doctrine of Christ necessarily softens men's courage, and that instead of encouraging them to enlist themselves soldiers for the welfare and preservation of the state, it rather makes them lambs, who can hardly be exasperated against their enemies, whom they must continually pray for, and are obliged to love as themselves. And human frailty, and corruption, murmurs to see itself impugned by the Christian religion, even in the dispositions and most secret recesses of the soul; and that the veil of hypocrisy, and the pious pretences and dissimulations of the soul under which it ought to lie secure, are ineffectual against it. Who then, but God, can be the author of a religion so equally contrary both to the covetous desires of the mean, and the ambition of the great, and so equally averse both to policy and corruption? X. Other religions would have God bear the image of man, and so necessarily represent the Deity as weak, miserable, and infected with all manner of vices, as men are. Whereas the Christian religion teaches us that man ought to bear the image of God: which is a motive to induce us to become perfect as we conceive God himself to be holy and perfect. That religion then which restores to God his glory, and the image of God to man, must necessarily be of divine authority.

XI. Lastly, other false religions were the irregular confused productions of the politest and ablest men of those times; whereas the Christian religion is a wonderful composition, which seems wholly to proceed from the most simple and ignorant sort of people. The heathens have often condemned the extravagant notions which the common people had framed to themselves of the Deity; they have blamed the barbarous cruelty of those sacrifices which were offered to their gods in so many places, and the impurity of their mysteries, the falsehood of their oracles, and the vanity and childishness of their ceremonies. Cicero says, in some part of his works, that two augurs could not look one another in the face without laughter. We all know, that when the philosophers attempted to treat on religion, they always exceeded one another in extravagancies. And though we cannot deny that the heathens, the philosophers, &c. made several wonderful discoveries in arts and sciences; yet it will appear that a long succession of very understanding men among them were guilty of many repeated extravagancies in this respect, and that by a prodigy not to be paralleled, if the Christian religion did not offer a similar prodigy, by showing us a company of wise and learned men in such reputed ignorant persons as the disciples of Jesus Christ.

Certainly it is a strange thing to see the most understanding men become the most stupid, and the most ignorant prove the most understanding in matters of religion. It is a true sign that God designed to confound the understanding of the wise, and a proof that their religion was formed rather according to the corrupt desires of their hearts than the dictates of their understanding, for had it been according to their understanding, it would have been more reasonable in proportion to the wisdom and knowledge of the authors of it. But because it was made to sooth their corrupt desires and flatter their passions, it is as extravagant and irregular as those passions.

And now let us put together all these characters, and ask the opposers of revelation, whether they can be so extravagant as to ascribe to an impostor a religion so perfect in its original, that nothing could ever since be superadded to it, but what necessarily lessens its perfection; a religion that proposes its mysteries with such authority and boldness; that brings men from sensual objects to spiritual ones; that extirpates corruption; that restores the principles of righteousness and uprightness which were imprinted in our souls; that teaches us to glorify God without any regard to self-love or pleasure; to exalt God and humble ourselves; to submit ourselves to his will, who is above us all, and to raise ourselves above those beings which he has put in subjection under us: a religion that is contrary to policy, and yet more averse to corruption; that astonishes our reason, and yet gives us the peace of a good conscience; and, in a word, is as delightful to the one as it is comfortable to the other.

If the Christian religion then has all these qualifications, as it certainly has, we cannot doubt but that it is directly, as to these qualifications, opposite to all other religions. And if it be thus opposite to all other religions, it must necessarily have a principle opposite to them so that as all other religions peculiarly belong to the flesh, the Christian wholly appertains to the spirit: and as the former are the products of the corrupt desires and imaginations of men, so the latter must have for its principle the God of holiness and purity.

The preceding considerations will derive additional force if we contrast the advantages which infidelity and Christianity respectively afford to those who embrace them.

