SECT. I.

AMONG the many attempts, to recommend and accommodate the pro­found mysteries of divine wisdom to the shallow comprehension of the human understanding, the present is by no means the least promising or plausible. [Page 2] But the Impossible, necessarily includes the Impracticable, and all attempts, to reconcile objects, that are in their very essence irreconcileable, must ever be ineffectual.

Hence nothing can be more repre­hensible, than the arrogance of our modern Rationalists, in cavilling at e­very thing in Revelation, that is not reconcileable to Reason, and in deny­ing every thing to be religious that is not rational. Tenacious of the name of Christians, as they are of the prin­ciples of Heathens, they want to new­model the system of Christianity, by ex­punging all those doctrines, which they cannot reconcile to their new­sangled scheme of Rationality. But, [Page 3] alas! their reasoning faculties are too confined, to soar above ‘—this visible, diurnal sphere;’ so that, after all, they must sit down content with a religion, which entitles them to no better an appellation than that of honest heathens, or give up even their nominal title to Christia­nity, and honestly confess themselves real Infidels.

Let them chuse; but the time seems to be approaching when they must make their choice. The Christian world is no longer to be deceived by these wolves in sheep's cloathing; these believers in the name of a Saviour, whose power of salvation they openly deny.

There is so much disingenuousness and sophistry in the practices of these minute philosophers, that we are particu­larly sorry to see them kept in coun­tenance by the misapplied abilities of [Page 4] more ingenious and ingenuous writers.

It has, indeed, been publicly hint­ed, that this little work is a mere con­troversial bubble, blown up to amuse well-meaning Christians, in order to impose on their credulity, and raise a sneer at the expence of their simplicity and sincerity.

For our own part, we have a better opinion of the author, than to give credit to such a suggestion. His rank and reputation in life, as well as in literature, forbid our entertaining a thought so derogatory to his charac­ter, as a man of sense, honour, and probity. For his Christianity, it is true, we have hitherto given him credit; but, as he now professes himself reli­giously solvent, we shall take the li­berty of investigating the terms of pay­ment, by a particular and impartial re­view of his present performance.

[Page 5]Before we begin this investigation, however, it may not be amiss to enter a caveat, against the reader's giving cre­dit to the argument merely on the au­thority of the writer. The good faith of the latter, respects himself alone, the validity of his, reasoning only re­spects the reader.

Should his work, he says, ever have the honour to be admitted into such good company as the busy or the idle, they will immediately determine it to be that of some enthusiast or me­thodist, son beggar, or some madman. "I shall, therefore," says he, ‘beg leave to assure them, that the au­thor is very far removed from all these characters: that he once perhaps believed as little as themselves, ^* but [Page 6] having some leisure and more curio­sity, he employed them both in re­solving a question which seemed to him of some importance, —Whe­ther Christianity was really an im­posture founded on an absurd, incre­dible, and obsolete fable, as many suppose it? Or whether it is, what it pretends to be, a revelation com­municated to mankind by the in­terposition of supernatural power? On a candid enquiry, he soon found, that the first was an absolute impos­sibility, and that its pretensions to [Page 7] the latter were founded on the most solid grounds: In the further pur­suit of his examination, he perceived, at every step, new lights arising, and some of the brightest from parts, of it the most obscure, but productive of the clearest proofs, because equally beyond the power of human artifice to invent, and human reason to dis­cover.’

That the brightest lights, and clearest proofs Should arise from the most obscure parts of scripture, is as singular as is the reason given for it; viz.‘be­cause they are beyond the power of human artifice to invent, and human reason to discover.’ But, may we not ask here, how our author could as­sign so notable a reason, without hav­ing himself, carried human artifice and human reason to their utmost extent of discovery and invention? How else [Page 8] should he find this discovery and in­vention to be an absolute impossibility? —If, indeed, he meant to infinuate that he hath carried the powers of in­vestigation so far as this; well and good! The improvements of art, the progress of science, are at an end!— But we must have stronger proof of the fact than a mere ipse-dixit, in a matter of so much importance.

That it is of consequence to the rea­der to know, that the author is not an enthusiast or a madman, we admit; but why we are told he is not a me­thodist or a beggar we do not readily conceive. Is any doctrine the less true because it is taught by a methodist? Is any argument the less valid because it is urged by a beggar? Or would the same doctrine be more true if main­tained by a metropolitan? Or the same argument more valid if urged [Page 9] by a Nabob?—Our Saviour and his apostles were men of eminence neither in church nor state. They were nei­ther high-priests nor lords of trade; nei­ther men of credit nor men of fortune. Nor do we see any incongruity in a very credible man's being a methodist and a very sound reasoner's being as poor as Job.

It is more to the purpose that we are told, the author is not an enthu­siast or a madman. But who tells us this?—The very man himself.—And who ever took a man's own word for his not being in a state of insanity or intoxication?—"I drunk!" says drun­ken Cassio in the play, ‘No, Sir, — This is my right hand and this is my left’—at the same time mista­king one for the other.

We do not say, this is actually the case with our author; but, we say, [Page 10] that his own asseveration merely cannot be admitted as evidence to the contra­ry. From his own confession it ap­pears, he is a convert from infidelity: now all converts are apt to run into ex­tremes and from excess of incredulity to become too credulous. From doubting and disbelieving what is pro­bably true, they affect to believe what is palpably false. Nay, from denying almost every thing, they come really to believe almost any thing.

New Converts, we say, are apt, thro' inordinate zeal, to give into excess of credulity: a conduct, which, howe­ver pious, certainly borders on En­thusiasm. Indeed, we cannot help thinking our author betrays a little tincture of it in his paradoxical obser­vation, respecting Divine Revelation in general; when, he says, all circum­stances considered, ‘if it were in eve­ry [Page 11] part familiar to our understandings, and consonant to our reason, we should have great cause to suspect its divine authority; and, therefore, had this revelation been less incomprehensible, it would certainly have been more in­credible.’—That is, in plainer terms, ‘If we understood it more, we should be apt to believe it less.’—Is not this on the plan of Credo quia impossibile est?[I believe it because it is impossible.] And does our author give this, as a proof that he is in no degree, touched with enthusiasm or insanity?—Credat Judoeus Appella!—We say not haud nos, because Charity, though it feareth all things, hopeth all things.

‘To prove the truth of the Chri­stian religion’, says he, ‘we should begin by shewing the internal marks of Divinity, which are stamped upon [Page 12] it ^†, because on this the credibility of the prophecies and miracles in a great measure depends: for if we have once reason to be convinced that this religion is derived from a su­pernatural origin; prophecies and miracles will become so far from being incredible, that it will be highly probable, that a supernatural revelation should be foretold, and inforced by supernatural means.’

Not that our author professedly, means to depreciate the proofs of the truth of the Christian religion arising from either prophecies or miracles. They both, have, or ought to have, he says, their proper weight. Let us weigh them then in his own ballance.

‘Prophecies, he says, are permanent miracles, whose authority is sufficiently [Page 13] confirmed by their completion, and are therefore solid proofs of the su­pernatural origin of a religion, whose truth they were intended to justify; such are those to be found in vari­ous parts of the scriptures relative to the coming of the Messiah, the de­struction of Jerusalem, and the unex­ampled state in which the Jews have ever since continued, all so circum­stantially descriptive of the events, that they seem rather histories of past, than predictions of future trans­actions; and whoever will seriously consider the immense distance of time between some of them and the events which they foretell, the un­interrupted chain by which they are connected for many thousand years, how exactly they correspond with those events, and how totally unap­plicable they are to all others in the [Page 14] history of mankind; I say, whoever considers these circumstances, he will scarcely be persuaded to believe, that they can be the productions of preceding artifice, or posterior ap­plication, or can entertain the least doubt of their being derived from supernatural inspiration.’

Now, this is so far from being true, that we ourselves, and we dare say many others, have seriously considered all these circumstances; and, notwith­standing the pains ingenious interpre­ters have taken to develope, conciliate and harmonize them, we do still look upon them (taken in a mere rational view) to be so imperfectly ascertained and so doubtfully applied that, judg­ing of them merely from reason, they do not strike us with any thing like that force of conviction which they ap­pear to carry with our author.

[Page 15]As to the miracles, recorded in the New Testament to have been perform­ed by Christ and his apostles, he says, ‘they were certainly convincing proofs of their divine commission to those who saw them; and as they were seen by such numbers, and are as well attested, as other historical facts, and above all, as they were wrought on so great and so wonder­ful an occasion, they must still be admitted as evidence of no inconsi­derable force.’

Here again this writer either equi­vocates or sins against the truth. The miracles performed by Christ and his Apostles were not certainly convincing proofs of their divine mission to many of those who saw them. Witness our viour's dreadful denunciation to whole cities of impenitent unbelievers, to Choraizin, Bethsaida and Capernaum; [Page 16] in which his mighty works had been displayed: unless, indeed, we are to suppose their impenitency not the con­sequence of their unbelief; but that they were so much worse than the devils, who believe and tremble, in that they believed and trembled not. But, with the Scribes and Pharisees; who, see­ing him work miracles, immediately consulted to destroy him and said, he cast out devils, through Beelzebub, the prince of devils; were those miracles, we say, convincing proofs of his di­vine mission to them?

It even appears that our Saviour wrought his miracles and preached his doctrines, in the sight and hearing of many who were never intended to be convinced by them. This our author himself observes, in accounting for that ‘want of irresistible evidence of their truth, by which they might possibly [Page 17] have been enforced:’ quoting from the Evangelist Mark the following de­claration of Jesus to his desciples. "To you it is given to know the my­stery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables, that see­ing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not un­derstand; and left at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

What weight or degree of force, then, doth our author give to the evi­dence of miracles? Surely, no conside­rable weight, if he thinks, as he says that ‘they must now depend, for much of their credibility, on the truth of that religion whose credibi­lity they were at first intended to support.’

[Page 18]How! are the religion and the mi­racles to be made reciprocally the cri­terion of each other? Are the pillars of support, on which the truth of Christianity hath so long rested, to be now themselves supported by the strength and symmetry of its superstruc­ture? This is making the whole hang by Geometry indeed!—

The internal marks of the divine origin of Christianity, are to give a credibility to the prophecies and mi­racles; which they, in turn are to re­flect back on Christianity, to do credit to its divine origin. If this be not rea­soning in a circle, and beating round the bush of argument to no end, we, at least, see no end to such a mode of argument. It is like that of the world's being supported by an ele­phant, the elephant by a tortoise, the [Page 19] tortoise by another elephant, and the other elephant by another world!

In regard to the prediction of pro­phecies and the working of miracles, it may indeed be justly objected, as it has often been, that the completion of a prophecy or the performance of a miracle, taken merely as a fact, how­ever wonderful, does not necessarily infer the interposition of a supernatural agent. ^*

[Page 20]But, granting that it did, and that such completion of the prophecies and performance of miracles are as well attested as other historical facts. Such attestation they may have; and yet, if they have no more, they cannot lay claim to more than a mere moral pro­bability of truth.

The difficulty of ascertaining the truth of probable and ordinary facts, which happen daily almost under our immediate observation, is so notorious, that it is a sufficient caution against the putting implicit faith in the historical [Page 21] relation of facts improbable and ex­traordinary, which are said to have happened at such a considerable dis­tance of time and place.

The weight or degree of force, therefore, which our author gives to the evidence of prophecies, must, not­withstanding he stiles it not inconsider­able, be little worth consideration.

The utmost that he proposes indeed, is, a high probability; and even this depends on our having other reasons to be convinced that Christianity is of di­vine origin. A foundation itself far short of the necessary proof in some cases; for men may often have reason to believe what is, nevertheless, not actually true.

Even the internal evidence, this wri­ter attempts to investigate, appears hence to amount to a mere probability; so that, by adding this evidence to [Page 22] those of both prophecies and miracles, he is at best only adding one probabi­lity to another.

SECT. II.

‘WHAT pure Christianity is (says this writer) divested of all its or­naments, appendages, and corrup­tion, I pretend not to say; but what it is not, will venture to affirm, which is, that it is not the offspring of fraud or fiction: that however fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, yet it never could have been grafted [Page 23] on the same stock, nor planted by the same hand.’

This our author undertakes to shew by stating the following plain and, as he stiles them, undeniable ^* propositions.

Such is this writer's plan, as exhi­bited by himself; on which we beg leave first to observe that, the terms, in which it is laid down, are too vague and the style too metaphorical for a [Page 25] logical essay; the form of which it affects to assume.

One would imagine that a casuist, so rigid as to think it necessary to offer ‘the mere existence of a book entitled the New Testament’, as a formal proposition, would have been strict e­nough to set out with as formal a de­finition of the enthymeme, or object itself in contemplation.

The design in view is professedly ‘to prove the truth of the Christian religion,’ and yet ‘what pure chri­stianity is, divested of all its orna­ments, appendages and corruption, the writer will not pretend to say.’

Does our logician then predicate nothing of his subject?—Yes, though he will not pretend to say what pure christianity is, he will venture to affirm what it is not. His affirmation, how ever is not even a negative predicate [Page 26] of its essence or property, but an asser­tion relative to its derivation ‘it is not the offspring of fraud or fiction.’ —‘Fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, yet it never could have been grafted upon the same stock, nor planted by the same hand.’—These metaphorical expres­sions, we say, are ill adapted to the subject in hand; which requires simple, unequivocating and precise terms, not liable to misconception or mistake. We cannot help thinking it, also, ex­tremely illogical to undertake to prove what any thing may be imputed to, as its cause, without being able to give some definition of the thing itself, as an effect. To affirm positively what and shew whence it is not derived, with­out pretending to know what IT is, is certainly not a very philosophical, [Page 27] however popular, mode it may be of theological controversy.

But to accommodate our Review to the view itself. As to this proposition the first, very little, as the author hints, need be said. It is a plain fact, which cannot be denied, such writings do now exist: the less need, therefore, as be­fore observed, to give it the formality of a proposition, either to be proved or granted; we pass it over therefore as fu­tile and frivolous.

SECT. III.

‘MY second proposition, says our author, is not quite so simple, but, I think, not less undeniable than the former, and is this: that from this book may be extracted a system of religion entirely new, both with re­gard to the object, and the doctrines, not only infinitely superior to, but totally unlike every thing, which had ever before entered into the mind of man: I say extracted, because all the doctrines of this religion ha­ving been delivered at various times, and on various occasions, and here only historically recorded, no uniform or regular system of theology is here [Page 29] to be found; and better perhaps it had been, if less labour had been employed by the learned, to bend and twist these divine materials in­to the polished forms of human sys­tems, to which they never will sub­mit, and for which they were never intended by their Great Author. Why he chose not to leave any such behind him we know not, but it might possibly be, because he knew that the imperfection of man was incapable of receiving such a system, and that we are more properly, and more safely conducted by the distant, and scattered rays, than by the too powerful sunshine of divine illumi­nation.’

