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LETTERS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVIDENCES, DOCTRINES, AND DUTIES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND. 
 
 ' Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good.” 
 
 “ Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason 
 of the hope that is in you. — For we have not followed cunningly devised 
 fables.” 
 
 " Every good gift., and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh from 
 Mhe Father of Lights.” 
 
 These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” 
 
LETTERS 
 
 EVIDENCES, DOCTRINES, AND DUTIES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND. 
 
 BY 
 
 OLINTHUS GREGORY, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY AT WOOLWICH, ETC. 
 
 SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 WITH MANY ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS, 
 
 Complete in 0ne ^olume^ 
 
 LONDON: BALDWIN AND CRADOCK, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1836. 
 
 $0 
 
CHISWICK : 
 
 POINTED BY c. WHITTINCHAM. 
 
 0 $ 
 
I.A.R 
 
 230 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 J H E history of the work now presented to the 
 public may be given in very few words. It originated 
 in a series of conversations which I had about five 
 years ago with a friend much younger than myself^ 
 who had a considerable acquaintance with almost 
 all except religious subjects. He expressed much 
 surprise that a person of my habits and pursuits in 
 other respects should adopt the religious notions I 
 had long entertained, or indeed be solicitous about 
 any religious opinions whatever; and I endeavoured 
 to assign the reasons which led me to embrace them, 
 and to consider such topics as of the first import- 
 ance. After a short time we were so far separated 
 as to have much fewer opportunities of personal 
 intercourse: and I in consequence became induced 
 to carry on the momentous inquiry we had previ- 
 ously commenced, by letter. Pursuant to this 
 intention, all the letters in the first volume ^ were 
 actually written : they were read in manuscript by 
 my friend ; and, as I have reason to believe, were 
 not unproductive of benefit. Having proceeded thus 
 far, a growing particularity of inquiry was produced 
 
 • This work was originally published in two volumes, the 
 hrst volume closing with the 11th letter. 
 
 467-$0 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 on the one side, and a gradual extension of plan 
 on the other: and thus, after many interruptions, 
 and in the midst of numerous avocations of a very 
 different kind, the work has become what it now is. 
 
 I had not however proceeded half way in the 
 execution of my plan before it occurred to me, that 
 what I first intended for private use might be be- 
 neficial to others in circumstances analogous to 
 those of my friend; and I recollected that what- 
 ever I might publish on the subject of religion 
 would at least have the advantage of appearing 
 disinterested, as it proceeded from the pen of a 
 layman. It is, I am aware, extremely ridiculous 
 for those who adopt the prescriptions of their phy- 
 sicians, and act upon the advice of their lawyers, 
 although they are professional, to object to defences 
 of Christianity from the pens of Clergymen because 
 they are professional; yet, absurd and uncandid 
 as the objection is, it is often advanced : it is there- 
 fore proper to meet it ; and at times to show that 
 there are those who cannot on such occasions be 
 actuated by any love of worldly applause, or any 
 thirst after emolument, but who feel sufficiently 
 interested about Religion, and are sufficiently con- 
 vinced of its powerful tendency to improve the 
 conduct of individuals and to augment the general 
 stock of happiness, to step for a little while out of 
 their more appropriate province to plead its cause. 
 Such defenders of revealed religion there have been 
 in all ages ; yet they have not been so numerous 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 All 
 
 as to render it improper or indecorous to increase 
 their number: especially as the old prejudice still 
 (•ontinues to operate with unabated energy ; and 
 there are many persons from whom the claims of 
 Christianity receive a more respectful attention, 
 when they are urged by one who is neither a 
 clergyman” nor a methodist.” 
 
 There have long existed several valuable essays 
 on the Evidences of Christianity ; and we now 
 possess in the English language especially, the 
 treatise of Dr. Paley, which all Christians consider 
 as an honour to our age and nation. Had a lumi- 
 nous statement of the Historical Evidences been all 
 that was aimed at or required, I should at once 
 have referred my friend to Dr. Paley’s as a standard, 
 and, I believe, unanswerable work ; and never have 
 troubled either him or the public with any remarks 
 of mine on the subject of religion. But it is very 
 possible, and indeed very common, for men to be 
 Christians in name and theory, and infidels in 
 practice ; to profess a belief in Christ, and in heart 
 to deny him ; to acknowledge him as Messiah, and 
 to refuse to obey him as king ; to avow the warmest 
 admiration of the New Testament, and to despise 
 and ridicule every thing in it which is characteristic 
 and peculiar, and which constitutes it a summary 
 of that truth” which alone can make us free” 
 from the dominion of sin and from the punishment 
 due to it. This I consider as the most striking and 
 lamentable error of the present times ; and it is. 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 therefore, the more remarkable that such an error 
 should not have been frequently and pointedly 
 exposed. To adopt the language of an admirable 
 living writer — ‘‘ While the outworks of the sanc- 
 tuary have been defended with the utmost ability, 
 its interior has been too much neglected, and the 
 fire upon the altar suffered to languish and decay. 
 The truths and mysteries which distinguish the 
 Christian from all other religions, have been little 
 attended to by some, totally denied by others ; and 
 while infinite efforts have been made, by the utmost 
 subtlety of argumentation, to establish the truth 
 and authenticity of revelation, few have been ex- 
 erted in comparison to show what it really con- 
 tains. 
 
 Now the deficiency here adverted to is that which 
 I have endeavoured to supply. I have attempted 
 to exhibit in small compass a view, not merely of 
 the Evidences, but of the distinguishing Doctrines, 
 and principal binding Duties of the Christian Reli- 
 gion. I have endeavoured to show that Christianity 
 is not so contemptible and bungling a fraud as 
 some infidels have represented it to be ; and to 
 point out at the same time many palpable and 
 enormous absurdities into which Infidelity precipi- 
 tates its votaries. But this I reckon the least 
 important part of my undertaking, though I hum- 
 bly hope it may have its uses. The facts of Chris- 
 tianity are only so far momentous as the doctrines 
 are momentous which are suspended upon them. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 The crucifixion of Jesus Christ would be no more 
 to us (I mention it with reverence) than the death 
 of Socrates, were it not that he suffered as a sacri- 
 ficeforsin; and his resurrection of no more im- 
 portance to us than the emancipation of a butterfly 
 ‘ from its crysalis, were it not for the assurance that 
 even as he has risen ’’ so shall all his faithful 
 followers, I have, therefore, entered pretty much 
 at large into the establishment and defence of the 
 leading doctrines which distinguish Christianity 
 from all other religious systems. In the choice of 
 these I have kept almost entirely out of sight the 
 higher points which separate the Arminians and 
 Calvinists ; while I have attempted to illustrate 
 and confirm, as essential, those grand doctrines in 
 which both Arminians and Calvinists, and indeed 
 the great majority of Christians, differ from the 
 Socinians. The truth is, that upon most of the 
 questions which have long divided, and still con- 
 tinue to agitate, the Christian world, my mind is 
 nearly in a state of perfect neutrality : so that I 
 cannot bring myself to attach much importance to 
 any question which is not obviously favourable or 
 unfavourable in its moral tendency, or which does 
 not appear to me fundamental, that is, which does 
 not in some way affect the grand doctrine of man’s 
 redemption through the crucifixion of the Son of 
 God.” With all Christians who in this respect 
 hold the head,” and live conformably to the doc- 
 trines they profess, however they may be separated 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 upon minor topics, I am anxious to maintain, and 
 long to see universally prevail, the unity of the 
 spirit in the bond of peace.” 
 
 I am willing to hope, indeed, that this spirit is 
 gaining ground among us ; and that many men are 
 beginning to act upon the persuasion that every 
 controversy agitated in the Christian Church upon 
 points of inferior moment, causes a deduction, and 
 in numerous instances a very serious one, from the 
 regard paid to the really important objects of faith. 
 
 In attaining the objects proposed, I have not 
 aimed at elaborate composition, or the elegancies 
 of style : believing that if my professional employ- 
 ments did not tend greatly to render success in 
 such an attempt improbable, my real inability to 
 dazzle by splendid imagery and profuse embellish- 
 ment would. I have endeavoured to reason clearly 
 fairly ; have availed myself of every argument 
 I have met with in other authors that has met my 
 purpose; and have endeavoured to compress them 
 into small space; and have, farther, had occasional 
 recourse to some arguments which it is probable 
 would not readily present themselves to any one 
 who was not moderately conversant with scientific 
 topics ; these, it may be added, were frequently 
 suggested by the consideration, that the gentleman 
 for whose use they were originally written had 
 successfully engaged in scientific pursuits. 
 
 I know not whether it may be necessary to 
 apologize for the frequency and extent of my 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XI 
 
 quotations from Scripture, especially in the second 
 volume. Let it be recollected that the main 
 object of that volume is to teach the doctrines of 
 Scripture; that is, to show what they are, to ex- 
 hibit them faithfully : and to effect this without 
 being allowed to cite the language of Scripture, 
 would be, as Mr. Boyle long ago remarked, to 
 challenge a man to a duel, and oblige him not to 
 make use of his best weapons ; or to compel him 
 to prove the torrid zone habitable, and not make 
 use of the testimony of navigators.” Besides, the 
 maxim of Chillingworth, though old, has not yet 
 been proved absurd ; namely, that we cannot 
 speak of the things of God better than in the 
 words of God.’- 
 
 I would fain hope that my numerous references 
 to other authors, or quotations from them, will not 
 be ascribed to a desire to make a parade of exten- 
 sive reading. My acquaintance with the works of 
 other writers, and especially on the subject of reli- 
 gion, is, in truth, far less than it ought to be; and 
 my object in such frequent references and extracts 
 has been either to direct the attention of young 
 men of reading to standard works on topics which 
 my plan would not allow me to treat so fully as I 
 wished, or to confirm and fortify my own senti- 
 ments by the authority of many whom the world 
 in general consider as learned, wise, and, therefore, 
 highly worthy of regard. 
 
 Lastly, I beg to remark, that I hope and trust 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 the freedom of my occasional animadversions upon 
 theologians from whom I differ on several topics 
 discussed in these letters, has in no instance arisen 
 from contempt of them, or their opinions, from 
 uncandid interpretations of their language, or from 
 unworthy personal feeling. My business has been 
 to attempt to refute sentiments which I deem erro- 
 neous and dangerous, as well as to establish those 
 which appear to me true and beneficial. It is pos- 
 sible, I am persuaded, to feel the strongest convic- 
 tion of the errors certain men may hold, without 
 cherishing a particle of ill will against those who 
 hold them. And surely it is perfectly fair and per- 
 fectly candid, when theologians of a certain class 
 endeavour to divest Christianity of almost every 
 thing which (as I conceive) is peculiar to it, pride 
 themselves upon the skill and dexterity with which 
 they effect this, and triumph over what they de- 
 nominate the irrational and contracted tenets of 
 others ; to turn the tables upon them, and to show 
 that their system is clogged with its full load of 
 absurdities and contradictions ; that their mode of 
 translation, if adopted universally, would rob the 
 New Testament of its whole spirit, energy, and per- 
 spicuity ; and that by stripping the Christian sys- 
 tem of its peculiarities, they deprive it nearly of all 
 which renders it of consequence whether a man be 
 a believer or an unbeliever. Under the influence 
 of these sentiments, I shall conclude by adopting 
 the language of Dr. Jortin on another occasion : 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 the following disquisitions are designed, slight 
 and imperfect as they are, for the service of Truth, 
 by one who would be glad to attend, and grace 
 her triumphs : as her soldier , if he has had the 
 honour to serve successfully under her banner : or, 
 as her captive, tied to her chariot wdieels, if he 
 has though undesignedly, committed any offence 
 against her,’’ 
 
 OLINTHUS GREGORY. 
 
 Oct, 11 , 1811 . 
 
 P. S. That successive editions of this Work 
 should be required is a circumstance which calls 
 for my most grateful acknowledgements, at the 
 same time that it has stimulated me to give the 
 whole a very careful revisal, that it may be ren- 
 dered more worthy public favour. I cannot but 
 be highly gratified that my labours on the most 
 interesting of all subjects should continue to be so 
 favourably received : and still more to learn, that 
 in various instances they have been the means of 
 convincing persons, especially young men devoted 
 to two of the learned professions (medicine and 
 law), that with the talent of an angel a man may 
 be a fool,” in the woi'st sense of the word, unless 
 he be wise unto salvation.’' Several have been 
 reclaimed from the regions of Infidelity, and still 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 more from Socinianism^ not merely in England, 
 but on the continent of Europe, in India, and Ame- 
 rica, by the blessing of God upon an attentive 
 perusal of these Letters.” I had no other object 
 in their publication; and can most sincerely de- 
 clare that I wish them no longer to meet with 
 encouragement than while they shall be useful in 
 instilling into the minds and hearts of others, the 
 essential, immutable principles which have always 
 been found to work most efficaciously towards the 
 renovation and salvation of mankind. 
 
 Royal Military Academy ^ Woolwich, 
 Oct, 11, 1829. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER Page 
 
 1. On the Folly and Absurdity of Deism 1 
 
 2. On the Necessity of a Revelation of the Will of God lo 
 
 3. On the Opinions of the Heathens, their Legislators, 
 
 Poets, and Philosophers, relative to God, to moral 
 Duty, and a future State 20 
 
 4. On the Probability that there should be Mysteries in 
 
 a Revealed Religion 42 
 
 5. On the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Scrip- 
 
 tures 65 
 
 6. On the Evidence deducible from the Prophecies . . 108 
 
 7. On the Evidence deducible from Miracles ; and on 
 
 the Credibility of Human Testimony .... 129 
 
 8. On the Resurrection of Jesus Christ 157 
 
 9. Evidence drawn from the rapid Diffusion of Chris- 
 
 tianity, and its Triumph over Persecution; also 
 from the Purity and Excellency of the Scripture 
 Morality and Theology 178 
 
 10. On the Inspiration of Scripture 199 
 
 11. On some of the most plausible Objections urged 
 
 against the Truth and Divine Authority of the 
 Scriptures 216 
 
XVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LETTER Page 
 
 12. Introductory Letter on the leading Doctrines of the 
 
 Christian Religion 243 
 
 13. On the Fall of Man, and the Depravity of Human 
 
 Nature 262 
 
 14. On the Atonement for Sin, by the Death of Jesus 
 
 Christ 280 
 
 15. On the Divinity of Jesus Christ 308 
 
 16. On the Nature of Conversion, and its Necessity . . 347 
 
 17. On the Influences of the Spirit 368 
 
 18. On Justification by Faith 390 
 
 19. On Providence .... 410 
 
 20. On the Resurrection of the Body 430 
 
 21. On Eternal Existence after Death 444 
 
 22. Summary of Christian Duties . 467 
 
LETTERS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVIDENCES, DOCTRINES, AND DUTIES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 LETTER L 
 
 On the Folly and Absurdity of Deism, 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I WAS much gratified, on the arrival of your letter, to 
 find that you had not forgotten me ; and more gratified 
 still to learn, that the important topic, on which we so 
 often conversed when we were together, has as fre- 
 quently occupied your thoughts since our separation. 
 In this respect your conduct evinces your usual solici- 
 tude to inquire after truth of every kind, and I trust it 
 will be followed by your accustomed success. While 
 human existence is as much characterized by the un- 
 certainty as by the shortness of its duration, and there 
 is interposed between us and Heaven, or Hell, or an- 
 nihilation, nothing but life, the most brittle and preca- 
 rious thing imaginable ; — while there is no cause for 
 vanity in being involved in impenetrable darkness, 
 and none for consolation ; when we are in despair of 
 ever finding a comforter, so long will it be the first and 
 principal concern of a wise man, to inquire into his 
 nature, his duties, and his expectations ; to ascertain 
 where he ought to doubt, where to be confident, and 
 wdiere to submit : and these inquiries necessarily com- 
 prise the subject of Religion. Who is wise, and he 
 
2 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 shall understand these things P 'prudent, and he shall know 
 them? For the ways of the Lord are right, and the just 
 shall walk in them; hut the transgressors shall fall 
 therein 
 
 The derision with which some of your deislical com- 
 panions affect to treat you, is matter of regret, but not 
 of surprise. If their Deism be the result of supposed 
 conviction, they are objects of pity ; if, which is more 
 likely to be the case, it be a consequence of indiffe- 
 rence, and this deplorable indifference furnish them 
 with a ground for boasting, they, instead of yourself, 
 would be fit subjects for ridicule, were it proper to 
 indulge such a propensity on so serious an occasion. 
 
 To a person of your extensive observation and con- 
 templative turn of mind, it must appear extremely 
 obvious, that as the vicious lives of many men make 
 it their interest that religion in general should be a 
 bugbear,’^ and the Christian Religion especially an 
 artful system of delusion f so they will too commonly 
 be found, not only ready, but eager to believe them 
 really such. Nor can it be expected that they should 
 stop here. For when once a certain method of treating 
 a subject is nicely adapted to men’s humours and 
 situations, it w^ould be strange, indeed, if they did not 
 indulge in it; particularly when they find, as they 
 soon will, that the majority of almost every company 
 will cordially concur with them. If you wish to be 
 proof against sneers and laughter, when directed 
 against so momentous a subject, consider that the 
 mirth and pleasure of the unthinking part of man- 
 kind (by far the greater part) is almost as blind and 
 mechanical as the actions of an automaton. Let them 
 be but struck, and they will move as mere inert matter 
 moves, until the effect of the impulse ceases. They 
 are stirred, and often delighted; though with what, or 
 for what cause, or to what purpose, they know not. 
 Except, perhaps, when the string of religion is roughly 
 touched by the hand of an enemy ; for then, many 
 
 ^ Hosea, xiv. 9. 
 
FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 3 
 
 ignorant, and all irreligious hearts, like chords in 
 unison, dance to the motion, and yield the same sound ; 
 just as the clank of a madman's chain, while it thrills 
 to the soul of a man in his senses, shall collect around 
 him all the lunatics in the same ward of his prison, 
 and tempt them to dance with maniac delight, when 
 every spectator shudders with horror. 
 
 I have heard of some modern free-thinkers, whose 
 comprehension of mind has placed them on such an 
 eminence, that they look down with contempt, not 
 only upon Christians, but upon the shrivelled minds 
 of other unbelievers, who have not yet taken such an 
 adventurous flight : some who not merely deride those 
 whom half the world calls fanatics and visionaries, but 
 who are seated in a scorner's chair" of such peculiar 
 qualities as enchants them till they sneer at the narrow 
 prejudices of Hume and Gibbon, and Voltaire and 
 Paine, whom they fancy they have discovered to be 
 as superstitious as washerwomen." Others have 
 been impelled to still greater heights in this intel- 
 lectual delirium. They contemplate with delight the 
 prospect of a world without a Creator or a Governor; 
 and boast of their demonstrations, by which they can 
 convert any sensible man into an Atheist in a quarter 
 of an hour; a transformation which, of course, would 
 not be very difficult after they had explained to that 
 sensible man, upon their own hypothesis, from whom 
 he derived his sense. But the gentlemen, into whose 
 company you are now so frequently thrown, do not, I 
 presume, belong to either of these classes. It is more 
 probable that some of them have embraced a kind of 
 Semi- Atheism (I cannot think of a more appropriate 
 term); a fine-spun theory, in conformity with which 
 they persuade themselves that the Supreme Being does 
 not govern the universe he created ; but, after having 
 covered it with living, and many of them rational 
 beings, leaves them to console themselves with the 
 cheering reflection that they are inhabitants of a for- 
 saken and fatherless world — while HE, according to 
 
4 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 this comfortable as well as 'philosophical notion, like a 
 kind of Sarclanapalus, sits at ease and surveys the 
 goodly scene. If men who endeavour to disseminate 
 such opinions ever cease to ridicule the maintainers of 
 opposite sentiments, and condescend to argumentation, 
 you might ask them to explain how it is possible that 
 a derived being can be independent? You might 
 inquire of them, whether that which is derived from 
 another can exist necessaril'y in the first moment of its 
 being? Whether that which does not exist neces- 
 sarily in the first moment of its existence, can exist 
 necessarily in the second, or in any succeeding instant? 
 or, whether it must not owe its continued existence to 
 the being by whom it was at first produced? If they 
 be men of any acumen, they will at once perceive that, 
 by supposing the existence of the being to continue 
 when that on which it depended ceases, they would 
 suppose it to be v/ithout the cause of its existence ; 
 and thus they would, by a kind of mental felo-de-se, 
 support their hypothesis by destroying the superstruc- 
 ture on which it rests : so that, if they, to this acute- 
 ness which I have supposed them to possess, unite only 
 common candour and openness to conviction, you 
 w^ould, by a very short process, make them ashamed of 
 their fashionable Semi-atheism, and compel them to 
 acknowledge that all the creatures of God do inces- 
 santly depend upon Him for the continuance of their 
 existence. Thus will your opponents be forced to 
 take the ground of pure Deism ; and on that ground 
 it is that you must meet them, if you have any wish to 
 enter upon this momentous contest. 
 
 The opinions of Deists, from the time of Lord 
 Herbert (the first and purest of the British free- 
 thinkers) to the present period, have assumed such 
 multifarious shapes, that it is difficult to state them in 
 such a way as to be free from objection^ Nominal 
 
 ^ This extreme diversity of sentiments among the pretended phi- 
 losophers who reject Christianity lias not escaped the pointed notice 
 of some of their own class. The following language of Rousseau, 
 
FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 5 
 
 Deism is separated into nearly as many climates and 
 districts as nominal Christianity ; so that, if Calvinism 
 be placed in the torrid zone, and Socinianism in the 
 polar regions of Christianity; you may with equal 
 
 descriptive of their conduct and contradictions, is highly worthy of 
 attention : — “ 1 have consulted our philosophers, I have perused their 
 books, I have examined their several opinions, I have found them 
 all proud, positive, and dogmatizing, even in their pretended scepti- 
 cism, knowing every thing, proving nothing, and ridiculing one ano- 
 ther ; and this is the only point in which they concur, and in which 
 they are right. Daring when they attack, they defend themselves 
 without vigour. If you consider their arguments, they have none 
 but for destruction ; if you count their number, each one is reduced 
 to himself ; they never unite but to dispute ; to listen to them was 
 not the way to relieve myself from my doubts. I conceived that the 
 insufficiency of the human understanding was the first cause of this 
 prodigious diversity of sentiment, and that pride was the second. If 
 our philosophers were able to discover truth, which of them would 
 interest himself about it? Each of them knows that his system is 
 not better established than the others ; but he supports it, because 
 it is his own : there is not one amongst them who, coming to distin- 
 guish truth from falsehood, would not prefer his own error to the 
 truth that is discovered by another. Where is the philosopher, 
 who, for his own glory, would not willingly deceive the whole human 
 race ? Where is he, who, in the secret of his heart, proposes any 
 other object than his own distinction? Provided he can but raise 
 himself above the commonalty, provided he can eclipse his competi- 
 tors, he has reached the summit of his ambition. The great thing 
 for him is to think differently from other people. Among believers, 
 he is an Atheist, among Atheists, a believer. Shun, shun then, those 
 who, under pretence of explaining nature, sow in the hearts of men 
 tlie most dispiriting doctrines, whose scepticism is far more affirma- 
 tive and dogmatical than the decided tone of their adversaries. Under 
 pretence of being themselves the only people enlightened, they im- 
 periously subject us to their magisterial decisions, and would fain 
 palm upon us, for the true causes of things, the unintelligible systems 
 they have erected in their own heads. Whilst they overturn, destroy, 
 and trample under foot, all that mankind reveres, snatch from the 
 afflicted the only comfort left them in their misery, from the rich 
 and great the only curb that can restrain their passions ; tear from 
 the heart all remorse of vice, all hopes of virtue, and still boast 
 themselves the benefactors of mankind. ‘ Truth,’ they say, ‘ is never 
 hurtful to man.’ I believe that as well as they ; and the same, in my 
 opinion, is a proof that what they teach is not the truth.” — Rousseau, 
 as quoted by M. Gandolphy, in bis Defence of the Ancient Faith, 
 
6 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 propriety imagine the sentiments of Herbert to occupy 
 the equatorial regions, and those of Hume, Holcroft, 
 and Godwin, the frigid zone of infidelity. Moderate 
 Deists, however, and to such a candid reasoner would 
 direct his arguments, profess to believe in one God, 
 possessing natural and moral attributes, the former of 
 which may be comprehended under power and know- 
 ledge, the latter under justice and benevolence; they 
 believe, I presume, that virtue is that which is consistent 
 with the will of God in act and motive ; and yet that 
 God has never made any revelation of his will to men ; 
 but that the collection of books which we receive as 
 such, and consequently by way of distinction denomi- 
 nate The Scriptures, are in fact no such thing, but 
 are the oldest, the most artful, and most successful 
 collection of forgeries that ever was palmed upon the 
 world. 
 
 And are they the apostles and disseminators of this 
 heart-chilling system who wish to laugh you out of your 
 religion P or rather, who are ridiculing you for the 
 scrupulous attention with which you are investigating 
 the evidences of Christianity, and for the solicitude you 
 express that you may be established in Faith and 
 Holiness?^^ Let them enjoy the comforts of their 
 supposed intellectual superiority, while you pursue 
 your inquiry ; and then you will in due time “ enjoy 
 the fruits of the spirit,^' while they may haply retain all 
 that fine flow of soul which so naturally results from 
 the consciousness of being lost in a labyrinth of uncer- 
 tainty. Do not suppose that the exultation so com- 
 monly manifested by these men, and which seems so 
 much to have impressed your mind, is always natural. 
 Confident as they often profess themselves to be, that 
 unless you are a mere child in intellect you will soon 
 think as they do; be assured, that in general their 
 sarcasms and affected contempt originate in the appre 
 hension that your sentiments will soon be diametrically 
 opposite to theirs, and in their consequent eagerness 
 to deter you from inquiry. Do not imagine that when 
 
FOLLY AISD ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 7 
 
 these your lively, and laii^hin^, and witty companions 
 leave you, their mirth and hilarity support them equally 
 in solitude. Could you follow them into their retire- 
 ments without being witnessed, or could you conceive the 
 language of their souls to be formed into audible words, 
 you might, without any breach of candour, fancy them 
 soliloquizing in the following language of Pascal. 
 
 I hardly know who has sent me into the world. 
 Nor know I what the world is, or what I am myself. 
 I am shockingly ignorant of all things. I know not 
 what my body is, what my senses are, or what my 
 soul is. This very part of me, which thinks what I 
 speak, which reflects upon itself and upon every thing 
 round me, is yet as ignorant of itself, as it is of every 
 thing else. I behold these frightful spaces of the 
 universe with which I am encompassed, and feel 
 myself confined to one little portion of the vast extent, 
 without understanding why I am placed in this part 
 of it rather than in any other; or why the short period 
 of time that was allotted me to live was assigned to me 
 at this particular point, rather than at any other, of 
 the whole eternity which was before me, or of that 
 which is to come after me. I see nothing but infinities 
 on all sides, which swallow me up like an atom, or 
 transform me to a shadow which endures but a single 
 instant, and is never to return. All that I know is, 
 that I must shortly die; but this very death, from 
 which I cannot escape, is the thing of which I am the 
 most ignorant. 
 
 As I know not whence I came, so I know not 
 whither I am going ; only this I know, that, at my 
 departure out of the world, I must either be for ever 
 annihilated, or fall into the hands of an incensed 
 God, without being able to decide which of these two 
 conditions will be my everlasting portion. 
 
 Such is my state, so full of weakness, darkness, 
 and wretchedness. And from all this I conclude, that 
 1 ought to pass all the days of my life without ever 
 considering what is hereafter to befall me : and that I 
 
8 FOLLY AMD ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 have nothing to do but to follow my inclinations with- 
 out reflection or disquiet, doing all that which, if what 
 is said of a miserable eternity, be true, will inflillibly 
 plunge me into it. It is possible I might find some 
 light to dispel my doubts; but I will not take the 
 trouble to stir one foot in search of it ; rather, despising 
 all those who do take pains in this inquiry, I am re- 
 solved to go on, without fear or foresight, and brave 
 the grand event; I will pass as easily as I can out of 
 life, and die utterly uncertain about the eternal state 
 of my future existence.^^ 
 
 If this be a fair representation of the strange process 
 of thought often pursued by the generality of modern 
 Deists, as I apprehend it is, you will agree with me, 
 that it is an honour to religion to have such unreason- 
 able men for its professed enemies, and to Christians, 
 that such, or such principally, are their revilers. 
 
 Yet, as idolizers of reason, we cannot suppose that 
 these gentlemen reject the Christian religion, and adopt 
 the notions of Deism, without thinking they have found 
 sufficient reasons for the preference. Let us, my 
 friend, by instituting a short comparison, see if we can 
 discover them. Can a Deist arrive at his convictions 
 by any thing like the following gradation ? 
 
 Christianity reveals a God, glorious in holiness ; 
 Deism, though it acknowledges a God, yet in great 
 measure overlooks his moral character : therefore I 
 prefer Deism. Christianity contains a professed reve- 
 lation of the will of God ; Deism leaves me in perfect 
 darkness as to his will : therefore I prefer Deism. 
 Christianity exhibits palpable, obvious, and simple 
 criteria of the nature of virtue and vice ; Deism enve- 
 lopes the nature of virtue and vice in the greatest 
 doubt and perplexity : therefore I prefer Deism. 
 Christianity furnishes the strongest possible motives 
 for virtuous conduct, and the most cogent reasons for 
 abstaining from vicious conduct ; Deism appeals only 
 to some vague notions relative to the fitness of things, 
 or to moral beauty, or to expediency, which makes a 
 
FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 9 
 
 man’s own sentiments and feelings, however fluctuating, 
 his ultimate guide : therefore I prefer Deism. Chris- 
 tianity often reforms profligate and vicious men ; Deism 
 never: therefore I prefer Deism. Christianity fre- 
 quently prompts men to schemes of the most extensive 
 philanthropy, and compels them to execute those 
 schemes; Deism scarcely ever devises any such schemes: 
 therefore I prefer Deism. Christianity imparts princi- 
 ples that support men under all the trials and vicis- 
 situdes of life ; Deism can have recourse to no such 
 principles: therefore I prefer Deism. Christianity 
 assures me of eternal existence beyond the grave ; and 
 that, if it is not to me an eternal portion of felicity, 
 it will be my own fault : Deism leaves me perfectly 
 ignorant, let my conduct here be what it may, whether 
 I shall live beyond the grave or not ; whether such 
 existence, if there be any, will be limited or infinite, 
 happy or miserable : therefore I prefer Deism. 
 Christianity will support me under the languishments 
 of a sick bed, and in the prospect of death, with the 
 
 sure and certain hope,” that death is only a short 
 though sometimes dark passage into “ an inheritance 
 incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, 
 reserved in Heaven for God’s people :” Deism will 
 then leave me, sinking in an ocean of gloomy appre- 
 hension, without one support — in trembling expecta- 
 tion, that the icy hand of the king of terrors is about 
 to seize me ; but whether to convey me to Heaven, to 
 Hell, or to a state of annihilation, I know not ; there- 
 fore I prefer : no, my friend, it is impossible 
 
 that any man capable of correct reflection can, after 
 tracing this contrast, say, deliberately and sincerely, — 
 therefore I prefer Deism. 
 
 The reasons, then, which weigh with a Deist must 
 be different from the above. Perhaps you may be told, 
 that the difficulties attending the belief of Christianity 
 are very numerous and great, while the mere reception 
 of the principles of Deism is in a considerable degree 
 free from difficulty, or at least presents no difficulties 
 
10 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 against which one’s mind can strenuously revolt. To 
 ascertain the force of this assertion, let us endeavour 
 to collect into one point of view the chief propositions 
 which must necessarily he included in the creed of a 
 Deist : and I am much mistaken if they will not furnish 
 us with some cogent motives for wishing Christianity 
 ma\j be true, independent of all those that result from 
 its own intrinsic beauty, value, and excellency. 
 
 Here, again, we will suppose a Deist speaking; 
 delivering, if I may so call it, in his own person, A 
 confession of his Faith.” And after you have at- 
 tended to this declaration, I think you will coincide 
 with me in opinion, that the credulity of unbelievers 
 is the most marvellous thing imaginable — the rejectors 
 of the Gospel, the most resolute believers in the world; 
 or with Soame Jenyns, that they must be possessed 
 of much more faith than is necessary to make them 
 declared Christians, and remain unbelievers from mere 
 credulity.” The creed of a Deist so far as I am able 
 to comprehend his principles, would run thus : 
 
 1. I believe that God is a being of matchless holi- 
 ness, wisdom, power, and benevolence ; that in conse- 
 quence of his holiness, He cannot look upon iniquity 
 with satisfaction that His wisdom would enable 
 him to contrive. His power to execute, and His bene- 
 volence stimulate him to accomplish, the most effectual 
 plans for the establishment of virtue and the suppression 
 of vice; for the extinction of mental and moral dark- 
 ness, and the diffusion of mental and moral light: and 
 yet, that God has suffered mankind in every age, and 
 in almost every country, to remain in the grossest ig- 
 norance and darkness, for nearly 6000 years; to struggle 
 with prejudices, to immerse themselves in the blackest 
 and most dismal crimes, to perform the most horrid 
 and murderous rites, and fancy them religious services; 
 — that He makes the being who possesses the finest 
 faculties to be the greatest enemy to his species, — and 
 thus to plunge himself and others into the deepest 
 miseries: — and all this in consequence of His never 
 
FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 1 1 
 
 affording them the remotest aid, — never supplying 
 them with any invariable principles as preservatives 
 against error, or any specific rules by which they should 
 shape their conduct. That is, I believe this palpable 
 contradiction, that the goodness of God has allowed 
 this horridly miserable state of mankind to continue for 
 so many centuries, and has all along prompted him to 
 refuse them any effectual aid or direction. 
 
 2. I believe that what is called the Mosaic account 
 of the Creation of the World, and the Fall of Man, is 
 a mere fable; and therefore I believe that God, the 
 wisest and the best of beings, created man with the 
 most noble, refined, and extraordinary faculties of 
 body and mind, faculties infinitely superior to what 
 are possessed by other living creatures ; that while they 
 eat, and drink, and sleep, unconscious of what shall 
 befall them, he may indulge the doubtful anticipation 
 intermingled with frequent dread of future occur- 
 rences ; and that while they are supplied with all that is 
 necessary for their subsistence without either ‘‘ toiling 
 or spinning,^’ mayi, the Lord of the creation, is so 
 circumstanced, that, by the sweat of his brow,’’ the 
 labour of his hands, and the anxiety of his mind, he 
 shall earn and eat bread I also believe that the 
 same infinitely wise and benevolent Being formed 
 women with delicacy of perception, sweetness of dis- 
 position, tenderness of heart, and beauty of frame, far 
 above all we could conceive, did we not witness, them, 
 in order that her sorrow and her conception shall 
 be greatly multiplied,^ that she shall bring forth chiL 
 dren in sorrow, (while other animals suffer but little 
 comparatively in bearing and bringing forth their 
 young) : and that she shall be formed exquisitely 
 susceptible of all the emotions of love, in order that 
 her desire may be to her husband, and that he may 
 RULE over her.^^ That is, I will not believe that these 
 are the effects of just punishment ; but believe that 
 they are marks of hard treatment from the wisest and 
 best of beings towards the most exalted part of his 
 
12 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 visible creation. I know there is no possible medium 
 between these alternatives ; but I reject the former 
 because it is reasonable, and revealed in the Bible; 
 and adopt the latter, because it is unreasonable, and 
 revealed nowhere. 
 
