more rapid development of the mind of a nation . If this plan was successful while the reason was yet too weak to be much exercised in inference , it must be eminently powerful under the new dispensation , when the universal mind , being prepared for the effort , was exercised in a new method of discovering truth . By the gospel , a stupendous fact was exhibited , which could never have occurred in the course of nature . The minds of the witnesses were impelled to draw an inference from this fact , which inference is a doctrine not ascertainable with

    certainty by unassisted reason . This effort was a lesson which taught them how to make other efforts of the same kind ; how to deduce from other facts doctrines which might have been developed in course of time by the general method of education . Many doctrines , some of greater , some of less importance , are conveyed by the new revelation ; but they do not , individually or collectively , characterize the gospel , like that of a future life . They are to be discovered by the same means—by inference from

    facts ; and they therefore answer the same purpose of giving a new impulse to reason ; but they differ from the distinguishing doctrine of Christianity inasmuch as that they might , in course of time , have been certainly known by natural means . It is often objected , I am aware , that the dignity of gospel doctrine is lowered by making it a subject of discovery or even of examination by human reason ; but the conditions on which we receive it prove that the objection has no force . These doctrines can only be

    received in proportion as they become truths of reason . Before they were revealed , they were mysteries ; being revealed , they are no longer mysteries , but truths of reason ; and they were revealed that they might become so . It is necessary to remember that the distinction between truths of revelation and truths of reason refers to the recipients and not to the thing imparted . The truth remains the same , by whatever name it is called , and under whatever aspect it is viewed ; the difference is in the human faculties by

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    The Education of the Human Race . 513

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 513, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/9/