Our author expresses himself here, also, in terms very vague and equivo­vocal. ‘A system of religion, he says, may be extracted from the New [Page 30] Testament infinitely superior [supe­rior in what respect?] to every other; and yet no uniform or regular system of theology is to be found there: and it had been better perhaps if the learned had never attempted to form such systems; being probably incom­patible with the divine oeconomy respecting mankind.’

Here is a probability suggested that is very high indeed! He might almost as well have suggested that the divine oeconomy itself is not systematical.

Equally paradoxical with a former illustration ^* also is the present. As, before, the brightest lights arose from the most obscure parts of revelation, so here we are to be more safely conduct­ed in the dark, than we should be in the brightest sunshine of divine illumi­nation!

[Page 31]There is likewise a palpable incon­sistency on the very face of the propo­sition itself. How can a system of re­ligion be extracted from a book, in which no such system is to be found? —Or means our author only that the form of that system is not to be found there? But, what of that? Every doctrine that is sound must be systemati­cal, whether the declaration or expli­cation of it be formally so or not.

It is customary for writers, either from literary incapacity, or to save themselves trouble, to deliver their sen­timents, however consistent and con­nected with each other, in a loose, un­connected and desultory manner. Hi­storians ^* in particular, must, from [Page 32] the very nature of their composi­tion, blend doctrinal precepts with practical narration. But, if the pre­cepts, thus interspersed in the course of the narrative, are inconsistent in themselves, or incompatible with each other, they can neither be truly doc­trinal nor doctrinally true.

Men may write as loosely and desul­torily as they please; but, if they think justly they must think consistently, and, of course, systematically. Nor do we see the least reason (except that of our author's desire to accommodate things, at any rate, to his own system) for supposing that mankind are, through any imperfection more incapable of receiving doctrines in a systematical form than they are of receiving them in no form at all. As good a logician and as good a Christian as our au­thor, [Page 33] tells us ‘the best way to learn any science is to begin with a system.’ ^*

As to this author's metaphorical al­lusion to the rays of light, it elucidates nothing. That a moderate portion of light is better adapted to weak optics than an excessive blaze of it, is un­doubtedly true; but the supposition, thence deduced, of our seeing better by means of distant, scattered rays, than by a regular emanation, is a rhetorical flourish altogether inconsistent with sound logic and true philosophy.

In regard to the bending and twist­ing of the materials of divine revela­tion ‘into the polished forms of hu­man systems, to which they never will submit;’ the attempt so to twist and bend them is certainly an unjusti­fiable violence, which it might have been better the learned had never made: but this is no reasonable ob­jection [Page 34] to their forming a plain, unpo­lished system; such as is really contain­ed in the Scriptures.

Whether any system of scriptural thinking already reduced to form in wri­ting, be in all respects unexceptionable, it is not our business here to enquire. But if there be not, it is in this parti­cular we trace the source of imperfec­tion: it lies in the incapacity of men to form such a divine system, to con­nect detached and desultory doctrines into a regular and consistent theory; and not to their incapacity of comprehend­ing such a theory, had it been formally digested and in such form first given them.

In respect to the total novelty and unheard of singularity of the doctrines of revelation when first promulgated, our author affirms that those doctrines are equally ‘new with the object; and [Page 35] contain ideas of God, and of man, of the present, and of a future life; and of the relations which all these bear to each other totally unheard of and quite dissimilar from any which had ever been thought on, previous to its publication.’

"But," continues he, ‘Whether these wonderful doctrines (which he enumerates) are worthy of our belief must depend on the opinion, which we entertain of the authority of those who published them to the world; certain it is, that they are all so far removed from every tract of the hu­man imagination, that it seems e­qually impossible, that they should ever have been derived from the knowledge or artifice of man.’

Now to us there seems no such im­possibility. Even granting, in oppo­sition to the Son of Wisdom, that there [Page 36] is any thing new under the sun, and that there is nothing in the tract en­titled "Christianity as old as the crea­tion;" admitting, we say, that the Chri­stian religion, when promulgated by our Saviour, was as new and strange as our author represents it, we think little stress of argument is to be laid upon such singularity or novelty.

We shall not go about to enquire whether the extravagancies of the Pagan Mythology, many of which certainly bear some resemblance to the sublime mysteries of Christianity, were of later or earlier origin. Yet, wonderful as are the latter and firmly as we believe them derived from God, being in their execution superior to human comprehen­sion, and totally incompatible with hu­man reason; we do not see any thing, merely in the idea or design of the su­blimest of them, so far superior to the [Page 37] powers of human invention or dissimu­lar to its sublimer conceptions. On the contrary, man hath made to him­self so many inventions, human ge­nius hath soared so high into the re­gion of impossibilities, that nothing which can come within the association of the most incongruous ideas, can in our opinion be justly said to exceed the artifice of the human imagina­tion ^*.

[Page 38]To attend, however, a little to the author's mode of proving his propo­sition. "To say the truth, says he, before the appearance of Christianity there existed nothing like religion on the face of the earth; the Jewish only ex­cepted: all other nations were im­mersed in the grossest idolatry."

‘At this time Christianity broke forth from the east like a rising sun, and dispelled this universal darkness, which obscured every part of the globe, and even at this day prevails in all those remoter regions, to which its salutary influence has not as yet extended. From all those which it has reached, it has, notwithstanding its corruptions, banished all those e­normities, and introduced a more ra­tional [Page 39] tional devotion, and purer morals: It has taught men the unity, and at­tributes of the supreme Being, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the dead, life everlasting, and the kingdom of heaven; doctrines as in­conceivable to the wisest of mankind antecedent to its appearance, as the Newtonian system is at this day to the most ignorant tribes of savages in the wilds of America: doctrines, which human reason never could have discovered, but, which when dis­covered, coincide with, and are con­firmed by it; and which, though beyond the reach of all the learning and penetration of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, are now clearly laid open to the eye of every peasant and mechanic with the Bible in his hand. These are all plain facts too glaring [Page 40] to be contradicted, and theresore, whatever we may think of the au­thority of these books, the rela­tions which they contain, or the in­spiration of their authors, of these facts, no man, who has eyes to read, or ears to hear, can entertain a doubt; because there are the books, and in them there is this religion.’

Doubtless all this is well said. It is pity it is not all quite so true. But the truth is, that these plain facts which our author says are too glaring to be contradicted, are glaringly contradic­ted every day.—It is not only denied that the doctrines of the Christian faith coincide with, and are confirmed, by reason, but it is denied by many that the devo­tion actually introduced by Christianity is more rational or the morals purer than those professed and practised by some peo­ple [Page 41] who never heard of Christianity ^*.

[Page 42]We urge nothing against the purity of those morals now in practice through­out Christendom, nor compare them with those of other nations now exist­ing, who have not embraced Christi­anity. —The comparison might be looked upon as too severe a libel on the good Christians of the age! But might not an able casuist, and as good a rhetorician as our author, as plau­sibly declaim in favour of the conquer­ors, legislators, and moralists of un­enlightened paganism, to the shame of the immorality of professed Chri­stians.

Might he not exhibit a picture of horror, faithfully drawn from the histo­ry of Christianity and the propaga­tion of our holy religion, still more shocking to humanity, and contradic­tory to its divine precepts, than is af­forded [Page 43] from that of the most horrid aera in the annals of heathenism?

Hath the savage fury of hostile barbarians, the avarice of insatiable tyrants, or the boundless ambition of heathen conquerors been the cause of more blood-shed or greater cruelty, than the zeal of religious fanatics, the phrenzy of pious enthusiasm, or the pride and avarice of Christian priests?

Might not an artful declaimer, we say, very reasonably pretend that a re­ligion, whose professors have been guil­ty of so much wickedness, could not possibly merit the epithets of divine or, holy? Would he not rather derive it from Hell, as its most natural source, than from Heaven, the declared foun­tain of mercy and goodness?

Declamations of this kind, prove nothing.

[Page 44]We shall proceed, therefore, to the consideration of the author's third pro­position; leaving that of his farther proof of the second, till we come to his solving of objections; where indeed, much of it would have with more propriety found a place.

SECT. IV.

IN proof of this third proposition, our author begins by making a distinc­tion, between the moral precepts of Christianity (founded, as he observes, on reason) and those precepts, which, being founded on false principles, in­culcate in fact no virtues at all. Un­der the former he includes piety to God, benevolence to man, justice, cha­rity, temperance and sobriety, with all those which prohibit the contrary vices, and all that debase our natures, and, by mutual injuries, introduce universal disorder, and consequently universal misery. Under the latter he [Page 46] classes those fictitious virtues, which, he says, produce no salutary effects; and however admired, are no virtues at all, such as Valour, Patriotism and Friendship.

The Monthly Reviewers, in their critique on our author's work, ob­serve, on this distinction, that they ‘never conceived that the virtues of friendship, fortitude, and patriotism, do not form a part of the moral system of the gospel: much less could they have urged the want of these vir­tues as a peculiar recommendation of its excellence. They are conspi­cuously illustrated," say they, "in the character of its author, and it would be easy to produce striking instances in which his courage and friendship, and concern for the wel­fare of his country, were actually displayed. But this is needless; the [Page 47] advocates of the Christian religion, in answer to Lord Shaftesbury and others, have sufficiently vindicated it in this respect. These are unquestion­ably virtues of considerable impor­tance; and so far as they do not in­terfere with the general principles of benevolence which Christianity in­culcates, they constitute a part of Christian morality.’

It is well for these distinguishing cri­tics that they bring in the salvo, at the at the close of the above paragraph, respecting these popular virtues not in­terfering with the general principles of benevolence, which Christianity incul­cates.

This is the very point in question; and, however successfully the advocates for Christianity may have combated Shaftsbury and others, there is some [Page 48] room still left for opposing our au­thor's argument.

‘Valour, says he, for instance, or active courage, is for the most part constitutional, and therefore can have no more claim to moral merit, than wit, beauty, health, strength, or any other endowment of the mind or body; and so far is it from pro­ducing any salutary effects by intro­ducing peace, order, or happiness into society, that it is the usual per­petrator of all the violences, which from retaliated injuries distract the world with bloodshed and devasta­tion. It is the engine by which the strong are enabled to plunder the weak, the proud to trample upon the humble, and the guilty to op­press the innocent; it is the chief instrument which Ambition em­ploys in her unjust pursuits of wealth [Page 49] and power, and is therefore so much extolled by her votaries: it was in­deed congenial with the religion of pagans, whose gods were for the most part made out of deceased he­roes, exalted to heaven as a reward for the mischiefs which they had per­petrated upon earth, and therefore with them this was the first of vir­tues, and had even engrossed that denomination to itself; but, what­ever merit it may have assumed a­mong pagans, with Christians it can pretend to none.’

There would be some argument in all this, if, because valour be the oc­casional instrument of oppression, it be also the necessary cause of it; or if men were always mischievous in proportion as they are bold. But we presume that this is not the case; cruelty being characteristic of cowardice, and bene­volence [Page 50] of bravery. Personal valour may, therefore, be justly esteemed to have some moral merit; although, as it is allowed to be in a great degree constitutional, it is certainly no farther to be deemed a moral virtue, than it is to be personally acquired. For a virtue, notwithstanding the plausibility of our author's reasoning, we presume it may justly be stiled.

Our author, indeed, says, that few, or none are the occasions in which Christians are permitted to exert their courage or valour. "They are so far," says he, ‘from being allowed to inflict evil, that they are forbid even to resist it; they are so far from being encouraged to revenge injuries, that one of their first duties is to forgive them; so far from being incited to destroy their enemies, that they are commanded [Page 51] to love them, and to serve them to the utmost of their power.’

Surely our author here mistakes the nature of that evil which Christians are forbid to resist. It certainly is not the moral evil of injustice! Admitting they are not to revenge injuries, surely they may exert their valour to prevent the execution of them! If not, a good Christian must not resist the violence of a robber, a house-breaker, or a murderer!

But, granting that individuals, anxi­ous to copy after Christian perfection, are justified in thus submitting to (though it be in fact conniving at) the commis­sion of acts of injustice; valour may be yet a necessary virtue to the support and defence of Christian communities; as we shail shew, when we come to treat of Patriotism.

But though our author will not ad­mit [Page 52] active courage to be a real virtue; passive courage, or fortitude, he allows to be consistent with the purest Chri­stian morality.

‘Passive courage, says he, is frequent­ly, and properly inculcated by this meek and suffering religion, under the titles of patience and resignation: a real and substantial virtue this, and a direct contrast to the former; for passive courage arises from the noblest dispositions of the human mind, from a contempt of misfor­tunes, pain, and death, and a con­fidence in the protection of the At­mighty; active from the meanest: from passion, vanity, and self-de­pendence: passive courage is derived from a zeal for truth, and a perseve­ranee in duty; active is the offspring of pride and revenge, and the parent of cruelty and injustice: in short; [Page 53] passive courage is the resolutiot of a philosopher, active the ferocity of a savage. Nor is this more incompa­tible with the precepts, than with the object of this religion, which is the attainment of the kingdom of hea­ven; for valour is not that sort of violence, by which that kingdom is to be taken; nor are the turbu­lent spirits of heroes and conquerors admissibleinto those regions of peace, subordination, and tranquility.’

This is, on the whole, well said; though we cannot agree that va­lour or active courage is always the off­spring of pride and revenge, or the parent of cruelty and injustice.—Passivecourage may, also, be justly stiled the resolution of a philosopher and yet active courage be very unjustly called the ferocity of a savage. Not but that the activity of [Page 54] some men is fierce and ferocious, as the passiveness of others is tame and irre­solute.

On Patriotism our author declaims thus:

‘Patriotism, that celebrated virtue so much practised in ancient, and so much professed in modern times, that virtue, which so long preserved the liberties of Greece, and exalted Rome to the empire of the world: this celebrated virtue, I say, must also be excluded; because it, not only falls short of, but directly counteracts, the extensive benevo­lence of this religion. A Christian is of no country, he is a citizen of the world; and his neighbours and countrymen are the inhabitants of the remotest regions, whenever their distresses demand his friendly assistance: Christianity commands [Page 55] us to love all mankind, Patriotism to oppress all other countries to ad­vance the imaginary prosperity of our own: Christianity enjoins to imitate the universal benevolence of our Creator, who pours forth his blessings on every nation upon earth; Patriotism to copy the mean partiality of an English parish-offi­cer, who thinks injustice and cruelty meritorious, whenever they pro­mote the interests of his own incon­siderable village. This has ever been a favourite virtue with mankind, be­cause it conceals self-interest under the mask of public spirit, not only from others, but even from them selves, and gives a licence to inflict wrongs and injuries mot only with impunity, but with applause; but it is so diametrically opposite to the great, characteristic of this institu­tion, [Page 56] that it never could have been admitted into the list of Christian virtues.’

