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AN APOLOGY FOR CHRISTIANITY.

LETTER I.

SIR, It would give me much uneasiness to be reputed an enemy to free inquiry in religious matters, or as capable of being animated into any degree of personal malevolence against those who differ from me in opinion. On the contrary, I look upon the right of private judgment, in every concern respecting God and ourselves, as superior to the control of human authority; and have ever regarded free disquisition as the best mean of illustrating the doctrine, and establishing the truth of Christianity. Let the followers of Mahomet, and the zealots of the church of Rome, support their several religious systems by damping every effort of the human intellect to pry into the foundations of their faith: but never can it become a Christian, to be afraid of being asked " a reason of the faith that is in him; nor a Protestant, to be studious of enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance; nor the Church of England, to abandon that moderation by which she permits every individual et sentire quæ velit, et quæ sentiat dicere.

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It is not, sir, without some reluctance, that, under the influence of these opinions, I have prevailed upon myself to address these letters to you; and you will attribute to the same motive my not having given you this trouble sooner. I had moreover an expectation, that the task would have been undertaken by some person capable of doing greater justice to the subject, and more worthy of your attention. Perceiving, however, that the two last chapters, the fifteenth in particular, of your very laborious and classical history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, had made upon many an impression not at all advantageous to Christianity; and that the silence of others, of the clergy especially, began to be looked upon as an acquiescence in what you had therein advanced; I have thought it my duty, with the utmost respect and good-will towards you, to take the liberty of suggesting to your consideration a few remarks upon some of the passages which have been esteemed (whether you meant that they should be so esteemed or not) as powerfully

I militating against that revelation, which still is to many-what it formerly was "to the Greeks-foolishness;" but which we deem to be true, to be "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

To the inquiry, by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth, you rightly answer, By the evidence of the doctrine itself, and the ruling providence of its Author. But afterwards, in assigning for this astonishing event five secondary causes, derived from the passions of the human heart and the general circumstances of mankind, you seem to some to have insinuated, that Christianity, like other impostures, might have made its way in the world, though its origin had been as human as the means by which you suppose it was spread. It is no wish or intention of mine, to fasten the odium of this insinuation upon you: I shall simply endeavour to shew, that the causes you produce are either inadequate to the attainment of the end proposed; or that their efficiency, great as you imagine it, was derived from other principles than those you have thought proper to mention.

Your first cause is, "the inflexible, and, if you may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses." Yes, sir, we are agreed that the zeal of the Christians was inflexible; "neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, "could bend it into a separation from "the love of God which was in Christ Jesus their Lord: "it was an inflexible obstinacy, in not blaspheming the name of Christ, which every where exposed them to persecution; and which even your amiable and philosophic Pliny thought proper, for want of other crimes, to punish with death in the Christians of his province. We are agreed, too, that the zeal of the Christians was intolerant; for it denounced tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that did evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile : " it

would not tolerate in Christian worship those who supplicated the image of Cæsar, who bowed down at the altars of Paganism, who mixed with the votaries of Venus, or wallowed in the filth of Bacchanalian festivals.

But though we are thus far agreed with respect to the inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet, as to the principle from which it was derived, we are toto cælo divided in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more adequate and a more obvious source-a full persuasion of the truth of Christianity. What! think you that it was a zeal derived from the unsocial spirit of Judaism, which inspired Peter with courage to upbraid the whole people of the Jews, in the very capital of Judea, with having delivered up Jesus, with having denied him in the presence of Pilate, with having desired a murderer to be granted them in his stead, with having killed the Prince of life? Was it from this principle that the same Apostle, in conjunction with John, when summoned, not before the dregs of the people, (whose judgments they might have been supposed capable of misleading, and whose resentment they might have despised,) but before the rulers, and the elders, and the scribes, the dread tribunal of the Jewish nation, and commanded by them to teach no more in the name of Jesus-boldly answered," that they could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard? They had seen with their eyes, they had handled with their hands, the word of life;" and no jurisdiction could deter them from being faithful witnesses of what they had seen and heard. Here then you may perceive the genuine and undoubted origin of that zeal, which you ascribe to what appears to me a very insufficient cause; and which the Jewish rulers were so far from considering as the ordinary effect of their religion, that they were exceedingly at a loss how to account for it:-"Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled." The Apostles, heedless of consequences, and regardless of every thing but truth, openly every where professed themselves witnesses of the resurrection of Christ; and with a confidence which could proceed from nothing but conviction, and which pricked the Jews to the heart, bade "the house of Israel know assuredly, that God had made that same Jesus, whom they had crucified, both Lord and Christ."