Let it be supposed then that the deist is right, and that Christianity is a delusion; what does the former gain? In what respects has he the advantage? Is the deist happier than the Christian? No. Is he more useful in society? No. - Can he meet the sorrows of life with more fortitude? NO. Can he look into futurity with more composure? No. His highest bliss arises from base lusts: his conscience is his daily tormentor; his social circle is a wilderness overgrown with thorns; his life is perfect madness; and of his death it may be said, that he dieth as a fool dieth. But the Christian is happy in himself, or rather in his Saviour; he is useful in his day; amid all the tumults and anxieties incident to mortality, he enjoys a peace which the world can neither give nor take away; his mind is supported under all the sorrows and afflictions of life; and, in that awful moment, when the great problem is about to be solved, of annihilation or eternity, he looks forward to futurity with holy tranquillity. At least, he is as safe in his death as any of the children of men!1

On the other hand, let it be supposed that the antagonist of revelation is wrong, and that Christianity is TRUE (and TRUE it will be found), what advantage has the Christian more than the infidel, the believer than the unbeliever? or what does it profit us to be Christ's peculiar people? Much every way. For if our happiness in

1 On the subject of the preceding paragraph, the reader will find several admirable and eloquent observations in Dr. Dwight's Two Discourses on the Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy, pp. 69-98.

a future state, as is highly probable, shall increase in proportion to what we know, believe, and practise of our duty, upon a principle of obedience to the will of God, in the present life; the consequence is indisputable, that the more we know, believe, and practise of our duty here, so much the more pure and exalted will be our joys in the eternal mansions of bliss hereafter. This then is the Christian's boasting, and this our serious triumph, that the Holy Scriptures have made us fully acquainted with all the various relations in which we stand to the Divine Nature, as our Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and constant Assistant in our progress towards perfection; that our whole duty is laid open to our view, and that we never can be ignorant of what is the good and acceptable will of our Sovereign Lord; that we have the strongest motives of gratitude and interest to animate us to live up to the law of our being; and that we are filled with the comfortable assurance, that our merciful God and Father will receive our sincere, though imperfect, endeavours to serve and please him, in and through the death and mediation of his Son Jesus Christ. The best Christian must be the best, and consequently, upon the whole, will be the happiest man. Let it not, therefore, be imagined, as is too often the case, that God arbitrarily assigns to Christians a higher degree of happiness than to others, without having a proper regard to their moral agency, and that this is the doctrine of the Gospel. On the contrary, the faith of sincere Christians is always directed to the right and best object, their piety is of the noblest kind, and their virtues the most pure and extensive: to be uniformly engaged in an upright, benevolent, and religious course of action is the solemn vow and profession of Christians. In a word, the deist, by wilfully rejecting all moral evidence, forfeits all things, and gains nothing; while THE CHRISTIAN HAZARDS NOTHING, AND GAINS ALL THINGS.

SECTION VI.

INABILITY TO ANSWER ALL OBJECTIONS NO JUST CAUSE FOR REJECTING THE SCRIPTURES. THE UNBELIEVERS IN DIVINE REVELATION MORE CREDULOUS THAN CHRISTIANS.1

ALL the objections, which can with any colour or pretence be alleged against the Scriptures, have at different times been considered and answered by men of great learning and judgment, the result of whose inquiries we have attempted to concentrate in the present volume; and several objections, particularly those relative to the Mosaic history of the creation and of the deluge, have been demonstrated to be groundless and frivolous. But even though all the difficulties, that are alleged to exist in the sacred writings, could not be accounted for, yet this would be no just or sufficient cause why we should re

1 For the materials of this section, the author is indebted to Dr. Jenkin's Reasonableness and Certainty of the Christian Religion, vol. ii. pp. 548-554.; to Dr. Ryan's Evidences of the Mosaic and Christian Codes, pp. 293-296.; and to Dr. Samuel Clarke's Discourse on the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion, &c. Proposition xv. (Boyle Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 192-196. folio edit.)

ject the Scriptures: because objections for the most part are impertinent to the purpose for which they were designed, and do not at all effect the evidence which is brought in proof of the Scriptures; and if they were pertinent, yet unless they could confute that evidence, they ought not to determine us against them.