Without recurring to what other writers may have advanced in fa­vour of the Christianity of patriotism, we shall offer a few reasons, that suggest themselves to us, to shew that the love of one's self and one's country, is not so inconsistent with that universal philanthropy inculcated by Christia­nity, as this writer here supposes.

True self-love and social, fays the Poet, are one and the same.

[Page 57]What philosophy there is in this poetry will appear in the course of our argument.

To the judicious omission of these false virtues, Valour, Patriotism, and Friendship, our author says, ‘We may add that remarkable silence, which the Christian legislator every where preserves on subjects, esteemed by all others of the highest impo­tance, civil government, rational po­licy, and the rights of war and peace; of these he has not taken the least notice; probably for this plain reason, because it would have been [Page 58] impossible to have formed any expli­cit regulations concerning them, which must not have been incon­sistent with the purity of his reli­gion, or with the practical obser­vance of such imperfect creatures as men ruling over and contending with each other: For instance, had he ab­solutely forbid all resistance to the reign­ing powers, he had constituted a plan of despotism, and made men slaves; had he allowed it, he must have au­thorised disobedience and made them rebels: had he in direct terms prohibited all war, he must have left his followers for ever an easy prey to every infidel invader; had he per­mitted it, he must have licensed all that rapine and murder, with which it is unavoidably attended.’

Now, not to dwell on the improprie­ty in the last sentence of charging, the [Page 59] power, permitting war, with the li­censing of all the rapine and murder attending it; we object to the matter of fact, as stated in the whole passage.

Without insisting, with the Month­ly Reviewers, that the character of our Saviour was conspicuously illustrious as a patriot, we may safely deny that he has not taken the least notice of mat­ters of patriotism and civil polity, as our author asserts. His reply to the Pharisees, who tempted him on the subject of paying tribute—‘Give unto Caesar the things that are Cae­sar's, and to God the things that are of God’—is an irrefragable instance of the distinction he made between re­ligion and politics.

Civil government, national policy, and the rights of war and peace, were subjects, indeed, that appear not to have come directly under his decision. [Page 60] Had they so done, we have no reason to think our Saviour lay under any kind of impossibility, to give a very ex­plicit and satisfactory answer.

If he was not explicit, however, in precept, respecting the authority of ci­vil government, it must be admitted he was illustriously so in example, by his submission to the forms of justici­ary trial and juridical condemnation; which surely were not necessary to his death, if, no such example was in­tended to be given, or precept thence to be inculcated!

But had our Saviour himself given neither precept nor example on this head; his inspired Apostles, Peter and Paul, have more than sufficiently done it; by enjoining their disciples to the most unreserved obedience to the municipal laws and civil magistra­cy [Page 61] of their times; and thence instruc­ting Christians in general to a similar obedience to the reigning powers that be in all times.

In this, however, they have made men no farther slaves in this world than they are Christians, whose faith is fixed and whose hopes are centered in another. So far as they are still men, and bound to take part in the con­cerns of this world, while on their journey to the next, they are at liber­ty to resist oppression, and combat in­justice, whether that of a domestic ty­rant or a foreign invader.

"Had my kingdom," says our Sa­viour to Pilate, ‘been of this world, then would my servants have fought, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.’

Granting that Christians, therefore, are not to propagate their religion by [Page 62] force of arms, or to fight for Christ's kingdom, which is not of this world, they are not forbidden to fight for their own share in the kingdoms, which are of this world.—If men may not fight for their religion, they may fight for their liberty and property; and, in our opinion, they act the part of brave men and good Christians in so doing.

And yet our author says, ‘If Christian nations were nations of Christians, all war would be impos­sible and unknown among them, and valour could be neither of use or estimation, and therefore could never have a place in the catalogue of Christian virtues; being irreconcile­able with all its precepts.’

Of a piece with this reasoning of our author's is that of Rousseau, in his So­cial compact; where he insinuates that [Page 63] a Christian soldier is a kind of a contra­diction in terms. But we have here given our reasons for thinking other­wise; from which it follows, that even active valour appears to be a real, and not a fictitious, virtue.

For if a good Christian be a good patriot, he must be, ready to act, as well as suffer, for his country. He must at least be ready to fight, if ne­cessary, in its defence; and valour is as requisite to repel an invader as it is to invade the foe. There is as much active courage required in defence as in offence; and hence, as loyalty and pa­triotism are the virtues of a good sub­ject, valour must have some merit even with Christians as a moral virtue, at least active courage must be as much a moral virtue as passive ^†.

[Page 64]But be that as it may, our author certainly falls into an error, in suppo­sing it necessary for a good Christian to renounce his country to become a citizen of the world, a mere cosmopo­lite!

[Page 65]In regard to the virtue of Friend­ship, our author, either wilfully or negligently imposes a change of terms upon us; reasoning very inaccurately on the subject.—

"Friendship," says he, ‘likewise, although more congenial to the prin­ciples of Christianity arising from more tender and amiable disposi­tions, could never gain admittance amongst her benevolent precepts for the same reason; because it is too nar­row and confined, and appropriates that benevolence to a single object, which is here commanded to be ex­tended over all: Where friendships arise from similarity of sentiments, and disinterested affections, they are advantageous, agreeable, and inno­cent, but have little pretensions to merit;’ for it is justly observed, ‘if ye love them, which love you, [Page 66] what thanks have ye? for sinners love those, that love them. But if they are formed from alliances in parties, factions, and interests, or from a participation of vices, the u­sual parents of what are called friend­ships among mankind, they are then both mischievous and criminal, and consequently forbidden, but in their utmost purity deserve no recommenda­tion from this religion.’

In reply, however, to what is here advanced on friendship and the text quoted from Luke in support of it, may be opposed the precept inculcated in John xiii. 34. quoted also by our au­thor in favour of that Christian virtue Charity: ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one ano­ther; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another; by this shall all [Page 67] men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’— Here we see that brotherly-love, or mutual friendship (which in the former text is represented as of little merit, being the virtue of sinners) is made the test, or criterion of christianity, the virtue one should imaging characteristic of saints.

Christian charity, in its utmost extent is certainly something more than mere friendship; but we cannot help think­ing that reciprocal affection, or, as our author stiles it, that "benevolent disposition" which is here made the characteristic of Christ's disciples, the test of their obedience and the mark by which they are to be distin­guished, is too near a-kin to friendship, to admit of friendship's being with pro­priety discarded as a fictitious virtue, or as no virtue at all.

[Page 68]Our author, indeed, is far from rea­soning accurately on this head. For, after depreciating, as above, the virtue specified, he tells us, he ‘means not by this to pass any censure on the principles of valour, patriotism and honour.’

The attentive reader will here ob­serve that, in this respecification of the spurious or false virtues, our au­thor hath substituted the term honour instead of friendship. The reason is, that, having changed his ground, he found that more pertinent to the state of his argument. Of that phantom modern honour, indeed, to which the most solid and substantial friendships are sometimes sacrificed, he may say justly, that ‘a man, who makes this his ruling principle, however virtuous he may be, cannot be a Christian, because [Page 69] he erects a standard of duty, and de­liberally adheres to it, diametrical­ly opposite to the whole tenor of that religion.’

That the laws of such honour are in­compatible with the rules of Christianity we readily allow, though we cannot allow that the sirmest friendship for an individual is incompatible with that uni­versal philanthropy, which Christianity inculcates for all mankind. Nay, we do not hold patriotism or even valour to be such mere heathenish virtues as our author would represent them.

"They may be useful," sayshe, ‘and perhaps necessary, in the commerce and business of the present turbulent and imperfect state; and those who are actuated by them may be virtuous, honest, and even religious men: all that I assert is, that they cannot be christians.’—And yet, in a subse­quent [Page 70] page of the work, we are ex­pressly told that in the present state as enlightened by the gospel, ‘if we will not accept of christianity, we can have no religion at all’. ^*

After degrading the false virtues of paganism, he proceeds to enhance the true virtues of christianity. These are poverty of spirit—Christian charity—Penitence—Faith—Self-abasement and detachment from the world.—

Admitting all that is said in favour of most of these, as being founded on scriptural authority, the virtue of faith, that which is the most immediately connected with the evidence of the di­vine origin of christianity demands our more particular attention.

"Faith," says our author, ‘is a­nother moral duty injoined by this [Page 71] institution, of a species so new, that the philosophers of antiquity had no words expressive of this idea, nor nor any such idea to be expressed; for the word [...] or fides, which we translate faith, was never used by any pagan writer in a sense the least similar to that, to which it is ap­plied in the New Testament: where in general it signifies an humble, teachable, and candid disposition, a trust in God, and confidence in his promises; when applied particularly to Christianity, it means no more than a belief of this single proposi­tion, that Christ was the son of God, that is in the language of those wri­tings, the Messiah, who was foretold by the prophets, and expected by the Jews; who was sent by God into the world to preach righteousness, judgment, and everlasting life, and [Page 72] to die as an atonement for the sins of mankind. This was all that Christ required to be believed by those who were willing to become his disciples: he, who does not be­lieve this, is not a Christian, and he who does, believes the whole that is essential to his profession, and all that is properly comprehended un­der the name of faith.’

We see here that, though our author scrupled at first setting out, to say what pure Christianity was, he has reduced it, in this illustration of Faith, to what he calls a single proposition. But he can­not be ignorant that this single propo­sition is sufficiently multifarious and complicated.

He cannot be ignorant that the ex­pression, Son of God, is differently un­derstood by different interpreters; that some think it consistent with his being [Page 73] a mere man, while others think it ex­alts him to an equality with the Deity.

He cannot be ignorant that his atonement by death for the sins of mankind, is controverted and even boldly denied by a considerable num­ber of professed Christians.

To what purpose is it that our au­thor tells us this proposition is the es­sential creed of a Christian, if other writers of equal authority tell us otherwise. Nay to what purpose is it, we are told that the same proposi­tion is to be found in the Scriptures, whose truth we admit, if they are li­able to various interpretation?

It is in vain to say, that "when we are once convinced the Scriptures are of divine original, we have nothing more to do but implicitly believe what they tell us." How many thou­sand volumes of controversy have [Page 74] there not been written to determine what they do tell us! And is it not still left as indeterminate as ever.

Granting that implicit faith in di­vine revelation be our duty; by what means are we to trace from the history of that revelation, what is really re­vealed? Surely it must be by the same means as those by which we become convinced of its divine original! And if reason be competent in the one case, it surely must be so in the other.

At the same time, if the operation of grace be necessary to impress the true sense and meaning of the scrip­tures on the mind and heart of the un­converted sinner, why should it be less necessary, as it is evidently equally expedient, to convince him of the di­vine origin of revelation in general?— We firmly believe that, admitting the reality of our author's conversion to [Page 75] Christianity (of which we have no reason to doubt) he is much more indebted for it to the efficacious and irresistible impulse of divine grace, than to all the pains he has taken, and the inge­nuity he has exerted, in investigating the moral proofs of its divine institu­tion.

But we shall in this section confine ourselves, in conformity to the au­thor's method, to the consideration of Faith merely as a Christian duty. The objects of that Faith, with the nature of it, we shall discuss more particu­larly hereafter.

"Faith," says he, ‘cannot be alto­gether void of moral merit, (as some would represent it) because it is in a degree voluntary; for daily experience shews us, that men not only pretend to, but actually do be­lieve, and disbelieve almost any [Page 76] propositions, which best suits their interests, or inclinations, and un­feignedly change their sincere opi­nions with their situations and cir­cumstances. For we have power over the mind's eye, as well as over the body's, to shut it against the strongest rays of truth and religion, whenever they become painful to us, and to open it again to the faint glimmerings of scepticism and infi­delity’ when we ‘love darkness ra­ther than light, because our deeds are evil.’ And this, I think, suffi­ciently ‘refutes all objections to the moral nature of faith, drawn from the supposition or its being quite in­voluntary and necessarily dependent on the degree of evidence, which is offered to our understandings.’

We cannot pretend to call in que­stion the ductility of our author's believing [Page 77] organs, or the power he has over them to enable him to believe what he pleases. But, we must own, with regard to ourselves, we should be happy to be possessed of such power of credulity; so as to be able to be­lieve every thing to be true which best suits our interests, inclinations, and circumstances; even though we should thence be subject to be sometimes dis­agreeably undeceived. We should get rid of many irksome reflections and enjoy many a happy hour, at the ha­zard only of being disturbed from our pleasing reveries, and exclaiming with the interrupted visionary; ‘Pol, me occidistis, amici, Non servastis ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, Et demtus per vim mentis gratissimus error.’

As it is, we do not perceive our­selves, especially just at present, a whit more disposed to believe, than to doubt [Page 78] the reality of what we wish to be true. We do not think the observation holds good, at least so generally, or in the degree here supposed. The bold and sanguine, indeed, are apt to anti­cipate their wishes; but the timid and saturnine are as apt to procrastinate even their just expectations. It is as natural for the one to be confident as for the other to be dubious; nay, per­sons of the same constitution are not always in the same disposition or mood either of doubt or credulity.

That there is some truth, however, in the rule, with respect to its general application, is probable; as faith or facility of Belief is frequently and strongly recommended in the gospel.

But by the faith or easiness of belief, inculcated in the gospel, can surely be meant nothing more than the pious assent and submissive acquiescence of [Page 79] human reason to its mysterious and in­comprehensible doctrines, agreeable to its gospel signification mentioned above ^*, and not that rational conviction, which arises from a clear comprehen­sion of a proposition and the evident demonstration of its truth. The fu­tility of recommending the latter kind of faith or facility of rational convic­tion, we think, is obvious.

Indeed we do not see the necessity of demonstration to produce such an assent, as is here admitted to constitute a Christian's Faith. If such Faith be, as our author says, an act of the will as much as of the understanding, there are many inducements to such an act that fall far short of demonstra­tion.

[Page 80]If it be, as he observes, "well worth every man's while to believe Christianity if he can," and such belief depends so much on his will, one would think motives of self-interest alone would excite him to shew that he could, in this case, do as he would.

Is it not a sufficient incitement, to faith in Christianity, to ressect that "it is the surest preservative against vicious habits and their attendant evils, the best resource under distresses and disappointments, ill health and ill fortune, and the firmest basis on which contemplation can rest?"—That "it is the only principle, which can retain men in a steady and uniform course of virtue, piety, and devotion, or can support them in the hour of distress, of sickness and of death?"—

The word Faith, indeed, our author calls unfortunate: ‘It has, says he, [Page 81] been so tortured and so misapplied to mean every absurdity, which ar­tifice could impose upon ignorance, that it has lost all pretensions to the title of virtue; but if brought back to the simplicity of its original sig­nification, it well deserves that name, because it usually arises from the most amiable dispositions, and is always a direct contrast to pride, ob­stinacy, and self-conceit. If taken in the extensive sense of an assent to the evidence of things not seen, it comprehends the existence of a God, and a future state, and is therefore not only itself a moral vir­tue, but the source from whence all others must proceed; for on the be­lief of these all religion and morality must intirely depend.’