I mean not to produce these instances of apostolic zeal as direct proofs of the truth of Christianity; for every religion, nay, every absurd sect of every religion, has had its zealots, who have not scrupled to maintain their principles at the expense of their lives: and we ought no more to infer the truth of Christianity from the mere zeal of its propagators, than the truth of Mahometanism from

that of a Turk. When a man suffers himself to be covered with infamy, pillaged of his property, and dragged at last to the block or the stake, rather than give up his opinion, the proper inference is, not that his opinion is true, but that he believes it to be true; and a question of serious discussion immediately presents itself,-Upon what foundation has he built his belief? This is often an intricate inquiry, including in it a vast compass of human learning. A Bramin or a Mandarin, who should observe a missionary attesting the truth of Christianity with his blood, would, notwithstanding, have a right to ask many questions, before it could be expected that he should give an assent to our faith. In the case, indeed, of the Apostles, the inquiry would be much less perplexed; since it would briefly resolve itself into this, whether they were credible reporters of facts which they themselves professed to have seen: and it would be an easy matter to shew, that their zeal in attesting what they were certainly competent to judge of, could not proceed from any alluring prospect of worldly interest or ambition, or from any other probable motive than a love of truth.

But the credibility of the Apostles' testimony, or their competency to judge of the facts which they relate, is not now to be examined; the question before us simply relates to the principle by which their zeal was excited and it is a matter of real astonishment to me, that any one conversant with the history of the first propagation of Christianity, acquainted with the opposition it every where met with from the people of the Jews, and aware of the repugnancy which must ever subsist between its tenets and those of Judaism, should ever think of deriving the zeal of the primitive Christians from the Jewish religion.

Both Jew and Christian, indeed, believed in one God, and abominated idolatry; but this detestation of idolatry, had it been unaccompanied with the belief of the resurrection of Christ, would probably have been just as inefficacious in exciting the zeal of the Christian to undertake the conversion of the Gentile world, as it had for ages been in exciting that of the Jew. But supposing, what I think you have not proved, and what I am certain cannot be admitted without proof, that a zeal derived from the Jewish religion inspired the first Christians with fortitude to oppose themselves to the institutions of Paganism; what was it that encouraged them to attempt the conversion of their own countrymen? Amongst the Jews they met with no superstitious observances of idolatrous rites; and therefore amongst them could have no opportunity of "declaring and confirming their zealous opposition to Polytheism, or of fortifying, by frequent protestations, their

attachment to the Christian faith." Here then, at least, the cause you have assigned for Christian zeal ceases to operate; and we must look out for some other principle than a zeal against idolatry, or we shall never be able satisfactorily to explain the ardour with which the Apostles pressed the disciples of Moses to become the disciples of Christ.

concerning a matter of fact, than the testimony of the senses themselves. It happens however, in the present case, that we are under no necessity of either rejecting the Jewish Scriptures, or of admitting such an absurd position; for the fact is not true, that the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua beheld with careless indifference the miracles related in the Bible to have been performed in their favour. That these miracles were not

sufficient to awe the Israelites into an uniform obedience to the Theocracy, cannot be denied ; but whatever reasons may be thought best adapted to account for the propensity of the Jews to idolatry, and their frequent defection from the worship of the one true God, “a stubborn incredulity" cannot be admitted as one of them.

Again, Does a determined opposition to, and an open abhorrence of every the minutest part of an established religion, appear to you to be the most likely method of conciliating to another faith those who profess it? The Christians, you contend, could neither mix with the Heathens in their convivial entertainments, nor partake with them in the celebration of their solemn festivals; they could neither associate with them in their hymeneal nor funereal rites; they could not cultivate To men, indeed, whose understandings their arts, or be spectators of their shows; in have been enlightened by the Christian revelashort, in order to escape the rites of Polytheism, tion, and enlarged by all the aids of human they were in your opinion obliged to renounce learning; who are under no temptations to the commerce of mankind, and all the offices idolatry from without, and whose reason from and amusements of life. Now, how such an within would revolt at the idea of worshipextravagant and intemperate zeal as you here ping the infinite Author of the universe under describe, can, humanly speaking, be considered any created symbol; to men who are comas one of the chief causes of the quick propa-pelled, by the utmost exertion of their reason, gation of Christianity, in opposition to all the established powers of Paganism, is a circumstance I can by no means comprehend. The Jesuit missionaries, whose human prudence no one will question, were quite of a contrary way of thinking; and brought a deserved censure upon themselves, for not scrupling to propagate the faith of Christ by indulging to their Pagan converts a frequent use of idolatrous ceremonies. Upon the whole, it appears to me, that the Christians were in nowise indebted to the Jewish religion for the zeal with which they propagated the gospel amongst Jews as well as Gentiles; and that such a zeal as you describe, let its principle be what you please, could never have been devised by any human understanding as a probable mean of promoting the progress of a reformation in religion, much less could it have been thought of or adopted by a few ignorant and unconnected men.