 3. I believe that the book called the Bible was, 
 every word of it, invented and written by men who 
 had no help from God : that what are called Prophecies 
 were not such ; that what are denominated Miracles 
 were either tricks of art, or never occurred ; and that 
 though the precepts are often admirable, and the mo- 
 rality pure, it proceeded from impostors, and not from 
 God. The whole book being a collection of delusions 
 and deceptions; which God nevertheless suffered to 
 be accompanied by such evidence to gain it belief, as 
 is not possessed by any other book. 
 
 4. I believe that bad men are often made better 
 through the influence of this strange system of lies, 
 delusions, and impostures ; and that those who were 
 good men often become bad, as soon as they are wise 
 enough to free themselves from such influence, and to 
 cast off the shackles with which this system encumbered 
 them. 
 
 5. I believe that several of the best scholars, the 
 ablest disputants, the most acute lawyers, the subtlest 
 metaphysicians, the most cautious investigators, and 
 the most profound philosophers, that ever lived, such 
 as Sir Thomas More, Grotius, Hale, Bacon, Barrow, 
 Locke, Hartley, Boyle, Pascal, Euler, Newton, and 
 many others, were never able to detect the cheat, but 
 lived as much under the influence of this system of bold 
 and blasphemous deception, as the most vulgar and 
 illiterate peasant could do; — and were, the majority of 
 them, very excellent men notwithstanding. 
 
 6. I believe that the different persons who employed 
 themselves at various times, and in different places, to 
 compose the Bible, which avows itself, by a thousand 
 most solemn and explicit declarations, to be a collec- 
 tion of communications from heaven, were not madmen 
 
FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 13 
 
 (for that supposition is untenable), but all shocking 
 liars, and deceivers ; that these wicked men, who thus 
 impiously pretended to be employed by God, when 
 they were not so employed, did, notwithstanding, with 
 an amazing energy, resolution, and perseverance, go 
 about doing good, and delivering the most important 
 moral precepts ; braving, and often sustaining, the 
 greatest present evils; not one of them ever recanting 
 or discovering the fraud ; but supporting themselves 
 in the daily diffusion of their noble precepts and de- 
 testable impostures, and the terrible sufferings which 
 they thereby had to sustain, by the conviction that 
 they had no hope but of experiencing further hardships 
 here, and the vengeance of the God whom they had 
 insulted — hereafter. 
 
 Lastly; I believe that the Great Being of infinite 
 perfections, who sits enthroned at the head of the uni- 
 verse, has seen this horrid delusion prevail more and 
 more for nearly two thousand years; yet, instead of 
 interposing to stay its progress, has suffered it to be 
 accompanied with the most remarkable apparent sanc- 
 tions, and has often accelerated its promulgation by 
 surprising operations and occurrences. That is, I 
 believe that the God of truth has, with regard to what 
 is called the Christian Religion, most astonishingly 
 aided imposture. All this, I acknowledge, is perfectly 
 incomprehensible, and totally irreconcilable with the 
 obvious attributes of Deity ; but it is consistent with 
 the principles of Deism, however repugnant it may be 
 to common sense, and therefore I believe it. 
 
 If these and similar absurdities, my friend, result 
 from the rejection of Revelation (and, as far as I am 
 able to judge, they are not merely fair, but necessary 
 consequences of such rejection), your deistical ac- 
 quaintances cannot have so much reason as they sup- 
 pose, to pride themselves on that noble exercise of 
 their understanding which has freed them from vulgar 
 prejudices and sordid restraints. Is there not, hence, 
 too much reason to fear, that in nineteen instances out 
 
14 FOLLY AND ABSURDITY OF DEISM. 
 
 of twenty, Deism springs more from the state of the 
 heart than from the operations of intellect? and that 
 it is not so much because Christianity offends the 
 reason, as because it condemns the conduct, of men, 
 that they affect to despise it? They commence their 
 progress with a carelessness respecting their future 
 interests; in the language of Young, they 
 
 “ Give to time eternity’s regard, 
 
 And, dreaming, take their passage for their port.’’ 
 
 Gliding along thus carelessly, it is natural enough that 
 they should sink, — first into error, — next into vice. 
 In such a situation, an inquiry into the evidences of 
 Revealed Religion is not instituted under very favour- 
 able auspices ; for the inquirer has his mind overgrown 
 with the worst of all prejudices, those that are rooted 
 in interest. How should a man be indifferent as to 
 the truth of a system, which, if true, must condemn 
 him ? Though his life may not be grossly immoral, 
 he knows that the tenor of his conduct is incompatible 
 with the renunciations and requirements of real reli- 
 gion. He comes, therefore, to the trial, not as an 
 impartial judge, but as a party deeply interested in 
 the issue. He in consequence ivishes that Christianity 
 may not be true; and what a man fervently wishes, 
 he can easily persuade himself to believe, — though he 
 should involve himself in a thousand absurdities in 
 consequence of that persuasion. 
 
 You, my friend, have happily entered upon this 
 important inquiry, free from the lamentable incum- 
 brances of vice : that it may be so pursued, as to be 
 the mean of preserving you from the deistical delusions 
 to which I have adverted in this letter, — delusions, as 
 derogatory to the intellectual, as they are dangerous 
 to the moral, character of man ; — is the most earnest 
 wish of 
 
 Your sincere Friend. 
 
 Royal Military Academy, May, 1809. 
 
15 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 On the Necessity of a Revelation of the Will of God, 
 
 When you request, my dear Friend, that I will not 
 let the letter I recently sent you, terminate the remarks 
 I mean to transmit on the subject of Religion, but that 
 I will allow you to consider it as the first of a series 
 which I shall devote to the discussion of the Evidences, 
 Doctrines, and Duties of Christianity, you propose to 
 me a task, which, however willing I may be to under- 
 take it on your account, will, I am aware, be attended 
 with some difficulty, and require much time and me- 
 ditation. The difficulty does not arise from the paucit}^ 
 and scantiness of the materials that lie before me, and 
 the consequent necessity of exercising original or in- 
 ventive powers to produce such argumentative matter 
 as may convince a candid inquirer; but from the ex- 
 treme copiousness of the subject, the abundance and 
 variety of the means by which it has been established, 
 confirmed, and illustrated, and the judgment requisite 
 to draw out of an immense mass, to which men of 
 learning and piety in all ages of the Church have con- 
 tributed, those particulars which may be best calculated 
 to impress the mind, and to call forth both a rational 
 and practical conviction. The lively interest, however, 
 which I feel in all that concerns you, and my extreme 
 solicitude that you should think correctly and act 
 wisely in relation to this most momentous of all topics, 
 induce me to comply with your wishes, notwithstand- 
 ing the embarrassment in which such compliance may 
 sometimes involve me. I have only to premise, before 
 I pursue the inquiry you have suggested, that as, on 
 the one hand, I do not expect you will assent to every 
 proposition I shall advance, but will he determined by 
 the aggregate impression resulting from the whole ; 
 so, on the other, you must not expect to be entertained 
 with novelties, or fascinated with beauties. 
 
 “ Nullum est jam dictum, quod non dictum prius,” Ter. 
 
16 NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 
 
 My objects will be to select — not to invent; to con- 
 vince — not to compel ; to instruct — not to delight ; to 
 persuade — not to enchant : and if I shall be so fortu- 
 nate as to effect these without occupying very much of 
 your time ; — if I shall save you the fatigue of turning 
 over many a ponderous volume, and the vexation of 
 reading many in vain (through the want of a judicious 
 friend at your elbow to direct your choice) ; — if I can 
 compress into small compass the most essential argu- 
 ments that are diffused through numerous works of 
 various authors in different ages, and the result of my 
 labour be beneficial to you; I shall have the satis- 
 faction, the purest allotted to man, of having exerted 
 myself successfully in a good cause. 
 
 Having premised this, I may venture to remark, 
 that if the train of argumentation in my former letter 
 be calculated to make any impression, it is, that the 
 absurdities of Deism render a Revelation of the will of 
 God probable. It may also be inferred further, that 
 what we may naturally expect from the character of 
 God renders such a revelation more probable ; and we 
 may now observe, that the state of men renders it 
 necessary. It indeed seems extremely unlikely, that 
 the Divine Being would suffer mankind to have fallen 
 into such great apostasy from him as is every where 
 manifest, v/ithout intending to render them assistance 
 through which they may be recovered. He has made 
 provision in the natural world for the removal of bodily 
 disorders; can we then imagine that he will be alto- 
 gether regardless of the much more dangerous diseases 
 of the mind? It is, for example, a most deplorable 
 degree of blindness to live utterly unconcerned about 
 what we are; and it is a far more tremendous thing to 
 live wickedly, to live as without God in the world,^’ 
 when we are surrounded with his essence, and believe 
 in his existence : yet the greater part of mankind are 
 under one or other of these dismal infatuations ; and 
 there can be no reason assigned why they should ever 
 be otherwise, unless they are roused from their slum- 
 
NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 17 
 
 ber, or checked in their irreligious courses, by the voice 
 of the Deity. 
 
 Leave man to himself, and to his own efforts, even 
 when most actively inclined, and what can he accom- 
 plish? He is evidently formed for thinking; his intel- 
 lectual part gives dignity to his character: to think 
 correctly constitutes a prime duly ; correct thinking is 
 manifested in his contemplating himself, his author, 
 and his end ; and yet, how commonly does he neglect 
 these inquiries to pursue trifling vanities, and waste 
 his strength in thatw^hich profiteth not?^^ Or suppose 
 he directs his imassisted intellectual energies into a 
 more suitable channel, what does he effect? He has 
 an idea, an inward perception of truth, not to be 
 effaced by the sophistry of the sceptic ; yet, on the 
 most imporlant topics, he has an incapacity of argu- 
 ment scarcely to be rectified but by supernatural aid. 
 He seeks virtue, and at the close of life may exclaim 
 with Brutus that the virtue he pursued was hut a shadow. 
 He wishes for truth, and obtains nothing but uncer- 
 tainty. He pants after happiness, and finds only 
 misery in substance, or the vacuity of disappointment. 
 He is incapable of ceasing to wish both for truth and 
 happiness ; and yet perceives that he is equally in- 
 capable of attaining either certainty or felicity. He 
 is also subject to a perpetual war between his reason 
 and his passions. Had he reason without passions, 
 or passions without reason, he might enjoy something 
 like repose; but, actuated as he is by both, he lives in 
 perpetual disquiet; finding it impossible to yield him- 
 self to the guidance of the one, without experiencing 
 the consequences of rebellion to the other. Hence he 
 is always at variance with himself, — always under the 
 influence of contending principles ; and how is he to 
 emancipate himself from this thraldom? Suppose he 
 seeks for freedom and repose, by pursuing the specu- 
 lations of Katiiral Religion. He endeavours to lay 
 the foundations of duty, to establish rules of conduct; 
 he attem})ts to put them in practice, and fails. He is 
 
NECESSITY OF REVELATION. 
 
 18 
 
 compelled to acknowledge kimself a wanderer, and 
 often doubtless a wilful wanderer from the path of 
 rectitude. He reasons, without knowing it, upon the 
 principles of an Apostle, who said, if our hearts con- 
 demn us, God is greater than our hearts, and will condemn 
 us also and is thus led to institute inquiries relative 
 to the pardon of sin, the nature, duration, misery, or 
 happiness of a future state ; respecting all which he 
 finds it impossible to remove difficulties, or to be freed 
 from the most trembling anxiety : 
 
 “ The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before him ; 
 
 But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.” 
 
 Even of those things which such an inquirer may 
 be able to unravel to his own satisfaction, there will be 
 many in which it will be extremely difficult to convey 
 a satisfactory impression to others; considering, on the 
 one hand, how abstruse many of his arguments will 
 be ; and, on the other, that ignorance, indolence, pre- 
 judice, and secular cares, will, according to their indi- 
 vidual or combined existence and influence, prevent 
 the generality of persons from inquiring into the truth 
 of what he proposes, as well as from investigating 
 these matters for themselves. 
 
 Could the doubts which envelope the subject of 
 Natural Religion be dispelled by any one philosopher, 
 to his own satisfaction, yet he might want the inclina- 
 tion, or, if he possessed that, he must want the power, 
 to make others adopt his views, and thus taste his en- 
 joyments. Or, could the great doctrines of religion 
 and the rules of morality be settled, and proposed and 
 taught, ever so plainly or frequently, yet it would be 
 difficult, or indeed impossible, to enforce the practice 
 of them. A system of ethics may be considered, by 
 those who acquaint themselves with it, as extremely 
 ingenious; but it is entirely optional whether they will 
 or will not adopt it as a rule of conduct; and the expe- 
 rience of all ages shows that it is perfectly ridiculous 
 to expect that any such system should ever be consi- 
 
^’ECESS^Ty OF REVELATION. 
 
 19 
 
 (lered as binding. Even were human laws established 
 in aid of it, it would still be inefficacious ; for no 
 secular power, however it might restrain from crimes, 
 can produce a single action that shall be truly and 
 essentially virtuous h Either, then, God himself must 
 interpose and favour us with rules of virtue, and mo- 
 tives to the practice of it, such as it is difficult to with- 
 stand, — or the world must necessarily sink deeper and 
 deeper into vice and misery. To admit the latter is to 
 deny that the Supreme Being interests himself about 
 the welfare of those whom he created and governs. 
 
 Since, therefore, God is a Being of matchless justice, 
 mercy, and bounty, it follows, irrefragably, that if the 
 deficiencies of natural reason, or the inattention of 
 mankind to the footsteps of his providence, were such 
 at any time (and such they have been) that all the 
 inhabitants of the world were in danger of being lost 
 in ignorance, irreligion, and idolatry, then would God 
 interpose by extraordinary instruction, by alarming 
 instances of judgment or of mercy, by events beyond 
 human anticipation or control, by prophetical decla- 
 rations of things to come, — that is, by a supernatural 
 revelation of his will, to make us better acquainted 
 with his attributes and our own character, — to point 
 out to us the path of duty, to draw us from the vani- 
 ties of the world, and to lead us to himself. 
 
 June, 1809. ^ 
 
 ^ Similar to this was the reasoning of Tertullian, in his admirable 
 Apologetic (cap. 45). “Your systems of virtue (says he) are but 
 the conjectures of human philosophy, and the power which commands 
 obedience, merely human : so that neither the rule nor the power is 
 indisputable; and hence the one is too imperfect to instruct us fully, 
 the other too weak to command us effectually : but both these are 
 abundantly provided for by a revelation from God. Where is the 
 philosopher who can so clearly demonstrate the true good, as to fix 
 the notion beyond dispute? And wliat human power is able to reach 
 the conscience, and bring down that notion into practice? Human 
 wisdom is as liable to error, as human power is to contempt.’’ See 
 also cap. 18, of the same piece. 
 
20 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 On the Opinions of the Heathens^ their Legislators, Poets, 
 and Philosophers, relative to God, to Moral Duty, and 
 a Future State, 
 
 It is not surprising, my dear Friend, that your philo- 
 sophical companions should endeavour to persuade 
 you, in opposition to the train of argument in my last 
 letter, that unassisted reason not only can discover, 
 but has discovered, all that is necessary to be known, 
 as it regards our duty or our expectations. The powers 
 of the intellect, notwithstanding their defects and their 
 limitations, have doubtless done much in every depart- 
 ment of art, of literature, and of science : and those 
 who are best able to estimate the value of intellectual 
 productions, are probably, for that very reason, apt to 
 ascribe to the mind much more than it can really ac- 
 complish. Besides this, several of the philosophers 
 who have indulged in moral speculations since the aera 
 of the Christian revelation, and even those who have 
 been the warmest opposers of that revelation, have de- 
 rived, indirectly, from the source to which they would 
 disdain to apply directly, many highly important truths, 
 many valuable rules of conduct, many powerful incen- 
 tives to virtue: they have thus travelled by a torch 
 snatched from the temple of God, while both them- 
 selves and their followers idly imagine their path is 
 illuminated by light of their own creating. Thus, the 
 later Platonists, Plotinus, Porphyry, Jamblicus, and 
 Hierocles, are well known to have been pupils of Ayn- 
 monius of Alexandria, a Christian, and the tutor of 
 Origen : whence it happens that the Christian Fathers 
 were accused of Platonizing; instead of which the 
 truth is, that the philosophers just mentioned filched 
 from the Christian repository. But, to judge correctly 
 in this respect, let us inquire what was effected in 
 
OPINIONS OF THE HEATHENS. 
 
 21 
 
 morals and religion by the intellectual energies of the 
 great and learned men and philosophers who existed 
 previously to the dawn of the Sun of righteousness 
 Such an inquiry will place the subject in a proper 
 point of view; nor can it be thought uncandid towards 
 the advocates of unassisted reason, when it is recol- 
 lected that, whatever may have been the mental stature 
 of Bolingbroke, and Gibbon, and Hume, and Voltaire, 
 they w’ould appear diminutive enough when placed 
 by the side of Aristotle, and Socrates, and Plato, and 
 Seneca. If, then, this research, conducted with as 
 much regard to brevity as its nature will admit, shall 
 evince the inferiority of the principal ethical and reli- 
 gious systems of the ancients to the Christian scheme, 
 or shall show their inefficacy to restrain from vice, or 
 to incite to virtue, we shall possess an additional argu- 
 ment for the necessity of Revelation, as well as a cogent 
 proof that the system which is so infinitely superior to 
 all that has been produced by the greatest of unin- 
 spired men, must have emanated from Him who is 
 “ the Father of lights,^^ physical and mental. 
 
 ' Indeed there is great reason to believe, that nothing strictly 
 speaking, in morals or theology, was the genuine result of the mental 
 eflbrts of the wisest ancient heathens. Many of them were candid 
 enough to profess to have derived what knowledge they had, not 
 merely from the exertions of their reason, but from a higher source, 
 even horn very ancient traditions, to which they usually assigned a 
 divine original, “ What Socrates said of the Deity (observes Dryden 
 in the Preface to Religio Laid), what Plato writ, and the rest of the 
 heathen philosophers of several nations, is all no more than the twi- 
 light of revelation, after the sun of it was set in the race of Noah.” 
 Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and Euse- 
 bius, all prove that Plato especially learned much from the Hebrews 
 while he was in Egypt. Hence flows an observation which operates 
 two ways in favour of religion, and doubly evinces the goodness of 
 God in his dispensations towards mankind ; for we may learn that 
 He prepared a way in his providence for the traditionary dissemi- 
 nation of the principal moral truths he revealed to our first parents ; 
 and it will appear farther, I trust, in the course of this work, that 
 at the very period when the light originally communicated had well 
 nigh become extinct, He introduced the full blaze of the gospel 
 dispensation. 
 
22 
 
 OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 Now, as to the heathens generally, though it was 
 commonly admitted among them that the formation 
 of the world was owing to chance, yet many of them 
 ascribed it to a plurality of causes or authors: and 
 even those who acknowledged one Supreme Being cor- 
 rupted the doctrine of the unity, by making him to he 
 of the same nature as the other gods, though of a 
 higher order. And thus originated the custom of the 
 priests, who, in all their sacred ceremonies and devo- 
 tions, after addressing themselves to the especial deities 
 to whom it was necessary at each particular time to 
 offer up prayers or sacrifices, were wont to invoke all 
 the gods in general. It was, besides, a universal notion 
 among them, that the Supreme God did not concern 
 himself with the affairs of this world, but committed 
 them wholly to inferior deities; whence sprang their 
 idolatry, and the habit of neglecting the worship of 
 the Supreme God, or of confounding it with that of 
 the multitude of idol-deities. They first deviated from 
 the worship of one God, to the worshiping heaven 
 and the heavenly bodies ; then to the worship of heroes 
 and deified men ; then they turned the names and 
 attributes of God into distinct divinities, and wor- 
 shiped them as such ; then they paid divine honours 
 to the images and symbols of the gods; and then they 
 deified whatever was useful in human life, however 
 mean, — and the qualities, affections, and dispositions 
 of the human mind, however grovelling and despicable. 
 It did not suffice with them to worship oxen, and burn 
 incense to crocodiles and serpents. It did not satisfy 
 them merely to metamorphose beasts into gods, but 
 they conversely transformed their gods into beasts, 
 ascribing to them drunkenness, sodomy, and the most 
 loathsome vices. Drunkenness they worshiped under 
 the name of Bacchus; lasciviousness under that of 
 Venus. Momus was with them the god of calumny, 
 and Mercury the god of thieves. How little scrupulous 
 would they be respecting adultery and rebellion, when 
 they considered Jupiter, the greatest of their gods, to 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 23 
 
 be an adulterer and a rebellious son. The consequence 
 of all this was that, at length, the worship of avowedly 
 evil beings became very prevalent. Hence many of 
 their rites were cruel and contrary to humanity ; and 
 hence the licentiousness and impurity of their religion 
 and worship became notorious. Thus, to select only 
 one or two instances out of many, the rites of the 
 goddess Cybele were no less infamous for lewdness 
 than for cruelty ; and these impure customs spread far 
 and wide. Strabo relates that there was a temple of 
 Venus at Corinth so rich that it maintained above a 
 thousand harlots sacred to her service, iepo^^Xag iratpag, 
 which were consecrated both by men and women to 
 that goddess. And Eusebius^ is compelled to use 
 language, when describing the height of wickedness 
 and impurity the worship of the heathens attained, 
 which no virtuous man can read without shuddering. 
 Well might it be said of the heathens by an Apostle, 
 “ God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts 
 of their own hearts.’^ The vices and enormities in 
 which the heathens indulged w^ere not checked by any 
 suitable restraining motive : for whatever might be 
 the speculative opinions of one or two philosophers, 
 who were influenced to believe the immortality of the 
 soul by very fanciful reasonings^ the belief of a future 
 state was totally set at nought by the majority of both 
 Greeks and Romans. Thus, according to Plato, the 
 doctrine taught by Socrates, concerning the immor- 
 
 2 Praepar. Evangel, lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 74. The reader may how- 
 ever find, in the Octavius of Minutius Felix, an account of the hea- 
 then gods and worship, delivered in a fine strain of irony, with the 
 suppression of the grosser circumstances. 
 
 ^ As Pythagoras, who we are informed by Diogenes Laertius (in 
 Pythag.) held that the human soul is a portion of the ether (^aTTocFTraafia 
 aiOkpog), and therefore immortal, because the ether is so. And Pliny 
 the naturalist, speaking thus of Hipparchus, gives at the same time 
 his own opinion : — “ The never enough commended Hipparchus, 
 being one than whom no one more fully approved the relation of the 
 stars to man, and the opinion of our souls being a part of the heaven, 
 Animasque nostras partem esse cceli,” Nat. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 26. 
 
OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 24 
 
 tality of the soul and a future state, met witb litile 
 credit amon^ men ; and indeed Socrates himself re- 
 marked that the opinion of the soul’s being blown away, 
 and perishing with the body, prevailed generally. Po- 
 lybius also complains that in his time the belief of a 
 future state was rejected both by the great men and 
 the bulk of the people, and he ascribes to this disbelief 
 the great corruption of manners : though even Poly- 
 bius, while he blames the great men among the Greeks 
 for encouraging the people to disbelieve and despise 
 future punishments, represents them as only useful 
 fictions. How much the disbelief of future retri]3U- 
 tions prevailed at Rome is evident from one of Caesar s 
 orations on the Catiline conspiracy; and Cato’s reply, 
 in which he said, Caesar looked upon those things to 
 be fables which are related concerning the Inferi, where 
 bad men, far from the mansions of the virtuous, are 
 confined to abodes, dreary, abominable, and full of 
 horrors.” Long after the time of Caesar the like con- 
 tempt of an awful futurity was entertained : for Pliny 
 the naturalist labours hard to expose the absurdity of 
 ascribing accountable immortality to the soul, and 
 says ‘"that these are childless and senseless fictions of 
 mortals, who are ambitious of a never-ending exist- 
 ence.” "" Pueriliuin ista deliramentorum, avidaeque 
 nunquam desinere mortalitatis commenta sunt'*.” 
 
 That a contempt and disbelief of future punish- 
 ments weakened the fear of God, is obvious : and as 
 to the love of God, that noble principle which is evi- 
 dently fitted to produce the most elevated degrees of 
 moral uprightness, and a happiness corresponding to 
 our sublimest desires, the heathens were utter strangers 
 to it. And with regard to their conduct towards one 
 another, it must not be forgotten that none of them 
 recognised the exalted principle of loving enemies, I 
 am aware that some have affirmed that this principle 
 was taught in the Grecian schools, and have referred 
 to the Gorgias of Plato in proof of their assertion. But, 
 
 ^ Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. 55. 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 25 
 
 if we attend duly to the whole conversation of Socrates^ 
 there related, we shall find that, instead of teaching 
 the forgiveness of injuries, the love of enemies, and 
 the duty of “ doing good to them that hate us,^^ he 
 inculcates the indulgence of the most refined, and, 
 according to his own statement, the most baleful malice 
 towards those who have injured us. The substance of 
 his reasoning is this: You allow that moral excel- 
 lence is the greatest good. You allow also that the 
 punishment of offences is one mean of reforming the 
 authors of them. If then our enemy has injured us, 
 the greatest good we can bestow upon him is to bring 
 him to a court of justice, and inflict the vengeance of 
 the law. Then by no means punish your enemy for 
 having injured you, for so you defeat your oum purpose 
 of revenge. Leave him to the whole, uncontrolled, un- 
 counteracted influence of his moral depravity, because 
 that is the greatest evil which can be endured. 
 
 It appears then, that the heathen world, and espe- 
 cially the Greeks and Romans, of whom we know most 
 because they were most refined, were in a state of gross 
 darkness and ignorance with respect to the knowledge 
 of God, of themselves, and of those moral relations and 
 obligations in which they stood to the Supreme Being, 
 and to one another. Their incentives to virtue were 
 few and weak ; their motives to avoid vice inefficacious 
 and founded on a wrong basis. Nor was this the case 
 with regard to the populace merely: their Legislators, 
 Poets, and Philosophers, held the most erroneous opi- 
 nions; or promulgated right sentiments, when they 
 had discovered them, upon wrong principles. Thus, 
 with regard to Legislators, it is well known that 
 from political views they established and encouraged 
 the worship of those who had once been men, and 
 took them into the number of their gods. Consistently 
 with this. Cotta observes, that in most cities it was 
 usual, in order to encourage men to hazard their lives 
 for the commonwealth, to take those who had been 
 eminent for their fortitude into the number of their 
 
OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 26 
 
 gods. This indeed is expressly prescribed by Cicero, 
 in his second book of laws (cap. viii.) where he requires 
 that those should be worshiped whom their merits had 
 called into heaven. It is also a general observation, 
 which applies to the whole civil theology of the pagans, 
 that of the Romans as well as of the other heathen 
 nations, that the public worship which was instituted 
 by their more celebrated legislators, and prescribed 
 and established by the laws of their several cities and 
 countries, was paid to a multiplicity of deities. They 
 were therefore encouraged, or rather compelled, to be 
 polytheists, by law. 
 
 It has, I am aware, been urged by some, that the 
 legislators who established the pagan mysteries de- 
 signed thereby to overthrow the vulgar polytheism. 
 But, in opposition to this, it has been shown by Bishop 
 Warburton that the legislators and magistrates who 
 first instituted the mysteries, and continued to have 
 the chief direction of them, had the principal hand in 
 the rise of that polytheism, and contrived it for the 
 sake of the state, to keep the people in awe, and under 
 a greater veneration for their laws.^’ 
 
 So far, indeed, was it from being the fact that hea- 
 then legislators discountenanced polytheism, that the 
 whole tenour of ancient records goes to establish the 
 contrary. Thus, Stobaeus informs us, it was one of the 
 laws of Charondas, “ Let the contempt of the gods be 
 reckoned among the greatest crimes,^" And at Athens 
 every citizen was bound by oath to defend and con- 
 form to the religion of his country. This oath was in 
 the name of the gods, and concluded thus: I swear 
 by these following deities, the Agrauli, Eny alius. Mars, 
 Jupiter, the Earth, and Diana^.^^ 
 
 Nor did the legislators inculcate erroneous notions 
 with regard to the gods alone. Their laws, established 
 for the express purpose of furthering the public virtue 
 and happiness, had often a highly unfavourable effect 
 upon both. I shall here only specify a few of those of 
 ^ Potter’s Greek Antiquities, vol. i. 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 27 
 
 Lycurgus, because the united voice of antiquity speaks 
 of him as rather a god than a man; and Plutarch pro- 
 duces him as an undeniable proof that a perfectly 
 wise man is not a mere notion and chimera.^^ I am 
 not inclined to deny that many of the laws of Lycurgus 
 are very excellent; yet I must be permitted to think 
 that some things, enacted by this perfectly wise 
 man,’^ counteracted the practice of virtue. Plato, 
 though a great admirer of Lycurgus, acknowledges 
 that his laws were rather fitted to make men valiant 
 than just. Aristotle makes the same observation. And 
 even Plutarch confesses that some persons censured 
 the laws of Lycurgus as well contrived to make men 
 good soldiers, but very defective in civil justice and 
 honesty. Many of his laws were contrary to humanity : 
 and hence it happened that the conduct of the Lace- 
 daemonians to their slaves, the helotes, was proverbially 
 cruel. They had, besides, a custom, encouraged by 
 their laws, of whipping boys to death at the altar of 
 Diana Orthia. Lycurgus also enacted that deformed 
 infants should not be suffered to live, but be cast into 
 a cavern to perish gradually ! Healthy boys, on the 
 contrary, were to be treated charitably, and trained up 
 to dexterous thieving y being whipped unmercifully if 
 they were taken in the fact, not for stealing, but for 
 being such bunglers as to expose themselves to detec- 
 tion. I will only add farther, under this head, that 
 the Spartans had common baths, in which both men 
 and women were compelled to bathe together ; and that 
 it was ordered by Lycurgus that the young maidens 
 should appear naked in the public exercises, as well as 
 the young men; and that they should dance naked 
 with them at the solemn festivals and sacrifices. These, 
 you will remember, are among the legislative enact- 
 ments of one whom we are to respect as a perfectly 
 wise man f are laws which a learned, grave, and phi- 
 losophic heathen, Plutarch, justifies and commends, 
 seeming scarcely conscious, except in one instance, that 
 it would be possible to censure them. 
 
28 
 
 OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 Allow me next to say a word or two respecting the 
 heathen Poets, whose influence upon the opinions 
 and practices of the people was naturally great. They 
 were, indeed, the prophets and chief instructors of the 
 people, and were looked upon, even by Socrates and 
 Plato, as divinely inspired. Now, how did they main- 
 tain the ancient tradition of one Supreme God ? Why, 
 truly, by confounding him with their Jupiter, by bring- 
 ing him to a level with this the chief of their idol-deities, 
 of whom they made the most indelicate representa- 
 tions. Instead of exerting the powers of their imagi- 
 nation to array the Deity in the sublimity of grandeur, 
 or even in pointing to the obscurity which invests the 
 most incomprehensible of all beings, and 
 
 “ With the majesty of darkness round 
 
 Circles his throne 
 
 they invented ideal gods of all classes, and for all pur- 
 poses, even the most base and ignoble : they deified 
 the inanimate parts of the world ; they ascribed to 
 their deities passions and propensities the most odious 
 and abominable ; and instead of describing the gods as 
 beings worthy of imitation, and giving richness and 
 elevation of character to men by the contemplation of 
 their excellence, they lowered and debased the senti- 
 ments of those who were already of the earth, earthy,’^ 
 by calling their attention to monstrous and indecent 
 stories of the intrigues of heaven. The poetical theo- 
 logy, it is true, was disapproved by some of the wiser 
 pagans; yet it was carefully wrought into the popular 
 religion, and lay at the foundation of most of their 
 sacred rights. Those poetical fables which Varro and 
 Tully^ censure as unworthy of the gods, and as im- 
 puting to them actions which none but the vilest of 
 men could be guilty of, were not only permitted to be 
 acted on the public theatres, but were regarded as 
 things pleasing to the gods themselves, and were ac- 
 
 ® Fingebat liaec Horaerus, et humana ad decs trausferebat, divina 
 mallem ad nos. Tuscul. Disput. lib, i. cap. 26, 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 29 
 
 cord ingly incorporated with the public and established 
 religion. 
 
 The effusions of the heathen poets have also a 
 deplorably mischievous tendency, on account of the 
 manner in which they almost uniformly speak of the 
 state after death. On some few occasions it is true, 
 they introduce the idea of rewards and punishments 
 to make a part of the poetical machinery : yet, fre- 
 quently they express themselves as though they thought 
 death brought an utter extinction of being. Plutarch, 
 in his consolation to Apollonius, quotes this passage of 
 an ancient poet, that no grief or evil touches the dead, 
 
 yap 6vt(jjq ndev dirrerai vsKps, 
 
 He there also quotes another passage from a poet, 
 declaring that the dead man is in the same condition 
 that he was before he was born. The first of these 
 passages is ascribed by Stobseus to ^schylus. So 
 again, Moschus, Idyll, iii. lin. 107, having observed 
 that herbs and plants, after seeming to die, yet revive 
 in the succeeding year, subjoins, 
 
 AfXfieg d 6i ixeyaXoi, Kai Kaprspoi, rj ao^ot avdpeQ^ 
 
 'OirTTOTS TTpcjra ^aviopieQ avaicooi ev xdovi KoiXg, 
 
 EvdojJieg EY MAAA MAKPON, ATEPMONA, NHPPETON 
 
 VTTVOV. 
 
 But we, or great, or wise, or brave, 
 
 Once dead and silent in the grave, 
 
 Senseless remain; one rest we keep, 
 
 One long^ eternal, unawaken' d sleep. 
 
 There are passages of the same kind in Epicharmus, 
 in Sophocles, Euripides, and Astydamas, referred to 
 by Dr. Whitby*^. 
 
 Both the Greek and Roman poets drew arguments 
 from the consideration that life is short, and death will 
 entirely terminate oiir existence, to urge men to lay 
 hold of the present opportunity, and give a full indul- 
 gence to their appetites; according to the libertine 
 
 Whitby’s Commentary on 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 
so OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 maxim, '"let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die/" 
 Several passages of this kind may be found in Strato, 
 and others of the Greeks. Catullus has a notorious 
 passage to the same purpose, which, often as it has 
 been quoted, must once more be adduced ; — 
 
 “ Vivanius, mea Lesbia, atque ameinus 
 
 Soles occidere et redire possunt: 
 
 Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, 
 
 Nox est perpetua una dormiendaj^ 
 
 Elegantly imitated by Baker: 
 
 ‘‘ The sun that sets, again will rise, 
 
 And give the day, and gild the skies ; 
 
 But when we lose our little light. 
 
 We sleep in everlasting night,” 
 
 Thus also Horace : 
 
 “ Vitas sumraa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam : 
 
 Jam nox te premet, fabulceque Manes ” 
 
 Perseus, again, represents it as the language of many 
 in his time. 
 
 “ Indulge genia : carpamus dulcia : nostrum est 
 Quod vivis : cinis et Manes et fabula ties.” 
 
 Quotations to this effect may be multiplied at plea- 
 sure, by any person who is conversant with the pro- 
 ductions of the classic poets. I shall only select two 
 more j the first from Seneca the tragedian : 
 
 “ Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil — 
 
 Quaeris quo jaceas post obitum loco. 
 