He that, with an honest and sincere desire to find out the truth or falsehood of a revelation, inquires into it, should first consider impartially what can be alleged for it, and afterwards consider the objections raised against it, that so he may compare the arguments in proof of it, and the objections together, and determine himself on that side which appears to have most reason for it. But to insist upon particular objections, collected out of difficult places of Scripture, without attending to the main grounds and motives, which induce a belief of the truth of the Scriptures, is a very fallacious mode of arguing because it is not in the least improbable, that there may be a true revelation, which may have great difficulties in it. But if sufficient evidence be produced to convince us, that the Scriptures are indeed the word of God, and there be no proof on the contrary to invalidate that evidence, then all the objections besides, that can be raised, are but objections, and no more. For if those arguments, by which our religion appears to be true, remain still in their full force, notwithstanding the objections, and if no positive and direct proof be brought that they are insufficient, we ought not to reject those arguments, and the conclusions deduced from them, on account of the objections, but to reject the objections for the sake of those arguments; because if those cannot be disproved, all the objections which can be conceived must proceed from some mistake. For when a person is once assured of the truth of a thing, by direct and positive proof, he has the same assurance, that all objections against it must be vain and false, which he has that such a thing is true; because every thing must be false which is opposite to truth, and nothing but that which takes off the arguments, by which any thing is proved to be true, can ever prove it false: but all objections must be false themselves, or irrelevant to the purpose for which they are alleged, if the evidence for the truth of that, against which they are brought, cannot be disproved, that is, if the thing against which they are brought, be true.

To illustrate these observations by a few examples:- If a man produce never so many inconsistencies, as he thinks, in the Scriptures, yet unless he be as well assured, at least, that these which he calls inconsistencies, cannot be in any book of divine revelation, as he may be that the Scriptures are of divine revelation, he cannot in reason reject their authority. And to be assured of this, it must be considered, what is inconsistent with the evidence whereby the authority of the Scriptures is proved to us: for whatever is not inconsistent with this evidence, cannot be inconsistent with their authority. In like manner, if a man should frame never so many objections against the opinion commonly received, that Cæsar himself wrote the Commentaries which pass under his name, and not Julius Celsus, or any other author; unless he can overthrow the evidence by which

Cæsar appears to be the author of them, all his objections will never amount to a proof that he was not the author. If Archimides or Euclid had used improper language or solecisms, would their demonstrations have had the less weight with those by whom they had been understood? Or if they had subjoined an historical account of the discovery and progress of the mathematics, and had made mistakes in the historical part, would the demonstrative part have been the less demonstrative? And does not that man make himself ridiculous who, with Epicurus and Hobbes, pretends by reason to overthrow mathematical axioms and theorems which he cannot understand? Upon the same grounds, if the substance of what the sacred writers deliver be true, it will nevertheless be truth, though the expression were not always proper, and the circumstances of time and place in things less material had been mistaken, and many things should be written which are hard to be understood.

It is very possible for God to reveal things which we may not be able to comprehend; and to enact laws, especially concerning the rites and ceremonies enjoined to a people so many ages past, the reasons of which we may not be able fully to understand; and it is very possible likewise, that there may be great difficulties in chronology, and that the text may in divers places have a different reading: and though all these things have been cleared to the satisfaction of reasonable men by several expositors, yet let us suppose at present, to gratify these objectors (and this will gratify them, if any thing can do it), that the laws are utterly unaccountable, that the difficulties in chronology are no way to be adjusted, that the various readings are by no means to be reconciled; yet what does all this prove? That Moses wrought no miracles? That the children of Israel and the Egyptians were not witnesses to them? That what the prophets foretold did not come to pass? That our Saviour never rose from the dead, and that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles? Or that any thing is contained in the Scriptures repugnant to the divine attributes, or to the natural notions of good and evil? Does it prove any thing of all this? Or can it be pretended to prove it? If it cannot (and nothing is more plain than that it cannot), then all the evidence produced in proof of the authority of the Scriptures stands firm, notwithstanding all that either has been or can be said concerning the obscurity, and inconsistency, and uncertainty of the text of the Scriptures. And the next inquiry naturally will be, not how the Scriptures can be from God, if these things be found in them (for it is already proved that they are from God, and therefore they must from henceforth be taken for granted, till it can be disproved), but the only inquiry will be, how these passages are to be explained or reconciled with other places.

For let us consider this way of reasoning, which is made use of to disprove the truth and authority of the Scriptures in other things, and try whether we are wont to reason thus in any case but that of religion, and whether we should not be ashamed of this way of arguing in any other case. How little is it that we thoroughly understand in natural things, and yet how seldom do we doubt of the