Here again, we must remind this writer of his having before admitted [Page 82] that men might be virtuous, honest and even religious men and yet not be Chri­stians: whereas now he makes not only all religion, but all morality depend on Christian Faith for its very existence; such faith being here expressly de­clared not only in itself a moral virtue, but the source from whence all others must proceed.

Wits, they say, have short memo­ries; but, when they turn logicians, philosophers and divines, they should endeavour to extend their memory, and keep it on the stretch, with the thread of their argument, from one end to the other.

On the whole, with respect to Faith, as a moral duty; there appears to us but very little argument necessary to enforce it. If men can believe or even half-believe what they will, it is so much their interest to do it in believing [Page 83] the truths of Christianity; the man must be either a very great fool or a very great philosopher indeed, who would remain one moment an Infidel.

If, as this writer declares; Faith be also the source from whence all other real virtues must proceed, who would not be a Christian in practice as well as theory, without waiting a moment for any rational proof of the internal evi­dence of Christianity!

SECT. V.

THIS proposition, or rather two propositions united, our author gives, as corollaries to the three preceding; presuming they are so conclusive as to amount to little short of demonstra­tion. It is, indeed, founded, says he, ‘on the very same reasoning by which the material world is proved to be the work of his invisible hand. We view with admiration the heavens and the earth, and all therein con­tained; we contemplate with amaze­ment [Page 85] ment the minute bodies of animals too small for preception, and the immense planetary orbs too vast for imagination: we are certain that these cannot be the works of man; and therefore we conclude with rea­son, that they must be the produc­tions of an omnipotent Creator.’

‘In the same manner we see here a scheme of religion and morality unlike and superior to all ideas of the human mind, equally impossible to have been discovered by the know­ledge, as invented by the artifice of man; and therefore by the very same mode of reasoning, and with the same justice, we conclude, that it must derive its origin from the same omnipotent and omniscient Being.’

With due deference to this inge­nious writer, this, like many other [Page 86] parts of his work, is rather declama­tory than argumentative. In contem­plating the works of creation, our wonder is excited and our admiration raised, in proportion as human ge­nius is enabled to trace the marks of divine wisdom in the Great Artificer.

The vulgar indeed may gape and stare at what they cannot compre­hend; but how limited are their ideas, how low are their conceptions of the power and wisdom of the Deity! Their wonder at the most stupendous instances of both, is like that of a child at the squeaking of a trumpet or the tinkling of a rattle.

The admiration of the ignorant in­deed is founded on their ignorance, that of the scientific on their know­ledge. It is not from what we do not comprehend that we deduce the wis­dom and power of the Creator, but [Page 87] from what we do comprehend; which, however comparatively little, is the real foundation of our faith in his omniscience and omnipotence.

On the other hand it is, according to this writer, from the incomprehen­sibility of the scriptures, as well as of the works of nature, that their divine origin is to be deduced.

The manner of reasoning therefore, is not, as this writer asserts, the same in both cases, but totally different. In reasoning from our view of the mate­rial world, we prudently reason from what we know, and how shall we reason other­wise. "What can we reason but from what we know?" And yet, in logicising according to our author's mode from a view both of the material world and of revelation we foolishly attempt to reason from what we do not know.

Thus, he says, of the former.‘It [Page 88] is not in the least surprizing, that we are not able to understand the spiritual dispensations of the Al­mighty, when his material works are to us no less incomprehensible, our reason can afford us no insight into those great properties of matter, gravitation, attraction, elasticity, and electricity, nor even into the es­sence of matter itself: Can reason teach us how the sun's luminous orb can fill a circle, whose diameter con­tains many millions of miles, with a constant inundation of successive rays during thousands of years, with­out any perceivable diminution of that body, from whence they are continually poured, or any augmen­tation of those bodies on which they fall, and by which they are con­stantly absorbed? Can reason tell us how those rays, darted with a velo­city [Page 89] city greater than that of a canon ball, can strike the tenderest organs of the human frame without inflicting any degree of pain, or by what means this percussion only can convey the forms of distant objects to an imma­terial mind? or how any union can be formed between material and im­material essences, or how the wounds of the body can give pain to the soul, or the anxiety of the soul can ema­ciate and destroy the body? That all these things are so, we have vi­sible and indisputable demonstra­tion; but how they can be so, is to us as incomprehensible, as the most abstruse mysteries of Revelation can possibly be.’

But, so far are we from having any visible and indisputable demonstration of the union, or even existence of two essentially different and distinct sub­stances [Page 90] in body and soul, that our ablest philosophers deny the possibility of such demonstration.^*

And, indeed, if our author did not himself confess it, we should hardly be made to believe that he is himself so bad a philosopher, as to take the evi­dence of sense (than which nothing is niore fallible) for demonstration.

It is with propriety indeed he asks if reason can explain the popular system of the solar rays in exhibiting the ema­nation of light: because that popular system is unphilosophical, unreasonable, and merely imaginary. Were he ac­quainted with the real mechanism pro­ductive of those phenomena, he might be struck with the amazing display of wisdom and power in the divine mecha­nism, but he would find no greater mys­tery [Page 91] tery in it than in the complicated ope­ration of the most simple mechanic powers.

We do readily agree with this inge­nious investigator, that we see but a small part of the great Whole; that we know but little of the relation, which the present life bears to pre-ex­istent and future states; that we can conceive little of the nature of God and his attributes or mode of existence; that we can comprehend little of the material and still lest of the moral plan on which the universe is consti­tuted, or on what principle it pro­ceeds.

But we cannot admit ourselves to be quite so ignorant of the mechanism of the material universe or the true prin­ciples of natural philosophy, as our author appears to be.

And though with regard to the theo­logical [Page 92] plan of the universe, we should confess our greater ignorance and inca­pacity of comprehension, we should not presume, as our author in fact does, to deduce the internal evidence of its divine origin from that very incapa­city. —On the contrary, we think even the best experience and historical in­formation respecting both the works of nature and the doctrines of revela­tion equally insufficient to form such a conclusion. ^*

[Page 93]Another argument, adduced by this author, respects the propagation of this religion, which, he says, is not less extraordinary than the religion itself, or less above the reach of all human power, than the discovery of it was a­bove that of all human understanding.

‘It is well known, says he, that in the course of a very few years, it was spread over all the principal parts of Asia and of Europe, and this by the minlstry only of an inconsiderable number of the most inconsiderable persons; that at this time paganism was in the highest repute, believed universally by the vulgar and patro­nized by the great; that the wisest men of the wisest nations assisted at its sacrifices and consulted its oracles on the most important occasions: Whether these were the tricks of the priests or of the devil, is of no conse­quence [Page 94] as they were both equally u [...] likely to be converted or overcome; the fact is certain, that on the preach ing of a few fishermen, their altars were deserted, and their deities were dumb.’

Out of veneration for the subject, we shall not place this argument in that ridiculous light, into which it might be thrown. At the same time, having intimated in what a suspicious light we hold historical evidence in ge­neral, we shall not enter into any dis­pute about matters of fact. ^*

We might otherwise controvert the reputable state of paganism at the com­mencement of the Christian aera; the immediate dumb-founding of its oracles [Page 95] by the preaching of the fishermen, and the consequent establishment of Chri­stianity in the principal parts of Eu­rope and Asia. ^†

The belief of the vulgar in any age [Page 96] reflects but little credit on their religion; and as to the wisest men of the wisest na­tions of paganism consulting the oracle on important occasions; we can no more infer their really interesting them­selves in behalf of paganism, than we can infer a similar conclusion in favour of Christianity from the similar farce which the wisest men of the wisest na­tions in Europe play now.

Even in this protestant country, do not our patricians, senators, and ma­gistrates, goin procession to church, and pay their formal devoirs on certain red letter days, though they laugh at the in­stitution, and even execrate the occa­sion? —In polished popish countries, their religious ceremonies are still as much more pompous and solemn, as the occasion or design is still more held in contempt and derision, even by the [Page 97] very persons assisting in their celebra­tion. ^*

The fact is, paganism was just in the same reputable state in Greece and Rome at that time, as Christianity is in Paris and Rome at this day: so that if po­litical circumstances did not interfere, and Christianity had no better support than the patronage of the Great and the piety of the populace, it might without a miracle be preached out of both cities by a methodist or a moun­tebank, in much less time than paga­nism, was formerly preached out of Rome and Athens, by a few fisher­men. Our author allows that ‘nei­ther [Page 98] learning nor sagacity is now able precisely to ascertain circum­stances, equally interesting, of still later times;’ we wonder, therefore, he should rest on this circumstance a­lone the divine authority of the fisher­men's commission. It is equally surprising, that having so many ar­guments, and all of them according to him separately irrefragable, he should think it necessary to accumu­late others merely plausible.

Of this kind is that paradoxical in­sinuation that the improbabilities on the other side of the question are so much greater that an infidel must be an unbeliever from mere credulity. ^*

Of the same kind is that trite, in­sinuating, beggarly plea (as Lord Shafts­bury calls it) of ‘what harm could [Page 99] ensue, if Christianity should after all prove a fable?’

There may be in some cases great virtue in that if; but to us, it appears very extraordinary that ever such a supposition should come from a writer, who has laboured so hard, and ad­duced so many arguments to prove its impossibility.—Suppose! quotha!—

Surely, after all, he does not think there is still ‘left a loop to hang a doubt on,’ that he is so very anxious to persuade those he may not convince! that he dwells so earnestly on the saving pleas of their being nothing to be lost and so much to be got by believing in Christianity!^* Be this as it may, the whole argumentative part of the au­thor's propositions and inference may be reduced to this: ‘The Christian [Page 100] system would never have entered in­to the heads of any persons whatever. It is inconceivable therefore how such men as did, could propagate it. —Ergo, It must have been conceiv­ed and propagated by the immediate and miraculous interposition of the Deity’.—

Such is, in sum and substance, the whole of this mighty argument! in the exposition of which, we have pos­sibly bestowed already much more time and pains than the discerning reader will think necessary.

But, having proceeded so far with our author's view, we shall now pro­ceed till we have shewn the vanishing point of his perspective.—

SECT. VI.

ADMITTING even this writer's propositions to have been demonstrated and the internal evidence of the divine origin of the Christian religion fully proved; we yet still recur to the ques­tion, ‘What is the Christian religion, or what are its doctrines?’

We have already observed that even the actual professors of Christianity are, by no means agreed on this head.^* Our author himself, indeed, com­plains, [Page 102] plains, that ‘some there are, who, by perverting the established signifi­cation of words, (which they call ex­plaining) have ventured to expunge all the principal doctrines out of the scriptures, for no other reason than that they are not able to comprehend them; and argue thus:—The scrip­tures are the word of God; in his word no propositions contradictory to reason can have a place; these propositions are con­tradictory to reason, and therefore they are not there: But if these bold assertors would claim any regard, they should reverse their argument, and say—These doctrines make a part, and a mate­rial part of the scriptures, they are contradictory to reason; no propo­sitions contradictory to reason can be a part of the word of God, and therefore neither the scriptures, nor the pretended revelation contained in them, can be derived from him: [Page 103] this would be an argument worthy of rational and candid deists, and de­mand a respectful attention; but when men pretend to disprove facts by reasoning, they have no right to expect an answer.’

Our author will, therefore, hardly think it worth his while to answer the questions, put to him, on this head, by certain Reviewers; who demand to know where, or by what passages the New Testament inculcates the doctrines he specifies: doctrines, which the rational advocates of Christianity, they pretend, are afraid to adopt. ‘These advocates,’ say they, ‘cannot adopt notions and sentiments, which are founded on ambiguous, sigurative, or sacrificial expressions; and suspect a misinterpretation of scripture, where the doctrine they embrace is [Page 104] far removed from every tract of the human imagination.’

This is exactly what our author upbraids them for, their wanting to reduce the extent of divine wisdom to the line of the human understanding.

At the same time, before we can ad­mit our author to have deduced any conclusive argument respecting the in­ternal evidence of the Christian reli­gion, it is requisite he should certify what its doctrines are. The critics last­mentioned suspect a misinterpretation of scripture, where the doctrine they inculcate is far removed from every tract of the human imagination.—The Monthly Reviewers say also, ‘it has not occurred to them that doctrines, al­lowed to be contradictory to reason, are not on this account the less cre­dible.’

On the other hand, our author [Page 105] makes their inconsistency with reason, and their being above the flight of hu­man imagination, the very criterion of their divine origin and, of course, their credibility. The scriptures, accord­ing to him, ‘contain ideas totally unheard of, and quite dissimilar from any which had ever been thought on previous to their publication. No other, says he, ever drew so just a portrait of the worthlessness of this world; and all its pursuits, nor ex­hibited such distinct, lively and ex­quisite pictures of the joys of ano­ther; of the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the triumphs of the righteous in that tremendous day, when this corrup­tible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. No other has ever represented the supreme Being in the character of [Page 106] three persons united in one God. No other has attempted to reconcile those seeming contradictory but both true propositions, the contingency of future events, and the foreknow­ledge of God, or the free will of the creature with the over-ruling grace of the Creator. No other has so fully declared the necessity of wicked­ness and punishment, yet so effec­tually instructed individuals to resist the one, and to escape the other: no other has ever pretended to give any account of the depravity of man, or to point out any remedy for it: no other has ventured to de­clare the unpardonable nature of sin without the influence of a mediato­rial interposition, and a vicarious atonement from the sufferings of a superior Being.’

[Page 107]Such are the objects of the Christian, Religion according to this author; but it is well known that the most es­sential of these doctrines are either to­tally disbelieved or explained away by a very considerable part of the profes­sors of Christianity.

The very Reviewers, above men­tioned, in particular, cannot allow with this writer ‘that the province of rea­son is only to examine into the autho­rity of Revelation; and when that is proved that reason has nothing more to do than to acquiesce.’

And so far we agree with them that Reason is just as well qualified to judge of the interpretation of particular texts and passages of scripture, as to judge of the authenticity of the whole.

But we deny, on the authority of that very scripture, that unenlightened [Page 108] reason is qualified to judge of either, Our author "readily, as unnecessarily, acknowledges, as before observed, that the scriptures are not revelations from God, but the history of such Revela­tions;" of whose imperfections and fallibility, therefore, we say, nothing less than the influence of that divine grace, which inspired the revelation it­self, can qualify any man to judge.

Hence the moral arguments, and historical evidence, which our author adduces, to prove the divine origin of revelation, appear nugatory.