 Quo non nata jacent.’^ 
 
 And lastly from Virgil, ^n. x. : 
 
 “ Olli dura quies oculos, etferreus urget, 
 jSomnus, in ceternum clauduntur lumina noctem” 
 
 We have now seen that the sentiments of the legis- 
 lators and poets, in regard to religion and morals, 
 differed in nothing essentially from those of the 6l ttoX- 
 \oi ; much as they prided themselves upon their supe- 
 riority to that multitudinous class. Let us next take 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 31 
 
 a rapid glance at those opinions of the Philosophers 
 which are connected with our present inquiry, and 
 ascertain whether St. Paul, who was well acquainted 
 with the philosophical notions of his and all preceding 
 limes, was not justified in saying to the Colossians, 
 Beware, lest any man make a prey of you through 
 an empty and deceitful philosophy.^" 
 
 Now, that this branch of our inquiry may not be 
 loaded with any superfluous matter, I do not hesitate 
 to admit that some of the ancient philosophers had 
 very sublime conceptions respecting the nature and a 
 few of the attributes of God, some of them spake 
 nobly of virtue in general, and some indulged in ex- 
 alted speculations relative to the immortality of the 
 soul. I have no wish to ‘‘ charge the picture of their 
 aberrations and defects with deeper shades than justly 
 belong to it.’^ Yet, 1 must say, there was a strange 
 confusion and diversity of sentiments among them 
 respecting the Deity ; and that a complete system of 
 morality was not to be found in the writings of any one 
 philosopher, nor of all of them collectively. Some of 
 them excluded a divine mind and intelligence from 
 the formation of the universe: few, if any of them, 
 acknowledged God in a proper sense to be the Creator 
 of the world : most of them encouraged polytheism. 
 Some taught that God is the soul of the world : some, 
 that the world is God : some, that the world is eternal 
 both in matter and form : some, that the stars are to 
 be worshiped : the greatest and best of them spoke of 
 a plurality of gods, whom they recommended to the 
 adoration of the people. They justified the worship 
 of images: they apologised even for the Egyptian ani- 
 mal worship : they added metaphysical deities to the 
 popular ones: they referred the people for instruction 
 to the priests and the oracles; and gave it as a general 
 rule, that all men should conform to the religion of 
 their country, that is, to polytheism. The best of 
 them, amidst all their arguments, often spoke doubt- 
 fully of a future state, and none of them applied the 
 
32 OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 doctrine of a future state to its proper ends and uses : 
 they affirmed, that a short and temporary happiness is 
 as good as an eternal one ; and few of them believed 
 future punishment. In regard to morals, they were 
 generally wrong in that part which relates to purity 
 and continence, and the government of the sensual 
 passions. Many of them, as Socrates, Plato, Xeno- 
 phon, -^schines, Cebes, &c. were chargeable with un- 
 natural lusts and vices, which they reckoned among 
 things of an indifferent nature®. They generally 
 allowed of fornication, as having nothing in it sinful, 
 or contrary to reason. Many of them pleaded for sui- 
 cide, as lawful and proper in some cases; and most of 
 them thought lying lawful when it was profitable. 
 Thus, Plato says, he may lie who knows how to do 
 it, £p hiovTL Kaip(fy in a fitting or needful season.^^ In 
 his fifth Republic he lays it down as a maxim, that it 
 is "" necessary for rulers to make use of frequent lying 
 and deceit, for the benefit of their subjects, (^vxv(p 
 \LevS£i Kai dirarr) In his third and fourth 
 
 books De Republica, he advises governors to make use 
 of lies both towards enemies and citizens, when it is 
 convenient. In his second book De Republica, he 
 allows lying in words on some occasions; but not 
 lying in the soul, so as to believe a falsehood. And in 
 this he was followed by the Stoics, who held that a 
 wise man might make use of a lie many ways, avev 
 <7vyKarad£(7£0)c;, without giving assent to it; as in war, 
 in prospect of some advantage, and for many other 
 conveniences and managements of life, kut ctWag 
 OLKovofxiaq TB /3/« TToWat;, Consistently with this, 
 Maximus Tyrius says, there is nothing venerable, 
 doeV (7£/bLv6y, in truth, if it be not profitable to him that 
 hears it.^’ He adds, that a lie is often profitable or 
 advantageous to men, and truth hurtful.^^ Thus it 
 appears how apt they were to mistake in judging of 
 
 ® Incestus omnigenus, adulteriuni, et etiam apffevofjii^ia, veteruin 
 nonnullis, sapientiae nomine Claris, inter ddidipopa, habebantur. 
 Canon. Chronic. Secul. ix. p. 172, 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 33 
 
 wbat is truly venerable, decorous, and laudable, which 
 yet they made one of the principal characteristics of 
 the TO KaXoy, or honestum, Plato mentions it as an old 
 saying, and one which he approves, that that which is 
 profitable is koXov, honourable, and that which is hurt- 
 Kil is base. Since, therefore, both he and others of the 
 philosophers held that a lie is, in many cases, profit- 
 able, they must hold that a lie is often KaXov, honestum. 
 Some of the philosophers, again, as Laertius tells us of 
 Theodorus, declared without disguise, that “ a wise 
 man might, upon a fit occasion, commit theft, adul- 
 tery, and sacrilege; for that none of those things are 
 base in their own nature, if that opinion concerning 
 them be taken away, which was agreed upon for the 
 sake of restraining fools Besides all this, they were, 
 as Diodorus Siculus testifies, continually innovating 
 in the most considerable doctrines, and, by perpetually 
 contradicting one another, made their disciples dubi- 
 ous; so that their minds were kept in such continual 
 suspense during their whole lives, that they could not 
 firmly believe any thing. 
 
 From this induction of particulars you may perceive 
 that, with regard to men of learning and strong intel- 
 lect among the heathens, reason, so far as it related to 
 God and religion, and human happiness, was asleep : 
 if some happy hints at any time awoke it, and set it 
 moving in a right direction, yet without the guidance 
 of revelation, it was ever ready to wander and go 
 astray. As this, however, is a very interesting topic, 
 you will, perhaps, expect that I should specify some 
 of the erroneous notions taught by the most celebrated 
 philosophers. I will, therefore, select a few instances 
 for your information. 
 
 Socrates, you will, I doubt not, recollect*® was the 
 first among the Greeks who made morals the proper 
 and only subject of his philosophy, and brought it into 
 common life. Yet he represents the worshiping not 
 
 ° Diog. Laert. lib. ii. segm. 99. 
 
 Tuscul. Disput. lib. v. cap. 4. 
 
 D 
 
OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 34 
 
 of one God, but of the gods, as the first and most uni- 
 versal law of nature ; he was in the habit of consulting* 
 the oracle to know the will of the gods; and every one 
 knows that his dying injunction was, Crito, we owe 
 a cock to Msculapiiis : discharge this debt for me, and 
 pray do not neglect it.^^ He sometimes, it is true, gives 
 a noble account of future happiness; but seems to 
 confine it principally, as several of the modern deists 
 do, to those who had made a great progress in philo- 
 sophy. The soul,^^ says he, which gives itself up 
 to the study of wisdom and philosophy, and lives 
 abstracted from the body, goes at death to that which 
 is like itself — divine, immortal, wise — to which, when 
 it arrives, it shall be happy, freed from error, igno- 
 rance, fears, disorderly loves, and other human evils ; 
 and lives, as is said of the initiated, the rest of its life 
 with the gods.^^ This philosopher, however, debased 
 his doctrine of a future state with that of the transmi- 
 gration of souls, and gives a mean idea of the happiness 
 reserved for the common sort of good and virtuous 
 men after death : ‘‘ They go,’^ he says, into the 
 bodies of animals of a mild and social kind, such as 
 bees, ants, &c. But none is admitted to the fellowship 
 of the gods, but a lover of knowledge.’^ What an 
 admirable incitement is this to the practice of virtue, 
 that the soul of a virtuous man of moderate intellect 
 may be indulged with the privilege of animating the 
 bodies of bees and ants ! It must be farther remarked, 
 that most of the arguments produced by Socrates, in 
 the Phsedo, for the immortality of the soul, were weak 
 and inconclusive; and, accordingly, although he ex- 
 pressed a hope of it in his last discourse, when he was 
 near death, yet he by no means spoke confidently. 
 He concludes his long discussion relative to the state 
 of souls after death, by saying, That these things are 
 so as I have represented them, it does not become any 
 man of understanding to affirm.^^ In his apology to 
 his judges, he comforts himself with the consideration, 
 that there is much ground to hope that death is good : 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 30 
 
 for it must necessarily be one of these two ; either the 
 dead man is nothing, and has not a sense of any thing; 
 or it is only a change or migration of the soul hence to 
 another place, according to what we are told. If there 
 is no sense left, and death is like a profound sleep, and 
 quiet rest without dreams, it is wonderful to think 
 WHAT gain it is TO DIE ; but if the things which are 
 told us are true, that death is a migration to another 
 place, this is still a much greater good.^^ And soon 
 after, having said, that those who live there are both 
 in other respects happier than we, and also in this, 
 that for the rest of their existence they are immortal 
 he again reiterates, If the things which are told us are 
 true.^^ You cannot fail to notice, that in all this the 
 awful idea of accountability does not enter; and, far- 
 ther, that, instead of the philosopher’s adopting the 
 language of sublime or steady confidence on this 
 momentous occasion, he deals only in puerility and 
 uncertainty. Let but his hesitating language be con- 
 trasted with the Christian assurance of an Apostle in 
 analogous circumstances, and you cannot help drawing 
 the most cogent inferences. The language of the dying 
 philosopher is, If the things which are told us are 
 truel^ But listen to the language of the Apostolic 
 conqueror, and rejoice that his confidence in the face 
 of death may be yours. I am now ready to be 
 offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand. 
 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
 I have kept the faith : Henceforth there is laid up for 
 me a crown of righteousness : which the Lord, the righte- 
 ous Judge, SHALL give me at that day : and not to me 
 only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 
 “ I KNOW in whom I have believed ; and am per- 
 suaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
 committed to him against that day.” 
 
 You will not be surprised, after all this, to learn that 
 Socrates recommended divination : w^as, as Tertullian 
 remarks, condemned at Athens, amongst other things, 
 for sodomy and the corrupting of youth ; and was 
 
OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 36 
 
 addicted to incontinence and fornication^^. But it is 
 time for us to direct our attention to his great disciple, 
 Plato. I have already adverted to the encourage- 
 ment this philosopher gave to the habit of lying. He 
 farther prescribes a community of wives in his com- 
 monwealth, and lays down laws for the express purpose 
 of destroying all parental and filial affection ; he gives 
 great liberties to incontinency, affirming, that all 
 things respecting women, marriage, and the propaga- 
 tion of the species, should be entirely common among 
 friends;^’ allows, and in some cases prescribes, the 
 exposing and destroying children, namely, the chil- 
 dren of mothers older than forty years, or of fathers 
 older than fifty-five*^; allows of drunkenness at the 
 feast of Bacchus, though not at other limes ; and pre- 
 scribes the worship of the stars, which, indeed, are the 
 divinities he principally recommends to the people. 
 He seems sometimes to have believed in one Supreme 
 God, but never thought it safe or proper to proclaim 
 him to the vulgar; on the contrary, he directs them to 
 follow the Delphian oracle, as the best guide in matters 
 of religion. He held two principles of things, God and 
 matter; but, according to him, the first and highest 
 God was not concerned in the creation, nor in the 
 government of the world. Like his master, Socrates, 
 he often asserts the doctrine of the transmigration of 
 souls. Sometimes he argues for the immortality of the 
 soul, on the ground of its pre-existence. Sometimes 
 he recommends the doctrine of future punishments as 
 a most ancient and sacred tradition ; yet at other times 
 he expresses himself in a manner that seems not to 
 admit of punishments in a future state ; and finds fault 
 with such representations as tend to alarm the people, 
 and make them afraid of death. All those direful 
 and terrible names (says he) respecting the ghosts of 
 
 Tertul. Apol. c. 46. 
 
 Plato, De Republica, lib. v. The mere English reader may 
 see proofs of all these positions in Ta^^lor’s Plato, vol. i. pp. 265, 
 298, 299, 300, &c. 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 37 
 
 the dead are to be regretted, which cause such as hear 
 them to shudder and tremble.^^ And in his Cratylus 
 he introduces Socrates as blaming those who represent 
 Hades as a dark and gloomy abode, and derive the 
 word from to as if it were void of light; but is 
 
 rather for deriving it aVo rs irdvra ret KctXa 
 from knowing all things good and beautiful. Here he 
 manifestly excludes every thing from the notion of a 
 future state that might be apt to create terror, and thus 
 leaves no room for future misery. 
 
 Aristotle, that great master of reasoning and of 
 criticism, whose power was such as to establish a 
 mental despotism which prevailed universally for 
 thousands of years, was childish enough in matters of 
 religion to affirm most positively, that though there 
 was one eternal first mover, yet the stars are also true 
 eternal deities He likewise denies that providence 
 extends its care to things below the moon ; approves, 
 nay prescribes, the exposing and destroying sickly 
 children ; encourages revenge, and speaks of meekness 
 as seeming to err by defect, because the meek man 
 is not apt to revenge himself, but rather lo forgive.” 
 He varies in his doctrine with regard to future exis- 
 tence, and sometimes absolutely denies it, as in chapter 
 9, bookiii. of theNichomachian Ethics, where he asserts 
 that, death is the most dreadful of all dreadful things, 
 for that it is the end of our existence: to him that is 
 dead there seems nothing farther to remain, whether 
 good or eviE^” 
 
 Having dwelt thus long upon the Greek philoso- 
 phers, I cannot dilate much upon the sentiments of 
 those who wrote in the Latin language. I shall, how- 
 ever, select Cicero as a very fair specimen of those 
 who flourished before the Christian era. Now this 
 great man, it is well known, would not allow that God 
 created the matter out of w hich the universe wtis made ; 
 
 Arist. Metaphys. lib. xiv. cap. 8. 
 
 HavTiov rojv (pofSepiorarov Ss 6 'S’avarog* Ethic, ad 
 
 NiConiach. lib. iii, cap. 9, and lib. iv, cap. 11. 
 
OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 38 
 
 and besides this, he commonly expressed himself after 
 the manner of the polytheists. In arguing for the 
 existence of God, he leads the people to a plurality 
 of deities ; and he asserts expressly that the DU ma- 
 jorum gentium, those that were accounted gods of the 
 higher order, were taken from among men. Indeed, 
 he very much approves the custom of paying divine 
 honours to famous men, and regarding them as gods^^ 
 He argues excellently for the immortality of the soul 
 in several parts of his works ; yet sometimes, in his 
 letters to his friends, represents death as putting an 
 end to all sense of good or evil. Thus, in an epistle 
 to L. Mescinius, he says, Death ought to be despised 
 or even wished for, because it will be void of all sense.^^ 
 Propterea quod nullum sensum esset habitura.^^ 
 And again, in an epistle to Torquatus, he comforts 
 himself with this thought : Whilst I shall exist, I 
 shall not be troubled at any thing, since I have no 
 fault with which to charge myself ; and if I shall not 
 exist, I shall be deprived of all sense.^’ Nec enim 
 dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni caream culpa ; et si 
 non ero, sensu omni careboJ^^ He makes no use, at any 
 time, of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
 for moral purposes, either for supporting men under 
 their troubles, or for stimulating them to the practice 
 of virtue; and the notion of future punishments is 
 absolutely rejected and derided by him. In his noto- 
 rious oration for Aulus Cluentius, he speaks of the 
 punishments of the wicked as silly fables, and adds, 
 if these things are false, as all men understand them 
 to be, what has death taken from him^’ (that, is from 
 Oppianicus, a man whom Cicero himself represents as 
 a monster of wickedness, guilty of the most atrocious 
 murders, &c.) “ but a sense of pain.^^ After perusing 
 this you will not be surprised at being told, that Cicero 
 often commends and justifies suicide ; and warmly 
 pleads for fornication, as having nothing blameable in 
 it, and as a thing universally allowed and practised. 
 
 De Natura Deorura, lib. ii. cap. 24. 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 39 
 
 I might next proceed to speak of Pliny, who openly 
 argues against a future state of Plutarch, who 
 treats the fear of future punishment as vain and childish, 
 and wrote his book of Isis and Osiris as an apology 
 for the pagan polytheism ; of Cato of Utica, who has 
 been held up as a perfect model of virtue,^^ but who 
 lent his wife to Hortensius, was an habitual drunkard 
 and taught and practised self-murder ; and of Seneca, 
 who pleads for suicide, justifies Cato’s drunkenness, 
 asserts that no man in his reason fears the gods, and 
 contemns future punishments as vain terrors invented 
 by the poets ; but a detailed account of their sentiments 
 and opinions would, in all the main points, be so 
 strictly similar to what I have related of the other wise 
 men of antiquity, that I omit it rather than render this 
 letter tautologous and tiresome 
 
 Before I terminate the present discussion, however, 
 I cannot avoid remarking that several of the heathen 
 philosophers, instead of being puffed up with vain ideas 
 of the powers of their own understanding, when directed 
 to religious and moral inquiries (as most modern 
 Deists are), frequently acknowledged their own im po- 
 tency and blindness. Thus Tully exclaims, Utinam 
 tarn facile vera in venire possim, quam falsa convin- 
 
 Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. 55. 
 
 Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, cap. ult. 
 
 For a very masterly view of the opinions of the Greek and Ro- 
 man heathens, for the first four centuries after the Christian era ; a 
 most able sketch of their mythological and moral notions, their cru- 
 elty and profligacy, as opposed to the everlasting promises of the 
 Gospel, and the meekness and purity of its primitive followers, the 
 reader may consult Dr. Ireland’s Lectures, or, “ Paganism and Chris- 
 tianity compared.” 
 
 Tertullian, in his Apol. cap. 46, terminates a fine contrast between 
 the sentiments and conduct of the philosophers and of the early 
 Christians by asking — Where now is the similitude between a 
 philosopher and a Christian ? — between a disciple of Greece, and of 
 heaven? — a trader in fame, and a saver of souls? — between a man 
 of words, and a man of deeds ? — a builder of virtue, and a destroyer 
 of it ? — a dresser up of lies, and a restorer of truth? — between a 
 plunderer, and a guardian of this sacred deposit?” See also Lactan- 
 tius, lib. 2, de Origine Erroris, § 3, on the character of Cicero. 
 
40 
 
 OPINIONS OF HEATHENS 
 
 cere O, that I could discover iriith with the same 
 ease that I can detect error and, in another place, 
 aware of the little that human creatures can do of them- 
 selves, he says expressly, ‘‘ Nemo vir magnus, sine ali- 
 quo afflatu divino unquam fuit/' No man was ever 
 truly great without some divine influence, And Plato, 
 (whether from the recollection of the traditions and 
 truths he gathered from the Jews while he was in Egypt, 
 or whether ^twas 
 
 “ the Divinity that stirred within him 
 
 I pretend not to determine), concludes^®, that we cannot 
 know of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to 
 God, or what worship to pay him ; but that it is neces- 
 sary a lawgiver should be sent from heaven to instruct 
 us ; and such a one he did expect : and says he, 
 
 how greatly do I desire to see that man, and who he 
 is!’^ Nay, he goes farther, and affirms that this law- 
 giver must be more than man: for, since every nature 
 is governed by another nature that is superior to it, as 
 birds and beasts by man, he infers that this lawgiver, 
 who was to teach man what man could not know by his 
 own nature, must be of a nature superior to man, that 
 is, of a divine nature. But farther still, as Rousseau re- 
 marked, in his celebrated letter to the archbishop of Paris, 
 w hen Plato described his imaginary good man, loaded 
 with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest 
 rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of 
 Jesus Christ; the resemblance was so striking that all 
 the fathers perceived it.^^ He gives, indeed, as lively 
 a picture of the person, qualifications, life and death, 
 of this divine man, as if he had been acquainted with 
 the 53d chapter of Isaiah ; for he says^^ “ that this just 
 person must be poor, and void of all recommendations 
 but that of virtue alone ; that a wicked world would 
 not bear his instructions and reproof; and therefore 
 within three or four years after he began to preach, he 
 
 Alcibiad. ii. de Precat. j)g Legibus, lib. 4. 
 
 2* De Republica, i. ii. 
 
AND ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 41 
 
 should be persecuted, imprisoned, scourged, and at 
 last put to death. 
 
 I have now, my dear Friend, presented you with a 
 summary of the most striking opinions of the ancient 
 Legislators, Poets, and Philosophers, with regard to 
 Superior Beings, to human conduct, and a future state; 
 if it be asked what is the tendency of the sentiments 
 of any one philosopher, or of the aggregate of them, to 
 elevate the conceptions in respect of Deity, to purify 
 the affections, to humanize the heart, to amend the 
 conduct; the reply is lamentably obvious — nothing. 
 What principle in theology, or what rule in morals, 
 has any one of them, or have all of them, indubitably 
 established? How many of the doctrines of what is 
 now called Natural Religion did any of them hold? 
 The four great propositions which the moderns almost 
 universally concede to Natural Religion, as integral 
 parts of it, are 1st. That there is one God. 2dly. That 
 God is nothing of those things which we see. 3dly. That 
 God takes care of all things below, and governs all the 
 world. 4thly. That he alone is the great Creator of 
 all things out of himself.^^ Now they are incontroverti- 
 ble facts, which cannot be too deeply engraven upon 
 the mind, that none of the greatest and wisest men 
 among the Greeks and Romans held all these propo- 
 sitions, and that very few held any of them firmly; 
 that before the Christian era no people in the world 
 believed these propositions but the Jews ; and that 
 they did not discover them, but received them by divine 
 Revelation, in the basis of the first four precepts of the 
 decalogue. Let also the idolizers of the powers of reason 
 in the development of religious truths have it equally 
 impressed upon their minds, that none of the heathen 
 philosophers attempted a solution of the question. 
 How shall a sinner appear before the God whose laws 
 he has broken?’^ and that none of them made even a 
 remote approximation to that simple, comprehensive 
 and admirable rule of moral conduct, ‘‘Do untoothers 
 as you would they should do unto you and then, I 
 
42 OPINIONS OF HEATHENS, ETC. 
 
 trust, they will be constrained to acknowledge that the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles w^as not indulging a flight of 
 enthusiasm, but was simply impelled by the force of 
 truth, when he broke out into the triumphant exclama- 
 tion — ^"Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where 
 is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made 
 foolish the wisdom of this world ? For after that in 
 the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not 
 God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, 
 to save them that believe 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, yours truly. 
 
 P. S. You will, perhaps, be surprised that I have 
 not in this letter taken any notice of Zoroaster y of whom 
 many Deists have so much to tell. I have omitted all 
 recital of his supposed opinions for two reasons: 1st, 
 Dr. Hyde has shown, in his treatise De Peligione 
 veterum Persarum, that Zoroaster had been a disciple 
 of one of the Jewish prophets : and 2dly, all the writ- 
 ings that are ascribed to this philosopher are unques- 
 tionably spurious. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 On the Prohahility that there should he Mysteries in a 
 Revealed Religion, 
 
 Your deistical friends, my dear sir, seem determined 
 to contend zealously for every inch of ground before 
 they yield it. But this is not to be regretted ; for our 
 future progress will be facilitated in proportion to the 
 number of obstacles that are completely removed at 
 the outset of our inquiry. When they tell you they 
 will believe nothing that they cannot comprehend, and 
 that the Scriptures are unworthy of credit, because 
 they abound in mysteries, they adopt the language of 
 unbelievers in all ages. But these declarations prove 
 that they have never correctly investigated the power 
 and office of reason in matters of religion, and at the 
 22 1 Corinthians, i. 20, 21. 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN REVEALED RELIGION. 43 
 
 same time run counter to their whole plan of conduct 
 in relation to all except religious subjects; for who is 
 there that does not believe numerous facts which are 
 utterly incomprehensible ; and reduce principles into 
 practice, which are beyond, though not repugnant to, 
 reason ? 
 
 It is, indeed, in a neglect of the essential distinction 
 between what is above reason and what is contrary to it, 
 that the objection now under consideration is founded. 
 Yet surely nothing can be more obvious than that many 
 things, beyond the scope of our intellectual powers, 
 may nevertheless be perfectly true. When we were 
 children, several matters were to us entirely incompre- 
 hensible, which have now sunk into the simplest, and 
 lowest, and plainest elements of our knowledge. We 
 were then learners ; docility became us ; and we were 
 highly reprehensible if we opposed our puny under- 
 standings to that of our tutors. Now, in the bestowal 
 of a revelation, the principle is assumed that men are 
 in a state of pupilage. The God of infinite wisdom 
 condescends to be their teacher; and it therefore be- 
 hoves them, on such an occasion, to employ their 
 reason solely for the purpose of ascertaining whether 
 what is presented to them be really the word of God, 
 and then to resign their understandings wholly to the 
 adoption of the truths with which they are favoured. 
 This is consistent with what is prescribed by that great 
 philosopher Lord Bacon, who directs that reason be 
 employed in studying “ Holy mysteries, with this cau- 
 tion, that the mind for its module be dilated to the 
 amplitude of the mysteries ; and not the mysteries be 
 straitened and girt into the narrow compass of the 
 mind.^’ He says again, in his Advancement of Learn- 
 ing, “We ought not to attempt to draw down, or sub- 
 mit the mysteries of God to our reason ; but, on the 
 contrary, to raise and advance our reason to the divine 
 truth. In this part of knowledge, touching divine phi- 
 losophy, I am so far from noting any deficiency, that 
 I rather note an excess whereto I have digressed, be- 
 
44 ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 cause of the extreme prejudice which both religion 
 and philosophy have received from being commixed 
 together, as that which will undoubtedly make an here- 
 tical religion and a fabulous philosophy.’^ And again, 
 “ As to seek Divinity in Philosophy, is as if you would 
 seek the living amongst the dead; so, on the other 
 hand, to seek Philosophy in Divinity, is all one as to 
 seek the dead amongst the living.” Lastly, that I may 
 not tire you with quotations, ‘‘ The prerogative of God 
 comprehends the whole man. Whereby, as we are to 
 obey God^s law, though we find a reluctance in our will ; 
 so we are to believe his word, though we find a reluct- 
 ance in our reason; for, if we believe only that which 
 is agreeable unto our reason, we give assent to the mat- 
 ter, not to the author, which is no more than we would 
 do towards a discredited witness.” 
 
 Mighty as is the authority of Lord Bacon, I do not 
 shelter myself under it for the purpose of avoiding the 
 discussion ; but merely in order to show that this great 
 father of the inductive philosophy saw, not only the 
 propriety, but the advantage, of subjecting his gigantic 
 intellect to divine instruction. Nor was this the conse- 
 quence of affected humility, but of real knowledge of 
 the actual situation of man. He that is shut up in a 
 close place, and can only peep through crevices, — or 
 who stands in a valley, and has his prospect inter- 
 cepted, — or who is encompassed with fogs that render 
 all surrounding objects obscure, would be overwhelmed 
 with contempt if he set at nought the superior informa- 
 tion of those who had beheld the same things from an 
 eminence, and through a translucent atmosphere: yet 
 such is the folly of him who will not adopt what ex- 
 tends beyond his previous knowledge. Beneath omni- 
 science there are innumerable forms of intelligence, in 
 the lowest of which man seems to be placed, but one 
 step above the beasts that perish hence his mind 
 has a pitch beyond which it cannot soar without extra- 
 neous aid ; and things clearly intelligible to more noble 
 creatures, moving in a higher sphere, may be dark and 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 46 
 
 inexplicable to him ; and shall he despise and deny 
 the truth of verities revealed to him by the Fountain of 
 all Intelligence, because he cannot comprehend them P 
 Is it not an established axiom, that that which may 
 be comprehended is less than the hands that grasp it ; 
 that which may be valued is less than the senses wliich 
 rate it^?’^ Why, then, should this axiom be annulled, 
 and any thing be rejected as untrue, because it cannot 
 be reduced within the narrow dimensions of human 
 intellect? 
 
 It is certain that infinity is not a word void of sense, 
 but a word that expresses something which really exists. 
 Whichever way man turns, immensity presents itself. 
 In vain will he seek a duration which is the term of all 
 duration, a space which shall be the ultimate limit of 
 space : after having wearied itself in its excursions, the 
 mind will 6nd itself limited, but in a new point of dura- 
 tion, a fresh portion of space. Nor can the ideas of 
 duration and of space be annihilated. We may ima- 
 gine that all motion ceases, that all heat is extinct, that 
 attractions and repulsions are at an end, that all living 
 beings have perished, that all nature is dissolved, and 
 matter no longer exists ; but if it w^ere proposed to go 
 on and imagine that the place which these things occu- 
 pied had itself disappeared, the mind would stop short 
 and withhold its assent. In like manner, we may sup- 
 pose the sun no longer to shine, the stars no longer to 
 pursue their real or apparent revolutions, that universal 
 lethargy and the profoundest night prevails through all 
 nature. On this hypothesis, it is evident that days and 
 hours w^ould not be known, and time would lose its 
 measure : yet duration would retain its being. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that neither space nor dura- 
 tion yield their existence to any supposition which the 
 imagination of man, fertile and powerful as it is, can 
 create. They exist, they continue to exist, in all their 
 immense capacity ; for to imagine them limited is to 
 conceive the commencement of their non-existence; 
 
 * Tertul. Apol. 17. 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 46 
 
 and it follows indubitably that neither space nor dura- 
 tion can have bounds. 
 
 Infinitude then exists, and it is impossible for man 
 to sound its depths : for while it is easy to convince 
 ourselves of its existence, it is far otherwise to conceive 
 adequately in what it consists. We may rise to the 
 idea of infinity, but we cannot penetrate it. It is not 
 merely in the contemplation of the infinitely great 
 that the intellect fails; it is equally confounded when 
 attempting to investigate the infinitely little. 
 
 Man is posited between these two limits, in a sphere 
 which comprehends things^m7^, and even these evade 
 his ken in a thousand directions. Truth, therefore, is 
 not restricted to the point occupied by man. It soars 
 above him ; it lies beyond him ; it sinks beneath him ; 
 yet it reveals to him so much of its nature, as to reward 
 his industry, to stimulate and gratify his well-directed 
 modest scrutiny : let him but bear in mind incessantly 
 that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite, and he 
 will learn more than by any other process — since he 
 will be prepared to admit that in a world of mystery a 
 Religion without mystery must he an illusion. 
 
 I shall not, however, rest satisfied with this general 
 mode of argumentation ; but since the subject is one in 
 which mistakes are very prevalent, shall descend into 
 ))articulars, and demonstrate that those who withhold 
 their assent from any of the propositions of Revealed 
 Religion because they are incomprehensible, act upon 
 a principle which, if they adopted it in other matters, 
 would lead them to the most unbounded and incurable 
 scepticism. This will be effected if I can show that, in 
 Natural Religion, in many branches of Natural Philo- 
 sophy, and in several parts of pure and mixed mathe- 
 matics, there are numerous incontrovertible proposi- 
 tions, which are, notwithstanding, incomprehensible. 
 
 Many things are now classed under the irrefragable 
 truths of Natural Religion, which are still far beyond 
 our utmost comprehension. Such are God’s necessary 
 subsistence, his production of things from nothing, his 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 47 
 
 ever giving without having ever received, his always 
 sustaining others without being himself sustained by 
 any thing ah extra, his ever acting but never changing, 
 his prescience without necessity of events, his immen- 
 sity without extension, his eternity wilhout succession, 
 his existing before all ages, and yet never being younger 
 or older, his being in heaven, and yet about our bed 
 and about our path all of which are evidently out of 
 our mental grasp, because finite minds cannot measure 
 infinite subjects, and because the Supreme Being has 
 not seen fit to communicate to us in our present state 
 the faculty of knowing all things that are intelligible. 
 Take God’s eternity for example. Suppose a person is 
 disposed to cavil at this great truth, he may ask, What 
 maxim is less controvertible than this, that nothing 
 can take place without cause ?” and again What can 
 be more staggering to reason, than that a being should 
 exist without a beginning, without a cause?” If it were 
 replied, that God is the cause of his own existence, it 
 would be only such a multiplication of words as would 
 render the subject still more obscure: for the objector 
 might say, “ If you mean this explanation to remove 
 the difficulty, it must imply these palpable and impi- 
 ous absurdities ; that the Supreme Being once did not 
 exist, and yet, before he existed, operated to produce 
 his own existence.” Here there are great and acknow- 
 ledged difficulties: yet, commence your reasoning in 
 another direction, and you establish the disputed posi- 
 tion notwithstanding. Deduce from your own exist- 
 ence, and that of the universe, the necessity of the 
 existence of a Creator; and you will soon perceive 
 that the argument is direct, and that it necessarily 
 leads you to conclude that a Being must have existed 
 for ever, without beginning, and without cause; be- 
 cause, if something have not existed from eternity, the 
 things which now are must have arisen from nothing, 
 and without any producing cause. Yet observe, and 
 this is the point to which I would particularly draw 
 your attention, that, though this train of argumentation 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 48 
 
 firmly establishes the truth in question, it does not 
 remove or diminish one of the difficulties with w'hich 
 it was originally surrounded. You see that it is an 
 irrefragable truth ; but you are still incapable of com- 
 prehending, much less of elucidating, the mode of the 
 fact. It is obvious, however, and it was for this the 
 example was adduced, that what our reason is incapable 
 of comprehending, and what one train of argument 
 may induce us to reject, another process of reasoning 
 may establish as an indisputable and necessary truth, 
 even while the original difficulties remain undiminished 
 and untouched. 
 
 Thus, with regard to the being of God, the general 
 inference is of this kind. — There is, avowedly, some- 
 thing perfectly incomprehensible to us in the attributes 
 of Deity, when contemplated in relation to time; there 
 is also something utterly incomprehensible when we 
 contemplate them in reference to space; there may, 
 then, be something as incomprehensible when we refer 
 them to other metaphysical modes. Why, for example, 
 may they not be as incomprehensible, when contem- 
 plated in reference to number? And why should any 
 matter of revelation be rejected on this latter ground, 
 when mysteriousness on the two former accounts does 
 not lead to any such rejection? 
 
 Let us now pass from the truths of Natural Religion 
 to the topics of Natural Philosophy, where you will 
 find, or where indeed you knoio, and only require to be 
 reminded of it, that almost all our knowledge of the 
 universe, its laws, and its phenomena, is but a collection 
 and classification of circumstances of fact, with the 
 consequences resulting from them ; some of which lie 
 nearer, and others more remote from view. We may 
 ascertain relations and dependencies, and can often 
 predict what will occur in particular connexions; but 
 we know next to nothing of things in themselves, nor 
 can we penetrate into their real, and sometimes not 
 even into their proximate, causes. 
 
