The author deems it unnecessary to offer any apology for the publication of the following work. It has been prepared under an impression, which growing experience has tended only to deepen and confirm, that a crisis is impending in the religious history of this country such as will put the faith of many in the most elementary principles of Divine truth to a very severe and perilous test. There is, no doubt, much religious profession, and a very general acknowledgment, among the educated classes, of the necessity and value of religious instruction: but no one can have marked the signs of the times, without discovering that, beneath the smiling surface of society, there is a deep under-current of dark and troubled thought, a restless spirit of inquiry, an uneasy sense of doubt, a conscious dissatisfaction with existing beliefs, which, whether openly avowed or secretly cherished, reveals itself too clearly both in our philosophy speculations and our popular literature, and betrays an incipient tendency to unbelief, which may leave many to fall an easy prey to the arts and arguments of Infidelity. It has been publicly proclaimed that Christianity is effete, — that its mission has failed - that its doctrines are antiquated and obsolete, — and that the Church of the Future must be widely different from the Church of the Past. In such circumstances a work on the fundamental principle of all Religion cannot be unseasonable, if it be executed in an earnest Spirit, and adapted to the wants of the age.
- Introduction—Historic Survey of the Various Methods of Stating the Proof—Preliminary Questions
- The First Part of the Proof, — From the Fact of Existence
- The Second Part or the Proof, — From the Existence of Mind
- The Third Part of the Proof, — From the Phenomena of Conscience
- The Fourth Part of the Proof, — —From the Marks of Design in Nature
- Adaptations Between the Terrestrial and Celestial Economies
- Adaptations Between Different Parts of the Same Organised Structures
- Relations Between Different Substances — Organic and Inorganic
- Adaptations Between the Corporeal Organs and the Natural Dispositions and Habits of Animals
- Variations from Ordinary Forms and Methods for Special Ends
- Prospective Arrangements with a View to Ulterior Ends
- The Established Order of Successive Events
- The Use of One Agent for a Vast Variety of Ends, and the Concurrence of a Vast Number of Agents for One and the Same End
- The Phenomena of Instinct in the Lower Animals
- Mental Adaptations
- Social Adaptations
- The Fifth Part of the Proof—Vestiges of the Historic Fact of Creation
- The Complement and Sum of the Proof
- Application of the Proof—To Neutralise Objections Arising from the Apparent Defects, or Real Evils, Which Exist in the World
- The Metaphysics of Theism — Intuition, Faith
- The Principle of Causality
- The Doctrine of Final Causes
- Kant’s Critique of the Proofs Oe Natural Theology
- Modern Atheism
- Theories of Development
- Theory of Cosmical Development — “The Vestiges,”
- Theory of Physiological Development — “Telliamed” — “Physio — Philosophy,”
- Theory of Social Development — Auguste Comte
- Theory of Ecclesiastical Development Jh Newman,
- Theories of Pantheism
- The System of Spinoza
- Material Pantheism
- Ideal Pantheism
- Theories of Materialism
- Distinct Forms of Materialism
- Propositions on Materialism
- Relations of Materialism to Theology
- Theory of Government by Natural Laws—Volney — Combe
- The Doctrine of Natural Laws and Second Causes
- The Constitution of Man in Its Relation to the Government of God
- The Efficacy of Prayer
- Theories of Chance and Fate
- Theory of Religious Liberalism
- Theory Of Secularism
- Theories of Certitude and Scepticism
- The Duties Which Arise from Our Natural Relations to God
- The Existence of the Bible and the Church, — An Additional Fact to Be Accounted For
- Analogy Between the Natural Manifestation and the Supernatural Message
- The Difficulties and Desiderata of Natural Theology
- The Permanent Use of the Natural Manifestation of God
https://archive.org/details/faithingodmodern02buch/