In expatiating upon this subject, you have taken an opportunity of remarking, that "the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless indifference the most amazing miracles, and that, in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind, that singular people (the Jews) seem to have yielded a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses.' "" This observation_bears hard upon the veracity of the Jewish Scriptures; and, was it true, would force us either to reject them, or to admit a position as extraordinary as a miracle itself, that the testimony of others produced in the human mind a stronger degree of conviction,

to admit as an irrefragable truth-what puzzles the first principles of all reasoning-the external existence of an uncaused Being; and who are conscious that they cannot give a full account of any one phenomenon in nature, from the rotation of the great orbs of the universe to the germination of a blade of grass, without having recourse to him as the primary incomprehensible cause of it; and who, from seeing him every where, have, by a strange fatality, (converting an excess of evidence into a principle of disbelief,) at times doubted concerning his existence any where, and made the very universe their God ;-to men of such a stamp, it appears almost an incredible thing, that any human being which had seen the order of nature interrupted, or the uniformity of its course suspended, though but for a moment, should ever afterwards lose the impression of reverential awe which they apprehend would have been excited in their minds. But whatever effect the visible interposition of the Deity might have in removing the scepticism, or confirming the faith of a few philosophers, it is with me a very great doubt, whether the people in general of our days would be more strongly affected by it than they appear to have been in the days of Moses.

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the sea returning to his strength, and swallowing up the host of Pharaoh: they "would fear the Lord, they would believe the Lord," and they would express their faith and their fear by praising the Lord; they would not behold such a great work with " careless indifference," but with astonishment and terror; nor would you be able to detect the slightest vestige of "stubborn incredulity" in their song of gratitude. No length of time would be able to blot from their minds the memory of such a transaction, or induce a doubt concerning its author; though future hunger and thirst might make them call out for water and bread, with a desponding and rebellious importunity.

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But it was not at the Red Sea only that the Israelites regarded with something more than "careless indifference" the amazing miracles which God had wrought; for when the law was declared to them from Mount Sinai, "all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the tempest, and the mountains smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off: and they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." This again, Sir, is the Scripture account of the language of the contemporaries of Moses and Joshua; and I leave it to you to consider, whether this is the language of "stubborn incredulity and careless indifference."

We are told in Scripture, too, that whilst any of the contemporaries of Moses and. Joshua were alive, the whole people served the Lord; the impression which a sight of the miracles had made, was never effaced-nor the obedience, which might have been expected as a natural consequence, refused-till Moses and Joshua, and all their contemporaries, were gathered unto their fathers; till "another generation after them arose which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel." But "the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that he did for Israel.'

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I am far from thinking you, Sir, unacquainted with Scripture, or desirous of sinking the weight of its testimony; but as the words of the history from which you must have derived your observation, will not support you in imputing "careless indifference" to the contemporaries of Moses, or stubborn incredulity" to the forefathers of the Jews, I know not what can have induced you to pass so severe a censure upon them, except that you look upon a lapse into idolatry as a proof of infidelity. In answer to this I would remark, that with equal soundness of argument we ought to infer, that every one who transgresses a religion, disbelieves it; and that

every individual, who in any community incurs civil pains and penalties, is a disbeliever of the existence of the authority by which they are inflicted. The sanctions of the Mosaic law were, in your opinion, terminated within the narrow limits of this life; in that particular, then, they must have resembled the sanctions of all other civil laws: "transgress and die," is the language of every one of them, as well as that of Moses; and I know not what reason we have to expect that the Jews, who were animated by the same hopes of temporal rewards, impelled by the same fears of temporal punishments, with the rest of mankind, should have been so singular in their conduct, as never to have listened to the clamours of passion before the still voice of reason; as never to have preferred a present gratification of sense, in the lewd celebration of idolatrous rites before the rigid observance of irksome ceremonies.

Before I release you from the trouble of this Letter, I cannot help observing, that I could have wished you had furnished your reader with Limborch's answers to the objections of the Jew Orobio, concerning the perpetual obligation of the law of Moses. You have indeed mentioned Limborch with respect, in a short note; but though you have studiously put into the mouths of the Judaizing Christians in the apostolic days, and with great strength inserted in your text whatever has been said by Orobio or others against Christianity, from the supposed perpetuity of the Mosaic dispensation; yet you have not favoured us with any one of the numerous replies which have been made to these seemingly strong objections. You are pleased, it is true, to say, "that the industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic teachers." It requires, Sir, no learned industry to explain what is so obvious and so express that he who runs may read it. The language of the Old Testament is this: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt." This, methinks, is a clear and solemn declaration-there is no ambiguity at all in it that the covenant with Moses was not to be perpetual, but was in some future time to give way to a new covenant. I will not detain you with an explanation of what Moses himself has said upon this subject; but you may try, if you please, whether you can apply the following declaration, which Moses made to the Jews, to any prophet or succession of prophets, with the same propriety that you can to Jesus Christ:- "The Lord thy

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