 Philosophers and chemists have made very extraor- 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 49 
 
 dinary discoveries respecting the various subjects of 
 their researches, have in many cases determined the 
 laws of their operation, and can frequently predict with 
 perfect confidence what phenomena will occur under 
 certain circumstances. They have demonstrated, for 
 example, that the planetary motions are so regulated, 
 that the sc^uares of the times, in which the planets 
 revolve about the focal luminary, are always propor- 
 tional to the cubes of their mean distances from that 
 body; — that electric and magnetic attractions are in- 
 versely as the squares of the distances; — that, within 
 certain limits, the expansive force of gaseous substances 
 is as the force of compression to which they are sub- 
 jected ; — that, at certain determinate temperatures, many 
 solids become liquid, and liquids are transformed into 
 aeriform fluids, &c. : and these points are so incontro- 
 vertibly established, that no man of competent under- 
 standing can possibly refuse his assent to them, though 
 this conviction must be yielded previously to his receiv- 
 ing any satisfactory information as to the real nature 
 of the things to which these propositions relate. For, 
 suppose a student were obstinately to suspend his assent 
 till he received satisfactory answers to the following 
 string of queries, it would inevitably follow, that he 
 must remain perpetually ignorant of almost every use- 
 ful truth in these sciences. What is the cause of the 
 attraction of gravitation, of cohesion, of electricity, of 
 magnetism, or the cause of congelation, of thawing? 
 Flow are the constituent gases of the atmosphere in- 
 termingled ? What is caloric ? From what does the 
 essential distinction between solids and liquids, and 
 between lic[uids and aeriform fluids, arise? Nay, what 
 is the dust which I tread under my feet? What is the 
 impenetrability by which its corpuscles resist, the 
 mobility by w'hich it is capable of changing its place, 
 the attraction by which it draws and is drawn, the 
 affinity by reason of which it is ready to combiiie with 
 some substances, and not with others? In reply to 
 these, and a hundred such inquiries, the querist proba- 
 
 E 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 50 
 
 bly will receive an explicativer, if any be attempted, in 
 which, as the adage expresses it, “ the load is shifted 
 from the back of the elephant to that of the camel,^^ or 
 one series of facts is substituted for another; and thus, 
 so far as real explanation goes, he obtains nothing but 
 words in current payment. Suppose, for example, with 
 regard to evaporation^ he asks, How is water taken up 
 and retained in the atmosphere?’^ — it cannot be in the 
 state of vapour, it is said, because the pressure is too 
 great : there must therefore be a true chemical solution. 
 But when we consider that the surface of water is 
 subject to a pressure equal to that of thirty inches of 
 mercury, and that, besides this pressure, there is a 
 sensible affinity between the particles of water them- 
 selves ; how does the insensible affinity of the atmos- 
 sphere for water overcome both these powers? How 
 does vapour, which ascends with an elastic force of only 
 half an inch of mercury, detach itself from water, when 
 it has the weight of thirty inches of mercury to oppose 
 its ascent? This difficulty applies nearly the same to 
 all theories of the solution of water in air; and it is 
 therefore of consequence for every one; let him adopt 
 what opinion he may, to remove it. Chemical solution, 
 to which we are often referred, but very ill explains it ; 
 and, indeed, the best chemical philosophers acknowledge 
 that they have not, as yet, any theory of evaporation 
 which is even plausible ; evaporation is then, at present, 
 incomprehensible ; yet no man in his senses attempts to 
 deny that evaporation is perpetually taking place. 
 
 Suppose the querist makes a transition from common 
 to animal chemistry, and wishes to trace its operations 
 in the nervous system, or its connection with vital 
 power: no less a philosopher than Professor Berzelius 
 shall reply to his inquiries. With all the knowledge 
 we possess of the forms of the body, considered as an 
 instrument, and of the mixture and mutual bearings of 
 the rudiments to one another, yet the cause of most of 
 the phenomena within the animal body lies so deeply 
 hidden from our view, that it certainly never will be 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 51 
 
 found. We call this hidden vital power ; and, 
 
 like many others who before us have in vain directed 
 their deluded attention to this point, we make use of a 
 word to Vt^hich w e can affix no idea. This poiver to live 
 belongs not to the constituent parts of our bodies, nor 
 does it belong to them as an instrument, neither is it a 
 simple power ; but the result of the mutual operation of 
 the instruments on one another — a result which varies 
 as the operations vary, and which often, from small 
 changes and obstructions, ceases altogether. When our 
 elementary books inform us, that the vital power in one 
 place produces from the blood the fibres of the muscle ; 
 in another a bone; in a third a medulla of the brain ; 
 and, in another again, certain humours which are des- 
 tined to be carried off'; we know after this explanation 
 as little as w^e knew before. This unknown cause of the 
 phenomena of life is principally lodged in a certain 
 part of the animal body ; viz. in the nervous system, 
 the very operation of which it constitutes. The brain 
 and the nerves determine altogether the chemical pro- 
 cesses within the body ; and although it cannot be 
 denied that the exercise of their functions tends to 
 produce chemical effects ; yet we are constrained to 
 confess, that the chemical operations therein are so far 
 beyond our reach, that they entirely escape all our 
 observations. Our deepest chemical researches, and the 
 finest discoveries of later times, give us no information 
 on this subject. Nothing of what chemistry has taught 
 us hitherto has the smallest analogy to the operations 
 of the nervous system, or affords us the least hint toward 
 a knowledge of its occult nature ; and the chain of our 
 experience must always end in something inconceivable. 
 Unfortunately, this inconceivable something acts the prin- 
 cipal part in animal chemistry, and enters so into every 
 process, even the most minute, that the highest know- 
 ledge which we can attain is the knowledge of the nature 
 of the productions, whilst we are for ever excluded from 
 the possibility of explaining how they are produced 
 
 ^ BrunnniHrk’s translation of Dr. Berzelius’s View of the Progress 
 and present State of Animal Chemistry. 
 
52 
 
 ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 I hope I shall not diminish the effect of these valuable 
 remarks, by dwelling for a few minutes upon conside- 
 rations which they in fact suggest. 
 
 With regard to the formation, the development, and 
 growth of the human body, for example, our know- 
 ledge extends scarcely at all beyond the grossest facts. 
 I know that the same bread which serves for my 
 nourishment would serve also for that of my dog. But 
 how is it that in the two cases it conduces to such 
 altogether different transformations ? Still more, how is 
 it that the nourishment which, up to a certain period, 
 gives continued augmentation and energy to the frame, 
 then ceases to produce a similar effect : from that 
 epoch the body begins to lose its energy ; it declines 
 daily, and at length ceases to exist. What then, is 
 the principle of organization which produces, as it is 
 developed, effects so different ; that spring which acts 
 incessantly, which yet is preparing for death the very 
 day that life commences? 
 
 Then, again, that mean state between life and death, 
 that state which brings to a pause all the exterior 
 motions of the body, and interrupts or modifies for a 
 season several of the interior motions, leaving in action 
 only those that refer to the respiration, the circulation, 
 the digestion ; that sleep which is so apt an image of 
 death that no good man trusts it without his prayers,^’ 
 and which is, notwithstanding, the source of new life 
 and energy ; is that to be referred to the same principle; 
 if not, whence comes it? What is it? 
 
 Farther, with respect to the nourishment which pre- 
 serves life, does it feed only the principle upon which 
 depend our involuntary motions, or does it contribute 
 to those which may be modified, suspended, stopped, 
 under the direction of the will ? 
 
 Life is continued and manifested in us by the com- 
 bination of two sorts of motion. Respiration, circu- 
 lation, digestion, are involuntary and continued, and 
 constitute (if I may employ such a phrase solely 
 by way of distinction) the vegetative life. Walking, 
 running, crying out, laying hold of, pushing forward. 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 53 
 
 &c. are actions, evidently, of a second class, and mark 
 the animal life. The two classes are altogether distinct ; 
 may we, then, affirm, or may we not, that they emanate 
 from the same principle, and derive their nourishment 
 in the same way? 
 
 Observations by which we may thus trace the proba- 
 bility of distinct causes, where men have usually been 
 satisfied with one, still leave us in doubt as to the 
 specific nature of those causes ; and indeed open a 
 vast and unexplored field of research. For, it would 
 not suffice, in tracing the source of life, to assign a 
 single principle, and show how that principle acts 
 separately ; the investigator must rise successively to 
 the primitive cause of vegetative life and the principle 
 of animal life ; and, with regard to man, his researches 
 will be palpably incomplete, if he do not also trace the 
 origin of intellectual life, and of the moral life; and 
 show whether they are essentially different, or one 
 and the same. 
 
 Then, how does human volition occasion the motion 
 of parts of the human body, or of a separate body, 
 living or dead? How does mind operate upon nerves 
 and muscles? How do nerves and muscles operate 
 upon mind? Or, how is it that at the moment of voli- 
 tion I stretch out my arm, or rise from my seat ; while 
 no volition of mine will cause another man to stretch 
 out his arm, or rise from his seat, unless his will con- 
 cur with mine. Still farther, how is it that I cannot 
 cause a heavy weight to move at my volition, without 
 recurring to some mechanical process? I will the mo- 
 tion of a stone, it moves not: I will the motion of my 
 arms, or my legs, or my eyes, they instantly obey. 
 Why has my mind this power over the matter of my 
 body, and not over other matter? I may be told, 
 because there is an intimate connection between the 
 substance which thinks, and the material substance in 
 which it dwells. Be it so. Then what is that connec- 
 tion? Since it is certain that an immaterial substance 
 cannot have with body the least point of contact; that 
 thought cannot by communication become body, nor 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 54 
 
 body become thought. Hence, then, an adequate 
 cause of all the varieties of phenomena to which I have 
 here adverted is as inscrutable, as deeply hidden among- 
 the mysteries, as the most recondite subject connected 
 with religion. 
 
 Allow me next to proceed to a branch of knowledge 
 in which opinions and theories are not daily fluctuating, 
 as are those in chemistry ; I mean the mixed mathe- 
 matical science of mechanics. This science is conver- 
 sant about force, matter, time, motion, space. Each of 
 these has been the cause of the most elaborate disqui- 
 sitions, and of the most violent disputes. Let it be 
 asked, what force F If the answerer be candid, his 
 reply will be, I cannot tell, so as to satisfy every in- 
 quirer, or so as to enter into the essence of the thing.^^ 
 Again, what is matter P ‘"I cannot tell.^^ What is 
 time? “ I cannot tell.^^ What is motion P I cannot 
 tell.^’ What is spaceP I cannot tell.’^ Here, then 
 is a science, the professed object of w hich is to deter- 
 mine the mutual relations, dependencies, and changes 
 of quantities, with the real nature of all of which we 
 are unacquainted ; and in which the professed object 
 is, notwithstanding, effected. We have certain know- 
 ledge respecting subjects of which in themselves we 
 have no knowledge : demonstrated, irrefragable pro- 
 positions, respecting the relations of things, which in 
 themselves elude the most acute investigations. The 
 reason of this I shall attempt to assign by and by. 
 But before I proceed farther, I must request that you 
 will acquit me of any intention to depreciate the sciences: 
 on the contrary, they furnish me with daily delight; I 
 know their value, have laboured long and actively in 
 diffusing a knowledge of them, and am in some mea- 
 sure, I hope, able to appreciate their utility. I am also 
 happy to affirm that in the physical sciences, and espe- 
 cially that to which our attention is now directed, very 
 much has been accomplished. Yet I may challenge 
 the wisest philosopher to demonstrate, from unexcep- 
 tionable principles, and by just argument, what will 
 be the effect of one particle of matter in motion meet- 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 55 
 
 ing with another at rest, on the supposition that these 
 two particles constituted all the matter in the universe. 
 The fact of the communication of motion from one 
 body to another is as inexplicable as the communica- 
 tion of divine influences. How, then, can the former 
 be admitted with any face, while the latter is denied 
 solely on the ground of its incomprehensibility? We 
 know nothing force any more than we do of grace, 
 except by their effects. There are questions, doubts, 
 perplexities, disputes, diversities of opinions, about the 
 one as well as about the other. Ought we not, there- 
 fore, by a parity of reason, to conclude, that there may 
 be several true and highly useful propositions about 
 the latter as well as about the former? Nay, I will 
 venture to go farther, and affirm, that the preponde- 
 rance of argument is in favour of the propositions of 
 the theologian. For while force, time, motion, &c. are 
 avowedly constituent parts of a demonstrable science, 
 and ought, therefore, to be presented in a full blaze of 
 light, the obscure parts proposed for our assent in the 
 Scriptures are avowedly mysterious. They are not ex- 
 hibited to be perfectly understood, but to be believed. 
 They cannot be explained, without ceasing to be what 
 they are: for the explanation of a mystery is, as 
 Dr. Young long ago remarked, its destruction. They 
 cannot be rendered obvious without being made mean: 
 for a clear idea is only another name for a little idea. 
 Obscurities, however, are felt as incumbrances to any 
 system of philosophy : while mysteries are ornaments 
 of the Christian system, and tests of the humility and 
 faith of its votaries. So that, if the rejectors of incom- 
 prehensibilities acted consistently with their own prin- 
 ciples, they should rather throw aside all philosophical 
 theories in wffiich obscurities are found, and exist as 
 defects, than the system of Revealed Religion, in which 
 they enter as essential parts of “ that mystery of godli- 
 ness” in which the Apostles gloried ^ 
 
 ^ It has been asserted by a writer in the Monthly Review, in reply 
 to all this, that to talk of mysteries in revealed religion” is to frame 
 a contradiction in terms. But this writer affects precision in language, 
 
56 
 
 ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 But perhaps I may be told that although things 
 which are incomprehensible occur in our physical and 
 mixed inquiries, they have no place in pure mathe- 
 matics, where all is not only demonstrable, but intel- 
 ligible/^ This, again, is an assertion which I cannot 
 admit; and for the denial of which I shall beg leave 
 to produce my reasons, as this will, I apprehend, make 
 still more in favour of my general argument. Now, 
 here it is known geometricians can demonstrate that 
 there are curves which approach continually to some 
 fixed right line, without the possibility of ever meeting 
 it. Such, for example, are hyperbolas, which conti- 
 nually approach towards their asymptotes, but cannot 
 possibly meet them, unless an assignable finite space 
 can become equal to nothing. Such, again, are con- 
 choids, which continually approach to their directrices, 
 yet can never meet them, unless a certain point can be 
 both beyond and in contact with a given line at the 
 same moment. Mathematicians can also demonstrate 
 that a space infinite in one sense may, by its rotation, 
 generate a solid of finite capacity ; as is the case with 
 the solid formed by the rotation of a logarithmic curve 
 of infinite length upon its axis, or that formed by the 
 rotation of an Apollonian hyperbola upon its asymp- 
 tote. They can also show in numerous instances that 
 
 without a corresponding precision in his ideas. It seems never to 
 have entered into his mind, that a fact, either past, present, or to 
 come, might be made known to us by express Revelation, wdiich 
 should nevertheless remain mysterious ; the limits of our faculties, 
 or perhaps the imperfection of language, rendering it inexpedient, 
 or impossible, that it should be explained. Revelation may furnish 
 us with clear evidence of the present existence of a truth, or the 
 future occurrence of an event, though the thing itself may still re- 
 main incomprehensible to us. We have a striking example of this 
 kind in Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. xv. where he 
 says, “Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep; but 
 we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the 
 last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised 
 incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Here he revealed a mystery : 
 he revealed it, because it was till tlien unknown ; it is notwithstand- 
 ing a mystery, for there is not a syllable that explains to us how it 
 will be effected. 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 67 
 
 a variable space shall be continually augmenting*, and 
 yet never become equal to a certain finite quantity : 
 and they frequently make transformations with great 
 facility and neatness, by means of expressions to which 
 no definite ideas can be attached. Can we, for ex- 
 ample, obtain any clear comprehension, or indeed any 
 notion at all, of the value of a power whose exponent 
 is an acknoivledged imaginary quantity, as a? y' — 1 ? 
 Can we, in like manner, obtain any distinct idea of a 
 series constituted of an infinite number of terms? In 
 each case the answer, I am convinced, must be in the 
 negative. Yet the science, in which these and nume- 
 rous other incomprehensibles occur, is called Mathesis, 
 THE DISCIPLINE, because of its incomparable superiority 
 to other studies in evidence and certainty, and, there- 
 fore, its singular adaptation to discipline the mind. 
 And this, notwithstanding these mysteries, (for are they 
 not such?) is the science, says the eloquent and pro- 
 found Dr. Barrow, which effectually exercises, not 
 vainly deludes, nor vexatiously torments, studious 
 minds with obscure subtleties, perplexed difficulties, 
 or contentious disquisitions; which overcomes with- 
 out opposition, triumphs w ithout pomp, compels with- 
 out force, and rules absolutely without any loss of 
 liberty; which does not privately overreach a weak 
 faith, but openly assaults an armed reason, obtains a 
 total victory, and puts on inevitable chains/^ How 
 does it happen, now, that when the investigation is 
 bent towards objects which cannot be comprehended, 
 the mind arrives at that in which it acquiesces as cer- 
 tainty, and rests satisfied? It is not, manifestly, be- 
 cause we have a distinct perception of the nature of the 
 objects of the inquiry (for that is precluded by the 
 supposition, and, indeed, by the preceding statement) ; 
 but because we have such a distinct perception of the 
 relation those objects bear one toward another, and can 
 assign positively, without danger of error, the exact 
 relation, as to identity or diversity, the quantities be- 
 fore us, at every step of the process. Mathematics is 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 58 
 
 not the science which enables us to ascertain the nature 
 of things in themselves ; — for that, alas ! is not a sci- 
 ence which can be learned in our present imperfect 
 condition, where we see through a glass darkly;’^ — 
 but the science of quantity as measurable, that is, as 
 comparable: and it is obvious, that we can compare 
 quantities satisfactorily in some respects, while we 
 know nothing of them in others. Thus we can demon- 
 strate, that any two sides of a plane triangle are, toge- 
 ther, greater than the third, by showing that angles, of 
 whose absolute magnitude we know nothing, are one 
 greater than the other ; and then inferring the truth 
 of the proposition, from the previously demonstrated 
 proposition, that the greater angle in a triangle is sub- 
 tended by the greater side. So again, when we affirm 
 that between any two consecutive terms of the natural 
 series of whole numbers, there may be interposed an 
 indefinite number of magnitudes which are not frac- 
 tional, the reason at first revolts as if we proposed an 
 absurdity ; for it seems repugnant to the first principles 
 of common sense that between 99 and 100, for example, 
 it should be possible to interpose a multitude of num- 
 bers, none of which can be correctly represented by 
 either 99 phis a fraction, or 100 minus a fraction. Yet, 
 far from involving absurdity, the proposition is so 
 strictly true, that we cannot refute it without rasing to 
 its foundation all mathematical science. For, it is de- 
 monstrable that the square roots of 9802, 9803, 9804, 
 9805, &c. to 10000, are each, in succession, greater 
 than the former, and the first of them greater than 99. 
 In like manner we can prove that the cube roots of 
 860300, 860301, 860302, &c. to 1000000, are each in 
 succession greater than the former; that the cube root 
 of 860300, the smallest of them, while it exceeds 99, is 
 less than the square root of 9802. In like manner we 
 can assign separate series of biquadrate and sursolid 
 roots still more numerous than the square and cube 
 roots, all of which shall be demonstrably unequal to 
 each other, shall be interposed in point of numerical 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 59 
 
 value between 99 and 100, and yet shall, of them, 
 be correctly expressible either by the sum of 99 and a 
 fraction, or by the difference of 100 and a fraction. 
 Here, then, reason must bend, put on the "" inevitable 
 chains,” and feel itself constrained, not merely to 
 acknowledge the existence of those incommensurables 
 which are neither fractional nor integral numbers, but 
 also that while they are unsusceptible of precise appre- 
 ciation, they admit of as accurate comparison as any 
 other mathematical quantities. No mathematician can 
 tell the precise value of or ^5 ; every one can tell 
 the precise value of ^4 or .^9 : no one, notwithstand- 
 ing, will hesitate longer to declare that ^5 exceeds 
 ^2, than to declare that ^^9 exceeds y^4, that is, that 
 3 is greater than 2. 
 
 Once more, we cannot possibly knoio^ all the terms 
 of the infinite series 
 
 2 I 
 
 a c? cd 
 
 -1 r — , &c. in infin. 
 
 because such knowledge implies a contradiction: nei- 
 ther can we know all the terms of the infinite series 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 c 
 
 a cd cd 
 
 ^.2 ‘ ^3 ^4 * ^5 
 
 -, &c. 
 
 yet we can show that these series are equal. For we 
 can demonstrate that the first series is an expanded 
 
 function, standing with the quantity — q— in the re- 
 lation of equality: we can likewise demonstrate, that 
 the second series bears the relation of equality with 
 
 the quantity ^ ^ : and although we can have but a 
 
 vague idea even of the quantities — — and — \ — , 
 
 c a a + c 
 
 while a and c stand as general representatives of any 
 quantities; yet those factions must necessarily be 
 equal, and thence we infer the like equality between 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 60 
 
 the sums of the two infinite series. In a similar man- 
 ner we can have no clear conception of the nature of 
 the quantities — ci, &c. ; yet we are as 
 
 certain that — a zn ^ — h x -y/ 
 
 30 zz 50 : since we can demonstrate that equality sub- 
 sists in the former expression as completely as we can 
 in the latter, both being referable to an intuitive truth. 
 Every mathematician can demonstrate strictly that the 
 conclusions he obtains by means of these quantities, 
 though he cannot comprehend them in themselves, must 
 necessarily be true : he therefore acts wisely when he 
 uses them, since they facilitate his inquiries ; and, know- 
 ing that their relations are real, he is satisfied, because 
 it is only in those relations that he is interested. 
 
 To you, my friend, who are so conversant wdth ma- 
 thematical subjects, this enumeration of particulars 
 would be perfectly unnecessary, were it not in order 
 to recommend that similar principles to those which I 
 have here traced be adopted, when religious topics are 
 under investigation. We cannot comprehend the na- 
 ture of an infinite series, so far as that nature depends 
 upon an acquaintance with each term ; but we know 
 the relation which subsists between it and the radix 
 from which it is expanded : we cannot comprehend the 
 nature of the impossible quantities ^ — a, — b, 
 &c. ; but we know their relation to one another, and 
 to other algebraic quantities. In like manner (though 
 I should scarcely presume to state such a comparison, 
 but for the important practical inference which it fur- 
 nishes), we cannot, with our limited faculties, compre- 
 hend the infinite perfections of the Supreme Being, or 
 reconcile his different attributes, as to see distinctly 
 how mercy and peace are met together, righteous- 
 ness and truth have embraced each other; or how the 
 Majestic Governor of the universe can be every where 
 present, yet not exclude other beings ; but we know, 
 or at least may know (if we do not despise and reject 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 61 
 
 the information graciously vouchsafed to us by the 
 God of truth), his relation to us, as our Father, our 
 Guide, and our Judge. — We cannot comprehend the 
 nature of the Messiah, as revealed to us in his twofold 
 character of the Son of God,"’ and the Man Christ 
 Jesus but we know the relation in which he stands 
 to us as the Mediator of the New Covenant, and as he 
 who was wounded for our transgressions, who was 
 bruised for our iniquities, and by whose stripes we are 
 healed — Again, we cannot com prehend, perhaps, why 
 the introduction of moral evil should be permitted by 
 him “ who hateth iniquity but we know, in relation 
 to ourselves, that he hath provided a way for owr escape 
 from the punishment due to sin (which way if we lose, 
 the fault is entirely our own), — and therefore, though 
 we cannot comprehend and explain it so as to silence 
 all cavillers, yet we have abundant reason to glory in 
 the mystery of Reconciliation.^’ By pursuing this cur- 
 Tent of reflection farther, and running over the general 
 principles of other branches of mathematical, chemical, 
 and metaphysical science, than I have here adverted to, 
 you will still find, I am persuaded, that the result of the 
 inquiry will come in aid of our religious belief, by shout- 
 ing that the difficulties attending Christianity are of the 
 same kind (and probably should be referred to the same 
 cause, the weakness of our faculties) as those which 
 envelope all the fundamental principles of knowledge. 
 
 Philosophers, notwithstanding all these difficulties, 
 recommend the cultivation and diffusion of the sciences, 
 because of their tendency to sharpen the intellectual 
 faculties of man, and to meliorate his condition in 
 society. With how much greater reason and earnest- 
 ness, then, should Christians recommend the dissemi- 
 nation and adoption of pure and undefiled religion,” 
 considering its direct tendency to enlarge the under- 
 standing, and yet fill it with the contemplation of 
 Deity, to purify and harmonize the passions, to refine 
 the moral sense, to qualify and strengthen for every 
 function in life, to sustain under the pressure of afflic- 
 
ON MYSTERIES IN 
 
 62 
 
 tion, to afford consolation in sickness, and enable us 
 to triumph in death ! What other science can make 
 even a pretension to dethrone oppression, to abolish 
 slavery, to exclude war, to extirpate fraud, to banish 
 violence, to revive the withered blossoms of Paradise ? 
 Such are the pretensions and the blessings of Genuine 
 Christianity; and wherever Genuine Christianity pre- 
 vails, there are they experienced. Thus it accomplishes 
 its promises on earth, where alone it has enemies; it 
 will therefore accomplish them in Heaven, where its 
 friends reign. Here, indeed, its advocate must be re- 
 duced to silence; for how shall he display the meaning 
 of its celestial promises! how describe dignity so vast, 
 or picture glory so brilliant 1 How shall language deli- 
 neate what mind cannot imagine ! and where is that 
 mind, among puny and ephemeral creatures, that can 
 penetrate the thick obscure, that can describe the light 
 of Perfect Knowledge, that can feel the glow of Perfect 
 Love, that can breathe the air of Perfect Happiness? 
 
 Let it not, however, be forgotten, that, though some 
 of the truths revealed in Scripture are mysterious, and 
 the eternal weight of glory” it promises too vast for 
 us to estimate ; yet the tendency of the most exalted 
 of its mysteries, and the most exquisite of its promises, 
 is practicaL If we cannot explain the influences of 
 the Spirit, for example, happy will it be for us, never- 
 theless, if we experience, that \he fruits of the Spirit 
 are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
 ness, faith, meekness, temperance.” If we cannot com- 
 prehend all we read in the Sacred Pages, let us, not- 
 withstanding, submit, adore, and profit by them; 
 recollecting, that "" the sublimest truths, and the pro- 
 foundest mysteries of religion, are as level, perhaps, to 
 the capacities of the meanest as of the highest human 
 intellect. By neither are they to be fully fathomed. 
 By both they may he easily believed, on the sure testi- 
 mony of Divine Revelation. As simple and important 
 facts which connect time with eternity, and heaven 
 wdth earth, they belong equally to men of every order. 
 
REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 63 
 
 and are directly calculated to produce those emotions 
 of awe and reverence;, of faith and hope, and reliance 
 on the Divine presence, providence, justice, and bene- 
 volence, of which the consequences must be in the 
 highest degree moral 
 
 “ When I behold with mine eyes (says the profound 
 and philosophic author of the Ecclesiastical Polity) 
 some small and scarce discernible grain or seed, where- 
 of nature maketh a promise that a tree shall come; 
 and when afterwards of that tree, any skilful artificer 
 undertaketh to frame some exquisite and curious work, 
 I look for the event, I move no ciuestion about per- 
 formance, either of the one or of the other. Shall I 
 simply credit nature in things natural? Shall I, in 
 things artificial, rely myself on art, never offering to 
 make doubt? And in that which is above both art and 
 nature refuse to believe the Author of both, except he 
 acquaint me with his ways, and lay the secret of his 
 skill before me? Where God himself doth speak those 
 things, which either for height and sublimity of matter, 
 or else for secrecy of performance, we are not able to 
 reach unto, as we may be ignorant without danger, so 
 it can be no disgrace to confess we are ignorant. Such 
 as love piety will, as much as in them lieth, know all 
 things that God commandeth, but especially the duties 
 of service which they owe to God. As for his dark and 
 hidden works, they prefer, as becometh them in such 
 cases, simplicity of faith before that knowledge, which 
 curiously sifting ivhat it should adore, and disputing too 
 boldly of that which the wit of man cannot search, chilleth 
 for the most part all warmth of zeal, and bringeth sound- 
 ness of belief many times into great hazard^ 
 
 It is right to add, in relation to this subject, that 
 common and even illiterate Christians may often have 
 clearer ideas of what are considered mysterious things, 
 than the bolder and more inquisitive ; because, as Dr. 
 Waterland remarks, they are content to rest in gene- 
 
 ^ Ediuburgli Review, vol. xvii. p. 269. 
 
 ® Ecclesiastical Polity, book v. sect. 67. 
 
64 ON MYSTERIES IN REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 rals, and to stop at what they understand, without 
 darkening it afterwards by words without knowledge.^^ 
 The notion of eternity, for example, is clear enough to 
 a plain Christian ; while to a person who perplexes 
 himself with nice and minute inquiries respecting suc- 
 cession, or past or interminable duration, that notion, 
 which at first was clear, becomes obscure, by his blend- 
 ing perplexities with it. So again, in respect of omni- 
 presence, the general notion is competently distinct; 
 but when a man has been rambling in pursuit of curi- 
 ous inquiries relating to substantial and virtual presence, 
 extension and non-extension, space and place, and so 
 on ; he will most probably bewilder himself, and lose 
 sight of the general idea which alone was necessary 
 to render the truth under contemplation of practical 
 efficacy. 
 
 In fine, let me remark, that no man, however capa- 
 cious his intellect, or extensive his acquirements, is 
 justified in affirming that a proposition (especially a 
 religious one) is absolutely repugnant to reason, because 
 it is repugnant to his reason. If he do not deem him- 
 self infallible (and that is inconsistent with the hypo- 
 thesis of his possessing a cultivated and enlarged mind) 
 he must be conscious that his passions, his prejudices, 
 his conduct, bias and distort his reasonings, and impel 
 him to erroneous conclusions. If, then, he find only one 
 or two men, equal to himself in mental power, adopting 
 what he rejects; he is bound to hesitate and examine 
 afresh. And if, not merely one or two, but the great 
 bulk of men of intellect, investigation, and unimpeached 
 moral character, receive as consistent with sound reason 
 what he has regarded as repugnant to it, he is required 
 by all the laws of modesty, humility, good sense, and 
 philosophy, either to accede to their general admission 
 of the proposition, or to lament his own unfortunate 
 insensibility to conviction, and remain silent. 
 
 Believe me, &c. 
 
65 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 On the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Scripturesi 
 
 Having endeavoured in my preceding letters to point 
 out the absurdity of Deism — the necessity of Revela- 
 tion, especially as manifested by the defectiveness of 
 all the discoveries of the ancient philosophers in respect 
 of morals and theology, — and to show that mysterious 
 and incomprehensible things occur in every branch of 
 knowledge ; I shall now proceed to an examination of 
 that collection of writings which the majority of Chris- 
 tians in all ages have considered as coming from God, 
 and revered as constituting that system of Revealed 
 Religion by which our conduct should be regulated, 
 and on which should be founded our hopes and fears 
 of future bliss or future woe.” 
 
 The Bible is not to be contemplated as one book, 
 but as a collection of several, composed at different 
 times by different persons, and in different places. It 
 is a collection of writings, partly historical, partly pro- 
 phetical, partly didactic, composed some previously, 
 some subsequently, to an important event, adverted to 
 in most of them, called the coming of the Messiah;^* 
 an event which is generally described as having a re- 
 markable tendency to enhance the glory of God and 
 the happiness of man. Now, to believe the Christian 
 Religion is to believe that Moses and the Prophets, 
 Christ and his Apostles, were what they were described 
 to be in these books; that is, were endued with divine 
 authority, that they had a commission from God to act 
 and teach as they did, and that He will verify their 
 declarations concerning future things, and especially 
 those concerning future life, by the event; — it is to 
 receive the Scriptures as our rule of life, as the founda- 
 tion of our hopes and fears. Such a belief, that it may 
 be operative, must have a substantial basis: and so 
 varied and persuasive are the evidences of Christianity, 
 
 F 
 
GENUINENESS OF 
 
 66 
 
 that every man, whether his intellectual faculties are 
 weak or strong, have been little or much cultivated, 
 may obtain evidence suited to his circumstances. He 
 who cannot enter into elaborate disquisitions concern- 
 ing the credibility of the Scriptures, has other and often 
 stronger grounds of faith. He may see the provision 
 which the Bible makes for the restoration of man to 
 happiness to be precisely such as his own necessities 
 require: he may see that the purity of its commands 
 has a wonderful tendency to elevate the nature of man, 
 and to produce universal felicity ; he may experience 
 that actual change of heart and life which the Gospel 
 promises to all sincere believers ; and then, as the Apos- 
 tle expresses it, “ he that believeth on the Son of God 
 hath the witness in himself ^, a witness that may grow 
 and triumph during the decay of the mental faculties, 
 the anguish of a sick-bed, and the agonies of death. But 
 the evidence of which I now intend principally to speak, 
 is that deducible from a more critical examination of 
 the Bible itself, and from collateral testimony drawn 
 from historic and other indisputable sources. 
 
 Now, any candid and reflecting person, when he 
 first directs his attention to this wonderful volume, and 
 notices the awful, characteristically authoritative, lan- 
 guage which is often assumed in it, will be naturally 
 impelled to inquire, Is this book what it professes to 
 he, the Word of God.? Were its various authors in- 
 structed by God to relate the histories, announce the 
 doctrines, enforce the precepts, predict the events, 
 which are the subjects of their respective books? Were 
 they holy men of God, who spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost,’^ or were they impostors? 
 Or, to reduce these inquiries into a methodical form, it 
 will be asked generally. Are the Books of the Old and 
 New Testaments (excluding those which are avow’edly 
 apocryphal) genuine P Are they authentic P Are they 
 inspired P Here nothing is asked that is tautologous, 
 nothing that is superfluous. For a book may be genuine 
 ^ 1 John, V. 10. 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 67 
 
 that is not authentic; a book may be authentic that is 
 not genuine; and many are both genuine and authen- 
 tic that are not inspired. The History of Sir Charles 
 Grandison, for example, is genuine, being indeed writ- 
 ten by Richardson, the author whose name it bears; 
 but it is not authentic, being a mere effort of that inge- 
 nious writer’s invention in the production of fictions. 
 The Account of Lord Anson’s Voyages, again, is an 
 authentic book, the information being supplied by Lord 
 Anson himself to the author; but it is not genuine, for 
 the real author was Benjamin Robins, the mathemati- 
 cian, and not Walters, whose name is appended to it. 
 Hayley’s Memoirs of the Life of Cowper are both 
 genuine and authentic; they were written by Mr. 
 Hayley, and the information they contain was deduced 
 from the best authority. The same may be said of 
 many other works, which, notwithstanding, lay no 
 claims to the character of being inspired. These three 
 characteristics of genuineness, authenticity, and inspi- 
 ration, meet no where but in the books which constitute 
 the Old and New Testaments. In order to establish 
 this position, I shall now attend to the qualities of 
 genuineness and authenticity, which will furnish ample 
 employment for the present letter; and shall consider 
 that of inspiration in a subsequent part of the series. 
 
 Here I shall first present you with three general 
 propositions on the genuineness of Scripture, taken 
 principally from an ingenious philosopher of the last 
 century and then subjoin some such particular con- 
 siderations as must, I think, in conjunction with those 
 propositions, remove all doubt from every candid mind. 
 
 I. The Genuineness of the Scriptures proves the Truth 
 of the principal Facts contained in them. 
 
 For, First, it is very rare to meet with any genuine 
 writings professing to be real history, in which the 
 principal facts are not true ; unless where both the mo- 
 tives which engaged the author to falsify, and the cir- 
 cumstances which gave some plausibility to the fiction, 
 2 Hartley on Man, vol. ii. 
 
