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I mean not here to depreciate the proofs arising from either prophecies or miracles: they both have or ought to have their proper weight. Prophecies are permanent miracles, whose authority is sufficiently confirmed by their completion, and are therefore solid proofs of the supernatural origin of a religion, whose truth they were intended to testify: 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 anexampled 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 inapplicable they are to all others in the history of mankind; I say, whoever considers these circumstances 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.

The miracles recorded in the New Testament to have been performed by Christ and his Apostles, were certainly convincing proofs

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; but, I think, they must now depend for much of their credibility on the truth of that religion, whose credibility they were at first intended to support. To prove, therefore, the truth of the Christian religion, we should begin by showing the internal marks of divinity which are stamped upon 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 enforced by supernatural means.

What pure Christianity is, divested of all its ornaments, appendages, and corruption, I pretend not to say; but what it is not, I will venture to affirm, which is, that it is not the offspring of fraud or fiction. Such, on a superficial view, I know it must appear to every man of good sense, whose sense has been altogether employed on other subjects; but if any one will give himself the trouble to examine it with accuracy and candour, he will plainly see, that however fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, yet it never could have been grafted on the same stock, nor planted by the same hand.

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 artinee and ignorance have been heaping upot it during all that time, would indeed be an arduous task, which I shall by no mean the dertake; but to show, that it cannot possibly be derived from human wisdom or human imposture, is a work, I think, attended with no great difficulty, and requiring no extraor

linary abilities; and therefore I shall attempt that, and that alone, by stating, and then explaining, the following plain, and undeniable propositions.

First, That there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament.

Secondly, 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 unlike every thing which had ever before entered into the mind of man.

Thirdly, That from this book may likewise De collected a system of ethics, in which every moral precept founded on reason is carried to a higher degree of purity and perfection, than in any other of the wisest philosophers of preceding ages; every moral precept founded on false principles is totally omitted, and many new precepts added, peculiarly corresponding with the new object of this religion.

to the present times: nor would it be less easy to show, that the truth of all those events. miracles only excepted, can no more be reasonably questioned, than the truth of any other facts recorded in any history whatever; as there can be no more reason to doubt that there existed such a person as Jesus Christ, speaking, acting, and suffering in such a manner as is there described, than that there were such men as Tiberius, Herod, or Pontius Pilate, his contemporaries; or to suspect that Peter, Paul, and James, were not the authors of those epistles to which their names are affixed, than that Cicero and Pliny did not write those which are ascribed to them. I might also be made appear, that these books having been wrote by various persons, at different times, and in distant places, coule not possibly have been the work of a single impostor, nor of a fraudulent combination. being all stamped with the same marks of ar uniform originality in their very frame and composition.

PROPOSITION I.

VERY little need be said to establish my first proposition, which is simply this-That there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament; that is, there is a collection of writings distinguished by that denomination, containing four historical accounts of the birth, life, actions, discourses, and death, of an extraordinary person, named Jesus Christ, who was born in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, preached a new religion throughout the country of Judea, and was put to a cruel and ignominious death in the reign of Tiberius. Also one other historical account of the travels, transactions, and orations of some mean and illiterate men, known by the title of his apostles, whom he commissioned to propagate his religion after his death, which he foretold them he must suffer in confirmation of its truth. To these are added several epistolary writings, addressed by these persons to their fellow-labourers in this work, or to the several churches, or societies of Christians, which they had established in the several cities through which they had passed.

It would not be difficult to prove, that these books were written soon after those extraordinary events which are the subjects of them; as we find them quoted, and referred to, by an uninterrupted succession of writers from those

fixed to them; whether they have beer enlarged, diminished, or any way corrupted by the artifice or ignorance of translators c transcribers; whether, in the historical parts, the writers were instructed by a perpetual, a partial, or by any inspiration at all; whether in the religious and moral parts they received their doctrines from a divine influence, o from the instructions and conversation o their Master; whether in their facts or sentiments there is always the most exact agree ment, or whether in both they sometime differ from each other; whether they are in any case mistaken, or always infallible, o ever pretended to be so,-I shall not here dispute: let the deist avail himself of all these doubts and difficulties, and decide them in conformity to his own opinions; I shall not contend, because they affect not my argu ment: all that I assert is a plain fact, which cannot be denied, that such writings do now exist.

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 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: "If I have told you earthly things," says he, "and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" John, iii. 12. That is, If my instructions concerning your behaviour in the present, as relative to a future life, are so difficult to be understood, that you can scarcely believe me, how shall you believe, if I endeavour to explain to you the nature of celestial beings, the designs of Providence, and the mysteries of his dispensations; subjects which you have neither ideas to comprehend, nor language to express?

First, then, The object of this religion is entirely new, and is this, to prepare us by a state of probation for the kingdom of heaven. This is everywhere professed by Christ and his apostles to be the chief end of the Christian's life; the crown for which he is to contend, the goal to which he is to run, the harvest which is to pay him for all his labours: Yet, previous to their preaching, no such prize was ever hung out to mankind, nor any means prescribed for the attainment of it.

