"While then reason and revelation are consistent in fact, they often are inconsistent in appearance; and this seeming discordance acts most keenly on the imagination, and may suddenly expose a man to the temptation, and even hurry him on to the commission of definite acts of unbelief, in which reason itself really does not come into exercise at all."[285] Thus we find in fact just that distinctness between the ideas derived from physical science on the one hand and from religion on the other, which we might _a priori_ expect if there exists that distinctness between the natural and the miraculous which theological authorities lay down.
Assuming, for argument's sake, the truth of Christianity, it evidently has not been the intention of its Author to make the evidence for it so plain that its rejection would be the mark of intellectual incapacity.

Conviction is not forced upon men in the way that the knowledge that the government of England is constitutional, or that Paris is the capital of France, is forced upon all who choose to inquire into those subjects.

The Christian system is one which puts on the strain, as it were, _every_ faculty of man's nature, and the intellect is not (any more than we should _a priori_ expect it to be) exempted from taking part in the probationary trial.

A moral element enters into the acceptance of that system.
And so with natural religion--with those ideas of the supernatural, viz.
God, Creation, and Morality, which are anterior to revelation and repose upon reason.

Here again it evidently has not been the intention of the Creator to make the evidence of His existence so plain that its non-recognition would be the mark of intellectual incapacity.