GENUINENESS OF 
 
 68 
 
 are apparent ; neither of which can be alleged in the 
 present case, with any colour of reason. Where the 
 writer of a history appears to the world as such, not only 
 his moral sense, but his regard to his character and his 
 interest, are strong motives not to falsify in notorious 
 matters ; he must, therefore, have stronger motives from 
 the opposite quarter, and also a favourable conjuncture 
 of circumstances, before he can attempt this. 
 
 Secondly. As this is rare in general, so it is much 
 more rare where the writer treats of things which hap- 
 pened in his own time, and under his own cognizance 
 or direction, and communicates his history to persons 
 under the same circumstances All which may be said 
 of the writers of the Scripture History. 
 
 That this and the following arguments may be ap- 
 plied with more ease and perspicuity, I shall here, in 
 one view, refer the books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments to their proper authors. It is assumed, then, that 
 the Pentateuch consists of the writings of Moses, put 
 together by Samuel, with a very few additions ; that the 
 books of Joshua and Judges were, in like manner, 
 collected by him ; and the book of Ruth, with the first 
 part of the book of Samuel, written by him ; that the 
 latter part of the first book of Samuel, and the second 
 book, were written by the prophets who succeeded 
 Samuel, probably Nathan and Gad ; that the books of 
 Kings and Chronicles are extracts from the records 
 of the succeeding prophets concerning their own times, 
 and from the public genealogical tables, made by Ezra; 
 that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are collections 
 of like records, some written by Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 and some by their predecessors ; that the book of 
 Esther was written by some eminent Jew, in or near 
 the times of the transactions there recorded, perhaps 
 Mordecai, though some conjecture it was Ezra; the 
 book of Job by a Jew, probably by Moses; the Psalms 
 by David, Asaph, Moses, and other pious persons; the 
 books of Proverbs and Canticles by Solomon; the 
 book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon, towards the close of 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 69 
 
 his life, when distress and anguish had reclaimed him 
 from idolatry ; the Prophecies by the prophets whose 
 names they bear^; and the books of the New Testa- 
 ment by the persons to whom they are usually ascribed. 
 There are many internal evidences, and, in the case of 
 the New Testament, many external ones too (which will 
 be touched upon as we proceed), by which these books 
 may be shown to belong to the authors here specified. 
 Or, if there be any doubts, they are merely of a critical 
 nature, and do not at all affect the authenticity of the 
 books, nor materially alter the application of the argu- 
 ments in favour of this proposition. Thus, if the Epis- 
 tle to the Hebrews be supposed to have been written 
 not by St. Paul, but by Clement, or Barnabas, or Luke, 
 the evidence therein given to the miracles performed by 
 Christ and his followers, will not be at all invalidated 
 by this circumstance. 
 
 Thirdly. The great importance of the facts men- 
 tioned in the Scriptures makes it still more improbable 
 that the several authors should either have attempted 
 to falsify, or have succeeded in such an attempt. This, 
 indeed, is an argument for the truth of the facts, which 
 f>roves the genuineness of the books at the same time. 
 The truth of the facts, however, is inferred more directly 
 from their importance, if the genuineness of the Scrip- 
 tures be previously allowed. The same thing may be 
 observed of the great number of particular circum- 
 stances of time, persons, &c. mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures, and of the harmony of the books with themselves, 
 and with each other. These are arguments both for 
 the genuineness of the books, and the truth of the facts 
 distinctly considered, and also arguments for deducing 
 the truth from the genuineness. And indeed the argu- 
 ments for the general truth of the history of any age or 
 
 ^ For the doubts expressed by sound biblical critics respecting 
 the last six chapters of the prophecies ascribed lo Zechariah, and the 
 reasons on the whole for concluding that they were composed by 
 Jeremiah, see Newcome’s Improved Version of the Minor Prophets, 
 pp. 303 — 305 of the Pontefract edition. 
 
GENUINENESS OF 
 
 70 
 
 nation, where regular records have been kept, are so 
 interwoven together, and support each other in such a 
 variety of ways, that it is extremely difficult to keep 
 the ideas of them distinct, so as not to anticipate, and 
 not to prove, more than the exactness of logical method 
 requires one to prove. Or, in other words, the incon- 
 sistencies of the contrary supposition are so great, that 
 they can scarcely stand long enough to be confuted. 
 You may easily try this upon the history of England 
 or France, Rome or Greece. 
 
 Fourthly. If the books of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments were written by the persons to whom they are 
 ascribed above ; i. e, if they be genuine, the moral cha- 
 racters of these writers afford the strongest assurance 
 that the facts asserted by them are true. Falsehoods 
 and frauds of a common nature shock the moral sense 
 of common men, and are rarely met with except in per- 
 sons of abandoned characters : how inconsistent, then, 
 must those of the most glaring and impious nature be 
 with the highest moral characters ! That such charac- 
 ters are due to the sacred writers appears from the 
 writings themselves, by an internal evidence ; but there 
 is also strong external evidence in many cases ; and 
 indeed this point is allowed in general by unbelievers. 
 The sufferings which several of the writers underwent 
 both in life and death, in attestation of the facts delivered 
 by them, is a particular argument in favour of these. 
 
 Fifthly. The arguments here alleged for proving the 
 truth of the Scripture History from the genuineness of 
 the books, are as conclusive in respect of the miracu- 
 lous facts, as of the common ones. But besides this, 
 it may be observed, that if we allow the genuineness 
 of the books to be sufficient evidence of the common 
 facts mentioned in them, the miraculous facts must be 
 allowed also, from their close connexion with the com- 
 mon ones. It is necessary to admit both or neither. It 
 is not, for instance, to be conceived, that Moses should 
 have delivered the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, 
 or conducted them through the wilderness for forty 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 71 
 
 years, at all, in such manner as the common history 
 represents, unless we suppose the miraculous facts in- 
 termixed with it be true also. In like manner, the fame 
 of Chrisf s miracles, the multitudes which followed him, 
 the adherence of his disciples, the jealousy and hatred 
 of the chief priests, scribes, and pharisees, with many 
 other facts of a common nature, are impossible to be 
 accounted for, unless we allow that he did really work 
 miracles. And similar observations apply in general 
 to the other parts of the Scripture History. 
 
 Sixthly. There is even a particular argument in 
 favour of the miraculous part of the Scripture History, 
 to be drawn from the reluctance of mankind to receive 
 miraculous facts. It is true that this reluctance is 
 greater in some ages and nations than in others, and 
 probable reasons may be assigned why this reluctance 
 was, in general, less in ancient times than in the pre- 
 sent (which, however are presumptions that some real 
 miracles were then wrought) ; but it must always be 
 considerable, from the very frame of the human mind, 
 and would be particularly so amongst the Jews at the 
 time of Christ’s appearance, as they had then (accord- 
 ing to their own account) been without miracles for at 
 least four hundred years. Now this reluctance must 
 make both the writers and readers very much upon their 
 guard ; and if it be now one of the chief prejudices 
 against revealed religion, as unbelievers unanimously 
 assert, it is but reasonable to allow also, that it would 
 be a strong check upon the publication of a miraculous 
 history at or near the time when the miracles were said 
 to be performed ; i. e. it will be a strong confirmation of 
 such a history, if its genuineness be granted previously. 
 
 And, upon the whole, we may conclude certainly, 
 that the principal facts, both common and miraculous, 
 mentioned in the Scriptures, must be true, if their 
 genuineness be allowed. But the particular evidences 
 of miraculous facts, as well as the principal objections 
 w hich have been urged against them, will be staled 
 more fully in a future letter. 
 
GENUINENESS OF 
 
 72 
 
 The converse of this proposition is also true, namely, 
 if the principal facts mentioned in the Scriptures be true, 
 they must he genuine writings. This converse proposi- 
 tion is much more important than it may appear at first 
 sight; for there are many evidences for the truth of 
 particular facts mentioned in the Scriptures; such, for 
 example, as those taken from natural history, from geo- 
 graphy, and the contemporary profane history, which 
 no way presuppose, but, on the contrary, prove, the 
 genuineness of the Scriptures; and this genuineness, 
 thus proved, may, by the arguments alleged under this 
 proposition, be extended to infer the authenticity of the 
 rest of the facts. Nor is this to argue in a circle, and 
 to prove the truth of the Scripture history from its truth ; 
 but to prove the truth of those facts which are not at- 
 tested by natural or civil history, from those which are, 
 by the medium of the genuineness of the Scriptures. 
 
 II. The Language, Style and Manner of Writing, used 
 in the Books of the Old and New Testaments, are Argu- 
 ments of their Genuineness. 
 
 Here let it be observed, First, that the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, in which the Old Testament was written, being 
 the language of an ancient people, and one that had 
 little intercourse with their neighbours, and whose 
 neighbours also spake a language that had great affi- 
 nity with their own, would not change so rapidly as 
 modern languages have done, since nations have been 
 variously mixed with one another, and commerce, arts, 
 and sciences, greatly extended. Yet some changes there 
 necessarily must be in about one thousand and fifty- 
 four years elapsing between the time of Moses and that 
 of Malachi. And accordingly critical Hebrew scholars 
 assure us, that the Biblical Hebrew corresponds to this 
 criterion with so much exactness, that a considerable 
 argument may thence be deduced in favour of the 
 genuineness of the books of the Old Testament. 
 
 Secondly. The books of the Old Testament have too 
 considerable a diversity of style to be the work either 
 of one Jew (for a Jew he must be, on account of the 
 
THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 73 
 
 language), or of any set of contemporary Jews. If, 
 therefore, they be all forgeries, there must be a succes. 
 sion of impostors in different ages, who have concurred 
 to impose upon posterity, which is inconceivable. To 
 suppose part forged, and part genuine, is very harsh 
 and unnatural ; neither would this supposition, if 
 admitted, be satisfactory. 
 
 Thirdly. The Hebrew language ceased to be spoken, 
 as a living language, soon after the time of the Baby- 
 lonish captivity ; but it would be difficult or impossible 
 to forge any thing in it after it was become a dead lan- 
 guage. For learned men affirm positively, that there 
 was no grammar made for the Hebrew till many ages 
 after; and, as it is difficult to write in a dead language 
 with exactness, even by the help of a grammar, so it 
 seems impossible without it. All the books of the Old 
 Testament must therefore be, at least, nearly as ancient 
 as the Babylonish captivity ; and since they could not 
 all be written in the same age (for the reason just 
 assigned), some must be considerably more ancient: 
 which would bring us again to succession of conspiring 
 impostors. 
 
 Fourthly. This last remark may perhaps afford a new 
 argument for the genuineness of the book of Daniel, if 
 any were wanting. But indeed the Septuagint trans- 
 lation, executed about two hundred and eighty-seven 
 years before the Christian sera, shows not only this, but 
 all the other books of the Old Testament, to have been 
 considered as ancient and genuine books soon after the 
 times of Antiochus Epiphanes, at least. 
 
 Fifthly. There is a simplicity of style, and an 
 unaffected manner of writing, in all the books of the 
 Old Testament (excepting only those parts that are 
 avowedly poetical or prophetical) which is a very strong 
 evidence of their genuineness, even exclusively of the 
 suitableness of this circumstance to the times of the 
 supposed authors. 
 
 Sixthly. The style of the New Testament also is 
 remarkably simple and unaffected, and perfectly suited 
 
74 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 to the time, places, and persons. There is a diversity 
 of style and idiom, such as infallibly proves them to 
 be the production of different writers. And, though a 
 large proportion of the language of the New Testament 
 is pure Greek; yet it is not like the language of Iso- 
 crates, of Demosthenes, of Xenophon, or of Plutarch : 
 then there would have been strong ground to suspect 
 forgery, since such would ill accord with the character 
 of Jews writing in a language not their own. But the 
 use of words and phrases is such, as well as the ideas 
 and method of reasoning, that the books of the New 
 Testament could be written by none but persons origi- 
 nally Jeius, which brings the inquiry into a still narrower 
 compass : for I believe it would be impossible to devise 
 any hypothesis which would satisfactorily account for 
 Jews telling such a story, and sacrificing their lives in 
 attestation of it, unless the death and resurrection of 
 Christ make an essential part of that hypothesis. 
 
 It may also be observed, that the narrations and 
 precepts of both the Old and New Testaments are 
 delivered without marks of hesitation ; the writers teach 
 as having authority ; a circumstance peculiar to those 
 who have both a clear knowledge of what they deliver, 
 and a perfect integrity of heart; and this uprightness 
 of intention is, farther, most strikingly evinced by their 
 incessantly relating, either as historians, prophets, or 
 teachers, what runs counter to the whole train of their 
 prejudices as Jews. 
 
 And farther, that the care used in specifying that 
 some of the Psalms were composed by Asaph, others by 
 Moses, some of the Proverbs by Lemuel, &c. furnishes 
 another argument in favour of the genuineness of the 
 books of Scripture, and leads us to infer that those 
 books are the real productions of the authors to whom 
 they are ascribed. 
 
 III. The very great Number of particular Circumstances 
 of Time and Place, Persons, ^c. mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures, come in Proof both of their Genuineness and 
 Authenticity, 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 76 
 
 Here I shall recite some of the principal heads under 
 which these circumstances may be found. Thus, there 
 are mentioned in the book of Genesis the rivers of 
 Paradise, the s^enerations of the antediluvian patriarchs, 
 the deluge with its circumstances, the place where the 
 ark rested, the building of the tower of Babel, the con- 
 fusion of tongues, the dispersion of mankind, or the 
 division of the earth among the posterity of Shem, Ham, 
 and Japheth, the generations of the post-diluvian patri- 
 archs, with the gradual shortening of human life after 
 the flood ; the sojournings of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, with many particulars of the state of Canaan, 
 and the neighbouring countries in their times ; the 
 destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the state of the 
 land of Edom both before and after Esau^s time, and 
 the descent of Jacob into Egypt ; with the state of 
 Egypt before the time of Moses. 
 
 In the book of Exodus are mentioned the plagues 
 of Egypt, the institution of the passover, the passage 
 through the Red Sea, with the destruction of Pharaoh 
 and his host there, the miracle of manna, the mur- 
 murings of the people, the victory over the Amalekites, 
 the solemn delivery of the law from Mount Sinai, many 
 particular laws both moral and ceremonial, the worship 
 of the golden calf, the circumstance of Moses breaking 
 the tables on which the law had been inscribed, and 
 a very minute description of the tabernacle, priests, 
 garments, urim and thummim, ark, &c. 
 
 In Leviticus there is a collection of ceremonial laws, 
 with all their particularities, and accounts of the con- 
 secration of Aaron and his son, and of the remarkable 
 deaths of Nadab and Abihu. 
 
 The book of Numbers contains the first and second 
 numberings of the several tribes, with their genealogies ; 
 the peculiar offices of the three several families of the 
 Levites, many ceremonial laws, the journeyings and 
 encampments of the people in the wilderness during 
 forty years, with the relation of some remarkable events 
 
76 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 which happened in this period ; such as the searching 
 of the land, the rebellion of Korah, the victories over 
 Arad, Sihon, and Og, with the division of the kingdoms 
 of the two last among the Gadites, Reubenites, and 
 Manassites ; the history of Balak and Balaam, and the 
 victory over the Midianites; all described with the 
 several particularities of time, place, and persons. 
 
 The book of Deuteronomy contains a recapitulation 
 of many things contained in the last three books, with 
 a second delivery of the law, chiefly the moral one, by 
 Moses, upon the borders of Canaan, just before his 
 death, with an account of that death, and the true 
 reason assigned why he saw, but did not enter, the 
 promised land. 
 
 In the book of Joshua are related, the passage over 
 Jordan, the conquest of the land of Canaan in detail, 
 and the division of it among the tribes; including a 
 minute geographical description. 
 
 The book of Judges contains a recital of a great 
 variety of public transactions, with the private origin of 
 some. In all, the names of times, places, and persons, 
 both among the Israelites, and the neighbouring nations, 
 are noted with particularity and simplicity. 
 
 In the book of Ruth is a very particular account of 
 the genealogy of David, with several incidental circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, 
 and Nehemiah, contain the transactions of the kings 
 before the captivity, and of the governors afterwards, 
 all delivered in the same circumstantial manner. And 
 here the particular account of the regulations, sacred 
 and civil, established by David, and of the building of 
 the temple by Solomon, the genealogies given in the 
 beginning of the first book of Chronicles, and the lists 
 of the persons who retiwned, sealed, &c. after the cap- 
 tivity, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, deserve 
 particular notice, in the light in which we are now 
 considering things. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 77 
 
 The book of Esther contains a like account of a very 
 remarkable event, with the institution of a festival in 
 memory of it » 
 
 The book of Psalms mentions many historical events 
 both common and miraculous, in an incidental way, or 
 sometimes by way of celebration'^; and this, as well as 
 the books of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Can- 
 ticles, allude to the manners and customs of ancient 
 times, in various particulars. 
 
 In the Prophecies there are blended some historical 
 relations ; and in other parts the indirect mention of 
 facts, times, places, and persons, is interwoven with 
 the predictions in the most copious and circumstantial 
 manner. 
 
 If we turn to the New Testament, the same obser- 
 vations present themselves at first view. Here also 
 there are often comprehensive syllabuses of the leading 
 facts of the Old Testament history, comprised in a 
 single chapter, of which those mentioned at the foot of 
 the page are striking instances^. It is also observable, 
 that our Lord, in his various conversations with the 
 Jews, assumes the genuineness and authenticity of the 
 Jewish Scriptures, that is, of the Old Testament books, 
 and argues upon them. Thus we find him speaking 
 of Moses as a lawgiver, referring to the decalogue, and 
 various laws and observances mentioned in different 
 parts of the Pentateuch ; to Abram, to Jacob, to the 
 destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, to the Queen of 
 Sheba (mentioned in 1 Kings x.), and Solomon ; to 
 David as a prophet, and as inspired ; to Moses and 
 the Prophets^’ generally; to Jonah, as a type of him- 
 self; and to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, 
 Joel, and Malachi, as prophets. In the several parts 
 of the New Testament, too, we have the names of 
 friends and enemies, the conduct of both, the faults of 
 
 ^ See especially Psalms 78, 105, 106, 114, 135, 136. And for 
 a defence of the Canticles, see Theodoret’s Commentary thereon ; or 
 Dupin’s Bibliotheca Patruin, vol. iv. p. 62. 
 
 ^ Acts, vii.; 1 Cor. x. j Heb. xi. ; 2 Pet. ii. 
 
78 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 friends told without gloss, those of enemies without 
 exaggeration or virulence; the names of Jews, Greeks, 
 and Romans, obscure and illustrious ; the times, places, 
 and circumstances, of facts specified directly, and 
 alluded to indirectly, with various references to the 
 customs and manners of those times and places. And 
 here again we may notice, by the by, that many of the 
 historical books, both of the Old and New Testament, 
 contain prophecies which have been fulfilled ; and from 
 w'hich both their truth and their divine authority may 
 be inferred ; as I shall show in my next letter. 
 
 Now, from the preceding enumeration it may he 
 observed. First, that in fact we never find forged or 
 false accounts of things to superabound thus in particu- 
 larities. There is always some truth where considerable 
 particularities are related, and they always seem to bear 
 some proportion to one another. Thus there is a great 
 want of the particulars of time, place, and persons, in 
 Manetho’s account of the Egyptian dynasties, Ctesias^s 
 account of the Assyrian kings, and those which the 
 technical chronologers have given of the ancient king- 
 doms of Greece ; and agreeably to this obvious prin- 
 ciple, these accounts have much fiction and falsehood, 
 with some truth. Whereas Thucydides’s History of 
 the Peloponnesian War, and Caesar’s of the War in 
 Gaul, in both which the particulars of time, place, 
 and persons are mentioned, are universally esteemed 
 authentic to a great degree of exactness. 
 
 Secondly. A forger, or a relator of known falsehoods, 
 would be careful not to mention so great a number of 
 particulars, since this would be to put into his reader’s 
 hands criteria by which he may be detected. Hence 
 appears one reason of the fact mentioned in the last 
 paragraph, and which, in confirming that fact, confirms 
 the proposition here to be established. 
 
 Thirdly. A forger or relater of falsehoods, could 
 scarcely furnish such lists of particulars. It is easy to 
 conceive how faithful records, kept from time to time, 
 by persons concerned in the transactions, should con- 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 79 
 
 tain such lists; nay, it is natural to expect them in 
 this case, from that local memory which takes strong 
 possession of the fancy in those who have been present 
 at transactions : but it would be a work of the highest 
 invention, and greatest stretch of genius, to raise from 
 nothing such numberless particularities, as are almost 
 every where to be met with in the Scriptures. 
 
 There is, besides, a circumstance relating to the 
 Gospels, which deserves particular notice in this place. 
 SI. Matthew and St. John were apostles ; and therefore, 
 since they accompanied Christ, must have this local 
 memory of his journeyings and miracles. St. Mark 
 was a Jew of Judea, and a friend of St. Peter ; and 
 therefore may either have had this local memory him- 
 self, or have written chiefly from St. Peter, who had. 
 But St. Luke, being a proselyte of Antioch, not con- 
 verted, perhaps, till several years after Chrises resurrec- 
 tion, and receiving his accounts from different eye- 
 witnesses, as he says himself, could have no regard to 
 that order of time which a local memory would suggest. 
 Let us try now how the gospels answer to these positions. 
 Matthew^s, then, appears to be in exact order of time, 
 and to be a regulator to Mark’s and liuke’s, showing 
 Mark’s to be nearly so, but Luke’s to have little or no 
 regard to the order of time in his account of Christ’s 
 ministry. John’s gospel is like Matthew’s, in order of 
 time ; but as he wrote after all the other evangelists, and 
 with a view only of recording some remarkable par- 
 ticulars, such as Christ’s actions before he left Judea 
 to go to preach in Galilee, his disputes with the Jews 
 of Jerusalem, and his discourses to the apostles at 
 his last supper, there was less opportunity for this 
 evangelist’s local memory to show itself. Yet his 
 recording what passed before Christ’s going into Gali- 
 lee might be m part from this cause ; as Matthew’s 
 omission of it was probably from his want of this local 
 memory. For it appears that Matthew resided in 
 Galilee, and that he was not converted till some time 
 after Christ’s going thither to preach. Now this suitable- 
 
80 GE^UINENESS A^D AUTHENTICITY 
 
 ness of the four gospels to their reputed authors, in a 
 circumstance of so subtle and recluse a nature, is quite 
 inconsistent with the supposition of fiction or forgery. 
 This remark is originally due to Sir Isaac Newton^. 
 
 Fourthly. If we could suppose the persons who 
 forged the books of the Old and New Testaments to 
 have furnished their readers with a great variety of 
 particulars mentioned above, notwithstanding the two 
 reasons here alleged against it, w^e cannot, however, 
 conceive, but that the persons of those times, when the 
 books were published, must, by the help of these cri- 
 teria, have detected and exposed the forgeries or false- 
 hoods. For these criteria are so attested by allowed 
 facts, as at this time, and in these remote parts of the 
 world, to establish the authenticity and genuineness of 
 the Scriptures; and, by parity of reason, they would 
 suffice even now to detect the fraud, were there any : 
 whence we may conclude, d fortiori, that they must 
 have enabled the persons who were upon the spot 
 when the books were thus circulated to do this ; and 
 the importance of many of the particulars recorded, 
 many of the renunciations required, would furnish them 
 with abundant motives for this purpose. So that upon 
 the whole it may be safely inferred, that the very great 
 number of particulars of time, place, persons, &c. men- 
 tioned in the Scriptures, is a proof of their genuineness 
 and truth ; even independently of the consideration of 
 the agreement of these particulars with history, natural 
 and civil, and the agreement of the several books with 
 themselves and with one another. 
 
 Were I to rest the proof of the genuineness and 
 authenticity of the Scriptures solely upon what has 
 been already advanced in this letter, I might safely 
 challenge the most learned men to adduce evidence of 
 any thing like equal weight in proof of the genuineness 
 of Caesar's Commentaries, Pliny's Letters, Livy's Ro- 
 man History, Tacitus’s Annals, or any other pieces 
 
 ® See his chapter on the birth and passion of Christ in his Com- 
 ment on Daniel. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 81 
 
 preserved to us from antiquity, and received without 
 hesitation by all except madmen. But I am unwilling 
 to quit a subject so copious and important without 
 going still farther than this, and bringing forward other 
 evidence in favour of particular portions of the Bible, 
 from which their antiquity and genuineness will be 
 placed in the most incontrovertible light. Here though, 
 that our inquiry may be circumscribed within moderate 
 limits, I must make selections ; and shall for the most 
 part speak of those books the authority of which has 
 been most disputed by unbelievers. 
 
 Let us, then, for a first example, inquire into parti- 
 cular proofs of the authenticity of the Pentateuch. 
 And here the evidences are numerous, various, and 
 striking : I shall select the most prominent. First, an- 
 cient heathen writers testify to Moses and his writings 
 in some way or other. Tims Manetho, Cheremon, 
 Apollonius, Lysimachus, and many others, testify that 
 Moses was the leader of the Jews, and the w'riter of 
 their Law. Eiipolemus, Artapanus, Strabo, Trogus 
 Px)mpeius, Chalcidius, and Juvenal, speak of Moses 
 as the author of a volume which was preserved with 
 great care among the Jews, by which the worship of 
 images and eating of swine’s llesh were forbidden, cir- 
 cumcision and the observation of the Sabbath strictly 
 enjoineeP. Longinus cites Moses as the Lawgiver of 
 the Jews, and a person of no inconsiderable character: 
 and adds, that he has given a noble specimen of the 
 true sublime in his account of the creation of the world, 
 when light was called into existence®. Diodorus Sicu- 
 lus in his Catalogue of those lawgivers who affected to 
 have received the plan of their laws from some deity, 
 mentions Moses as ascribing his to that God whom he 
 calls Jaohy or Jah. And farther he speaks of Moses as 
 a man illustrious for his courage and prudence, who 
 instituted the Jewish religion and law^s, divided the 
 Jews into twelve tribes, established the priesthood 
 
 It will be sufficient to refer to Juv. Sat. xiv. ver. 96 — 106. 
 
 ® Long. De Sublim. § 9, p. 50. Pearce’s 8vo. ed. 1732. 
 
 G 
 
GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 82 
 
 among them with a judicial power®, &c. Numenius, a 
 Pythagorean, held the Jewish Scriptures, and especially 
 the books of Moses, in such great esteem, that his books 
 of the chief good, &c. are full of passages quoted from 
 Moses and some of the prophets with great reverence. 
 He says, Plato was only Moses speaking Greek/^ and 
 affirms that Moses, by his prayers, brought dreadful 
 calamities upon Egypt Justin Martyr enumerates 
 many poets, historians, lawgivers, and philosophers of 
 Greece, who mention Moses as the leader and prince 
 of the Jewish nation Berosus and Abydenus, men- 
 tion the deluge. Artapanus, Eupolemus, and Aby- 
 denus, speak of the tower of Babel ; and the latter 
 of the failure of that enterprise. Diodorus Siculus, 
 Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, and Solinus, agree in giving an 
 account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in 
 the main agreeable to that of Moses Berosus, Alex- 
 ander Polyhistor, and others, make express and honour- 
 able mention of Abraham, and some of his family ; 
 and even speak of his interview with Melchisedec. 
 
 Secondly. The genuineness and authenticity of the 
 books of Moses may be inferred from their being men- 
 tioned in other books of Scripture. Thus, in the book 
 of Joshua, in both the books of Kings, in the second 
 book of Chronicles, in the books of Ezra, of Daniel, of 
 Malachi, the writingof theLaw is unequivocally ascribed 
 to Moses. The divine mission of Moses is attested in 
 the first book of Chronicles, in the Psalms, the prophe- 
 cies of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Several of the miraculous 
 facts recorded in these books suggest to the Prophets 
 their finest images Each of the five books of Moses 
 
 ® Diod. Sic. ap. Phot Bib. 
 
 Euseb. Prsep. Ev. ix. 8 ; xi. 10. Orig. Contra Cels. lib. iv. 
 
 Just. Cohort, ad Gent. p. 9 — 11. It may be added, that Por- 
 phyry, one of the most acute and learned enemies of Christianity, 
 admitted the genuineness of the Pentateuch ; and contended for the 
 truth of Sanchoniathan’s account of the Jews, from its coincidence 
 v» ith the Mosaic history. Celsus also admitted it. 
 
 *2 Tacit. Hist. 1. v. c. vii. Plin. Nat. Hist. Solinius. c. xxxvi. 
 
 Vide Eden, Ezek. xxviii. 13. The Deluge, Is. xxiv. 18. So' 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 83 
 
 is referred to, or separately quoted, by Christ himself 
 in the Gospels. And, after his resurrection, his Apotles 
 add their testimony, not only to the fact that the law 
 was written by Moses, but that it was written under 
 the superintendence of inspiration 
 
 Thirdly, The fact is affirmed in the books them- 
 selves. Thus, in Exodus, Moses wrote all the words 
 of the Lord ; and took the book of the Covenant, and 
 read it in the audience of the people/^ And again, in 
 the book of Deuteronomy, part of which appears, as 
 Bp. Watson observes, to be a kind of repetition or 
 abridgment of the four preceding books. — When 
 Moses had made an end of writing the words of this 
 law in a book, until they were finished, Moses com- 
 manded the Levites which bare the ark of the covenant 
 of the Lord, saying — Take this book of the Law, and 
 put it into the side of the ark of the covenant of the 
 Lord your God, that it may be there fora witness against 
 thee^^^^ In conformity with this it was testified, full 
 eight hundred years after, in the 2d book of Kings, and 
 the 2d book of Chronicles: Hilkiah said to Shaphan 
 the scribe, I have found the hook of the Law in the 
 house of the Lord.^^ “ Hilkiah the priest found a book 
 of the Law of the Lord given by Moses^^, 
 
 Fourthly. Moses in these books gives a detailed ac- 
 count of various miracles openly wrought by himself, 
 and of several miraculous interpositions of God in tes- 
 timony of his divine mission : practices and ceremonies 
 among the Jews were founded upon those miraculous 
 events. The books of Moses also contain prophecies, 
 as that which declares that the seed of the woman 
 shall bruise the serpent’s head,^’ the prophecies of the 
 dying patriarch Jacob, and that of a prophet like unto 
 
 dom and Gomorrah, Is. xxxiv. 9. The Exodus, Is. xi. 15, 16 ; xliii. 
 16 — 19 li. 9. 10. Descent on Sinai, Micah, i. 3, 4., Acts, iii. 22; 
 vii. 35 — 37 ; xiii. 39 ; xxvi. 22 ; xxviii. 23. Rom. x. 5. 1 Cor. x. 2. 
 
 2 Cor. ill. 7 — 15. Heb. iii. 2 ; vii. 14 ; x. 28. Rev. xv. 3, &c. 
 
 See note 13. Ex. xxiv. 4, 7. Deut. xxxi. 24 —20,. 
 
 2 Kings,, xxii. 8., 2 Chr., xxxiv. 14., 
 
84 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 Moses.” Now the existence of the customs and cere- 
 monies proves the actual occurrence of the miraculous 
 facts, and these establish the fidelity of the writings, 
 and the divine authority under which Moses acted. 
 So likewise the accomplishment of the prophecies proves 
 that they were dictated by God. Had not the miracles 
 taken place, it would be absurd to imagine the books 
 could ever have been received, or the practices we advert 
 to introduced. But the arguments suggested under this 
 head will be enlarged upon in subsequent letters. I now 
 proceed to remark with regard to the books of Moses : 
 
 Lastly. That their reception among the Jews proves 
 that they were written by Moses, and that what he 
 affirms respecting the divine dictation of greater part 
 of them is true. Paul says, Even unto this day, 
 ivhen Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart 
 that is, the Jews are ignorant of the true spiritual 
 meaning of the Mosaic writings. Whence it is evident 
 that, in his time, these writings were read regularly 
 among the Jews, and had long been so. Again, Jose- 
 phus, in his book against Appion, says, We (the 
 Jews) have two-and-twenty books which are to be be- 
 lieved as of divine authority, and which comprehend 
 the history of all ages : Jive belong to Moses, which 
 contain the origin of man, and the tradition of the 
 succession of generations down to his death ; which 
 takes in a compass of about three thousand years.” 
 Maimomdes also, in the eleventh century, drew up a 
 confession of faith for the Jews, which all of them at 
 this day admit. Two of its articles relate to Moses: 
 they are, 1. ''The doctrine and prophecy of Moses 
 is true.” 2. " The law that we have was given by 
 Moses.” The Jews, then, from the time of Josephus 
 down to the present, have ascribed the Pentateuch to 
 
 *■7 2 Cor. iii. 15. Spinoza’s objections to tlie books of Moses, as 
 well as his assertion that they were not written by Moses but by 
 Ezra, or essentially altered by him, are very completely refuted, and 
 shown to involve the most monstrous absurdities, by Abbadie in bis 
 “ Vindication of the Truth of the Christian Religion.” 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 85 
 
 Moses. Assume the hypothesis that these five books 
 were forg-ed any time between Moses and Josephus, 
 and mark the great absurdity thereby produced; you 
 must, in consequence, believe that at some one period 
 the whole Jewish nation suffered themselves to be 
 deluded, to adopt burdensome rites in remembrance 
 of events which they knew never occurred, and to re- 
 ceive, as the law which was ever after to regulate their 
 conduct, rules contrived by a vile pretender, who en- 
 deavoured to palm them upon them as laws emanating 
 from the Supreme Being himself. This is in itself so 
 extremely preposterous and improbable, that I might 
 safely have rested the authority of the Pentateuch upon 
 the present argument alone, were it not that as this 
 portion of the Bible has been more exposed than any 
 other to infidel attacks, I thought it right to show that, 
 fortified as it is on all points, it may fairly be reckoned 
 impregnable 
 
 Another very strong argument in favour of the authenticity of 
 the Pentateuch is derived from the variety of minute allusions, and 
 indirect coincidences, between the book of Deuteronomy and the 
 preceding books : coincidences such as would never have been found 
 in /or^rcd compositions. This argument has been established upon 
 numerous instances selected by the late Dean Graves, of Trinity Col- 
 lege, Dublin, in his valuable “ Lectures on the Pentateuch.” The 
 genuineness of one of the books, Exodus, may also be inferred from 
 the short and modest account of eighty years of Moses’s life, pre- 
 ceding his Divine Mission, comprised in iwenty-two verses. Many 
 collateral proofs establishing the truth of important facts related in 
 the books of Moses might easily be adduced. Thus, although the 
 history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is recorded in the 
 Bible, it cannot thence be contended that the testimony of the Dead 
 Sea, and the present state of its waters, (see Dr. Marcet’s analysis 
 of them in Phil. Trans. 1807), ceases to be applicable or credible. 
 Thus, again, the tribes of Arabs which deduce their descent from 
 Ishmael, cannot be denied to be at least some authority for the exist- 
 ence of Ishmael’s father. Thus, also, the pyramids of Egypt demon- 
 strate, at the present period, the slavery of the people who built 
 them ; and the last of them indicates the unfinished state in which 
 the business was left by the workmen : so that even architectural 
 antiquities, as well as profane history, which names the chiefs of the 
 Hebrews as builders of these mountains, serve to confirm the truth of 
 
86 
 
 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 I shall now pass to the book of Job, the authenticity 
 of which has been more questioned than any of the 
 historical parts of Scripture next to the Pentateuch. 
 The great antiquity of this book, however, has not, as 
 far as I recollect, been much disputed. But it has 
 been made a question, "" Is this book dramatic or nar- 
 rative Or, '"Was there ever such a man as Job 
 Now, although the Apostle Paul, in his first Epistle to 
 the Corinthians, quotes a passage from the book of Job 
 with his accustomed reference to a book of Divine 
 Authority, " For it is written^^ \ yet this does not de- 
 termine the point. But the reality of the history, 
 however poetical and elevated the style may be, may 
 be fairly inferred from the prophecies of Ezekiel, and 
 the Epistle of James. In the former, God himself, in 
 speaking to the prophet, repeatedly mentions Job, in 
 
 the residence of the Israelites in Egypt, and consequently appear in 
 support of the authenticity of the Mosaic history. 
 