To deny the probable facts, he says, related in the New Testament, would be as absurd as to deny the probable facts in any other history.—This is true, and yet the joint evidence of all the probable facts, related in any history sacred or profane, amounts to no more [Page 109] than that moral evidence, which will justify the belief of probable (not im­probable) facts.

The same may be said of the doc­trines of the Scriptures; if their di­vine authority is to depend on mere hi­storical evidence, they should appear to be as rational as the evidence, on which that authority is supported, is probable: and not the credibility of both facts and doctrines left preposterously to be supported, according to our author's scheme, by the improbability of the one, and incomprehensibility of the other ^*.

[Page 110] ‘To ascertain the true system and genuine doctrines of this religion af­ter the undecided controversies of above seventeen centuries, and to re­move all the rubbish, which artifice and ignorance have been heaping upon it during all that time, would indeed be an arduous talk, which our author will by no means under­take;’ nor is it, indeed, necessary when he can reduce all the essentials as he supposes, into so small a com­pass.

[Page 111]But it is necessary that these essen­tials should be agreed on and rendered indisputable, before the proof of their divine origin can be of any use.

With respect, for instance, to one of the most essential:—‘That Christ suffered and died as an atonement for the sins of mankind, is a doc­trine,’ says the writer, ‘so constant­ly and so strongly enforced through every part of the New Testament, that whoever will seriously peruse those writings, and deny that it is there, may, with as much reason and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides and Livy, assert, that in them no mention is made of any facts relative to the histories of Greece and Rome.’

We are perfectly of his opinion in this respect, and yet it is with asto­nishing confidence the contrary is [Page 112] maintained by many late writers of pretended candour and undoubted abi­lities. So that while the doctrines of Christianity are thus in dispute (that is) till it be determined what the essential doctrines of Revelation are, we con­ceive, as we said before, the determi­nation of the question respecting its divine origin to be of very little impor­tance; even if it were determinable by our author's mode of argument. But, again we say, we can by no means agree with him that men would believe divine revelation in proportion as its tenets were incomprehensible to the understanding.

On the contrary, the inference we should naturally draw from the imper­fect state of human science and the in­sufficiency of unassisted reason to attain any portion of divine knowledge, would be, that nothing but the imme­diate influence of Grace, the inspira­tion [Page 113] of the Almighty which giveth understanding, could induce the scep­tic to believe either the divine origin of the scriptures or the doctrines, they contain.

SECT. VII.

[Page 114]"IF," says our author, ‘I have demonstrated the divine origin of the Christian religion by an argument which cannot be confuted; no others, however plausible or nume­rous, founded on probabilities, doubts and conjectures, can ever dis­prove it, because if it is once shewn to be true, it cannot be false ^*.’

There is no parrying these ifs; but if this writer's argument be not such as cannot be confuted, there may besome­thing in the arguments founded on probabilities, doubts and conjectures, that make against it.—It is on that sup­position, we imagine, he attempts to refute such objections: as it is on that conviction, viz. that his argument it­self is invalid, that we shall proceed to consider how far he has been success­ful in removing them.

[Page 115]In answer to the first objection ^*, ‘That Revelation is incredible be­cause unnecessary, on the plea of the sufficiency of human reason to dis­cover all the religious and moral du­ties God requires of them.’ He ob­serves, that ‘Reason alone is so far from being sufficient to offer to man­kind a perfect religion, that it has never yet been able to lead them to any degree of culture or civilisation whatever;’ deducing a demonstra­tion (as it seems to him.) from History, that ‘although human reason is ca­pable of progression in science, yet the first foundation must be laid by supernatural instructions. ^†’

Now, says he, ‘As Reason in her natural state is incapable of making [Page 116] any progress ^* in knowledge, so when furnished with materials by superna­tural aid, if left to the guidance of her own wild imaginations, she falls into more numerous, and more gross errors, than her own native igno­rance could ever have suggested.’

Only think, reader, of the wild ima­ginations of Reason!—And yet the rea­sonable suggestions, which our author enumerates, it must be owned, are wild and extravagant enough.

"SHE," says he (that is Reason) ‘has persuaded some, that there is [Page 117] no God; others that there can be no future state: she has taught some, that there is no difference be­tween vice and virtue, and that to cut a man's throat and to relieve his necessities are actions equally meri­torious: she has convinced many, that they have no free-will in oppo­sition to their own experience: some that there can be no such thing as soul, or spirit, contrary to their own perceptions; and others, no such thing as matter or body, in contra­diction to their senses. By analy­sing all things she can shew, that there is nothing in any thing; by per­petual shifting she can reduce all existence to the invisible dust of scepticism; and by recurring to first principles, prove to the satis­faction of her followers, that there are no principles at all.’

[Page 118]After this curious piece of sophis­tical declamation, he adds, ‘How far such a guide is to be depended on in the important concerns of religion, and morals, I leave to the judg­ment of every considerate man to de­termine.’

That is, after declaring Reason to be a fallacious guide and an incompetent judge, he will leave it to the direction of that very guide and the determina­tion of that very judge, how far such direction and determination are to be depended on!—For what else can he mean by leaving it to the judgment of any considerate man? Is not this leaving it to Reason, or setting up Reason in judgment on herself?

To do justice to the noblest fa­culty of the human mind, we will venture to declare that Reason never [Page 119] suggested any of the above extrava­gancies to any man.

Reason never could persuade any man that "there is no God." Indeed the office of Reason is not persuasion but conviction, and no man, capable of con­viction, ever yet was even persuaded that second causes do not proceed from a first. ^*

Reason never taught any man there is no difference between virtue and vice: His necessary use of the very terms is a proof of it; as well as the [Page 120] natural sense of justice, implanted in the breast of every humanbeing. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ is not merely New Testament doctrine. It is as old as the multiplication of mankind; it is an universal principle, a law of which (to use the expression of a cele­brated, though inconsistent, moralist) ‘every man may find the exposition in his own breast ^*’.

Reason never taught any man, there can be no future state. The utmost, that reason ever taught, is that we are indebted to revelation for the certain knowledge of such state or must de­pend chiefly on scriptural proof for the evidence of it. Not but that there are even rational arguments in its favour, as [Page 121] well of the physical and moral ^* as of the religious kind. ^†

[Page 122] Reason never persuaded any man that he hath no free-will, in opposi­tion to his own experience.—If she suggested a doubt of his capacity to [Page 123] will or act without a motive, it is a suggestion founded on all experience; as his conviction of not being a mere mechanical machine, actuated by no motives at all, is founded on the same experience.

Reason never suggested the non-exist­ence of soul or body, of matter or spi­rit, in contradiction to our senses and perceptions.—Neither matter nor spi­rit are ideas of sensation, but of reflection. Reason teaches us, indeed, the fallibi­lity of sensation and perception, and the means of correcting their errors; and well for us it is, that she does so: we should else be totally destitute of science; and, for want of the instincts of other animals, should be in a worse situation than the brutes that perish.

From the above specification, indeed, of the supposed absurdities of human reason, it appears to us that, our au­thor [Page 124] hath neither physics nor metaphy­sics enough to enter on a philosophical discussion of the points in question.— We might, therefore, in like manner, leave to the judgment of our conside­rate readers to determine, whether the Reason, or rather the Imagination, of any man, in his senses, ever fell into grosser errors than has here that of our au­thor; in which case, they would like­wise determine how far such a guide is to be depended on in the important concerns of religion and morals.

We might, indeed, censure here the superficial and illogical manner; in which this writer has stated this objec­tion; viz. his speaking of mankind, as if the human mind was something dis­tinct from, and possessed of, the power of controuling its essential faculties.

But that excellent logician, Mr Har­ris, in his Dialogue on Happiness, [Page 125] hath illustrated, in the most perspicu­ous manner, the reciprocal influence of reason and passion in the conduct and composition of the human mind. To such writers, therefore, we refer our author, for the attainment of more pre­cise ideas on this subject than he seems at present to possess, or will ever ob­tain from the loose and rambling rea­sonings of those who stile themselves Christian philosophers or rational divines.

SECT. VIII.

HERE our author very readily (and, as we before observed, in our o­pinion, for his argument unnecessa­rily) acknowledges that the scriptures are not revelations from God, but only the history of them. ‘The reve­lation itself,’ says he, ‘is derived from God; but the history of it is the production of men, and there­fore the truth of it is not in the least affected by their fallibility.’ ^†

He admits, of course, that the in­spired writers were not always under the influence of inspiration; for, if they had, says he, St Paul, who was shipwrecked, and left his cloak and parchments at Troas, would not have put to sea before a storm, nor have [Page 127] forgot himself so much as to leave his cloak behind him.

"But," continues he, ‘if in these books a religion superior to all hu­man imagination actually exists, it is of no consequence to the proof of its divine origin, by what means it was there introduced, or with what human errors and imperfections it is blended. A diamond, though found in a bed of mud, is still a dia­mond, nor can the dirt, which sur­rounds it, depreciate its value or de­stroy its lustre.’

This allusion may be well calculated to catch the simple apprehension of the superficial reader; but, one of the least discrimination cannot fail to dis­cover how totally inapplicable it is to the subject in question.

A fine lady, indeed, may carelessly drop a manufactured brilliant into the [Page 128] kennel, to be accidentally picked up by a gold-finder; but rough diamonds are not originally found there; they have not their native bed in the streets, or on the dunghill; but are dug from mines, prepared by Nature's process for their production: in which state, also, they do not shine with a lustre so greatly superior to the surrounding materials.

We by no means agree with our author, therefore, that his proof of the internal evidence of the divine origin of revelation, does not suffer, by ad­mitting that ‘the prophecies are all fortunate guesses or artful applica­tions, and the miracles there record­ed no better than legendary tales.’ ^*

On the contrary we conceive that such an heterogeneous mixture of truth and falsehood, as he hypothetically [Page 129] admits in the history, as he calls it, of revelation, would, if it really existed there, very reasonably bring the truths it contains into doubt.—Nay, we will go so far as to admit that there really do appear so many errors and incon­sistencies, in that history, that unen­lightened reason cannot reconcile them: the inspiration of grace being as neces­sary to point out these truths and induce a firm belief of them, as it was to di­rect and enable the inspired writers to record them.

SECT. IX.

‘TO some speculative and refined observers it has appeared incredible’, says our author, ‘that a wise and be­nevolent Creator should have consti­tuted a world upon one plan, and a religion for it on another; that is, that he should have revealed a reli­gion to mankind, which not only contradicts the principal passions and inclinations which he has implanted in their natures, but is incompatible with the whole oeconomy of that world which he has created, and in which he has thought proper to place them. This, say they, with [Page 131] regard to the Christian, is apparently the case: the love of power, riches, honour, and fame, are the great incitements to generous and magna­nimous actions; yet by this institu­tion are all these depreciated and dis­couraged. Government is essential to the nature of man, and cannot be managed without certain degrees of violence, corruption, and imposi­tion; yet are all these strictly forbid. Nations cannot subsist without wars, nor war be carried on without ra­pine, desolation, and murder: yet are these prohibited under the seve­rest threats. The non-resistance of evil must subject individuals to con­tinual oppressions, and leave nations a defenceless prey to their enemies; yet is this recommended. Perpetual patience under insults and injuries must every day provoke new insults [Page 132] and new injuries, yet is this injoined. A neglect of all we eat and drink and wear, must put an end to all com­merce, manufactures, and industry; yet is this required. In short, were these precepts universally obeyed, the disposition of all human affairs must.be entirely changed, and the business of the world, constituted as it now is, could not go on.’

The Monthly Reviewers very justly observe, on this passage, that no seri­ous advocate for Christianity can admit all these contradictions: for, indeed, they militate not less against the prac­tical principles of Christianity than against: those of Common-sense. Our author, nevertheless boldly affirms that ‘Such is the Christian revelation, tho' some of its advocates may perhaps be unwilling to own it, and such it is constantly declared to be by him [Page 133] who gave it, as well as by those who published it under his immedi­ate direction:’ To these he says, ‘If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out, of the world, therefore the world ha­teth you’ ^*. To the Jews he declares, ‘Ye are of this world; I am not of this world’ ^†. St Paul writes to the Ro­mans, ‘Be not conformed to this world ^‡’; and to the Corinthians, "We speak not the wisdom of this world ^§." St James says, ‘Know ye not, that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God ^‖’. This irreconcileable ‘disagreement between Christianity and the world is announced in num­berless [Page 134] berless other places in the New Tes­tament, and indeed by the whole te­nour of those writings. These are plain declarations, which, in spite of all the evasions of those good managers, who choose to take a lit­tle of this world in their way to hea­ven, stand fixed and immoveable against all their arguments drawn from public benefit and pretended necessity, and must ever forbid any reconciliation between the pursuits of this world and the Christian in­stitution.’

We have as much contempt as our author can have for those good mana­gers, who choose to take as much of this world as they can with them in their journey to the next. We are also as well satisfied as he can be, that Christian morality in its purity is not calculated for the practice of man in [Page 135] his present state; but inculcated to in­spire a proper disposition preparatory to another. But, for the same reasons, we think the observance of it no far­ther required of us than it is practi­cable.

‘If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men ^*,’ says St. Paul to the Romans. The Christian religion enjoins not impossi­bilities; it imposes not hard and im­practicable duties; requiring no more of any man than lieth in him. The Scripture expressly declares; ‘Its yoke is easy and its burthen is light^†.’

[Page 136]The several texts, therefore, above adduced by our author, are evidently misapplied.

That a conformity to the vices and follies of the world is prohibited to Christians, is most certain; but where are they forbid to conform to the esta­blished customs and necessary duties of society? Are they not, on the other hand, expressly enjoined, to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake?—To pay the most implicit obedience to magistrates and all that are in power; for that the powers, that be, are of God?

Where is it, we ask again, that Chri­stians are required by the Scriptures so to act as to put an end to all com­merce, manufactures, and industry; to change the disposition of all human [Page 137] affairs, and put a stop to the business of the world?—

Are these extravagances deduced from our Saviour's sermon on the Mount and the instructions he gave his immediate disciples?—Men posses­sed of the power of working miracles for their support or defence, might safe­ly indeed leave to-morrow to take care for itself, careless of what they might eat, drink or wear. But setting aside the consideration that many things may be enjoined as particular and personal duties, adapted to time and place, which are by no means required uni­versally; setting aside also the conside­ration that our Saviour was exhibiting to his disciples a theory of morality, adapted rather to man in a state of perfection than to man in his present imperfect state of probation; it is plain that he had in view the holding [Page 138] up a contrast to the boasted morality of those vain-glorious hypocrites the Scribes and Pharisees; in order to check that overweening pride, with which they exulted in their good-works over the sincere and humble pe­nitence of the publican and sinner.