It is indeed true, that some of the philosophers of antiquity entertained notions of a future state, but mixed with much doubt and uncertainty: their legislators also endeavoured to infuse into the minds of the people a belief of rewards and punishments after death; but by this they only intended to give a sanction to their laws, and to enforce the practice of virtue for the benefit of mankind in the present life. This alone seems to have been their end, and a meritorious end it was; but Christianity not only operates more effectually to this end, but has a nobler design in view, which is, by a proper education here, to render us fit members of a celestial society hereafter. In all former religions, the good of the present life was the first object; in the Christian it is but the second: In those, men were incited to promote that good by the hopes of a future reward; in this, the practice of virtue is enjoined in order to qualify them for that reward. There is great difference, I apprehend, in these two plans; that is, in

adhering to virtue, from its present utility, in expectation of future happiness, and living in such a manner as to qualify us for the acceptance and enjoyment of that happiness; and the conduct and dispositions of those who act on these different principles, must be no less different: On the first, the constant practice of justice, temperance, and sobriety, will be sufficient; but on the latter, we must add to these an habitual piety, faith, resignation, and contempt of the world: the first may make us very good citizens, but will never produce a tolerable Christian. Hence it is that Christianity insists more strongly, than any preceding institution, religious or moral, on purity of heart and a benevolent disposition; because these are absolutely necessary to its great end: but in those whose recommendations of virtue regard the present life only, and whose promised rewards in another were low and sensual, no preparatory qualifications were requisite to enable men to practise the one, or to enjoy the other and therefore we see this object is peculiar to this religion; and with it was entirely new.

But although this object and the principle on which it is founded were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet when discovered they are so consonant to it, that we cannot but readily assent to them. For the truth of this principle, That the present life is a state of probation and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by every thing which we see around us: It is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs; the only clue which can guide us through that pathless wilderness; and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be comprehended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness, because it is everywhere overspread with innumerable miseries; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments: it could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system all that we here meet with may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, necessarily results from a state of probation and education; as probation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chastisement for those offences.

In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object, and 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. No other 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," (1 Cor. xv. 53.) No other has ever represented the supreme Being in the character of 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 overruling 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.2 Whether these wonderful doctrines are worthy of our belief, must depend on the opinion which we entertain of the authority of those who published them to the world: but 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 the artifice of man.

Some indeed there are, who, by perverting the established signification of words, (which they call explaining,) have ventured to expunge all these 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 this 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

1 That there subsists some such union in the divine nature, the whole tenor of the New Testament seems to express, and it was so understood in the earliest ages; but whether this union does, or does not, imply equality, or whether it subsists in general, or only in particular circumstances, we are not informed, and therefore, on these questions it is not only unnecessary, but improper for us to decide.

2 That Christ suffered and died as an atonement for the sins of mankind, is a doctrine 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.

Scriptures, nor the pretended revelation con tained in them, can be derived from him This would be an argument worthy of rationa and candid deists, and demand a respectfu. attention; but when men pretend to disprove facts by reasoning, they have no right to expect an answer.

And here I cannot omit observing, that the personal character of the author of this reli gion is no less new and extraordinary than the religion itself, who "spake as never ma spake," (John, vii. 46,) and lived as neve: man lived. In proof of this, I do not mean to allege that he was born of a virgin, that he fasted forty days, that he performed a variety of miracles, and after being buried three days. that he arose from the dead; because these accounts will have but little effect on the minds of unbelievers, who, if they believe not the religion, will give no credit to the relation of these facts; but I will prove it from facts which cannot be disputed: for instance, he is the only founder of a religion in the history of mankind, which is totally unconnected with all human policy and government, and therefore totally unconducive to any worldly purpose whatever. All others, Mahomet Numa, and even Moses himself, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by them obtained dominion over their respective people; but Christ neither aimed at nor would accept of, any such power; he rejected every object which all other men pursue, and made choice of all those which others fly from and are afraid of: he refused power, riches, honours, and pleasure, and courted poverty. ignominy, tortures, and death. Many have been the enthusiasts and impostors who have endeavoured to impose on the world pretended revelations, and some of them from pride, obstinacy, or principle, have gone so far as to lay down their lives rather than retract; but I defy history to show one who ever made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his original plan, and essential to his mission : this Christ actually did; he foresaw, foretold, declared their necessity, and voluntarily endured them. If we seriously contemplate the divine lessons, the perfect precepts, the beautiful discourses, and the consistent conduct of this wonderful person, we cannot possibly imagine that he could have been either an idiot or a madman; and yet, if he was not what he pretended to be, he can be considered in no other light; and even under this character he would deserve some attention, because of so sublime and rational an insanity there is no other instance in the history of mankind.

If any one can doubt of the superior excellence of this religion above all which preceded it, let him but peruse with attention those unparalleled writings in which it is transmitted to the present times, and compare them with