 I cannot help swelling this already long note, by pointing to one 
 remarkable historical fact, which proves the existence of the law of 
 Moses at the dissolution of the kingdom of Israel, when the ten 
 tribes were carried captive to Assyria by Shalmaneser, and dispersed 
 among the provinces of that extensive empire *, that is, about seven 
 hundred and forty-one years before Christ. It was about that time 
 the Samaritans were transported from Assyria to repeople the coun- 
 try, which the ten captive tribes of Israel had formerly inhabited. 
 The posterity of the Samaritans still inhabit the land of their fathers, 
 and have preserved copies of the Pentateuch, two or three of which 
 were brought to this country in the last century but one. The Sama- 
 ritan Pentateuch is written in old Hebrew characters, and therefore 
 must have existed before the titne of Ezra. But so violent were the 
 animosities which subsisted between the Jews and Samaritans, that 
 in no period of their history would the one nation have received any 
 books from the other. They must therefore have received them at 
 their first settlement in Samaria from the captive priest whom the 
 Assyrian monarch sent to teach them how they should fear the Lord, 
 (2 Kings, xvii. 27). This observation is due to M. Dupin, whose 
 defence of the books of Moses, against the objections of Hobbes, 
 Spinoza, and F. Simon, is most complete and decisive. As it is too 
 extensive for insertion here, I refer to the Preliminary Dissertation 
 in tl)e first volume of his Bibliotheca Patrum» 
 
 1 Cor. iii. 19. Job. v. 13. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 87 
 
 conjunction with J^oah and Daniel, as men of extraor- 
 dinary righteousness. Though these three men, 
 Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver 
 but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the 
 Lord GodJ^ And in the latter, James exhibits the 
 patience of Job, and its reward, as an example and 
 encouragement to professing Christians These pas- 
 sages prove, satisfactorily, I think, that Job was a real, 
 and not an ideal, character. It is probable this book 
 of Job has greater antiquity than any other in the Old 
 Testament: for it contains no allusion to the children 
 of Israel, to their grievous afflictions in Egypt, or their 
 happy deliverance from them ; though these topics 
 would have given fine scope to Job and his friends in 
 their various conferences. It should seem, indeed, 
 from the age to which Job lived (but little less than 
 two hundred years), that he was a contemporary with 
 the ancient Hebrew patriarchs ; and that Uz, his coun- 
 try, was in Edom. The book was most probably 
 written by Moses while he was in the land of Midian, 
 where he had opportunity of coming to the knowledge 
 of this history ; and, seeing that it might be very useful 
 to comfort and direct the Israelites, wrote it, under 
 divine superintendence, for their benefit. Thus much, 
 at least, is clear; that the book was written by a He- 
 brew, by one who had been in Arabia, and by one who 
 wrote before the promulgation of the Mosaic law : these 
 criteria all attach to Moses, and to no other. Besides 
 this, Hebrew scholars affirm that, in the original, the 
 language is often peculiar, the expressions being such 
 as are met with in the writings of Moses, and no where 
 else. This book is indeed the only one from which we 
 can derive a correct knowledge of the patriarchal reli- 
 gion, and which ‘Ogives completion to the Bible, by 
 adding the dispensation of the earliest ages to those of 
 the Law and of the Gospel, by which it was succes- 
 sively superseded 
 
 Ezek. xiv. 14, 16, 18, 20. James, v. 11. 
 
 See farther, J. D. Michaelis in R. Lowth Praelectiones, Notae, et 
 
88 
 
 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 As to the Prophecies, the only other compositions 
 in the Old Testament I intend to specify here, it may 
 be observed, that they all entered the Septuagint ver- 
 sion of which I have already spoken, and which was 
 executed at least two hundred and eighty-seven years 
 before Christ, through the means of Demetrius Phale- 
 reus, and by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
 I know very well that Dean Prideaux affirms, on the 
 evidence of Philo, Josephus, and a few others, who had 
 never seen the original version of the LXX, that it only 
 contained the law. But Aristobulus, who was an 
 Alexandrian Jew, tutor to an Egyptian king, living 
 within one hundred years after the translation was 
 made, and having free access to it in the Royal library, 
 affirms, that the lahole Sacred Scripture was rightly 
 translated,"'^ by the means just mentioned. And Justin 
 Martyr says expressly that it contained the prophetic 
 writings, and indeed quotes the prophets including 
 Moses from it, because he says that very translation 
 was then in the hands of almost every Jew all the 
 world over^V^ Here, then, is strong evidence of the 
 correctness of the original Greek translation. And the 
 general correspondence of the Hebrew Bibles now in 
 existence, and of the Septuagint copies in Greek, is a 
 proof that both have been handed down to us without 
 material variation, and that either is therefore, in the 
 main, genuine and authentic. Thus, then, we estab- 
 lish the existence of the Prophetical books of the Old 
 Testament (nearly as we now have them) at least tw^o 
 hundred and eighty-seven years before the Christian 
 era; and we may farther remark, that most of them 
 
 Epimetra, p. 185. Thomas Scotf s Translation of Job ; and the ele- 
 gant Introductory Dissertation to the recent translation of “ The Book 
 of Job,” by my late learned friend Dr. John Mason Good, F. R. S. 
 
 The substance of this dissertation is now inserted in my Memoirs 
 of the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Good. 
 
 Euseb. Praep. Evan. 1. 1. Just. Marl. Apol. ii. sect. 38. See 
 also Origen^s quotation from the Septuagint version of Isaiah, in the 
 following Letter on Prophecy, and Gregorie on the LXX Inter- 
 preters. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 89 
 
 are referred to and quoted, often with high distinction, 
 by Christ and his Apostles, in the several passages 
 mentioned below 1 shall only add, that our Savi- 
 our’s emphatic language, “ All things must be fulfilled 
 which were wn’itten in the Law of Aloses, and in the 
 Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me^V^ is a re- 
 markable attestation in favour of the truth, in the fullest 
 sense, of all the books of the Old Testament, since 
 he here adopts the threefold distribution under which 
 the Jews comprehended every portion of their Sacred 
 Volume. 
 
 That this latter testimony, however, may bear upon 
 our inquiry with all the weight to which it is entitled, 
 it is now requisite that we investigate the genuineness 
 and authenticity of the New Testament. And here, in 
 addition to the general arguments advanced in the be- 
 ginning of this letter, I shall adduce a few particular 
 
 23 in Matt. iv. 14 ; viii. 17 ; xii. 17; xiii. 14. Mark,vii.6. 
 
 Luke, iii. 4 ; iv. 7. John, xii. 39, 41. Acts, viii. 28; xxviii. 25. 
 Rom. ix. 27 ; x. 10, 20, &c. Jeremiah, Matt. ii. 17, 18 ; xvi. 14. 
 Ezekiel, compare Rev. xix. 17 — 21; xx. 8, 9, with Ezek. xxxviii. 
 and xxxix. 1 — 20. Daniel, Ezek. xiv. 14 ; xxviii. 3. Matt. xxiv. 
 15. Pdark xlii. 14. Hosea, Matt. ii. 15 ; ix. 13 ; xii. 7. Rom. ix. 
 25, 26. Joel, Acts, ii. 16. Rom. x. 13. Amos, Acts, vii. 42, 43; 
 XV. 15, 17. Jonah, Matt. xii. 39, 41; xiv. 4. Luke, xi. 29, 30. 
 Micah, Matt. ii. 5, 6. John, vii. 42. Habakkuk, Acts, xiii. 41. 
 Rom. i. 17. Gal. iii. 2. Heb. x. 37, 38. Haggai, Heb. ii. 26. 
 Zechariah, Matt. xxi. 4, 5 ; xxvi. 31. Mark, xiv. 27. John, xii. 15 ; 
 xix. 37. Rev. i. 7. Malachi, Matt. xi. 10 ; xvii. 10 — 12. Mark, 
 i. 2 ; ix. 12. Luke, i. 16, 17 ; vii. 27 ; xvi. 26. Rom. ix. 13. 
 
 2^ Luke, xxiv. 14. — In favour of the genuineness of our present 
 text of the prophecies, the following very just observation deserves 
 attention. “ It may be inferred from the admission of Celsus, that 
 the prophecies were found in the Jewish Scriptures in his time; and 
 since then no alteration has been made in them by the Jews. But if 
 so, this is the strongest presumption that the Jews had never altered 
 them before. For, if, when by the fulfilment of the prophecies in the 
 person of Christ, they were most tempted to erase predictions, so 
 hostile to their own creed, they made no change, much less would 
 they do it when the temptation was diminished.” See Mr. F. Cun- 
 ningham’s Hulsean Prize Essay on the books of Origen against 
 Celsus. The same inference is deducible from Justin Martyr’s con- 
 troversy with Trypho the Jew. 
 
90 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 evidences. Now, first, it is indisputable, that the pri- 
 mitive publishers of Christianity wrote books contain- 
 ing an account of the life and doctrine of their master, 
 several of which bore the names of the various books 
 which now constitute the New Testament ; and, far- 
 ther, passages cited from those books by very early 
 writers, are found in the copies now existing of the 
 respective books. Secondly, the early Christians had 
 as good opportunities of satisfying themselves as to 
 the genuineness of these books, as other ancients had 
 with regard to the genuineness of books on other sub- 
 jects which they received : and since the new religion 
 required considerable renunciations, and exposed its 
 professors to heavy persecutions, it is unreasonable to 
 suppose they would adopt it without a due examina- 
 tion. Thirdly, there were many books issued under 
 the names of the Apostles, which were, notwithstanding, 
 rejected by the primitive Christians ; which proves that 
 they were not very open to deception. Fourthly, we 
 do not find that either the Jews or the Heathens, with 
 whom the early Christian apologists were engaged, 
 ever called in question the genuineness of the records 
 to which their attention was called. Fifthly, the books 
 of the New Testament were, in very early times, col- 
 lected into a distinct volume. Thus, Eusebius says 
 that Quadratus and others, the immediate successors 
 of the apostles, carried the Gospels with them in their 
 travels. Melito speaks of the Old Testament, as in 
 contradiction to the collection called the New Testa- 
 ment. Tertullian divides the Christian Scriptures 
 into the Gospels and Apostles, and calls the whole 
 volume the New Testament^^, 
 
 But, farther, the principal books of the New Testa- 
 ment are quoted, or alluded to, by a series of Christian 
 writers, in regular succession from the apostolic times. 
 Ignatius, for example, became bishop of Antioch 
 
 See on this, and connected subjects, Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 
 lib. ii. cap. 23 ; lib. iii. cap. 3, 4. 25. 39 ; lib. v. cap. 8. 24 ; lib. vi. 
 cap. 21. 23 j lib. vii. cap. 25, &c. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 91 
 
 ihirty-seven years after Christas ascension. In his 
 most interesting;' Epistles are undoubted allusions to 
 the Gospels of Matthew and John, though they are not 
 marked as quotations. 
 
 Polycarp, who had been taught by the Apostles, and 
 conversed with many who had seen Christ, has nearly 
 forty allusions to the New Testament in one short 
 epistle, several of them quoted, without hesitation, as 
 the words of Christ. He obviously quotes from Mat- 
 thew, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, 
 Ephesians, Philippians, 1st and 2d Thessalonians, 1st 
 and 2d Timothy, 1st Peter, and 1st John. 
 
 Justin Martyr, who died at latest about the year 
 163, has several distinct and copious extracts from the 
 Gospels and the Acts: and by his calling Jesus Christ 
 the Son of God and ApostleJ'^ which is no where done 
 in Scripture but in Hebrews iii. 1, it would seem that 
 he was acquainted with that Epistle. In all his works 
 there are but two instances in which he refers to any 
 thing, as said or done by Christ, which is not related in 
 the Gospels now extant. All his references suppose the 
 books notorious, and that there were no other accounts 
 of Christ received and credited. He also says expressly, 
 that the Memoirs of the Apostles (which elsewhere 
 he calls the Gospels) are read in public worship.” 
 
 Hegesippus, a converted Jew, who flourished thirty 
 years after Justin, says, that in his journey from Pales- 
 tine to Rome, in every city the same doctrine was 
 taught, which the law, and the prophets, and the Lord 
 teacheth.” 
 
 PoTHiNus, bishop of Lyons about 170, then ninety 
 years old, sent an epistle to Asia containing an account 
 of the sufferings of that Church. In this epistle he 
 makes exact references to the Gospels of liuke and 
 John, and to the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 iRENiEUs, successor to Pothinus, and who asserts 
 that ‘‘ he had seen Poly carp,” gives positive testimony 
 to most of the books of the New Testament. He does 
 not, however, quote Jude : but from the book of Reve- 
 lation he makes frequent and large quotations. He 
 
GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 92 
 
 asserts, that the story which the Gospels exhibit is that 
 which the Apostles told, and that the Gospels were 
 written, as the foundation and pillar of our faith,” 
 He then describes the authors, traces the origin, and 
 defends the genuineness of their histories. He affirms 
 also, that in his time there were four, and only four 
 Gospels, which by his references appear to be those 
 we now have 
 
 These persons, it should be remarked, though their 
 
 26 Words can scarcely be framed to declare more clearly the au- 
 thenticity of the four Gospels, than the following from the Third 
 Book of Irenaeus, against Heresies : — “ We have not received,” says 
 this Father, “ the knowledge of the way of our salvation by any other 
 than those by whom the Gospel has been brought to us ; which Gos- 
 pel they first preached, and afterwards by the will of God committed 
 to writing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pil- 
 lar of our faith. For after our Lord rose from the dead, and they 
 (the Apostles) were endued from above with the power of the Holy 
 Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge 
 of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, de- 
 claring to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them, 
 and every one alike, the Gospel of God. Matthew then, among the 
 Jews, wrote a Gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul 
 were preaching the Gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. 
 And after their exit (death, or departure), Mark also, the disciple 
 and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things that 
 had been preached by Peter : and Luke, the companion of Paul, put 
 down in a book the Gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterwards 
 John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he 
 likewise published a Gospel while he dwelt at Ephesus, in Asia. And 
 all these have delivered to us, that there is one God, the Maker of 
 the heaven and the earth, declared by the law and the prophets, and 
 one Christ, the Son of God.” “ The Word,” says he again, “ the 
 former of all things, who sits upon the cherubim and upholdeth all 
 things, having appeared unto men, has given us a Gospel of a four- 
 fold character, but joined in one spirit. — The Gospel according to 
 John, declares his primary and glorious generation from the Father, 
 In the heyinning ims the Word, — But the Gospel according to Luke 
 being of a priestly character, begins with Zacharias the priest offer- 
 ing incense to God. — Matthew relates his generation, which is ac- 
 cording to man, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
 David, the Son of Abraham. — Mark begins from the prophetic spirit 
 which came down from above to men, saying. The beginning of the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet Adv. 
 Haeres. lib. iii. c. 11, et apud Grabe, p. 221 j vide Larduer’s Credi- 
 bility, vol. ii. p. 159, edit. Kippis. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 93 
 
 testimonies concur, lived in countries remote from one 
 another. Ignatius flourished at Antioch ; Poly carp at 
 Smyrna; Justin Martyr, in Syria; Polhynus and Ire- 
 nseus, in France. 
 
 Athenagoras, who lived between 166 and 178, and 
 before his conversion was an Athenian philosopher, 
 wrote an able Apology for Christianity, which he ad- 
 dressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 
 and Lucius Commodus. In this, and in his discourse 
 on the Resurrection, he quotes Matthew, Luke, John, 
 Acts, Romans, 1st and 2d Corinthians, Galatians, and 
 1st Timothy. He seems also to refer to passages in 
 James, 2d Peter, and Revelation. 
 
 Tertullian, presbyter of Carthage, flourished at the 
 end of the second and beginning of the third century. 
 In his works, which are numerous and still well known, 
 he expressly cjuotes all the books of the New Testa- 
 ment, except James, \he, second epistle of Peter, and the 
 third of John. It has been remarked, that there are 
 more quotations from the New Testament in his writ- 
 ings, than from the various writings of Tully in all 
 the ancient books in the w^orld. This writer intimates, 
 that the actual autographs of the Apostolic waitings, or 
 at least some of them, were preserved till the age in 
 wdiich he lived, and were then to be seen‘^^. 
 
 After Tertullian, the successive, though in part co- 
 temporaneous wu'iters, Hippolytus, Origen, Gregory, 
 Dionysius, Cyprian, Arnobius, &c. all of whom fur- 
 nish strong and decided testimonies, bring us to the 
 time of FiUSEBius, who flourished about the year 315, 
 and w^as the most accurate historian among the ancient 
 Christian writers. He mentions it as a fact well known, 
 and asserted by Origen and others, his predecessors, 
 that the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
 Jolm, the Epistles of St. Paid, one of Peter, and one of 
 
 Age jam, qui voles curiositatem melius exercere in iiegotio sa- 
 lutis tiiae, percune Ecclesias Apostolicas, apud quas ipsae adhuc 
 cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesident, apud quas ipsae Authen- 
 ticae Literae eorum recilaiitur. De Prcescrijit. adversus Hcereticos. 
 
94 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 John, were universally received by the Church. He 
 says Origen calls them evayyfXia avavripprjra and 
 opLokoyafievoL, as not being able to find that they had 
 ever been disputed. And, though the Acts are not 
 expressly mentioned by Origen in this catalogue, Eu- 
 sebius himself declares that he has no scruple concern- 
 ing that book ; nay, even Origen, in another place, 
 mentions the Acts as written by Luke, and pays the 
 same regard to them as to the other books of the New 
 Testament. Origen, in fact, quotes from twenty-nine 
 books of the Old Testament, from all in the New but 
 the Epistle to Philemon, 2 John, and Jude; and his 
 quotations correspond very accurately with our present 
 text. As to those seven books of the New Testament, 
 i. e, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, 
 the 2d of Peter, the 2d and 3d of John, Jude, and the 
 Revelation, which had been disputed, and were there- 
 fore called by Eusebius avTiXeyop evoi ; even he asserts, 
 that they were at length introduced into the Canon, 
 that is, into the number of those books which Christians 
 regard as the rule of their faith and practice, and which 
 they distinguish from other books written by persons 
 whom they thought less eminently under the divine 
 direction, whatever their sanctity might be^®. 
 
 From the time of Eusebius, the works of Christian 
 
 Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 1. iii. c. xxv. Jerom also affirms that the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews “ has been received as the Apostle Paul’s 
 not only by the eastern churches, but by all the ancient churches.” 
 Besides this, let it be remarked, that St. Peter’s reference in his 2d 
 Epistle, iii. 15, 16, is, evidently, to the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 Bishop Kidder has an observation relative to this epistle, richly 
 worth transcribing: — “ Of all the books of the New Testament, I 
 know not any, where the mystical senses of the passages of the Old 
 Testament, and applications of them to the Messias (current among 
 the Jews), are so frequent as in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This 
 is a probable argument (independent of all others) that it was writ- 
 ten by St. Paul ; who, having been brought up by Gamaliel, a famous 
 doctor, may be presumed to be well versed in the mystical sense of 
 the places of the Old Testament. And he might use the greater 
 liberty in this way, because he wrote to the Hebrews, who were 
 much used to that way of interpretation, and were best able to judge' 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 95 
 
 writers abound in references to the New Testament. 
 But, instead of citing- more, I may next observe, that 
 the Scriptures were spoken of, and either received, or 
 so appealed to, by the various early sects among Chris- 
 tians, as to prove their existence, nearly in the present 
 shape. Thus, Tertullian assures us that Dositheiis (who 
 was a cotemporary with the Apostles) was the first 
 who dared to reject the authority of the prophets, by 
 denying their inspiration : but both he and his fol- 
 lowers allowed the five books of Moses to be divine. 
 The Ebionites again, in the first century, allowed the 
 existence of all the books of the New Testament, but 
 only received as divine the Gospel by Matthew. The 
 Valentinians, about the year 120, appealed to the evan- 
 gelic and apostolic writings. The testimony of Chry- 
 sostom (A. D. 398) is, that “ though many heresies 
 have arisen, yet all have received the Gospels^ either 
 entire or in part.^^ 
 
 In favour of the early existence of the principal 
 books of the New^ Testament, I must not forget to urge 
 that the first heathen adversaries of Christianity speak 
 of the historical books as containing the accounts upon 
 which the religion was founded. Celsus, for example, 
 in the second century, writing against Christianity, 
 
 of that method which he used. I cannot but relate a passage of a 
 late learned writer upon this occasion. (P. Siiiiou, Hist. Crit. N. T. 
 c. 21.) He tells that he gave this Epistle to the Hebrews to a Jew 
 to read, who was greatl}' acquainted with their ancient authors. Upon 
 the perusal of it, the Jew frankly avowed that that book could be 
 writ by none but by some great Mehabul (i. e, man of tradition) of 
 his own nation. This Jew was so far from affirming that the writer 
 of that Epistle has set aside the true sense of the Scripture, by alle- 
 gories according to his own fancy, that he celebrated his profound 
 knowledge in the sublime sense of the Bible, and spake of this great 
 Mekabul (as he called him) with admiration.” Kidder’s Messias, 
 Part ii. c. 5. 
 
 For a masterly examination of the internal evidence furnished by 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it was written by Paul, and a can- 
 did investigation of the objections of Bertholdt, Schultz, &:c. see 
 Stuart’s Commentary on the Hebrews, vol. i. 
 
9G GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 alludes to books written by the disciples of Jesus. He 
 accuses the Christians of altering the Gospel, but this 
 accusation is not made out by any important variations 
 existing in the present day. He says his arguments 
 are drawn from their own loritings : and he evidently 
 quotes from Matthew^s and John^s Gospels, from the 
 Acts of the Apostles, from the various Epistles of Paul, 
 Peter, and John. He makes the largest and most 
 remarkable concessions about Jesus Christ; acknow- 
 ledging the truth of his nativity, his journey into Egypt, 
 his passing from place to place with his disciples, the 
 fact of his miracles, his being betrayed, and lastly his 
 passion and death; affirming, that after he was be- 
 trayed, he was bound, scourged,^^ — stretched 
 upon the cross,^’ — that he ‘‘ drank vinegar,’^ — that after 
 his death he was said to have appeared twice,’^ but 
 that he did not appear to his enemies.^^ He speaks, 
 moreover, of the slaughter of the infants, of the descent 
 of the Holy Ghost, of Christ’s divinity, his worship ; 
 and collectively of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
 It is true he ridicules most of these particulars; but he 
 does not attempt to deny them, which he would have 
 been ready enough to do, could he have done it with 
 any show of reason He states, indeed, and this most 
 probably was the case, that the reading of certain pas- 
 sages was not exactly the same in all the copies; but 
 he never questions the truth of the proposition, that the 
 Gospels were written by the Apostles and Evangelists 
 to whom the first Christians have ascribed them. He 
 does not even let drop a single hint, or attempt an 
 argument upon the matter. And yet his opportunities 
 were excellent, his inclination is not to be doubted (for 
 
 Lardner’s Heath. Test. vol. iii. cap. 18 ; Cunningliain’s Hulsean 
 Essay, ]>p. 14, 20 ; and Gyles on the Authenticity of the New Testa- 
 ment, pp. 52, 56. By the way, the remarkable testimony of Tacitus 
 ought not to be omitted in this enumeration. “ Auctor nominis ejus 
 Chrisfus, qui, Tiberio imperante, per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum, 
 supplicio adfectns erat.” Annal. 1. xv. c. 44. The entire passage 
 from which this is extracted deserves attention. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 97 
 
 the passac^es preserved in Origen prove that he was a 
 most virulent opposer of Christianity), and his abilities 
 are extolled by the infidel writers themselves. We have 
 their own word for it, that he was a surprising philoso- 
 pher. We put it therefore to the judgment and the 
 candour of our adversaries, whether we are not suffi- 
 ciently w^arranted in the conclusion, that Celsus did 
 not call in question the genuineness of the inspired 
 records, because ‘ he could not find any plausible rea- 
 son for doing so,^ because he had marked his ground, 
 and was well aware that any insinuation which would 
 have affected their genuineness w'ould have affected 
 that of every ancient writer, and, if carried to its 
 utmost length, would have unsettled the foundations 
 of all historical belief.’^ 
 
 Porphyry again, in the third century, though a most 
 inveterate enemy to Christianity, not only allowed that 
 there was such a person as Christ, but honoured him 
 as a most wise and pious man, and one w ho was trans- 
 lated into heaven. He thought, however, that, by over- 
 throwing the Gospels and the Acts, he should overthrow 
 the Christian Religion itself. Speaking of Matthew, in 
 writing against the Christians, he calls him their Evan- 
 gelist. He possessed (says Michaelis) every advantage 
 which natural abilities or political situation could af- 
 ford, to discover w'hether the New Testament w^as a 
 genuine work of the Apostles and Evangelists, or whe- 
 ther it was imposed upon the world after the decease 
 of its pretended authors. But no trace of this suspicion 
 is any where to be found, nor did it ever occur to Por- 
 phyry to suppose that it was spurious 
 
 Julian, in the fourth century, recites the sayings of 
 Christ in the very words of the Evangelists, states the 
 early dates of these records, and calls them by the 
 names they now bear, without questioning their genu- 
 ineness. He endeavours to lessen the reputation of 
 Christ’s life and miracles, by telling the w^orld that he 
 
 Euseb. Dem. Evang. 1. iii. p. 134. Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. i. 
 p. 43. 
 
 H 
 
98 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 did nothing worthy of note all the while he was here 
 upon earth (notwithstanding all the noise that was 
 made about him), except a person will reckon it a great 
 work, to open the eyes of the blind, to restore limbs to 
 the lame, and deliver persons possessed, from the power 
 and enchantment of devils His great object seems 
 always to cause the Divinity of Jesus Christ to be sus- 
 pected ; and therefore he argues that neither Matthew^ 
 Mark, Luke, nor Paul himself, ever presumed in direct 
 terms to call him God, but it was St. John (o 
 iodvvijq) who talked after this manner : that John,, 
 perceiving how the persuasion of Christas being God 
 prevailed mightily among the Christians dispersed 
 through the cities of Greece and Italy, took upon him 
 to assert the same doctrine in his Gospel, with a view 
 to humour them, and obtain himself reputation Now, 
 however wrong may be the reason assigned here for 
 John’s conduct, the concession of Julian is important, 
 in so far as it proves that he took the writings which in 
 his time bore the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 
 
 Cyril Alexander, contra Julian. 1. vi. p. 191. Ed. Par. 1638. 
 
 Cyril contra Julian, 1. x. p. 327. In another place, Julian, after 
 certain accusations, says to the Christians, “ But these are your own 
 inventions ; for Jesus has no where directed you to do such things, 
 nor yet Paul : the reason is, that they never expected you would 
 arrive at such power : they were contented with deceiving maid- 
 servants and slaves, and by them some men and women ; such as 
 Cornelius and Sergius. If there were, then, any men of eminence 
 brought over to you, I mean in the times of Tiberius and Claudius, 
 when these things happened, let me pass for a liar in every thing I 
 say,” From this quotation we may conclude, that Christianity was 
 first preached in the reigns of the emperors Tiberius and Claudius ; 
 that Cornelius, a Roman Centurion at Caesarea, and Sergius Paulus, 
 Proconsul at Cyprus, were converted to the faith of Jesus before the 
 end of the reign of Claudius (Acts, x. and xiii.) j and that the Acts 
 of the Apostles is a genuine and true history. Dr. Lardner (vol. viii. 
 p. 404) states this argument very forcibly. Julian challenges the 
 Christians to produce the names of any eminent men (except Corne- 
 lius and Sergius Paulus) converted (from the Gentiles) to Christi- 
 anity in the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius. This is a proof that 
 Julian did not and could not contest the truth of the history in the 
 Acts of the Apostles. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 99 
 
 and Paul, to be the genuine productions of those au- 
 thors ; and farther, because it shows that John^s Gospel 
 bore then the same testimony respecting the divinity of 
 Jesus Christ which it now bears. 
 
 Besides these, there are several other evidences of 
 the genuineness and truth of the various books of the 
 New Testament, into which I cannot now enter mi- 
 nutely. But I must briefly advert to the cogent argu- 
 ments so ably advanced by the late venerable Dr. Paley, 
 drawn from the numerous obviously undesigned coinci- 
 dences, mutually subsisting between the several Epis- 
 tles of St. Paul, and the History of the Acts of the 
 Apostles : these coincidences are so little seen by com- 
 mon observers, that it is impossible to suppose them the 
 effect of forgery ; an examination of them is sufficient 
 to prove that neither the history was forged to square 
 with the letters, nor the letters to accord with the his- 
 tory; that they are too numerous and close to be 
 accounted for by the accidental, or by the designed, 
 concurrences of fiction, or in any other way than by 
 the uniformity of the tendency of truth to one point^\ 
 
 I have already remarked, on the authority of Euse- 
 bius, that some of the books now admitted into the 
 New Testament were for a while disputed in the early 
 ages of the Church. I may here add, that a few small 
 portions of particular books have had their authenticity 
 called in question by modern critics. Of the latter class 
 are the first two chapters of St. Matthew^s Gospel, 
 which have been recently much controverted by those 
 who impugn the doctrine, or rather fact, of Christ’s 
 miraculous conception, stated in those chapters, and 
 some of whom forget that the same fact is asserted in 
 Luke’s Gospel. Without entering at large into this 
 question, it may suffice to remark that Justin Martyr, 
 
 For a full developement and application of this train of argu- 
 mentation, see Dr. Paley’s admirable work, entitled “ Horce Pau~. 
 lincB.” This book has now been published thirty years, during all 
 which period, though many of the Infidel host have “ gnashed their 
 teeth” at it in private, not one has attempted to refute it. 
 
GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 100 
 
 and Clement of Alexandria, have quoted from these 
 two chapters, without signifying any doubt of their 
 authenticity ; that Celsus quotes more than once from 
 the first of these chapters, and refers to the second ; 
 and that Origen, in replying to him, admits that they 
 are authentic; that the massacre of the children (a 
 supposed incredible event on which the objections of 
 several rest) is confirmed by Macrobius^^ as a thing 
 well known in his time; and, lastly, to affirm, on the 
 authority of a very learned critic. Dr. Herbert Marsh, 
 in his valuable notes to Michaelis, that the evidence of 
 the Greek manuscripts is decidedly in favour of the 
 authenticity of these two chapters: and that the testi- 
 mony of the ancient versions is equally decisive, these 
 
 “ Augustus,” says he, (Satiirnal. lib. ii. cap. 4,) having been 
 informed that Herod had ordered a son of his own to be killed, among 
 the male infants within two years old, whom he had put to death in 
 Syria, said, ‘ it is better to be Herod’s hog than his son» ” 
 
 Voltaire, in arguing against this fact, with his usual unfairness, 
 avails himself of an idle tradition, that the children thus massacred 
 amounted to fifteen thousand. We can admit as readily as Voltaire, 
 that Bethlehem and all its territory would not, at any one moment, 
 contain fifteen thousand male children under two years of age: but 
 this is the language of an exaggerated tradition, and not the sober 
 statement of Holy Writ, so that we need feel no solicitude about it. 
 The testimony of Macrobius more than counterbalances the witti- 
 cisms of Voltaire. Besides, let it be recollected that Matthew’s 
 Gospel was published within so very few years of the event recorded, 
 that the enemies of the gospel, whose hostility was never at rest, 
 would, doubtless, have denied its occurrence on living authority, had 
 it been in their power ; yet no vestige of such denial is in existence. 
 Some persons lay great stress upon the silence of Josephus as to this 
 fact; but I think unnecessarily. Are we to call in question every 
 fact that is not mentioned by every historian ? Such a rule would level 
 all authentic history to its base. Tacitus has omitted many things 
 which Suetonius supplies, and Dion Cassius specifies many particu- 
 lars mentioned by neither of the other two; and, with regard to the 
 history of our own country, Philip Henry, Richard Baxter, and 
 Mrs. Hutchinson, relate many things, both curious and important, of 
 Charles I. and his cotemporaries, which none of our eminent histo- 
 rians have noticed. These are received by men of sound judgment 
 upon their own evidence, and without impeaching, in consequence, 
 the veracity of others who have not adverted to them. 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 101 
 
 chapters bein^ contained in them all. Besides, how 
 can it well be imagined that those two are spurious, 
 v/hen the beginning of the third chapter is considered ? 
 What writer would begin a history with the phrase. 
 In those days^^?’^ 
 
 You will expect that I should produce some evi- 
 dences in favour of the genuineness of the Apocalypse, 
 or Revelation of St. John, especially since this book 
 has been given up as doubtful by some late writers in 
 favour of the New Testament. Allow me, then, to 
 observe on this subject, that Justin Martyr, Irenaeiis, 
 Tertullian, and Clemens Alexandrinus, allow the Apo- 
 calypse to be an ancient book, and ascribe it to John 
 the disciple of the Lord and Justin, as well as others, 
 asserts that it was written by divine inspiration.’^ 
 
 There is a verj able defence of the aulhenticit j of the first two 
 chapters of Matthew’s Gospel in the Quarterly Review, vol. i. p. 320 
 • — 330, from which I should have been happy to borrow some pas- 
 sages, were I not compelled by my plan to consult brevity. But 
 Dr. Magee’s summary, being concise and forcible, is here inserted. 
 “ How, then,” says he, stands the evidence upon the whole? The 
 Syriac Version, which is one of Apostolical antiquity, and the old 
 Italic, both contain the two chapters. Ignatius, the only Apostolical 
 Father who had occasion to make reference to them, does so. The Sibyl- 
 line Oracles do the same. Justin Martyr does the same. Celsus, the 
 bitter enemy of the Christian faith, does the same. Hegesippus, a 
 Hebrew Christian, does the same. Irenceus, and all the Fathers who 
 succeed him, it is admitted on all hands, do the same. And the chap- 
 ters are at this day found in every manuscript and every version of 
 the Gospel of St. Matthew, which is extant throughout the world. 
 Thus have we one continued and unbroken series of testimony from 
 the days of the Apostles to the present times ; and, in opposition to 
 this, we find only a vague report of the state of a Hebrew copy of 
 St. Matthew’s Gospel, said to be received amongst an obscure and 
 unrecognised description of Hebrew Christians, who are admitted, 
 even by the very writers who claim the support of their authenticity, 
 to have mutilated the copy which they possessed, by removing the 
 genealogy. I should not have dwelt so long upon a subject, wdiich 
 is at this day so fully ascertained, as the authenticity of the first two 
 chapters of St, Matthew’s Gospel, did it not furnish a fair opportunity 
 of exhibiting the species of evidence, which Unitarian critics are capa- 
 ble of resisting; and the sort of arguments with which they do not 
 scruple to resist it.” Magee on the Atonement, vol. ii. p. 470. 
 