Our Saviour did not preach the same strictness of morals to all, as he did to his immediate followers. ‘Behold one came and said unto him, good master, what good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life? —And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God: but if thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments.—He saith unto him, which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not com­mit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness; [Page 139] Honour thy father and thy mother: and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’—

Every one of these commandments, we see, respects the discharge of the social duties incumbent on man in the present state of society. Not one is mentioned of a nature purely religious; even the first commandment respecting the very acknowledgment of God is omitted: and yet Jesus says, keep these commandments and thou wilt enter in­to life.

The unattainable nature of moral goodness in this mortal state is also here strongly inculcated, "There is none good but God ^*. "—And yet so good [Page 140] was the presuming Querist, that he answered, he had kept all these com­mandments from his youth up; pert­ly adding, "what lack I yet?"— Jesus said unto him, "if thou wilt be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, give it to the poor and follow me."

[Page 141]This sacrifice of the things of this world, we see, was required of him, not as the conditions of his salvation, but as a proof of that moral perfection to which he pretended, and as a qualifi­cation necessary for him to become an immediate follower and disciple of Je­sus Christ.

In like manner, we will venture to say, that Christianity, at this day, re­quires no purer morals in its professors, than as much as in them lies, to live peaceably with all men, to keep those commandments which are essential to the good of society and the peace and happiness of mankind.

Let the sincere Christian do this and we believe he will enter into eternal life, even though he should be some­what nice in regard to what he eats, drinks and wears; though he should promote commerce, manufactures and [Page 142] industry, yea, though he should, con­sistently with the laws of his country, resent insults, punish injuries, enter into the civil or even military ser­vice of government, draw his sword against the enemies of the state, and even fatally embrue it in blood, to chastise the insolence of unnatural re­bellion!

SECT. X.

IN answer to this fourth objection, our author very candidly and very simply replies, that on examination all this will be found inevitable.—We be­lieve it; things could not possibly be otherwise, because such was the ge­neral design of Providence, and such the Christian dispensation, which was a part of it.

In reply to this objection, indeed, our author admits the whole force of it; which he endeavours to elude by a very simple expedient: much such a­nother as that, by which he accounts elsewhere for the origin of evil, Ne­cessity! hard necessity; which even the omnipotence of the Deity could not [Page 144] prevent! What is this but making the God of the Christians a mere heathen Jupiter, subject to the controul of su­perior Fate?

He admits, that after Christianity had had made its way, by means of the preach­ing of the poor and mean, in holes and caverns, under the iron rod of persecution, till it so far prevailed as to obtain the countenance and protection of princes; when kings became its patrons, and queens its nursing mothers; he ad­mits, we say, that it could no longer withstand the irresistible effects of the natural imperfection of man and the political evils of civil society. ‘At length the meek and humble pro­fessors of the gospel inslaved these princes, and conquered these con­querors their patrons, and erected for themselves such a stupendous fabric of wealth and power, as the world [Page 145] had never seen: they then propa­gated their religion by the same me­thods by which it had been persecu­ted; nations were converted by fire and sword, and the vanquished were baptised with daggers at their throats.^*’

Horrid abominations! exclaims our author at the enormities of the poor pagans. But what more horrid abo­minations could they be guilty of than these? Were any of those, which, our author says, were practised in the pa­gan world, and vanished at the approach of Christianity, more horrid or more a­bominable? And yet they were per­mitted it seems, because they could not be prevented. They proceeded, we are told, from a chain of causes and conse­quences, which could not have been broken without changing the established course of things by a constant series of [Page 146] miracles, or a total alteration of human nature.^*

What a pity that a business which had so promising a beginning, should be so soon interrupted by such sinister and unforeseen accidents! For surely they must have been unforeseen, when the course of things was about to be established and human nature first con­stituted!

To be serious, this is a bungling ex­cuse for a supposed blunder in the first outset of things, unless we seriously adopt the reason, our author deduces from revelation, viz. that it could not be otherwise, ‘because that all men should be exempted from sin and punishment is utterly repugnant to the universal system, and that consti­tution of things, which infinite wis­dom has thought proper to adopt. ^†’

[Page 147]This may be, but we revere the e­ternal councils of the great author and disposer of all things too much, to suppose he was ever under the predica­ment of adopting any measure or system of action, that resulted originally from any thing but his own will.

SECT. XI.

[Page 148]TO these objections, says our au­thor, ‘I shall only say, that no argu­ments founded on principles, which we cannot comprehend, can possibly disprove a proposition already pro­ved on principles which we do un­derstand; and therefore that on this subject they ought not to be attend­ed to.’ But this is rather evading the difficulty than solving it. Indeed, with regard to the doctrines of the Tri­nity and vicarious atonement he be­stows on them some little attention. In respect to the former, he observes, ‘That three beings should be one be­ing, is a proposition which certainly contradicts reason; that is, our reason: but it does not thence follow, that it cannot be true; for there are many propositions which contradict our reason, and yet are demonstrably true.’

[Page 149]That this is a proposition contradic­tory to reason, we admit; but we de­ny, that it is either true or capable of demonstration. There may be pro­positions contradictory to reason, and yet not demonstrably false; nay, they may be such as, however contradictory to reason, we cannot help believing to be true; but to be demonstrably so, they must be perfectly and evidently consonant to reason; for demonstration is nothing but the result of a com­pleat process of rational argument.

That propositions apparently false are demon strably true, is almost too notori­ous to merit illustration. Instances oc­cur every moment in which the infe­rence of our ill-informed and immediate apprehension is directly contradictory to that of a better-informed and deliberate reflection.

[Page 150]There are propositions, also, that re­quire not only much deliberation, but much instruction, before our reason is qualified to pass any judgment concern­ing them. This our author elsewhere admits, ^* though, under the present head, he proceeds to support his asser­tion by example; offering an instance of the propositions, which, he says, are contradictory to reason, and yet demon­strably true. ‘One, says he, is the very first principle of all religion, the be­ing of a God; for that any thing should exist without a cause, or that any thing should be the cause of its own existence, are propositions equally contradictory to our reason; yet one of them must be true, or no­thing could ever have existed.’

The Monthly Reviewers very justly insinuate, that here is a confusion of [Page 151] terms: indeed our author here sadly exposes his want of logical precision. —Not to cavil at his calling God a thing, his opposing the term being, or existence (instead of effect) to the term cause, is illogical in the highest degree.

All created beings, or things, are con­fessedly the EFFECTS of one first CAUSE; but we conceive this is the first time, so expert a logician ever made such a blunder as to put the first cause on a footing with second causes; and assert (as our author, in fact, does) that no cause could ever have existed that was not the effect of some prior cause. If he is not betrayed here into a slat denial of the existence of a God, or first cause, we know not what is such.

Our author palpably mistakes the permanent predicament of existence and duration, for the transitory one of pro­duction and succession In the former the [Page 152] terms being and thing are used with pro­priety: in the latter those of cause and effect with equal propriety: but it is a solecism in ratiocination to confound one with the other. For, though, in the order of nature the existence of one thing becomes the productive cause of another, the God of Nature, the pri­mary, and efficient cause of all, supe­rier to the work of his hands, ^* is ex­empted [Page 153] from the laws of subordina­tion; which he has prescribed as the tegular succession of second causes and effects. It is, indeed, in our concep­tion, a kind of metaphysical blasphe­my to represent God as an effect which could not have existed without a cause, even though it be sheltered uhder the metaphysical absurdity of supposing that effect the cause of itself.

And yet our author proceeds with his examples; ‘In like manner, the over-ruling grace of the Creator, and [Page 154] the free-will of his creatures, his cer­tain foreknowledge of future events, and the uncertain contingency of those events, are to our apprehen­sions absolute contradictions to each other; and yet the truth of every one of these is demonstrable from Scripture, reason and experience.’

Here again our author confounds the absolute and eternal attributes of the Creator with the relative and tempo­rary properties of his creatures. That these should be apparently contradictory is no wonder: but that they are not, as our author affirms, absolute contra­dictions, is known to every man of sense and scicnce, that hath bestowed sufficient attention on the subject; to whom these seeming contradictions must be easily reconcileable. The o­ver-ruling grace of the Creator is irre­sistible and positive; the free-will of [Page 155] his creatures resistible and comparative. The agency of man, compared with that of the Deity, is limited, confined, and servile. On the other hand, if compared with the agency of inferior animals, plants, &c. it is liberal and free.—The foreknowledge of the Deity is absolute and indisputable, as the succession of future events is with re­spect to him, fixed and unalterable; with respect to man, indeed, their con­tingency is as uncertain as is his want of foreknowledge, or ignorance, of their necessary succession.

But to recur to the author's remarks on the doctrine of the Trinity. It is with propriety he observes, that ‘the difficulties with respect to our belief in this doctrine arise from our ima­gining, that the mode of existence [Page 156] of all beings must be similar to our own; that is, that they must all exist in space and time. Hence, says he very justly, proceeds our embar­rassment on this subject. We know that no two beings, with whose mode of existence we are acquaint­ed, can exist in the same point of time, in the same point of space, and that therefore they cannot be one: but how far beings, whose mode of existence bears no relation to time and space, may be united, we can­not comprehend: and, therefore, the possibility of such an union we cannot positively deny.’

This is philosophical and just, but there is a wide difference between po­sitively denying a doctrine, and abso­lutely believing it.—Most certain, however, it is, that the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is taught by some of the [Page 157] Athanasians, cannot possibly be belie­ved by any human being. ^*

Our author reduces this formidable absurdity (for such it is, as some trini­tarians represent it) to a mere simple proposition, as easy to be believed as that three equal angles or sides consti­tute one equilateral triangle. But this is not the case. In the exuberant and rattling eloquence of the famous Dr. Jeremy Taylor, the mystery of the Godhead is thus enigmatically display­ed. —‘See what was to be taught, a [Page 158] trinity in the unity of the Godhead, [...]; that is, the Christian arithmetic, Three are one and one are three. So Lucian in his Philopatris, or some other, decides the Christian doctrines; see their philosophy, Ex nihilo nihil fit.—No: Ex nihilo omnia, all things are made of nothing; and a man-God and a God-man, the same person finite and infinite, born in time and yet from all eternity, the son of God, but yet born of a woman, and she a maid, but yet a mother; resurrection of the dead, re-union of soul and body; this was part of the Christian physics or their natural philosophy.’ ^*

With due deference to the authori­ty of this eminent divine, as well as to [Page 159] his late editor, Bishop Hurd, all this is merely declamatory. It is also so far sophistical, in that it is the Christian theology and not either arithmetic or phy­sics.—The mathematics and natural philo­sophy of the Christian and the Heathen are the same: nor is it any impeach­ment to the divinity of revelation, that it has no place in the cyclopaedia, or circle of human arts and sciences.

The case is, these writers do not make a proper distinction between a palpable contradiction in terms and an apparent contrariety in fact. There is also a necessary distinction to be made between the belief of the truth of a proposition (or the believing a propo­sition to be true) and the belief of the proposition itself: the former being consistent with an imperfect apprehen­sion of its meaning; and the other con­sistent only with a clear and precise [Page 160] comprehension as well of the predicate as of the subject.

From these distinctions arises a third, equally just and necessary, between the faith of the Christian and the belief of the philosopher. But of these distinctions more fully hereafter. ^*

SECT. XII.

TO this sixth objection, our author answers, "Genuine Christianity re­quires no such belief."

‘It has discovered to us many im­portant truths, with which we were before entirely unacquainted, and amongst them are these, that three Beings are some way united in the divine essence, and that God will accept of the sufferings of Christ as an atonement for the sins of man­kind. These, considered as decla­rations of facts only, neither con­tradict, or are above the reach of [Page 162] human reason: The first is a propo­sition as plain, as that three equila­ral lines compose one triangle ^*, the other is as intelligible, as that one man should discharge the debts of another. In what manner this union is formed, or why God accepts these vicarious punishments, or to what purposes they may be subservient, it informs us not, because no informa­tion could enable us to comprehend these mysteries, and therefore it does not require that we should know or believe any thing about them.’

How! not any thing about them! Surely this is loosely and badly expres­sed! As a declaration of fact merely, it has been already observed that the [Page 163] orthodox doctrine of the Trinity is not so simple and rational as here laid down; but much more complex and paradoxical.

As to the quomodo of the triunion, and the reason why God accepts of a vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind; these are certainly beyond rational investigation, but Christians are doubtless required to believe so much about them, as that the facts are as possible as their declaration is true.

Again, if no information can enable us to comprehend these mysteries, it is not with very great propriety such important truths are said to be discovered by Revelation. The doctrines as mere declarations, indeed, may be said to be discovered, as they were not divulged before; but if those doctrines them­selves still remain mysterious, they [Page 164] would with more propriety be said to be simply declared or promulgated, than their truth to be discovered.

"The truth of these doctrines," our author owns, ‘must rest intirely on the authority of those who taught them; but then, says he, we should reflect that those were the same per­sons who taught us a system of reli­gion more sublime, and of ethics more perfect, than any which our faculties were ever able to discover; but which, when discovered, are exactly consonant to our reason; and that therefore we should not hastily reject those informations which they have vouchsafed to give us, of which our reason is not a competent judge.’

By the truth of these doctrines, he evidently means the credibility of them; but what he means by the exact conso­nance of those which are discovered [Page 165] to our reason, we do not understand. It is from the want of such consonance, necessarily arising from the mysterious nature of such doctrines, that we de­duce the incompetency of reason to judge of their truth.

But men, as our author justly ob­serves, may very reasonably believe propositions to be true, of whose truth, nevertheless, they are no competent judges. "If an able mathematician," says he, ‘proves to us the truth of se­veral propositions by demonstrations, which we understand, we hesitate not on his authority to assent to others, the process of whose proofs we are not able to follow: why therefore should we refuse that credit to Christ and his apostles, which we think reasonable to give to one another.’

[Page 166]Why? indeed! It is very unrea­sonable: they doubtless deserve our credit.—But still we recur again to the authenticity of the history of the gospel and the interpretation of its doctrines. Admitting, therefore, the propriety of placing the utmost confidence in the veracity of Christ and his apostles, and that what they really meant to incul­cate is worthy of all acceptation, still, we say, the cautious and candid Chri­stian may, without the immediate di­rection of divine grace, remain at a loss what to believe.

As to what genuine Christianity re­quires us to believe; here again we plead for the same necessary latitude in matters of faith, as we have before done in morals ^*. Indeed, our author [Page 167] is, in this respect, and very justly, a latitudinarian too: for though he hath reduced the Christian's creed, as before observed, to a very small compass, he hath, by so doing, opened a wide field for scepticism. And yet so far are the dictates of genuine Christianity, even in our opinion, consonant with reason, that, as it requires nothing which is impracticable to be performed, so it requires nothing, which is impos­sible to be believed.

