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religion can have to work upon. Could a Methods or Moravian promise himself a better chance of suc cess with a French esprit fort, who had been accus tomed to laugh at the popery of his country, than with a believing Mahometan or Hindoo? Or are our modern unbelievers in Christianity, for that reason, in danger of becoming Mahometans or Hin doos? It does not appear that the Jews, who had a body of historical evidence to offer for their religion, and who at that time undoubtedly entertained and held forth the expectation of a future state, de rived any great advantage, as to the extension of their system, from the discredit into which the popular religion had fallen with many of their heathen neighbours.

We have particularly directed our observations to the state and progress of Christianity amongst the inhabitants of India; but the history of the Christian mission in other countries, where the efficacy of the mission is left solely to the conviction wrought by the preaching of strangers, presents the same idea, as the Indian mission does, of the feebleness and inadequacy of human means. About twenty-five years ago, was published in England a translation from the Dutch, of a History of Greenland, and a relation of the mission for above thirty years carried on in that country by the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravians. Every part of that relation confirms the opinion we have stated. Nothing could surpass, or hardly equal, the zeal and patience of the missionaries. Yet their histo rian, in the conclusion of his narrative, could find place for no reflections more encouraging than the following:-"A person that had known the heathen, that had seen the little benefit from the great pains hitherto taken with them, and considered that one after another had abandoned all hopes of the conversion of those infidels; (and some thought they would never be converted, till they saw miracles wrought as in the apostles' days, and this the Greenlanders expected and demanded of their instructors ;) one that considered this, I say, would not so much wonder at the past unfruitfulness of these young beginners, as at their steadfast perseverance in the midst of nothing but distress, diffi

culties, and impediments, internally and externaley and that they never desponded of the conversion of those poor creatures amidst all seeming impossibilities."*

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From the widely disproportionate effects which attend the preaching of modern missionaries of Christianity, compared with what followed the mipistry of Christ and his apostles under circumstances either alike, or not so unlike, as to account for the difference, a conclusion is fairly drawn, in support of what our histories deliver concerning them, viz. that they possessed means of conviction, which we have not; that they had proofs to appeal to, which we want.

1

SECT. III.

Of the religion of Mahomet,

THE only event in the history of the human species, which admits of comparison with the propagation of Christianity, is the success of Mahometanism. The Mahometan institution was rapid in i its progress, was recent in its history, and was founded upon a supernatural or prophetic character assumed by its author. In these articles, the resemblance with Christianity is confessed. But there are points of difference, which separate, we apprehend, the two cases entirely.

1. Mahomet did not found his pretensions upon miracles, properly so called; that is, upon proofs of supernatural agency, capable of being known and attested by others. Christians are warranted in this assertion by the evidence of the Koran, in which Mahomet not only does not affect the power of working miracles, but expressly disclaims it. The following passages of that book furnish direct proofs of the truth of what we allege :-"The infidels say, Unless a sign be sent down unto him from his lord, we will not believe; thou art a preacher only." Again; "Nothing hindered us

History of Greenland, vol. ii. p. 376.

† Sale's Koran, c. xiii. p. 201. ed. quarto.

from sending thee with miracles, except that the former nations have charged them with imposture And lastly; "They say, Unless a sign be se down unto him from his lord, we will not believe Answer; Signs are in the power of God alone, ani I am no more than a public preacher. Is it not sufficient for them, that we have sent down unt them the book of the Koran to be read unto them ? Besides these acknowledgments, I have observed thirteen distinct places, in which Mahomet puts the objection (unless a sign, &c.) into the mouth of the unbeliever, in not one of which does he allege a miracle in reply. His answer is, "that God giveth the power of working miracles, when and to whom he pleaseth ;"" that if he should work miracles, they would not believe;" "that they had before rejected Moses, and Jesus, and the Prophets, who wrought miracles ;"¶ "that the Koran itself was a miracle."**

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The only place in the Koran in which it can be pretended that a sensible miracle is referred to (for I do not allow the secret visitations of Gabriel, the night journey of Mahomet to heaven, or the presence in battle of invisible hosts of angels, to de serve the name of sensible miracles,) is the begin ning of the fifty-fourth chapter. The words are these: The hour of judgment approacheth, and the moon hath been split in sunder: but if the unbe lievers see a sign, they turn aside, saying, This is a powerful charm. The Mahometan expositors disagree in their interpretation of this passage: some explaining it to be a mention of the splitting of the moon, as one of the future signs of the ap proach of the day of judgment; others referring it to a miraculous appearance which had then take place. It seems to me not improbable, that Ms homet might have taken advantage of some extra ordinary halo, or other unusual appearance of the moon, which had happened about this time; an which supplied a foundation both for this passage and for the story which in after times had been raised out of it.