102 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 And, if we may credit the testimonies of Eusebius and 
 Jerom, who had in their hands the writings of many 
 of the ancients which are now lost, Papias, Melito, 
 Theophilus of Antioch, and Apollonius, all in the second 
 century, received and quoted it. Indeed, Melito wrote 
 a commentary upon this book : and he, being bishop 
 of Sardis, one of the seven churches addressed, could 
 neither be ignorant of their tradition respecting it, nor 
 impose upon them as to its nature and contents. Con- 
 sider, in addition to this, the authors own language. 
 
 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, &c. — sent and sig- 
 nified by his angel unto his servant JohnJ^ John to 
 the seven churches.^^ I John, who also am your bro- 
 ther, and companion in tribulation^^ — was in the isle 
 that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the 
 testimony of Jesus Christ.^’ “ I was in the spirit on 
 the LoixPs day.^^ This same writer, who thus posi- 
 tively and unequivocally declares himself to be John, 
 imprisoned in the isle of Patmos, writing, under inspi- 
 ration on the Lord’s day, affirms that "'all liars shall 
 have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and 
 brimstone,” and in another place excludes from celes- 
 tial glory " whosoever loveth and maketh a lieP Adopt, 
 for a moment, the hypothesis that this book was forged, 
 and nothing can be more shocking and blasphemous 
 than the conduct of its author in impiously assuming 
 the language of " Him who searcheth the reins and 
 the heart;” admit, on the contrary, the genuineness 
 and authenticity of the book, and you are overpowered 
 with the majesty and sublimity of its language, the 
 purity and excellence of its precepts, the awTulness of 
 its denunciations, the supernatural grandeur of its pro- 
 mises; and, to stamp the highest possible authority 
 upon the whole, bear in mind that it prophecies, 
 
 several of which have already been accomplished. 
 
 Permit me to avail myself of the observations of 
 Dr. Priestley, in reference to the subject before us. 
 " This book of Revelation (says he), I have no doubt 
 was written by the apostle John. Sir Isaac Newdon, 
 
OF THE SCRIPTUREvS. 
 
 103 
 
 with great truth, says, he does not find any other hook of 
 the New Testament so strongly attested, or commented upon 
 so early as this. Indeed, I think it impossible for any 
 intelligent and candid person to peruse it without being 
 struck, in the most forcible manner, with the peculiar 
 dignity and sublimity of its composition, superior to 
 that of any other writing whatever ; so as to be con- 
 vinced that, considering the age in which it appeared, 
 none but a person divinely inspired could have written 
 it. Also the numerous marks of genuine piety that 
 occur through the whole of this work will preclude the 
 idea of imposition, in any person acquainted with 
 human nature^^"^ 
 
 My labours on the multifarious topics of this letter 
 may now draw to a close. I shall leave you in your 
 future meditations to appreciate the full weight of what 
 I have adduced. In opposition to it you will have 
 merely to place the reiterated, though perfectly unsup- 
 ported, assertion, that the Scriptures are forged. But 
 had I not wished to put you in possession of a con- 
 densed body of evidence, by referring to which you 
 may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,^’ I 
 might have refuted this assertion by simply referring 
 to the great endo^ the Sacred Volume, and the unity of 
 design in all its authors. I might have affirmed, with- 
 out fear of contradiction, that the coincidence of the 
 histories, precepts, promises, threatenings, and prophe- 
 cies of the Scriptures, in that great end, the glory of 
 God, and the holiness and happiness of man,^’ is an 
 irrefragable argument, not only of their genuineness 
 and truth, but of their divine authority. I might have 
 affirmed, that if the several writers had been guided by 
 their own spirits, and not by the illuminating and sup- 
 porting influences of the Spirit of truth, they could 
 neither have unfolded to us the various dispensations 
 of God tending to this one point, nor have pursued it 
 themselves with such entire steadiness and uniformity 
 through so many different ages of the world. Viewed 
 Notes on Scripture, vol. iv. p. 573, 
 
104 GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 in this light, the gradual opening of the design is an 
 invincible argument. The wisdom of man, if it could 
 ever have formed such a design (though that, as I have 
 shown in a former letter, was far from the case), would 
 have rushed forward to the grand conclusion precipi- 
 tately. On the whole, then, 1 think every candid 
 inquirer after truth must be constrained to admit, that 
 the various writers of the Bible were deceivers, that 
 the books they have left us are genuine, that the religion 
 contained in those books is true, that it emanated b*om 
 God. Whence, indeed, 
 
 but from heaven should men unskilTd in arts, 
 
 In different ages born, in different parts, 
 
 Weave such agreeing truths? or how? or whj^ ? 
 
 Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie? 
 
 Unask’d their pains, ungrateful their advice; 
 
 Starving their gains, and martyrdom their price.’^ 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 There remains only one other question to consider 
 before I terminate this letter, namely, Have the Scrip- 
 tures descended pure to our hands, or do the copies 
 extant differ materially from those which existed in the 
 primitive ages?^^ Now, in answer to this, it may be 
 stated with regard to the New Testament, as the uni- 
 versal opinion of all Biblical critics of competent know- 
 ledge and judgment, that we have received it pure and 
 genuine. This is evinced by the accordance of the 
 early versions with our present Greek text; by the 
 collations which have taken place of great numbers 
 of existing manuscripts (being much more numerous, 
 indeed, than the manuscripts of any other ancient 
 writing), and some of them extremely ancient; which 
 collations, while they show that mistakes, as it was to 
 be expected, have been made in the individual manu- 
 scripts by the transcribers, prove those mistakes to be 
 of trifling importance, such as never affect the relation 
 of any important fact, or the statement of any impor- 
 tant doctrine, either respecting faith or morals, and 
 afford the means of correcting them : and by the utter 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 105 
 
 impossibility that either negligence or design could 
 have introduced, without detection, any material alter- 
 ation into a book dispersed among millions in widely 
 distant countries, and among many discordant sects; 
 regarded by them all as the rule of* their faith and prac- 
 tice ; and in constant and regular use among them all 
 in public worship, in private meditation, and in iheir ve- 
 hement and unceasing controversies with each other^^ 
 
 With regard to the Bible in general, including both 
 the Old Testament (or Covenant) and the New, a 
 cogent proof of the general conformity of our present 
 copies of the several books, with those w hich existed 
 in early times, is derived from an examination of the 
 works of the Fathers of the Christian Church. If we 
 take, for example, the epistle of Clemens Romanes 
 to the Corinthians, written at latest about A. D. 70, 
 we shall find at least thirty-four express quotations from 
 different parts of the Pentateuch, /b?/r from the book 
 of Joshua, two from Esther, ten from Job, thirty from 
 the Psalm s,ybi^r from the book of Proverbs, sixteen from 
 the prophecies of Isaiah, three from Jeremiah, one from 
 Ezekiel, three from Daniel, one from Jonah, one from 
 Habakkuk, one from Malachi. In the New Testament, 
 
 Gisborne’s Familiar Survey, p. 229. Doddridge’s Pneumato- 
 logy, &c. Lect. 118, 119. “ Not frighted (says that very eminent 
 
 critic Dr, Bentley ) with the thirty thousand various readings, I, for 
 my part, and, as 1 believe, many others, would not lament, if out of 
 the old MSS. yet untouched ten thousand more were faithfully col- 
 lected : some of which, without question, would render the text more 
 beautiful, just, and exact; though of no consequence to the main of 
 religion ; nay, perhaps wholly synonymous in the view of common 
 readers, and quite insensible in any modern version.” Philaleuth. 
 Lipsiens. p. 90. See also pp. Ill — 114. 
 
 On the subject of Various Readings, the critical reader may con- 
 sult the Eclectic Review, vol. v. pp. 236—250 ; a small but instruc- 
 tive pamphlet in reply to the blasphemous “ Manifesto of the Christian 
 Evidence Society,” by my esteemed friend. Dr. J. Pye Smith ; and 
 the Rev. T. Hartwell Horne’s Introduction to the Critical Study of 
 the Holy Scriptures. I cannot refer to this work, without cordially 
 recommending it, as constituting a most valuable accession to biblical 
 literature, serving, indeed, to supply a serious desideratum long felt 
 by our theological students. 
 
GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY 
 
 106 
 
 two from St. Luke’s Gospel, one from the Acts of the 
 fourteen from the Epistles of St. Paul, inclu- 
 ding’ three from that to the Hebrews, three from the 
 Epistles of St. Peter, three from that of James, and one 
 from that of Jude. Some of these are long quotations, 
 nearly of whole chapters ; several of them are introduce<l 
 by the notices, Thus it is written f Thus saith the 
 
 Scripture, The Holy Spirit itself beareth ivitnessf^ &c. ; 
 and all of them agree with the corresponding passages 
 in our present copies. This I affirm, not upon the au- 
 thority of others, but from a careful inspection ; and I 
 think it furnishes a most striking proof of the general 
 integrity of the Scriptures we possess. So far as I have 
 carried the comparison through the works of the Fathers 
 of the first three centuries, the inference from it in- 
 creases in force : and I have no doubt that those who 
 have leisure and inclination to pursue this train of 
 inquiry will find its result irresistible. 
 
 The Bible has also unexpectedly met with strong 
 additional confirmation, as to the correctness of the 
 most received versions, in the discoveries of recent tra- 
 vellers in India. Dr. Buchanan especially, who in 1806 
 visited the Syrian churches, amounting to one hundred 
 and nineteen, in Malayala, was informed by the inhabi- 
 tants that no European had, to their knowledge, visited 
 the place before. Their liturgy is derived from that of 
 the early church of Antioch. They affirm too, that 
 their version of the Scripture was copied from that used 
 by the primitive Christians at Antioch, and brought 
 to India before or about the council of Nice, A. D. 325, 
 at which council some ecclesiastical historians inform 
 us Joannes, bishop of India, attended. These Syrian 
 Christians allege also, that their copies have ever been 
 exact transcripts of that version, without known error, 
 through every age, down to this day. There is one 
 volume found in a remote church of the mountains, 
 which merits particular description : — it contains the 
 Old and New Testaments, engrossed on strong vellum, 
 and written with beautiful accuracy. The character is 
 
OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 107 
 
 Estrangelo-SyriaCy and the words of every book are 
 numbered. This volume is illuminated, but not after 
 the European manner, the initial letters having no 
 ornament. Prefixed to each book there are figures of 
 principal Scripture characters (not rudely drawn), the 
 colours of which are distinguishable; and in some places 
 the enamel of the gilding is preserved : but the volume 
 has suffered injury from time or neglect, some of the 
 leaves being almost entirely decayed. In certain places 
 the ink has been totally obliterated from the page, and 
 has left the parchment in its natural whiteness ; but 
 the letters can, in general, be distinctly traced from the 
 impress of the pen, or from the partial corrosion of the 
 ink. The Syrian church assigns to this manuscript a 
 high antiquity ; and alleges that it has been for some 
 centuries in the possession of their bishops ; and that 
 it was industriously concealed from the Romish inqui- 
 sition in 1599 : but its true age can only be ascertained 
 by a comparison with old manuscripts in Europe of a 
 similar kind ; and from such a comparison its date has 
 been referred to the seventh century. On the margin 
 of the drawings are some old Roman and Greek letters, 
 the form of which may lead to a conjecture respecting 
 the age in which they were written. This copy of the 
 Scriptures has admitted as canonical the epistle of 
 Clement, in which respect it resembles the Alexandrine 
 manuscript : but it has omitted the Revelation, — that 
 book having been accounted apocryphal by some 
 churches during a certain period in the early ages. 
 The order of books in the Old and New Testament 
 differs from that of the European copies, — this copy 
 adhering less to unity of subject in the arrangement 
 than to chronological order. The very first emend ii- 
 tion of the Hebrew text proposed by Dr. Kennicot 
 (Gen. iv. 8) is to be found in this manuscript. The 
 disputed passage, 1 John v. 7, is not to be found in it : 
 in almost every other respect, its several books agree 
 with those which Europeans obtained ages ago through 
 other channels 
 
 Tilloch’s Philosophical Magazine, No, 115. 
 
108 GENUINENESS, ETC. OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 I have only to add, that this most valuable and in- 
 teresting manuscript is now in England. Mar Diony- 
 sius, the resident bishop of Cadanette, presented it to 
 Dr. Buchanan, who again has presented it to the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, in whose public library it is now 
 lodged. It has been lately examined with great care 
 and skill by Mr. Yeates, who has published a more 
 minute account of it than the above, in the Christian 
 Observer These particularities, in reference and 
 description, will prove to you the value I attach to the 
 discovery of this Manuscript. Its existence will compel 
 unbelievers to drop, as broken and pointless, their fa- 
 vourite weapon against the genuineness of our Scrip- 
 tures. I therefore consider its preservation as another 
 interposition of Divine Proviclence in favour of the 
 Christian Religion ; another reward to European Chris- 
 tians for their zeal and activity in transmitting the 
 benefits of the Gospel to heathen nations : and I rejoice 
 in this fresh instance in which — 
 
 I may assert eternal Providence, 
 
 And justify the ways of God with men.” 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 On the Evidence deducihle from the Prophecies, 
 
 It is well, my dear Friend, for Christians in general, 
 that they can arrive at a perfect conviction of the truth 
 of the religion they profess, a well-grounded assurance 
 of the hope that is in themb^^ without instituting so 
 
 Christian Observer, for May and June, 1810. A still fuller 
 account of it has been recently published by Mr. Yeates in a separate 
 volume. He has also given in the Christian Observer, for October, 
 1812, an interesting account of the Ethiopic Christians in Abyssinia ; 
 who amount to many millions ; whose origin may be safely traced to 
 the apostolic age ; and who, having the same ordinances with other 
 Christians, possessing likewise pure doctrine, and copies of the Holy 
 Scriptures, which, though they have descended to them in an indepen- 
 dent channel, agree in all essential points with our own, — thus furnish 
 another ])Ovverful evidence of the genuineness of the sacred writings. 
 
 * 1 Peter, iii. 15. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 109 
 
 lon^ an investigation as that, the results of which were 
 laid before you in my last letter. Such an inquiry may 
 serve to convince unbelievers that even the external 
 evidences of Christianity are, in their nature, really ir- 
 resistible to all those who do not voluntarily slieath 
 their understandings against the imj3ressionsof evidence 
 flowing from all quarters, and shut their eyes against 
 the light of truth : but those who are willing to derive 
 conviction from the fountain of divine knowledge, have 
 a far shorter way to arrive at it than that we have so 
 recently been tracing. The Bible is its own witness : 
 the predictions scattered through it prove its divine 
 origin. Other evidences may obtain admission to the 
 mind, but this species demands it: others may dispel 
 darkness, but this comes clothed in light. In the pre- 
 sent world we are in a benighted state ; but happily 
 
 we have a sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do 
 dwell that we take heed, as unto a light that shineth in 
 a dark place, until the day dawn, and the daj^-star arise 
 in our hearts 
 
 Prophecy, viewed in the sense we now wish to con- 
 template it, that is, as implying the knowledge and 
 announcement of things, which are either secret in their 
 own nature, as the mind and will of God, or so remote 
 in point of space, or distant in point of time, as to be 
 undiscoverable by human skill and foresight; or simply, 
 as denoting the prediction of future events depending 
 on the action of free agents ^ was obviously never 
 intended as evidence of an original revelation. It is 
 plainly unfit for such a purpose, because it is impossi- 
 ble, without some extrinsic proof of its divine origin, 
 to know whether any prophecy be true or false, till the 
 aera arrive at which it ought to be accomplished. Yet 
 
 2 2 Peter, i. 19. 
 
 ^ I here give this restricted definition, because the word is some- 
 times used in Scripture to denote preaching or teaching. See Nehe- 
 miah, vi. 7, 1 Cor. xiv. 1, 3, 4, &c. Indeed, we find the word 
 prophesying in Scripture used to denote in general the speaking, or 
 writing, bj Divine revelation, whether with reference to doctrines or 
 to matter of fact. 
 
1 10 ON PROPHECY. 
 
 the frequent occurrence of prophecies may be produc- 
 tive of great religious advantages antecedent to their 
 being fulfilled, since it may keep alive a sense of 
 religion, and inspire with a hope of future deliverance 
 from present calamity, such as slavery or banishment. 
 And this seems to have been one great object in 
 delivering the prophecies under the Old Testament 
 dispensation, since most of them pointed to emancipa- 
 tion from either bodily or spiritual bondage. 
 
 But whatever may be the tendency or the utility of 
 prophecy previous to its completion, its tendency sub- 
 sequent to such a completion is, so far as it is known, 
 decidedly and inevitably favourable to the divine ap- 
 pointment of him who delivered the prediction, and, in 
 certain cases, to the divine selection of the person to 
 whom such prediction points. The foreknowledge of 
 future contingent events is universally allowed to be 
 a peculiar attribute of Deity. Future contingencies, 
 such, for example, as those which relate to the rise and 
 fall of nations and states not yet in existence, or to the 
 minute concerns of individuals not yet born, are secrets 
 which it is evident no man or angel can penetrate; 
 their causes being indeterminate, their relations with 
 other things fluctuating and unknown: it follows, 
 therefore, that the prediction of such contingent events 
 cannot otherwise than proceed from God ; and farther, 
 since God cannot, without a violation of his perfect 
 Holiness and Rectitude, visibly aid delusion and wick- 
 edness, the inference is equally cogent and necessary, 
 that the accomplishment of predictions delivered by 
 those who pretend they have divine authority, amounts 
 to a full proof that they really possess the authority 
 they assume. Other arguments may be evaded ; other 
 evidence may not convince ; strange effects (though 
 not miraculous ones) may be produced by other than 
 divine power: but the plain and complete correspond- 
 ence of events to the standing records of ancient pro- 
 phecies, obvious and conspicuous to all who will be at 
 the pains to compare them, and applying accurately 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 to the nicest shades of the specijied circumstances, 
 suggests most forcibly the conviction, that the predic- 
 tions came from God, and were declared to man for the 
 wisest and most important purposes. This or nothing 
 (says Justin Martyr) is the work of God to declare a 
 thing shall come to be, long before it is in being, and 
 then to bring about the accomplishment of that very 
 thing, according to the same declaration^.'’ 
 
 This then is a kind of evidence that may be known, 
 read, and appreciated by all men ; and this is the 
 species of evidence with which every part of Scripture, 
 from the Pentateuch to the Apocalypse, abounds. The 
 history of the fall of man is immediately succeeded by 
 the significant prediction of that “ Seed of the Woman 
 which should bruise the Serpen t^s head." Even there 
 the Messiah was marked out so as not to be mistaken : 
 the prophecy has never been applied to another : the 
 
 light of the world" shone distinctly, though it might, 
 notwithstanding, glimmer feebly, when seen through 
 the long vista of four thousand years. Previous to the 
 general deluge, the will of God was but seldom declared 
 in prophecy ; but almost immediately after that remark- 
 able event, Noah delivered some extraordinary predic- 
 tions relative to the descendants of his three sons ; and 
 those predictions, though they were divulged more than 
 two thousand years before the Christian aera, have been 
 fulfilling through the several periods of time to this 
 day ! In like manner the prophecies revealed from 
 time to time, as those concerning the Tshmaelites, those 
 of dying Jacob, of Balaam, of Moses (concerning the 
 Jews), the prophecies relating to Nineveh, Babylon, 
 Tyre, Egypt, the great empires, the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, have been perfectly fulfilled to the minutest 
 particular ; and that in several cases where attempts 
 have actually been made to prevent their accomplish- 
 ment. Moses, for example, foretold, that when the 
 Jews forsook the true God they should be removed 
 
 ^ Just. Mart. Apol. ii. sect. 14. This excellent apologist has 
 indeed entered fully into the argument from prophecy, in the Apology 
 just quoted. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 112 
 
 into all the kingdoms of the earth ; that they should 
 become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by- word 
 among all nations^.’^ None who notice the state of 
 this singular people, scattered yet preserved, every 
 where preserving their identity, no where possessing 
 power, can be so regardless of truth as to deny that 
 this is fully accomplished. Concerning Babylon it 
 was foretold, that it should be shut up and besieged by 
 the Medes, Elamites, and Armenians; that the river 
 should be dried up; that the city should be taken in 
 the midst of a feast ; that the conqueror should be 
 named Cyrus®. All of which, as you are well aware, 
 came to pass. Concerning Egypt it was predicted, 
 
 Egypt shall be a base kingdom : it shall be the basest 
 of kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself any more 
 above the nations.^^ And there shall be no more a 
 prince of the land of Egypt I need not ask wdiether 
 this prophecy of the fate of Egypt, so celebrated for its 
 antiquity, its power, and its wisdom, is not fulfilled. 
 Concerning Tyre, the prediction and its completion 
 are no less remarkable : I will make thee like the top 
 of a rock ; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; 
 thou shalt be built no more. Thou shalt be no more : 
 the merchants among the people shall hiss at thee ; 
 thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more®."^ 
 
 ® Deut. xxviii. 37. 
 
 ® Is. xxi. 2. Jer. li. 11. Is. xliv. 7, 28. Jer. li. 36. Is. xlv. I. 
 
 Ezek. xxix. 14, 15 ; xxx. 12, 13. 
 
 ® Ezek. xxvi. 14, 21. A remarkable instance in which apparently 
 discordant prophecies were strictly accomplished, occurs in the case 
 of Zedekiah. Jeremiah predicted concerning him, that as a captive 
 he should see the king of Babylon, so that “ his eyes should behold 
 his eyes,” and that he should be carried to that city (Jer. xxxii. 4, 
 and xxxir. 8). Ezekiel declared that “ he should not see Babylon.” 
 
 ' (Ezek. xii. 13). How might a contemporary doubter of the divine 
 illumination of those prophets have triumphed on account of the 
 seeming contradiction of these two predictions. But Nebuchadnezzar, 
 who was alike ignorant of both, is the instrument in the divine hands 
 to effect their accomplishment: for Zedekiah was brought into the 
 presence of Nebuchadnezzar, at Riblah ; who, after having com- 
 manded his eyes to be put out, sent him in ** fetters of brass” to 
 Babylon (2 Kings, xxv. 6, 7.) 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 113 
 
 Now in all these, and a variety of other instances 
 that might be adduced, it cannot with any semblance 
 of reason be pretended, that Prophecy came in old 
 time by the will of man the contrary assertion of the 
 Apostle accotds far better with a fair induction from 
 the premises before us, that Holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost^.^^ Indeed, one of 
 the most acute metaphysicians and ablest reasoners 
 Great Britain ever produced, the friend of Newton, 
 and his advocate against Leibnitz, says, he feels no 
 hesitation in putting the truth of Revealed Religion 
 entirely upon the reality of that prophetic spirit which 
 foretold the man of sin,^^ and the desolation of Christ’s 
 church and kingdom by Antichrist. If” (says he, 
 after enumerating some of the predictions that relate 
 to Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots), if, in 
 the days of St. Paul and St. John, there were any 
 footsteps of such a sort of power as this in the world : 
 or, if there ever had been such power in the world : or, 
 if there was then any appearance of probability, that 
 could make it enter into the heart of man to imagine 
 that there ever could be any such kind of power in the 
 world, much less in the temple or church of God : and, 
 if there be not now such a power actually and con- 
 spicuously exercised in the world : and if any picture 
 of this power, drawn after the event, can describe it more 
 plainly and exactly than it was originally described 
 in the words of the prophecy : then may it with some 
 degree of plausibleness be suggested, that the prophecies 
 are nothing more than enthusiastic inventions 
 
 But the weight of evidence accumulates prodigiously 
 when it is drawn from those prophecies which relate to 
 the Messiah. Had only a single prophet left a collec- 
 tion of predictions concerning Christ, specifying the 
 time and manner of his coming, and he had come 
 agreeably to those predictions, it would seem next to 
 impossible to evade the conclusion deducible from it. 
 But in the Bible we have much more. Here is a series 
 
 ® 2 Pet. i. 21. Dr. Clarke’s Works, vol. ii. p«728. 
 
 I 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 114 
 
 of Prophets, for thousands of years, who regularly 
 succeed each other to foretell the same event, and to 
 depict the benefits it will produce. Nay, more than 
 this, a whole nation constitutes his harbingers: they 
 subsist distinct from the rest of the world more than 
 three thousand years, to testify in a body the assur- 
 ances they entertain respecting him : when he arrives, 
 they disbelieve him, become reluctant witnesses of 
 the truth of the prophecies they have preserved, but 
 willing instruments in '' killing the Prince of Ufe^^ 
 and thus in accomplishing those predictions which, 
 though they understood but in part, they constantly 
 hoped to see realized until their hopes were about to 
 be fulfilled ! 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that Jesus Christ himself, 
 during his personal ministry on earth, referred the 
 Jews, who were then his enemies and afterwards his 
 murderers, to their own Sacred Books, in order to learn 
 who he was, and what was his office; and that, after 
 his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, his disci- 
 ples pointed them again to the prophecies which they 
 read regularly in the Synagogue, to convince them that 
 he whom they had slain was ‘‘ the Messiah who ivas to 
 come.^^ " Search the Scriptures (said Jesus Christ), 
 for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are 
 they which testify of me. Ye will not come to me, 
 that ye might have life*‘^.^^ Beginning from Moses, 
 and from all the prophets, he expounded unto them 
 in all the Scriptures the things concerning hirnselp^P 
 Conformably with this, his Apostles make a like appeal. 
 
 To him (says Paul) give all the Prophets witness, 
 that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall 
 receive remission of sins. Thus he mightily convinced 
 the Jews, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the 
 Christ So likewise Peter affirms: Yea, and all 
 the Prophets, from Samuel, and those that follow after, 
 as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these 
 
 “ Acts, iii. 15. John, V. 39, 40. Luke, xxiv. 27. 
 
 Acts, X. 43 ; xiii. 27 ; xv. 15 ; xviii. 28. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 115 
 
 days^^’^ This kind of argumentation was so forcible, 
 that many of the Jews were convinced by it, and were 
 “ cut to the heaiV’ that they should ignorantly 
 have crucified their KingJ^ But the reasoning which 
 prevailed over the prejudices of many Jews in the 
 apostolic times is thought trifling and light by modern 
 free-thinkers. If any of the prophecies are obscure, 
 then that obscurity is an argument against them ; if^ 
 on the contrary, they are plain, then it is boldly 
 affirmed, in opposition to the whole train of history, 
 that they were forged after the event. It would be 
 more becoming the ingenuity of these men to show 
 from the Prophets that Jesus Christ was necessarily to 
 rise from the dead, and then to prove from the history 
 that in fact he did never rise. Then they would accom- 
 plish something, and we must assent to the force of 
 their reasoning. But if they cannot disprove the fact, 
 their cavilling about the mode in which it was foretold 
 is perfectly nugatory. Christ claims to be the person 
 predicted in the Law and the Prophets; his Apostles 
 assert the same claim ; and it is far from enough to 
 affirm on the contrary side that some of the prophecies 
 are obscure, since very good reasons may be assigned 
 why such obscurity should exist previously to the 
 completion of prophecy. It might be, for instance, 
 to make the Messiah known to the good, and unknown 
 to the wicked, as was indeed predicted by DanieP®, that 
 God caused him to be, in a certain sense, obscurely 
 foretold. For, had the manner of his appearance been 
 clearly described, there would not have been any 
 obscurity even to bad men : and if the time had been 
 obscurely predicted, even good men would have felt 
 themselves in darkness. The time, therefore, was 
 clearly declared ; but the manner only in figure. Hence 
 it happened that the wicked, apprehending that the 
 promised blessings were merely temporal, were de- 
 ceived, notwithstanding the clear predictions of the 
 time; while the righteous were not deceived after the 
 Acts, iii. 24. Dan. xii. lOv 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 116 
 
 crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The mode of interpreting 
 the promised blessings depends upon the heart, which 
 calls that w^hich it loves — good ; but the interpretation 
 of the promised time does not depend upon the heart. 
 So that the clear prediction of the time, and the obscure 
 prediction of the blessings, left none to be misled but 
 the wicked, the rejecters of religion by choice. 
 
 But the principal question for us to consider is this: 
 — Are there prophecies enow sufficiently plain to prove 
 that Christ is the person foretold in the Old Testament 
 as the Messiah? If there be, it follows, for reasons 
 already assigned, that the Old Testament is the Word 
 of God, Jesus Christ the Saviour of the World, the 
 New Testament not a cunningly-devised fable,’’ but 
 a structure formed for everlasting duration, which those 
 who endeavour to overthrow will fail in accomplishing, 
 and be found even to fight against God 
 
 First, then, let us attend a little to the time and place 
 marked out by the Prophets for the appearance of the 
 Messiah. Jacob, on his dying bed, speaks of a person 
 to whom the people should be gathered ; this person 
 he calls Shiloh, and declares that he shall appear before 
 Judah ceases to be a tribe 
 
 Acts, V. 39. 
 
 Gen xlix. 10. Origen in his piece against Celsus, lib. i. cap. 
 43, asks, “ How Jacob could foretell that the rulers of the Jewish 
 nation, which consisted of no less than twelve tribes, should come 
 always of the tribe of Judah ?” He proceeds, “ this we see has been 
 so evidently and so remarkably verified, that the whole body of the 
 Jews now take their name from that tribe, which held the reins of 
 government in their hands : and it is matter of astonishment to all, 
 who are not biassed by prejudice, that this patriarch should not 
 merely predict that the governing power should be vested in the 
 tribe of Judah ; but that it should come to a period at an assigned 
 time ; for the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
 between his feet UNTIL Shiloh come. And He, for whom the supreme 
 authority was reserved, is come ; the Messiah, I mean, by whom the 
 true glory of the tribe of Judah was advanced to its greatest height ; 
 he who was the prince whom God had promised, and who might lay 
 a fairer claim to that title The Desire of Nations, than any one who 
 ever went before, and certainly than any one who will follow him.” 
 Justin Martyr, also, adduces the same text as irrefragable. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 117 
 
 Daniel foretells a glorious kingdom, which God 
 would erect on the ruins of the four grand monarchies, 
 under the government of one whom he calls the Son of 
 Man; and whose empire, though small in its origin, 
 should be both universal and eternaD^. He afterwards 
 predicts that in seventy weeks (of years), that is, in four 
 hundred and ninety years, after the issuing of the com- 
 mandment to rebuild Jerusalem, probably referring to 
 that given in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longu 
 manus, reconciliation should be made for iniquity, and 
 an everlasting righteousness be brought in by one, 
 whom he calls Messiah the Prince, who, he declares,, 
 shall be cut ^without any demerits of his own ; after 
 which event the prophet predicts that the city of Jeru- 
 salem shall be destroyed, and sacrifices cease; yet not 
 till the Messiah had confirmed his covenant with many 
 of his people 
 
 Isaiah speaks of an extraordinary child, who should 
 be born of a virgin, of the house of David, whose name 
 should be called Immanuel, who should grow up from 
 infancy to manhood, who should also bear many illus- 
 trious titles (such as the mighty God,*^ the everlasting 
 Fathef^), which indicate him to be more than human: 
 he predicts farther, that this personage should be most 
 eminent for wisdom and piety, and as remarkable for 
 sorrow and sufferings ; and yet, finally, that he should 
 establish a most successful and permanent kingdom 
 by very peaceful and gentle methods; these important 
 events commencing with the cure of the blind, the lame, " 
 the deaf, and the dumb; thus laying a foundation stone 
 in 
 
 Joel foretells an extraordinary effusion of the Spirit 
 of God, and speaks of a remarkable deliverance which 
 should be wrought out in Mount Zionxnd Jerusalem^‘^, 
 
 Micah delivers a prophecy analogous to part of 
 Isaiah’s, respecting the glorious and peaceful kingdom 
 
 >9 Dan. ii. 34, 35, 44, 45 ; vli, 13, 14. 20 D^n. ix. 24, 27. 
 
 2* Is. vii. 14; ix. 5 — 7; xi. 1 — 10; xlii. 1 — 7; liii. xxxv. 3, 10; 
 xxviii. 16. 22 Jqq\^ ii. 28 — 32, 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 118 
 
 that God would erect in the latter day and after- 
 wards expressly mentions Bethlehem Ephratah as the 
 place whence should go forth the Ruler, who should be 
 the Illustrious Shepherd both of the Israelites and of 
 other distant people 
 
 Haggat prophesies, that, during the time in which 
 the second temple was standing, a temple which was 
 not entirely demolished till the captivity by the Romans 
 (though in Herod’s time gradually rebuilt), God would 
 
 shake all nations,” and the Desire of all nations” 
 should come into his temple: and that, on this account, 
 the glory of it should be greater than that of the former 
 house, though it was much inferior in external visible 
 ornaments 
 
 Malachi predicts, that Jehovah ''the Lord” should 
 have a forerunner: and that the Lord himself " should 
 suddenly come to his temple^^.” 
 
 Now these and some other prophecies, which I do 
 not here quote, so accurately define the time and place 
 in which the Messiah was to appear, that there was an 
 universal expectation of his appearance, as all the can- 
 did Jewish writers acknowledge, just about the period 
 that Jesus Christ was actually upon earth. In point of 
 time and place, then, he corresponds with the results 
 of prophecy. 
 
 Secondly. Let us advert to predictions relative to 
 his Character, Doctrine, Rejectmi, and final Triumph. 
 In these respects we recognise Jesus Christ as foretold 
 in the prophets by the following among a great num- 
 ber of particular circumstances : — That as a prophet 
 be should be like unto Moses That he should blind 
 the eyes of the wise and learned, and preach the Gospel 
 to the poor and despised ; that he should restore health 
 to the diseased, and give light to those who languish 
 in mental and moral darkness^^. That he should teach 
 the perfect way, and be the instructor of the Gentiles^®. 
 
 Mic. iv. 1 — 5 ; v. 2 — 4. Hag. ii. 6 — 9. 
 
 25 Mal.iii. 1. Deut. xviii. 15. Acts, iii. 22. 
 
 27 Is. V. 15 j XXXV. 5 ; ix. 2. ^lii. G. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 119 
 
 That he would write his law, not on tables of stone, 
 but on their hearts ; and put his fear, which till then 
 was displayed in external ceremonies, into their hearts 
 likewise^®. That he should sit as a refiner and purifier, 
 to purge his disciples, that they might offer righteous 
 offering That he should be a sacrifice for the sins 
 of the world, be wounded for the transgressions of his 
 people, bear their iniquities, justify many by the know- 
 ledge of him, and make intercession for the transgres- 
 sors That he should be the chief and precious corner- 
 stone, and yet be a stone of stumbling and rock of 
 offence, on which the Jews should falP^. That the 
 Jews should reject him, and should themselves be re- 
 jected of God, the choice vine bringing forth only wild 
 grapes; and that the chosen people should be rebel- 
 lious and gainsaying, should stumble at noonday, and 
 henceforward be oppressed That the stone which 
 was rejected by the builders should be made the prin- 
 cipal corner-stone, that it should grow into a great 
 mountain and fill the whole earth That after the 
 rejection and murder of the Messiah, he should rise 
 again the third day from the dead^^. That he should 
 ascend into heaven, and sit on the right hand of God, 
 where he should triumph over all his enemies^®. That 
 the kings of the earth, and all people, should in due 
 time worship him^b But that the Jews who rejected 
 him should subsist as a distinct people ; yet should be 
 scattered over all nations, and wander about without 
 princes, without sacrifices, without an altar, without 
 prophets, looking for deliverance, and not finding it 
 till a very distant period 
 
 Thirdly. The amazing correspondence between the 
 contemptuous treatment and sufferings of Jesus Christ, 
 
 ^ Jer. xxxi. 33 ; xxxii. 40. Heb. x. 16. 
 