‘But how shall such a short-sighted Being as man know what is, or is not impossible?’—True; he may be conscious of what is impracticable, as [Page 168] that regards himself, but he Cannot prescribe impossibilities to God; of whose omnipotence he is no judge. To infinite power every thing is pos­sible, except, indeed, inconsistency or self-contradiction. Every proposition, therefore, respecting the deity, that doth not involve a contradiction in terms, however improbable or appa­rently impossible, may yet be really possible, and therefore believed on pro­per evidence, powerful persuasion, or the influence of divine grace: whereas no kind or degree of evidence, no power of persuasion, no influence human or divine can possibly make any man be­lieve a contradiction in terms.

This is one of those impracticabilities which respects himself. Of the in­compatibility of facts he may not be a competent judge; but of the incon­gruity of his own deas, he cannot but be sensible. To a direct contradiction-in-terms, [Page 169] therefore, he cannot give his unfeigned assent, though to the most egregious falsehood or palpable con­trariety-in-fact, he may.

This distinction between a contra­riety-in-fact and a contradiction-in-terms, we conceive, has not sufficiently been attended to. The one is popular, and physical; consisting of natural incon­sistency and moral improbabilities; the other philosophical and logical, con­sisting of artificial inconsistencies and verbal incongruities. Hence, how­ever incompetent human reason may be, to determine of possibilities in nature and probabilities in providence, it is competent to judge of the agree­ment and disagreement of its own ideas. Words, therefore, being the artificial signs of our ideas, a contradic­tion-in-terms becomes obviously and [Page 170] certainly discaverable, whilst a contra­riety-in-facts is not.

The greatest falsehoods in fact, hence frequently pass for incontestible and demonstrable truths, on those who would immediately detect a direct con­tradiction in terms.—To illustrate this distinction by a familiar elucidation. A man as totally ignorant of the Co­pernican system as even the learned for­merly were, might be told that the sun is much bigger than the earth and does not move round it every twenty­four hours, as it appears to do; the earth only moving imperceptibly rounds its own axis and carrying round with it every thing adhering to its surface with great rapidity.

An astronomer, we say, might tell an ignorant man this, who might either believe it, confiding in the astronomer's veracity, although it seem­ed [Page 171] contrary to the evidence of his sen­ses; or he might disbelieve and even deny it, confiding more in that evi­dence, he might say, ‘I cannot be persuaded out of my senses; I can see the size of the sun, and see it goes round the earth, which I also perceive stands all the while stock­still. It is impossible that I and every body about me should be whisked round with such velocity without our perceiving it.’—If therefore, he should believe the astro­nomer's assertion, however true it be in reality, he would believe, what we call, a contrariety-in-fact, viz. that things really are, as he perceives they are not. The same illustration holds good respecting the existence of soul and body, matter and spirit, of which, it is popularly supposed, we have positive proos or indubitable de­monstration; [Page 172] whereas we have nothing more than the imperfect evidence of our sensations and perceptions; which are so far from directly affording us demonstration of any thing, that they are constantly and egregiously de­ceiving us in almost every thing.

It will follow from the establishment of this distinction that, however justi­fiable men of discernment may be in their disbelief or denial of inconsistent or self-contradictory propositions, the very limited extent of their knowledge in the works of nature and the ways of providence, disqualifies them from taking upon them absolutely to deny improbable and even apparently impos­sible facts.

Another distinction, which here of­fers itself to our consideration, is that, between believing the truth of a doc­trine (or the believing that a doctrine [Page 173] is true) and the belief of that doctrine itself.

For a man may very properly be said to believe the truth of a proposition (in other words, that such proposition is true) although the doctrine or decla­ration, it contains, appears doubtful, nay although the terms of such pro­position be totally unintelligible: in which latter case he certainly cannot with any propriety be said to believe the proposition or doctrine itself.

The learned and ingenious author of a late plea for the divinity of Christ ^*, lays down in form, indeed, the follow­ing proposition: ‘The belief of a pro­position does not necessarily imply a clear idea of the object of which the proposition affirms any thing.’ So that in this case a man may be said to [Page 174] believe a proposition he does not under­stand. But to this we cannot subscribe: a clear idea is certainly required as well of the subject as the predicate, though not a full or adequate idea. The idea entertained of God by a philosopher and that attached to the same term by an ignorant clown, are widely different: the one, magnificent and extensive as human science can teach or imagina­tion conceive; the other mean and confined as ignorance and dulness can dictate. We will yet venture to say they are both equally clear; nay, we conceive the confined idea of the clown may be the clearest, as being more definite, in coming nearer the precision of our ideas of material objects. This very precision, indeed, is more de­stroyed by the effulgence of too much light than by the obscurity attending the want of it; even as the face of the [Page 175] moon is seen clearer than that of the sun.

No doctrine or proposition, there­fore, can, in our opinion, be actually believed, unless it be clearly under­stood; and yet propositions which are not clearly understood, nay not under­stood at all, may comprehend a truth, or may be true; and "that they do "so," is a proposition that may be be­lieved.

A man may believe, as already ob­served, a contrariety in fact, a great falsehood, supported by competent evi­dence or credible affirmation; so may he with equal propriety and on the same grounds believe the truth of a mysterious or even unintelligible pro­position; or that such a proposition is true.

But then this is not the proposition he believes; this is quite a new one, [Page 176] viz, ‘That the said mysterious or unintelligible proposition is true,’ which new proposition is neither my­sterious nor unintelligible, and there­fore may be believed ^†.

Thus a magistrate or officer who ad­ministers affidavits ex officio and knows not the contents, may, on the credit and veracity of the deponent, believe the truth of his deposition, or that the contents of such deposition are true; but he cannot with any pro­priety [Page 177] priety be said to believe such affidavit itself or the contents of such deposi­tion, because he knows not what those contents are and therefore can believe nothing about them.

These distinctions lead us naturally to a third, which, we flatter ourselves, may tend to conciliate the minds of polemical disputants; or, at least, to abate their rancour, which too often prevails between the orthodox and heterodox in religious disputes: and this is the distinction, before hinted at, between the faith of the Christian and the belief of the Philosopher.

The former does not require a ra­tional conviction of the proposition be­lieved; whereas the belief of a phi­losopher not only requires rational con­viction, founded on positive evidence, but it requires also a clear and precise comprehension of all the terms of the [Page 178] proposition laid down, On the con­trary the unfeigned assent, or volun­tary submission of reason, to the truth of a proposition, whose terms are not even perfectly understood, is suffici­ent to entitle a Christian to rank among the number of the faithful ^*. But a philosopher, who makes every thing submit to reason, cannot believe either that which he does not clearly conceive, or that of which he is not as clearly convinced.

Should he, as a man, be induced, by any means or motives, to give up the authority of his reason in matters where human reason is incompetent, he would do this, not as a Philosopher, but as a Christian, and of eourse be entitled to all the privileges and im­munities attached to that character.

[Page 179]Of these our author has given an encouraging enumeration.—Unhap­pily for unbelievers, they require a proof of the truth of even those ad­vantages, or, what would answer the same end, a belief or persuasion of their reality. There can be no doubt but this would be sufficient to make them immediately adopt an expedient, so admirably calculated to promote their ease and happiness. But whence is such belief or persuasion to be de­rived? From reason? Surely not; un­less the truth of the Christian religion could be much more rationally proved than by, what this writer calls, de­monstration.

But what, we ask again, is demon­stration? And what is its influence? Intuition is not demonstration; in­stinct is not demonstration; perception [Page 180] is not demonstration, nor is conceit demonstration; and yet intuitive or instinctive impulse, the force of ima­gination or firm persuasion, may have equal influence on the mind, with that of the clearest demonstration.

This influence, however, is of ano­ther kind; and, though it be not ra­tional, it has often a greater effect over even rational creatures than the most clear and precise of rational de­ductions. We experience this, even in the common concerns of life: in the more uncommon, the force of incli­nation and the power of imagination, are so notoriously known to overpower the strongest of our reasoning faculties, that it were absurd to support the credit of demonstration in cases, where even demonstration itself must give way to prejudice and prepossession.—And if to prejudice and prepossession, surely [Page 181] to the operation of Grace, and the in­fluence of divine inspiration!

That something more than the mere exercise of reason, or even a good-will, or inclination to believe, appears ne­necessary from our author's own con­fession.

"There are people," says he, ‘who from particular motives have deter­mined with themselves, that a pre­tended revelation founded on so strange and improbable a story, so contradictory to reason, so adverse to the world and all its occupations, so incredible in its doctrines, and in its precepts so impracticable, can be nothing more than the impo­sition of priestcraft upon ignorant and illiterate ages, and artfully con­tinued as an engine well-adapted to awe and govern the superstitious vulgar. To talk to such about the [Page 182] Christian religion, is to converse with the deaf concerning music, or with the blind on the beauties of painting: They want all ideas rela­tive to the subject, and therefore can never be made to comprehend it; to enable them to do this, their minds must be formed for these con­ceptions by contemplation, retire­ment, and abstraction from business and dissipation, by ill-health, disap­pointment, and distresses; and pos­sibly by divine interposition, or by en­thusiasm, which is usually mistaken for it. Without some of these pre­paratory aids, together with a com­petent degree of learning and appli­cation, it is impossible that they can think or know, understand or be­lieve, any thing about it. If they profess to believe, they deceive o­thers; if they fancy that they be­lieve [Page 183] they deceive themselves. I am ready to acknowledge, that these gentlemen, as far as their informa­tion reaches, are perfectly in the right; and if they are endued with good understandings, which have been entirely devoted to the business or amusements of the world, they can pass no other judgment, and must revolt from the history and doctrines of this religion. 'The preaching Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;' ^* and so it must appear to all, who, like them, judge from established prejudices, false learning, and superficial knowledge; for those who are quite unable to follow the chain of its prophecy, to see the beauty and justness of its mo­ral precepts, and to enter into the [Page 184] wonders of its dispensations, can form no other idea of this revelation but that of a confused rhapsody of fictions and absurdities.’

This is saying a great deal in discre­dit of a revelation, whose divine ori­gin is so obvious, and whose doctrines are so reasonable as our author pre­tends. Surely there are no men, of good under standings, so entirely devoted to the business or amusements of the world, as to be quite unable to form any other idea of revelation than that it is a confused rhapsody of fictions and absurdities.

Granting, indeed, it be so, and that the pursuits of this world are so totally incompatible with the things of the next; it surely affords a strong argu­ment that reason is an incompetent judge in every thing relative to the sys­tem, and that nothing but divine in­spiration [Page 185] can effectually inculcate the dictates of divine revelation!

The admitting, that possibly divine in­terposition may be necessary to prepare some persons for believing the truths of the Christian religion, is, in fact, ad­mitting that to be true in a degree, and in particular cases, which we con­tend for altogether and universally.

We are sorry, however, to find such divine interposition put on a footing with ill-health, disappointment, distress and even enthusiasm.

Not that we conceive the mode of that interposition to be confined to unaccountable impulse or miraculous conversion. Natural means may in this case be made the forerunners of super­natural effects; nay we will not deny that even enthusiasm, or a false inspi­ration itself, may be made the harbin­ger of the true.

[Page 186]Through even the foolishness of preach­ing were unbelievers formerly con­verted. Learning and study, also, may be made the concomitant means of grace; but we do not conceive they are essentially necessary to give efficacy to other means or to divine interposi­tion itself. If they were, it would not appear that God had chosen the foolishness of this world to confound the wise. It would rather be the sub­jecting of divine wisdom to human sa­gacity, and the excluding from Chris­tianity all but learned divines and profound philosophers.

"And yet," says our author, ‘if it be asked, was Christianity intended only for these? I answer, No: It was at first preached by the illiterate, and received by the ignorant; and to such are the practical, which are the most necessary parts of it, sufficient­ly [Page 187] intelligible: but the proofs of its authority undoubtedly are not, because these must be chiefly drawn from other parts, of a speculative nature, opening to our inquiries in­exhaustible discoveries concerning the nature, attributes, and dispensa­tions of God, which cannot be un­derstood without some learning and much attention. From these the generality of mankind must necessa­rily be excluded, and must there­fore trust to others for the grounds of their belief, if they believe at all.’

"And hence," continues he, ‘per­haps it is, that faith, or easiness of belief, is so frequently and so strong­ly recommended in the gospel; be­cause if men require proofs, of which they themselves are incapable, and those who have no knowledge on this important subject will not [Page 188] place some confidence in those who have; the illiterate and unattentive must ever continue in a state of un­belief.’

Our author here seems to have run away from his argument; the faith recommended in the gospel and there­fore required of Christians by God, may be widely different from that required by men either of themselves or of o­thers; and, of course, the requisite proofs of the doctrines believed, may be different also.

We cannot admit, therefore, this necessity of any man's pinning his faith on his neighbour's sleeve. The most ignorant and illiterate man is no farther removed from God, or inca­pable of receiving the illuminations of grace, than the greatest philosopher or the most learned divine. So that if men are content with believing only [Page 189] What God requires of them, as neces­sary to salvation, they may safely rely on him and the ordinary means of pro­vidence for instruction.

The case is different with those, who, to gratify even a laudable cu­riosity, are inquisitive about circum­stances and doctrines unessential to sal­vation. The object of that curiosity is a worldly object, and, if attained, must be attained by worldly means. They who possess not the means of ori­ginal pursuit, therefore, must be con­tent, as a certain author expresses it, ‘to receive the object of it at second hand: but the faith necessary to sal­vation is no such stale bargain, it is the immediate gift of God.’

Our author would have the inatten­tive and illiterate receive this gift at the hands of man; and, because uninform­ed reason is not to be depended on in [Page 190] matters of faith, he advises them to rest their dependence on the informa­tion of those, who professedly deduce what they know from the exercise of their reason. "They," says he, ‘that is the inattentive and illiterate, should all remember, [what perhaps they never knew] that in all sciences, even in mathematics themselves [itself] there are many propositions, which on a cursory view appear to the most acute understandings, uninstructed in that science, to be impossible to be true, which yet on a closer examina­tion are found to be truths capable of the strictest demonstration; and that therefore in disquisitions on which we cannot determine without much learned investigation, reason uninformed is by no means to be depended on; and from hence they ought surely to conclude, That it [Page 191] may be at least as possible for them to be mistaken in disbelieving this revelation, who know nothing of the matter, as for those great masters of reason and erudition, Grotius, Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Locke, Addison, and Lyttleton, to be de­ceived in their belief: a belief, to which they firmly adhered after the most: diligent and learned researches into the authenticity of its records, the completion of the prophecies, the sublimity of its doctrines, the purity of its precepts, and the argu­ments of its adversaries; a belief, which they have testified to the world by their writings, without any other motive, than their regard for truth and the benefit of mankind.’