*

Sale's Koran. c. xvii. P. 232. † Ch. xxix. p. 328. ed. quarte † Ch. v. x. xiii. twice. | Ch. vi. TT Ch. iii. xxi. XV. ff Vide Sale, in loc.

** Ch. xvi,

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After this more than silence, after these authentic confessions of the Koran, we are not to be moyed with miraculous stories related of Mahomet by Abulfeda, who wrote his life about six hundred years after his death; or which are found in the legend of Al-Jannabi, who came two hundred years later. On the contrary, from comparing what Mahomet himself wrote and said with what was afterward reported of him by his followers, the plain and fair conclusion is, that when the religion was established by conquest, then, and not till then, came out the stories of his miracles.

Now this difference alone constitutes, in my opinion, a bar to all reasoning from one case to the other. The success of a religion founded upon a miraculous history, shows the credit which was given to the history; and this credit, under the circumstances in which it was given, i. e. by persons capable of knowing the truth, and interested to inquire after it, is evidence of the reality of the history, and, by consequence, of the truth of the religion. Where a miraculous history is not alleged, no part of this argument can be applied. We admit, that multitudes acknowledged the pretensions of Mahomet: but, these pretensions being destitute of miraculous evidence, we know that the grounds upon which they were acknowledged, could not be secure grounds of persuasion to his followers, nor their example any authority to us. Admit the whole of Mahomet's authentic history, so far as it was of a nature capable of being known or witnessed by others, to be true (which is certainly to admit all that the reception of the religion can be brought to prove,) and Mahomet might still be an impostor, or enthusiast, or a union cf both. Admit to be true almost any part of Christ's history, of that, I mean, which was public, and within the cognizance of his followers, and he must have come from God. Where matter of fact is not in question, where

*It does not, I think, appear, that these historians had any written accounts to appeal to, more ancient than the Sonnah; which was A collection of traditions made by order af the caliphs two hundred tears after Mahomet's death. Mahomet died A. D. 632; Al-B.thari, one of the six doctors who compiled the Sonnah, was born A. D. 809; died $39. Prideaux'a Life of Mahomet, p. 192. ed. 7th.

miracles are not alleged, I do not see that the gress of a religion is a better argument of its tri than the prevalency of any system of opinions natural religion, morality, or physics, is a proot the truth of those opinions. And we know th this sort of argument is inadmissible in any brand of philosophy whatever.

But it will be said, If one religion could make its way without miracles, why might not another To which I reply, first, that this is not the ques tion; the proper question is not, whether a reli gious institution could be set up without miracles, but whether a religion, or a change of religion founding itself in miracles, could succeed withou any reality to rest upon? I apprehend these tw cases to be very different; and I apprehend Ma homet's not taking this course, to be one proof, amongst others, that the thing is difficult, if not impossible, to be accomplished: certainly it was not from an unconsciousness of the value and im portance of miraculous evidence for it is ver observable, that in the same volume, and some times in the same chapters, in which Mahomet s repeatedly disclaims the power of working mira eles himself, he is incessantly referring to the miracles of preceding prophets. One would im gine, to hear some men talk, or to read some books, that the setting up of a religion by dint of miraculous pretences was a thing of every day's experience; whereas I believe, that, except the Jewish and Christian religion, there is no tolerably well authenticated account of any such thing hav ing been accomplished.

II. The establishment of Mahomet's religio was effected by causes which in no degree apper tained to the origin of Christianity.

During the first twelve years of his mission, Mahomet had recourse only to persuasion. This is allowed. And there is sufficient reason from the effect to believe, that, if he had confined himself to this mode of propagating his religion, we of th present day should never have heard either of hi or it. "Three years were silently employed a the conversion of fourteen proselytes. For te years, the religion advanced with a slow and pai

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