In a matter of so great importance, we pay no authority even to great names. Without uncharitably ques­tioning, [Page 192] however, either the sincerity or the motives of the several avowed defenders of Christianity, certain it is that some of them have been secretly contemners of its doctrines and private­ly disbelievers of its divine original.

It is, indeed, justly to be suspected that the number of these, is much greater than is generally imagined; for, however widely religious infide­lity may have spread itself, moral hy­pocrisy hath, in the present age, kept pace with it.

Religious masquerading hath, in fact, become so general and unbelievers so numerous that, they keep one another in countenance, while, with unparal­lelled effrontery they take off the mask and openly belie the characters they as­sume. Thus our modish Christians wear the plain face of downright hea­thens, [Page 193] while they retain the domino, or outward garb of Christianity.

This they do, by explaining away, as our author observes, the plain and obvious meaning of scripture and mo­delling the articles of faith agreeable to their own imagination. And yet these very underminers of genuine Christianity, who are daily sapping its foundation and preying on its vitals, keep flourishing away with their misre­presentations of its prosperous and flourishing state.

"If Christianity," say certain bold Reviewers, in their critique on the pamphlet before us, ‘had been an imposture, it could never have maintained its credit for almost eighteen hundred years, or stood the test of the most acute and accurate examinations of friends and enemies, of wits and infidels, critics and phi­losophers [Page 194] of all denominations; some fundamental defect, some irrecon­cileable contradiction, or some gross absurdity must have been discovered. But this is so far from being the case, that the more it is considered the more it convinces; every new enquiry produces new light, new evidence, and from every fresh at­tack it gains an additional tri­umph.’

What an impudent abuse of the good faith of the Christian reader! what an insolent attempt to impose on his credulity!

Do not these very critics themselves pretend to have discovered fundamental defects, irreconcileable contradictions, and gross absurdities in the primitive and orthodox tenets of Christianity? Do they not ridicule the doctrine of the Trinity? Do they not deny the [Page 195] Divinity of our Saviour? Do not they reject the tenets of vicarious atone­ment, justification by faith, and almost every essential article in the Christian creed? And do they still pretend that the mutilation of its very being, is gaining additional triumphs to its cause? Shame on such baresaced irony^*!

[Page 196]The real state of the case is quite otherwise: genuine Christianity, not­withstanding the vapouring of these nominal Christians, being never at so low an ebb as it is among our modern rationalists; surviving chiesly among those who are ridiculed as contemned visionaries, enthusiasts and fanatics. The truth is that, so far has pure Chri­stianity been from profiting by the free­dom of enquiry, with which its doc­trines have of late years been treated, that it has really lost ground among all the advocates for such enquiry.

[Page 197]It is an idle boast that a mere belief in the mysteries of religion will stand the test of ridicule and defy the powers of rational investigation. Those mys­teries themselves will undoubtedly do it, because they depend not on the cre­dulity or credibility of men, but on the unchangeable promises of God. But we see daily the most plausible profes­sional characters laughed out of their religion, and even the warmest zealots argued out of their zeal ^*. So that if we were to calculate, to how small a number of people genuine Christianity is at present confined, we shall have no reason to boast, with this author, the extent of its propagation and influ­ence; and still much less to advance it as a proof of its divine original ^†.

[Page 198]Happily for Christianity it hath a much firmer support in the promises of its divine author, than in any rational arguments that can be produced from such circumstances: and happily for real Christians their faith hath a more unfailing resource in the operations of divine grace, than in the most fertile expedients of human reason.

SECT. XIII.

THIS objection is conveyed in such diffuse and desultory terms that it amounts to little more than what has before been urged, viz. that the whole is incredible and bears no internal evi­dence of its divine original.

And, indeed, if we suppose human reason to be a competent judge of the divinity of Revelation, and also of what is worthy or unworthy an omniscient and omnipotent Being, the objection stands in its full force.

[Page 200]But we deny this competence, as in­deed does our author, who observes that though ‘Reason is undoubtedly our surest guide in matters which lie within the narrow circle of her intelligence,’ she is greatly deficient when she proceeds farther.

‘God, says this self-sufficient teach­er [reason] is perfectly wise, just and good; and what is the inference? That all his dispensations must be conformable to our notions of per­fect wisdom, justice and goodness: but it should be first proved that man is as perfect, and as wise as his Creator, or this consequence will by no means follow’ ^*:

But, says our author on the subject of revelation, her province is only to ex­amine into its authority, and when that is once proved, she has no more to do but to acquiesce in its doctrines?—

[Page 201]We have before hinted that we think reason has at least as much to do in the one case as in the other; we shall now, therefore; only observe, on this head, that the Monthly Reviewers conceive it to be a very unguarded and dangerous position. "It precludes," say they, "and discourages all rational inquiry ^*.

Doubtless it does and properly, all rational inquiry on a subject that does not admit of rational inquiry.

But, say they, ‘if it were pursued it would justify the wildest enthusi­asm or superstition.’—How! will an acquiescence, or the putting an impli­cit faith, in the doctrines of the scrip­ture, lead to the wildest enthusiasm and superstition? Is the human mind, when directed by divine revelation, [Page 202] more apt to err, than when under the simple influence of reason? ^*

We have already observed that, in our opinion, it is the duty of Chri­stians to submit the dictates of rea­son, as well with respect to the autho­rity of the scriptures, as the truth of its doctrines, to the influence of divine grace; and it would be but modest, in our rival Reviewers, to leave to the au­thor of the foundation of our faith the care of its superstructure.

They may rest assured that, what­ever extravagancies of enthusiasm or superstition men have fallen into, it has not arisen from their putting an impli­cit [Page 203] faith in the doctrines of scriptures (in other words, from their submitting their reason to revelation) but to their indulging, in the pride of their hearts, the wantonness of their imagination and trying their reasonable practices on such doctrines.

SECT. XIV.

HAVING thus assigned our reasons for thinking the human understanding a very incompetent judge either of the mysteries of our holy religion, or of the proof of its divine origin; we [Page 204] shall add only a few cursory reflections respecting the state of the argument in general:

And first let us observe that were we disposed to take away even the slightest prop, on which the popu­lar belief of revelation rests, we might expose to the greatest ridicule those vain boastings of vaunting casuists, who, declaring the truths of christia­nity to be sit objects of rational investi­gation, invite the attacks of argu­ment, wit, and ridicule, and boldly bid them defiance. Among these we may particularize, as of late the most eminent and conspicuous, that ingenious and justly celebrated philo­sopher, Dr. Joseph Priestly and his very able coadjutors in the theological repository.

It was with a very bad grace, also, the celebrated author of the Divine [Page 205] Legation made a similar boast and threw out the same defiance against the free­thinkers; while the civil power was actually up in arms to crush one of, the dullest, and inoffensive insects of the whole tribe; poor old Peter An­net! It was certainly a glorious tri­umph over infidelity and a fine proof of the clerical faith in the impregnability of the Christian church, the getting a decrepid dotard of eighty, sentenced to be imprisoned in Newgate, pilloried in the public streets, and condemned to beat hemp in Bridewell for a twelve­month; and all merely for pushing a few pitiful pellets, out of the pop-gun of his wretched goose-quill, against the credibility, of the Mosaic history of the plagues of Egypt!

Why was not the artillery of the ec­clesiastical fortress levelled at some more formidable foe? in their oppo­sition [Page 206] to whom those doughty engineers might have reaped some credit for their valour (if not for their conduct) and have at least escaped the odium, which ever falls on cowards for their cruelty!

They may rest, however, secure: the ashes of poor Peter will remain quiet in his grave. We dare say there was not so much spirit buried with them, as to cause any future distur­bance either to him or them! ^*

The dignisied ecclesiastic abovemen­tioned has been bold enough to say, in some of his prefaces, that the free­thinkers (as they are falsely stiled) [Page 207] have had fair-play in the argument? that they have been left at liberty to handle the weapons of offence and de­fence at pleasure, and yet have been foiled.

But this is not true. The free­thinkers never had fair-play given them, nor in fact do they deserve it, if it were prudent, in the civil magistrate, to indulge them. They are, in general, as little actuated by candour and the love of truth, as their antagonists are by the detestation of falshood; and it must be owned of the latter, they do, for the most part, love a little deception DEARLY!

The writer of this critique can as truly aver his sincerity as the author of the pamphlet, which is the subject of it. He can truly say that, with the most ardent desire of reconciling reve­lation to reason, he long and labori­ously [Page 208] attached himself to the study of the scriptures and the reading of the commentators: that, with the most earnest with to find the doctrines of christianity true, and its divine origin morally evident, he attended with the utmost candour, to the authorities of ancient historians and the arguments of modern reasoners.

And yet, though early instructed to pay the most profound reverence and put the most implicit faith in the or­thodox doctrines of Christianity, the more closely he applied the criterion of reason the more clearly did that crite­rion appear to be inapplicable. The farther advances he made in human science the less compatible he found it with divine knowledge.

He felt, by no means, the force of argument respecting the divine mis­sion of our Saviour, either from the [Page 209] completion of prophecies or the effect of miracles. The history of the former seemed too problematical and legend­ary, while the latter appeared to have had much less effect, than they might reasonably be supposed to have, on the very persons who were eye-witnesses of them.

It appeared to him that the credit of Christianity was so little established, and even the name of its divine insti­tutor so little known, in its very birth­place and infancy, that the magistrates themselves speak of one Jesus ^*, as of [Page 210] an obscure and unheard-of stranger; and of his sacrifice on the cross, as a doubtful event.

It appeared to him that if there were any thing supernatural in the propagation of Christianity, it lay in its subsequent progress in opposition to the incredulity of the times, and the inefficacy of the miracles of Christ and his apostles to diffuse a more ge­neral and earlier belief. Next to this he conceived the strongest proof that [Page 211] could be brought of the divine origin, and of a supernatural interposition in the establishment of Christianity, is that the enormous wickedness of its later professors, the flagitious, the inhuman methods of propagating it, together with the apparent absurdities, contain­ed in its mysterious tenets, have not been able to bring it altogether into discredit even in the most scientific ages and with the most rational and humane nations of the world.

Here is, indeed, the appearance of something supernatural; the fulfilling of the divine founder's promise to the Christian church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It is to an over-ruling providence and the ir­resistible power of grace in the comple­tion of this promise, as before obser­ved, more than to the strongest ration­al [Page 212] arguments, that Christianity owes its permanence and protection.

Depended its sacred mysteries on the force of reason, what can be more ra­tionally advanced in defence of the in­carnation of Jesus, than of the incarna­nations of Vistnou? Depended they on rational arguments in favour of their truth? What could reasonably be said in favour of a God, the author of life, becoming subject to mortality? To his being born, of a woman, though not begot by a man? To his dying the death of a sinner to atone for the sins of the saints, to his descending into hell, and his ascending again to heaven, to reas­sume, after all, the pristine glory of the Deity!

If there be any thing, in any reli­gion, more revolting to human reason than this, we are unacquainted with [Page 213] the greatest apparent absurdities in the known world.

If we are asked then, whether as mere rational beings, we can believe such propositions? we frankly answer, no.—And yet, experimentally con­vinced how short is the line of the hu­man understanding, how inadequate the strongest powers of sense and ge­nius to penetrate the veil of nature and of providence, we can readily submit our reason to revelation, and give our unfeigned assent, as Christians, to the truth of propositions, which, as men. and philosophers, we can neither fully understand nor clearly conceive.—Be­lieving though not on any rational conviction, that faith, or as our author properly describes it, an assent to the essential doctrines of Christianity, is a religious duty enjoined every man, who lives under the dispensation of the [Page 214] gospel, we believe, even as men, so much of them as we comprehend; persuaded that even what we do not comprehend, would command our belief, if we did, in the same propor­tion.

We can unfeignedly do this, even while the truth, as it is called, of such mysterious propositions appears doubt­ful, nay while even the terms of such propositions appear in part or altoge­ther unintelligible.

It is a favorite maxim with our modern rationalists (or as some call them divines) that ‘where mystery begins religion ends.’ This maxim is, in our opinion, so far from being applicable to the Christian religion, that we think the faith of the Chris­tian applicable chiesly to its mysteries, with which it begins and ends.

[Page 215]There would, indeed, be something mysterious in the promulgation even of the morals of Christianity, if we could be brought to believe the prac­tice of them in their declared purity to be in our present state required of us; a practice so diametrically oppo­site to the gratification of the appetites and passions of human nature, and even to the laws of justice and equity admit­ted in natural religion.

‘To submit to every insult, to re­turn good for evil, to love those that hate us, and wish well to them that despitefully use us,’ are tenets so contrary as well to our natural impa­tience of injuries as to our ideas of na­tural justice, that, however the meek­spirited and grace-endowed individual may adopt them in private practice, no community of Christians ever yet [Page 216] dared to admit them into their system of civil policy.

As to the Faith of the Christian if it be not exercised on the mysteries of his religion, we see neither use nor merit in his belief. If he believe nothing but what appears rational and pro­bable, nothing but what is evinced by a cloud of witnesses, and carries with it the clearest conviction, in what is it more meritorious than the creed of the skeptic or infidel? for even they have their creed.

"Because thou hast seen me (faith our Saviour to Didymus) thou hast believed blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

We think this text perfectly appli­cable to such as, like our author, are anxious to prove the divine authority of the Scriptures by rational argu­ment: in doing which, we think [Page 217] them just as ill employed as, this writer says, they would be in pretending to accommodate the scriptural doctrines to our natural ideas of rectitude and truth.

The well-disposed reader, therefore, submitting his Reason to Revelation, and his belief of its divine origin, as well as of its essential doctrines, to a superior mode of conviction, the influence of Grace, would do well patiently to wait the effect of its operation in God's own place and time, and not be importu­nately anxious for the elucidation of obscurities, which nothing but divine illumination can illustrate.

For, after all, what men generally mean by the truth of the doctrines of revelation, is their consonance or con­gruity with the deductions of common­sense and mere unenlightened reason.

[Page 218]The truly-devout need be under no apprehension of being guilty of a ne­glect of religious duty, in thus patient­ly-waiting for that inspiration from above, which only can, make them wise unto salvation.

In the mean time, they should not be surprized nor alarmed at finding their notions of divine truths not ex­actly to coincide with those of other men, of whose talents, gifts or graces, they may entertain a higher opinion than they do of their own.

As there are few, if any, persons in the world, that either hear, see or feel external objects exactly alike (our ner­vous systems being as diversified as our features) so there are as few that con­ceive exactly alike the meaning of any one moral or religious proposition; e­ven divine inspiration itself accommo­dating [Page 219] its influence to the different fa­culties of the individual.

This reflection, above all others, should excite us to the exercise of that Christian charity, which, covering a multitude of sins, we should throw, as a veil of universal candour, over the mistakes and errours of the rest of man­kind; justly suspecting that, with re­gard to others more enlightened than ourselves, we may stand in need of the same indulgence.