 Mai. ill. 3. Is. liii. Is. xxviii, 16; viii. 14, 15. 
 
 Is. V. 2 — 7 ; Ixv. 2. Deut. xxviii. 28, 29. 
 
 Ps. cxviii. 22. Dan. ii. 35. 
 
 Ps. xvi. 10. Hos. vi. 3. Ps. cx. 1. 
 
 Is. lx. 10. 21, 22 ; liii. 11, 12. Jer. xxxi. 36. Hos.iii.4,5. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 120 
 
 and the predictions scattered through the Bible, has 
 been traced so clearly by several writers^^, that I need 
 do little else than transcribe their remarks. On com- 
 paring the principal predictions with the historical 
 passages, and thus bringing the accounts of the Pro- 
 phets and of the Evangelists together, it will be found 
 that there is throughout an extraordinary correlation, 
 that the latter become echoes of tlie former, and that 
 the former specified nothing for the Messiah to suffer 
 which Christ himself did not suffer. Zechariah says, 
 ^Mhey w^eighed for my price thirty pieces of silver;’^ 
 and Matthew records that Judas sold Jesus for neither 
 more nor fewer pieces, but that the chief priests cove- 
 nanted with them for thirty pieces of silver'^^.’^ Zecha- 
 riah says, they took the thirty pieces of silver, and 
 cast them to the potter Matthew tells us, ‘‘they 
 took the thirty pieces of silver, and gave them for the 
 patterns Jield^^” The Psalmist, under the spirit of 
 prophecy, says, when “ trouble is near there is none to 
 help,^’ and Zechariah says, “ Smite the Shepherd, 
 and the sheep shall be scattered Matthew, in cor- 
 respondence, affirms, “ that the Scriptures of the pro- 
 phets might be fulfilled, all the disciples forsook him 
 and fled'^V^ Isaiah says, “ he was wounded Zecha- 
 riah, “they shall look upon me whom they have 
 pierced and David still more particularly, “ they 
 pierced my hands and my feet the Evangelists tell 
 us how he was fastened to the cross, and Jesus himself 
 shows “the print of the nails^^^^ David predicts, 
 “ they shall laugh him to scorn, and shake their heads, 
 saying. He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver 
 him; let him deliver him, since he delighted in him:^' 
 
 See especially Bishop Pearson on the Creed, p. 88, &c. ; and 
 General Burn’s judicious Summary on the Evidences of Christianity, 
 in his valuable little book, the Christian Officer’s Complete Armour. 
 
 ‘‘9 Zech. xi. 12. Matt. xxvi. 15. 
 
 •“ Zech. xi. 13. Matt, xxvii. 9, 10. 
 
 ^3 Ps. xxii. 11. Zech. xiii. 7. Matt. xxvi. 56. 
 
 ^3 Is. liii. 5. Zech. xii. 10. Ps. xxii. 16. Matt, xxvii. 35. 
 John XX. 25 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 121 
 
 the historian describes the same action, and gives like 
 expressions; — ‘Mhey that passed by reviled him, 
 wagging their heads and saying. He trusted in God, 
 let him deliver him'^k^’ David exclaims, when pro- 
 phesying as a type of the Messiah, My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me?^^ he who was both 
 the root and the offspring of David^’ determines in 
 w hose person the Prophet spoke it, — Eli, Eli, lama 
 sahactliani^^? Isaiah foretells, "" He was numbered 
 with the transgressors the Evangelists inform us, he 
 was crucified between two thieves, one on his right 
 hand, the other on his left'*®.” We read in the pro- 
 phetic Psalms, ‘‘They gave me gall for my meat, and in 
 my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink and in the 
 Gospel, “ they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with 
 galP^.” We read again in the Psalms, “ They part my 
 garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture;” 
 and, to fulfil the prediction, “the soldiers took his gar- 
 ments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part, and 
 also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven 
 from the top throughout: they said, therefore, among 
 themselves. Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose 
 it shall be"*^.” In another prophet we read, “ He shall 
 be brought like a lamb to the slaughter, and be cut off 
 out of the land of the living"*^;” conformably with this, 
 all the Evangelists declare how like a lamb he suffered ; 
 and the Jews themselves acknowledge that he was “cut 
 off.” In the institution of the paschal lamb, which 
 typified this “Lamb of God,” it was ordained, “Ye 
 shall not break a bone of it:” David, prophesying of 
 the Messiah, says, “ He keepeth all his bones ; not 
 one of them is broken :” and, in the event, “ He who 
 saw it bare record, and he knoweth that he saith true;” 
 and he affirms, “ They brake not his legs” (though 
 
 Ps. xxii. 7, 8. Matt, xxvii. 39, 43. 
 
 Ps. xxii. 1. Matt, xxvii. 46. 
 
 Is. liii. 12. Matt, xxvii. 38. Mark xv. 27. 
 
 Ps. Ixix. 21. Matt, xxvii. 34, 48. 
 
 Ps. xxii. 18. John, xix. 23, 24. Is. liii. 7, 8. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 122 
 
 they brake the legs of the malefactors crucified with 
 him), ‘Mhat the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone 
 of him shall not be broken Isaiah, prophesying of 
 his burial, says, “ He made his grave with the wicked, 
 and with the rich in his death and here again we 
 may admire the exact completion of the prediction; 
 for Jesus was buried like the wicked companions of his 
 death, under the general leave granted to the Jews for 
 taking down their bodies from the cross ; yet Joseph of 
 Arimathea, a rich man and an honourable counsellor, 
 and Nicodermis, a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the 
 Jews, a master of Israel, conspired to make his grave 
 with the rich, by wrapping his body in linen clothes,^’ 
 &c. and ^Maying it in a new sepulchre,” which Joseph 
 of Arimathea had caused to be made for bis own 
 use^'.” When the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus 
 Christ for a sign by which they might ascertain his 
 Divine authority, the reply was, As Jonas was three 
 days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so 
 shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth 
 and on another occasion, when the Jews requested 
 a proof of his authority, he said, speaking of the 
 temple of his body,” — ‘'Destroy this temple, and in 
 three days I will raise it up^^.” These sayings were 
 tauntingly thrown in his teeth during his crucifixion 
 by the unfeeling multitude, who, “ wagging their heads, 
 said. Ah ! thou that destroyest the temple and buildest 
 it in three days, save thyself , and come down from the 
 cross Soon, however, Jesus proved that he had 
 “ power to lay down his life, and power to take it up 
 again and, to fulfil his own prophecies, as well as 
 all those relating to him that were scattered through 
 the Jewish Scriptures, burst the bars of the tomb, and 
 rose from the dead on the third day^®. 
 
 The preceding instances are abundantly more than 
 
 Nam. ix. 12. Ex.xii.46. Ps. xxxiv.20. Jo]in,xix. 33, 35, 36. 
 
 Is. liii.9. Matt, xxvii. 57. Mark xv. 43. John, xix. 39, 40. 
 
 Matt. xii. 40. John, ii. 19. Mark, xv. 29, 30. 
 
 John, X. 18. Luke, xxiv. 7. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 123 
 
 sufficient to show that, accorclinp; to the prophets, thus 
 it behoved the Messiah to suffer, to die, and to rise 
 again ; and that according to the testimony of eye-wit- 
 nesses, who could not be deceived, who had no object 
 to accomplish in deceiving others, and whose testi- 
 mony is confirmed by their enemies and persecutors, 
 thus Jesus Christ DID suffer, die, and rise again. 
 How the contemplation of these things may affect 
 others we cannot always conjecture ; but surely the 
 natural tendency of such an astonishing correspon- 
 dence as that we have been tracing, is to make our 
 hearts burn within us’’ with the cheering warmth of 
 conviction, and the pure flame of devotion, similar to 
 what was experienced by the tvvo disciples on that ever- 
 memorable evening, when the risen Saviour ""talked 
 with them in their way” to Emmaus, "" opened to them 
 the Scriptures, and, beginning at Moses and all the 
 prophets, expounded unto them the things concerning 
 himselP^.” 
 
 Suppose that, instead of the spirit of prophecy 
 breathing more or less in every book of Scripture, pre- 
 dicting events relative to a great variety of general 
 topics, and delivering besides almost innumerable cha- 
 racteristics of the Messiah, all meeting in the person of 
 Jesus — there had been only ten men in ancient times 
 who pretended to be prophets, each of whom exhibited 
 only Jive independent criteria as to place, government, 
 concomitant events, doctrine taught, effects of doctrine, 
 character, sufferings, or death ; the meeting of all which, 
 in one person, should prove the reality of their calling 
 as prophets, and of his mission in the character they 
 have assigned him : — suppose, moreover, that all events 
 were left to chance merely, and we were to compute, 
 from the principles employed by mathematicians in 
 the investigation of such subjects, the probability of 
 these^/??/ independent circumstances happening at alL 
 Assume that there is, according to the technical phrase, 
 an equal chance for the happening or the failure of any 
 57 Luke, xxiv. 13, 27, 32. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 124 
 
 one of the specified particulars ; then the probability 
 against the occurrence of all the particulars in any way, 
 is that of the 50th power of 2 to unity; that is, the 
 probability is greater than 1125000000000000 to 1, or 
 greater than eleven hundred and twenty-jive millions of 
 7nillions to one, that all these circumstances do not turn 
 up, even at distinct periods. This computation, how- 
 ever, is independent of the consideration of time* Let 
 it then be recollected farther, that, if any one of the 
 specified circumstances happen, it may be the day after 
 the delivery of the prophecy, or at any period from 
 that time to the end of the world ; this will so indefi- 
 nitely augment the probability against the contempo- 
 raneous occurrence of merely these circumstances, 
 that it surpasses the power of numbers to express cor- 
 rectly the immense improbability of its taking place. 
 Be it remembered also, that in this calculation I have 
 assumed the hypothesis most favourable to the adver- 
 saries of prophecy, and the most unfavourable possible 
 to the well-being of the world, and the happiness of its 
 inhabitants ; namely, the hypothesis that every thing 
 is fortuitous ; and it will be seen how my argument is 
 strengthened by restoring things to their proper state. 
 If every thing were left to blind chance, it appears that 
 the probability against the fulfilment of only fifty inde- 
 pendent predictions in the same time, place, and indi- 
 vidual, w'ould be too great to be expressed numerically : 
 how much greater, then, must it be in fact, when all 
 events are under the control of a Being of matchless 
 wisdom, power, and goodness, who hates fraud and 
 deception, who must especially hate it when attempted 
 under his name and authority, who know^s all that 
 occurs in all places, and who can dissipate with “ the 
 breath of his mouth every deceiver, and all their de- 
 lusions? The more we know of the prophecies, and of 
 history, whether sacred or profane, the more we are 
 struck with the correspondence of predictions and 
 
 Emerson on Chances, prop. 3. Wood’s Algebra, art. 419, 
 Chances. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 125 
 
 events; their coincidence in hundreds of instances is 
 so palpably notorious that none can deny it: every 
 principle of reason, every result of correct computation, 
 instituted with a view to this inquiry, is in lavour of 
 the positions maintained by Christians in all ages. 
 Imagine these to be still doubtful, and what is there 
 else that is stable and certain? 
 
 “ If these fall. 
 
 The pillar’d firraament is rottenness, 
 
 And earth’s base built on stubble.” — MlLTON. 
 
 But a person who wished to reason in favour of the 
 truth of the Christian Religion from prophecy, need 
 not take this wide field of argument. There are many 
 small portions in some of the prophetic writings, on 
 either of which he may safely make his stand. He may 
 take, for example, either the ninth, thirteenth and 
 fourteenth, forty -fifth, or fifty-third chapters of Isaiah, 
 and challenge any one to account satisfactorily for the 
 exact correspondence of the prediction and the history, 
 except he admit that the prophet was inspired by God 
 to foretell the events. Suppose we fix upon the fifty- 
 third chapter. So striking are its contents, and so 
 exactly were its distinct particulars, amounting clearly 
 to ten or twelve, verified in the life and sufferings of 
 Jesus Christ, that there have not been wanting modern 
 Deists to affirm that it was actually composed after the 
 Christian sera. This calumny, however, needs no la- 
 boured refutation. The Septuagint version is well 
 known, as I remarked in a preceding letter, to have 
 been undertaken nearly three hundred years before 
 Christ; and that version, according to the testimony of 
 one who saw the original, contained the prophecies of 
 Isaiah. Besides, it is an incontrovertible fact, that the 
 Jews in all ages, from the delivery of these prophecies 
 to the present, admitted Isaiah to be taught of God. 
 The later Rabbins, it is true, to avoid the conclusions 
 which Christians deduce from Isaiah, and especially 
 the chapter last specified, have invented a distinction 
 of a double Messiah, “ one who was to redeem us, and 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 126 
 
 another who was to suffer for us; for they say, that 
 there are two several persons promised under the name 
 of the Messiah ; one of the tribe of Ephraim, the other 
 of the tribe of Judah ; one the son of Joseph, the other 
 the son of David; the one to precede, fight, and suffer 
 death ; the other to follow, conquer, reign, and never 
 die^^.'’ But Bishop Pearson proves that this distinction 
 is false as well as novel ; and farther, that the Rabbins 
 who preceded Jesus Christ understood the chapter, of 
 which we are now speaking, to be a prediction of the 
 Messiah, and of him alone. 
 
 Origen, indeed, informs us^®, that in his time the 
 Jews took another way to evade the difficulties in which 
 the consideration of this chapter placed them. They 
 argued, that the prophecy did not relate to one man, 
 but to one people, the Jews, who were smitten of God, 
 and dispersed among the gentiles for their conversion. 
 But to show the absurdity of their interpretation, he 
 pressed them with this sentence from the Septuagint, 
 UTO TO)v arojUKop r& Xa& fxa daparop: and the 
 
 argument was so decisive, they could not withstand it. 
 This proves not only the truth of the received interpre- 
 tation of this famous prophecy, but farther, that the 
 Hebrew text of that time read agreeably to the en' 
 daparop of the Septuagint; otherwise, the .Jews, by 
 quoting their own text (Is. liii. 8), and showing that it 
 did not mean smitten to death , would have repro- 
 bated the Greek version, and triumphed over the 
 Christian advocate. 
 
 It may be farther remarked, that, if it be the people 
 of Israel of whom the prophet speaks in this chapter, 
 he makes them to descend from a very base and ob- 
 scure origin, when he compares them to “ a tender 
 
 Pearson on tbe Creed, p. 185. 
 
 Orig. contra Celsum, lib. 1. cap. 44. See also Abbadie, who 
 argues with great acuteness and force from this -chapter (Isai. liii.) 
 i(t his work already? referred to, sect. iv. chap, if. His reasonings, 
 also, from the predictions of Daniel, Zechariah, and Malachi, are 
 equal!}' convincing. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 127 
 
 plant which grew out of a dry and barren ground 
 this cannot well apply to a nation which in its origin 
 was, as Abbadie observes, the most glorious and mag- 
 nificent that ever was known ; as having been separated 
 and distinguished from all other nations in the person 
 of their first parent, Abraham, and which was honoured 
 with the promises of the covenant.^^ So again, to seize 
 only another feature of this portion of prophecy, — 
 how was God’s people stricken for the iniquity of his 
 people.” None could fairly resist the inference that 
 the allusion here was not to the people of God, but to 
 some one who suffered affliction for their sake. 
 
 Nor has this remarkable portion of prophecy been 
 successful merely in puzzling and silencing the Jews. 
 It has, under the divine blessing, been instrumental in 
 converting unbelievers, in every age of the church. 
 There has occurred a signal instance in modern times, 
 namely, that of the celebrated John Wilmot, Earl of 
 Rochester, a man, whom the Muses were fond to in- 
 spire and ashamed to avow,” who lived the life of a 
 libertine and Atheist; but who, agreeably to the testi- 
 mony of Bishop Burnet, died the death of a penitent 
 Christian.” The perusal of this chapter, the meditation 
 upon its complete fulfilment, and upon the beautiful 
 summary it contains of the most peculiar and distin- 
 guishing doctrines of Christianity, so operated on the 
 mind of this profligate, though able man, as to lead (in 
 the opinion of the prelate just mentioned) to an un- 
 feigned faith in Him "" who was wounded for his trans- 
 gressions, and by whose stripes he was healed.” 
 
 Such then, my friend, being the cogency of the evi- 
 dence resulting from prophecy, let us not attempt to 
 resist it; such the purity and heavenly tendency of the 
 precepts and doctrines often blended with the predic- 
 tions, let us yield ourselves to their influence. Let us 
 gather food for meditation from the animating language 
 of those who 
 
 “ th’ inspiring breath 
 
 Ecstatic felt; and, from this world retir’d, 
 
 Convers’d with angels and immortal forms 
 On gracious errands bent.” Thomson. 
 
ON PROPHECY. 
 
 128 
 
 Let IIS implant the delightful anticipations of faith, 
 upon the triumphant declarations of prophecy, and 
 hail that happy period foretold by Isaiah, when 
 
 “ Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill be 
 brought low ; 
 
 “ And the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places a 
 smooth plain ; 
 
 ‘‘ And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed ; 
 
 ‘‘ And all flesh shall see together the salvation of our God.” 
 
 Infidelity, every where active, though always baffled, 
 will suggest the improbability of the completion of the 
 prophecies yet unfulfilled : but when it is considered 
 that many of the predictions, long ago realized, were 
 delivered at the same time, and by the same prophet, 
 as those for whose accomplishment we are waiting, it 
 would be the height of absurdity and impiety to encou- 
 rage a doubt. It may happen naturally enough, that 
 the true meaning of a prediction may be disguised, in 
 order that the wayward wills of men may not operate 
 for its prevention ; but this is no reason for its rejec- 
 tion. Prophecies are like writings in cipher, which 
 require either tutors or events to explain their hidden 
 meaning, and render them natural and intelligible. 
 This, with regard to the Old Testament predictions, “ is 
 what Jesus Christ and his Apostles have done. They 
 have opened the seal, they have rent the veil, and de- 
 veloped the spiritual sense. They have taught us, that 
 our enemies are our passions, that our Redeemer is a 
 spiritual Redeemer: that he is to have a first and a 
 second coming, the one in humility to abase the proud, 
 the other in glory to exalt the humble; that Jesus 
 Christ is God as well as man^h’^ 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 Pascal’s Thoughts : “ The Law figurative.” 
 
ON MIRACLES, 
 
 m 
 
 LETTER VIL 
 
 On the Evidence deducihle from Miracles ; and on the 
 Credibility of Human Testimony. 
 
 The advocates of Revealed Religion affirm, without any** 
 fear of refutation, that the argument resulting from the 
 completion of Prophecy is one that is continually in- 
 creasing in force; while they are often as ready to 
 admit, that the argument from Miracles diminishes in 
 proportion as we recede farther from the Apostolic 
 times. I hope, my friend, to be able to convince you, 
 in the course of the present letter, that this is a conces- 
 sion which need not be made : but that we have as good 
 reason to believe the miraculous facts of Scripture, as 
 any except eyewitnesses, or those who received their 
 information immediately from the lips of eyewitnesses. 
 The evidence flowing from the performance of mira- 
 cles is indeed so summary and convincing, that it may 
 be stated satisfactorily in very few words: for this rea- 
 son, however, as it should seem, it has been selected by 
 ingenious unbelievers to exercise their dexterity and 
 acumen upon ; and thus it becomes requisite to dis- 
 cuss this branch of our subject with a minuteness and 
 comparative prolixity which might, otherwise, have 
 been altogether avoided. 
 
 By miracles, I do not mean juggling tricks,^’ but 
 supernatural events. This genuine notion of miracles 
 has been sometimes obscured by definition ; yet a can- 
 did inquirer after truth cannot well mistake. Most of 
 the opiniorrs entertained by men of good sense, apart 
 from any controversial views as to this topic are cor- 
 rect. JV^oman would think that curing lameness, by a 
 regular surgical or medical process, was miraculous : 
 every man would say that the instantaneous produc- 
 tion of a limb, and ‘‘ making the maimed whole,^’ was 
 miraculous. And this exactly reaches the logical sci- 
 entific notion of miracles: for, when such effects are 
 
 K 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 130 
 
 produced as (cceteris paribus) are usually produced, 
 God is said to operate according to the common course 
 of nature: but when such effects are produced as are 
 (ccet, par.) contrary to, or different from, that common 
 course, they are said to be miraculous.^^ 
 
 Now no man will presume to affirm that it is impos- 
 sible a teacher should be sent from God. It may be 
 necessary that one should be sent ; and I think the train 
 of observation and deduction of facts in my second and 
 third letter, establish that necessity. If one or more 
 be sent, they must bring credentials to evince that their 
 mission is divine ; and what can those credentials be 
 but miracles P In fact, the very idea of a revelation in- 
 cludes that of miracles. A revelation cannot be made 
 but by a miraculous interposition of Deity : so that the 
 probability of a revelation implies a correspondent 
 probability of the occurrence of miracles; and the ne- 
 cessity of a revelation a like necessity of miracles. Nay, 
 I may venture to affirm farther, that there is a mutual 
 and necessary correlation between the two : for, as, on 
 the one hand, miracles (or prophecies, which are in fact 
 miraculous, being contrary to the course of nature) are 
 necessary to prove the divine authority of an agent ; 
 so, on the other hand, the performance of uncontrolled 
 miracles, or the delivery of true predictions, immedi- 
 ately suggests to the mind the conviction that they have 
 been permitted solely for the purpose of proving that 
 the person, by whom they are performed, is employed 
 by God to do something, or reveal something, which 
 mankind would not have known in any other way. 
 
 It is, one would suppose, almost an intuitive truth, 
 that, when a person performs evident and uncontrolled 
 miracles in proof of any doctrine, those who have suffi- 
 cient evidence of the reality of such miracles ought to 
 admit the doctrine to be true, or from God. At all 
 events, the proposition is easily deduced from a few 
 steps of obvious reasoning ; limiting it, as I have done, 
 with Baxter, Barrow, and Chandler, to uncontrolled 
 miracles, or those the apparent design of which is not 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 131 
 
 contradicted either by the absurdity of the thing they 
 are intended to prove, or by some equal or greater 
 miracles opposed to them. We thus exclude every 
 thing like juggling from the idea of miracles; and at 
 the same time free ourselves from all consideration of 
 pretended miracles, such as those performed by the 
 Egyptian magicians, with the permission or the per- 
 formance of which, as they were controlled, we have 
 nothing to do. The reasoning from which our propo- 
 sition flows is simply this: a genuine miracle cannot 
 be performed without an extraordinary divine inter- 
 position, either mediate or immediate. If the Supreme 
 Being would confirm the truth of a proposition to one 
 man, by the testimony of another to whom it was im- 
 mediately revealed, we can conceive no method by 
 which it would be so effectually accomplished, as by 
 conferring on him power to work a miracle in confir- 
 mation of it. When a miracle is uncontrolled, we can 
 conjecture no particular by which it can be distin- 
 guished from a miracle wrought to confirm a truth. If 
 God were to suffer an uncontrolled miracle to be 
 wrought in confirmation of a falsehood, there would 
 seem to be no criterion by which his testimony could 
 be distinguished. It is inconsistent with the ivisdom 
 and goodness of God, to suffer an uncontrolled miracle 
 to be wrought to establish a falsehood ; since it would 
 leave his creatures in a perpetual uncertainty, and an 
 uncertainty that would be most painful to the most rir- 
 tuous, who have always most wished for a revelation. 
 Since, therefore, God is both wise and good, it follows 
 that a proposition attested by uncontrolled miracles is 
 attested by him, and is of necessity true. 
 
 From this reasoning it is natural to expect, that in 
 the Scripture History there should be recorded many 
 miracles ; and thus, on examining the sacred volume, 
 are our expectations realized. The faith of Moses was 
 confirmed by the miracle of the burning, yet uncon- 
 sumed, bush. Moses convinced the children of Israel 
 that God employed him to lead them out of Egypt, by 
 
132 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 performing miracles by means of his rod : he appealed 
 to similar miracles before Pharaoh for the same pur*^ 
 pose: the passage through the Red Sea, which opened 
 to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians, who were 
 afterwards swallowed up in the collapsing waters, w^as 
 miraculous : the gushing of waters from a solid rock 
 on its being struck by Moses, was miraculous : the pas- 
 sage of the river Jordan under Joshua, the standing still 
 of the sun and moon at his command, and the falling 
 of the walls of Jericho, were miraculous: the sacrifice 
 kindled by fire from heaven ; the raising of the Shuna- 
 mite’s and of the widow of Sarepta’s sons; the destruc- 
 tion of the captains and their fifties by fire from heaven; 
 the dividing of the waters of Jordan by means of the 
 mantle of Elijah, and the translation of that prophet, 
 are events of the same class; and so are those recorded 
 in Daniel, respecting the fiery furnace and the den of 
 lions. From the numerous New Testament miracles, 
 beginning with that wrought at the marriage at Cana, I 
 cannot attempt to make an adequate selection. Though 
 it may be proper to remark, that those performed by 
 Jesus Christ differed essentially from others: Moses 
 could not work miracles without his rod; the Apostles 
 performed theirs, for the most part expressly, and 
 alw’ays virtually, in the name of Jesus Christ of Na- 
 zareth the Messiah exerted miraculous power from 
 himself, without any reference to another. And, far- 
 ther, the miracles of Jesus Christ were uniformly bene- 
 volent: — he cured the sick, — he healed the lame, he 
 made the maimed whole, — he made the deaf to hear, 
 the blind to see, the dumb to speak, he raised the dead, 
 and finally he raised himself; thus evincing at once 
 the greatest miracle, and the sublimest act of benevo- 
 lence ; for, as he ‘‘ died for our sins,” so he rose 
 again for our justification.” So numerous, indeed, and 
 so beneficial were his miracles, that ‘Mhe multitude 
 were astonished, saying. It was never seen so in Israel ;” 
 and well might their astonishment be excited, as our 
 Lord wrought more benevolent miracles in one after- 
 
ON MIRACLES. 133 
 
 noon^ than had been performed by any of the prophets 
 in all their lives. 
 
 That one great object, kept in view by Christ and 
 his apostles in performing miracles, was to furnish 
 awakening and convincing proofs of their divine mis- 
 sion, is evident from the uniform tenor of the New Tes- 
 tament Histories. The language of the Jewish Ruler 
 was the pure unadulterated language of common sense, 
 the force of which all the sophistry in the world cannot 
 weaken ; “ Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come 
 from God : for no man can do these miracles that thou 
 doest, except God he with The Chief Priests and 
 
 the Pharisees had the same conviction ; for, said they, 
 after Lazarus was raised from the dead, This man 
 doeth many miracles: if we let him alone, all will be- 
 lieve on him®/' Jesus Christ himself appeals to his 
 miracles: I have greater witness (says he) than that 
 of John , for the works which the Father halh given me 
 to finish, the works that I do, bear witness of me, that 
 the Father hath sent me^." And again, when the 
 Jews asked him. If thou be the Christ tell us plainly. 
 How long dost thou make us to doubt? Jesus answered 
 them. The works that I do, they bear witness of me. If 
 I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But 
 if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works; 
 that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me 
 and I in him.'^ If I had not done among them the 
 works which none other man did, they had not had sin ''.’^ 
 And on another occasion, when John sent his disci- 
 ples to Christ to ask, “ Art thou He that should come, 
 or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said 
 unto them. Go and show John again those things which 
 ye do hear and see : the blind receive their sight, and 
 the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf 
 hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the 
 Gospel preached unto them®." In like manner, with 
 
 ^ See Matt. ix. 18 — 34. ^ John, iii. 2, 
 
 3 John, xi. 47, 48. ^ j^hn, v. 36. 
 
 ^ John, X. 24, 25. 37, 38 ; xv. 24. ® Matt. xi. 3, 4, .5. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 134 
 
 regard to the Apostles, God also bare them witness, 
 both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, 
 and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own 
 
 Consistently wdth this, the early Christian writers 
 and apologists, in all those cases where they do not 
 assume the history as true, and thence argue that Jesus 
 ought to be received as the Messiah, appeal in very ex- 
 press terms to his miracles. Thus Quadratus appeals 
 very strongly to those miracles. Justin Martyr as- 
 serts the performance of miracles by Jesus in as forcible 
 words as language will admit, and assigns the reason 
 why he rather had recourse to the argument from 'pro- 
 phecy, than that from miracles ; viz. that his opponents 
 would ascribe the latter to magic. Irenieus, Lactan- 
 Tius, Tertullian, Origen, Augustin, and Jerome, 
 speak of Christ’s miracles (and often, indeed, of those 
 wrought subsequently to the Apostolic times), and no- 
 tice the same evasion on the part of the adversaries to 
 Christianity. 
 
 It is highly worthy of remark, too, that none of the 
 early opposers of the religion of Jesus, pretend to dis- 
 pute that he performed miracles. Lucian, Julian, 
 Porphyry, Hierocles, Celsus, &c. admit that mira- 
 cles were wrought. Julian, it is true, endeavours to 
 make light of them, and wonders that so much stir 
 should be made about a person, who merely opened 
 the eyes of the blind, restored limbs to the lame, and 
 delivered persons possessed.” Celsus, again, ridicules 
 the miracles, but never disputes that they occurred. 
 ^‘^Well (said he), suppose that you really did those 
 things that ye talk of; pray must we deem ihe persons 
 who perform such wonderful operations to be sons of 
 God ; or must we not rather deem them vile wretches, 
 well versed in a diabolical art?” Now, who can ima- 
 gine, for a moment, that so violent an opposer of Chris- 
 tianity w'ould have admitted the miracles of Christ as 
 real facts, had he not been compelled to it by the uni- 
 Heb. ii. 4. See also Acts, xiv. 9 ; x. 38, 39, &c. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 135 
 
 versa! consent of all inquiring men of the age in which 
 he lived? Hence it may be asked (with Mr. F. Cun- 
 ningham), whether modern infidels who have ven- 
 tured to contradict the miracles of Christ, a weapon 
 Celsus was afraid to take up, have estimated the rash- 
 ness of their enterprise? Are they competent to deny 
 what a spectator no less malevolent than themselves 
 was compelled to admit? Has the lapse of eighteen 
 hundred years enabled them to ascertain a fact of daily 
 occurrence with more accuracy than a by-stander? Are 
 objects best seen at the greatest distance?’^ 
 
 Thus it appears, that w'e have the most marked and 
 direct testimony of the friends of Revealed Religion 
 (those, too, who had been converted from heathenism 
 by the weight of its evidence), and the concessions of 
 its enemies, in favour of those miracles, which were per- 
 formed in order to prove that the religion came from 
 God ; and this testimony, and these concessions, were 
 delivered so near the period in which the miracles were 
 supposed to have been wrought, that they cannot be 
 accounted for in any other way than by admitting that 
 both Christians and unbelievers, in the early ages, were 
 convinced that something which required more than 
 human energy had occurred. Why, then, should this 
 be disputed in these remote ages? 
 
 Voltaire and Mr. Hume will answer this question, 
 by telling us in effect, though not in express words, 
 
 that since miracles are not wrought now, they never 
 were wrought at all.” 
 
 The substance of Mr. Hume’s argument (which I 
 describe, because almost all later Heists have echoed 
 his sentiments) is this: ‘^Experience, which in some 
 things is variable, in others is uniform, is our only 
 guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. Varia- 
 ble experience gives rise to probability only ; a uniform 
 experience amounts to proof. Our belief of any fact, 
 from the testimony of eyewitnesses, is derived from no 
 other principle than our experience of the veracity of 
 human testimony. If the fact attested be miraculous, 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 136 
 
 there arises a contest of two opposite experiences, or 
 proof against proof. Now, a miracle is a violation of 
 the laws of nature ; and as a firm and unalterable ex- 
 perience has established these laws, the proof against a 
 miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as complete 
 as any argument from experience can possibly be ima- 
 gined ; and if so, it is an undeniable consequence, that 
 it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever derived 
 from human testimony 
 
 Now, to this reasoning, or the most prominent and 
 essential parts of it, several decisive answers have been, 
 or may be, given. A few of these may properly find a 
 place here. 
 
 I. Dr. Campbell, in his celebrated '^Dissertation on 
 Miracles,^’ shows the fallacy of Mr. Hume’s argument 
 thus : " The evidence arising from human testimony is 
 not solely derived from experience : on the contrary, 
 testimony has a natural influence on belief, antecedent 
 to experience. The early and unlimited assent given 
 to testimony by children, gradually contracts as they 
 advance in life : it is, therefore, more consonant to truth 
 to say, that our diffidence in testimony is the result of 
 experience, than that our faith in it has this founda- 
 tion. Besides, the uniformity of experience in favour 
 of any fact is not a proof against its being reversed in 
 a particular instance. The evidence arising from the 
 single testimony of a man of known veracity will go 
 farther to establish a belief of its being actually re- 
 versed. If his testimony be confirmed by a few others 
 of the same character, we cannot withhold our assent to 
 the truth of it. Now, though the operations of nature 
 are governed by uniform laws, and though we have not 
 the testimony of our senses in favour of any violation 
 of them; still if, in particular instances, we have the 
 testimony of thousands of our fellow-creatures, and 
 those, too, men of strict integrity, swayed by no mo- 
 tives of ambition or interest, and governed by the 
 principles of common sense, that they were actually 
 ® Encyclopgedij^ Britannica, art. AhridgmenU 
 
ON MIRACLES. 137 
 
 witnesses of these violations, the constitution of our 
 nature obliges us to believe them^’^ 
 
 II. Mr. Hume's reasoning is founded upon too 
 limited a view of the laws and course of nature. If we 
 consider things duly, we shall find that lifeless matter 
 is utterly incapable of obeying any laws, or of being 
 endued with any powers: and, therefore, what is usu- 
 ally called the course of nature can be nothing else than 
 the arbitrary will and pleasure of God, acting conti- 
 nually upon matter according to certain rules of uni- 
 formity, still bearing a relation to contingencies. So 
 that it is as easy for the Supreme Being to alter what 
 men think the course of nature, as to preserve it. Those 
 effects, which are produced in the world regularly and 
 indesinently, and which are usually termed the works of 
 nature, prove the constant Providence of Deity ; those, 
 on the contrary, which, upon any extraordinary occa- 
 sion, are produced in such a manner as it is manifest 
 could not have been either by human power, or by 
 what is called chance, prove undeniably the immedi- 
 ate interposition of the Deity on that especial occasion. 
 God, it must be recollected, is the governor of the moral 
 as well as of the physical world ; and since the moral 
 well-being of the universe is of more consequence than 
 its physical order and regularity, it follows, obviously, 
 that the laws, conformably with which the material 
 world seems generally to be regulated, are subservient, 
 and may occasionally yield, to the laws by which the 
 moral world is governed. Although, therefore, a mira- 
 cle is contrary to the usual course nature (and would 
 indeed lose its beneficial effect, if it were not so), it can- 
 not thence be inferred that it is a violation of the laws of 
 nature," allowing the term to include a regard to moral 
 tendencies. The laws by which a wise and holy God 
 governs the world, cannot, unless he is pleased to reveal 
 them, be learned in any other way than from testimony; 
 since, on this supposition, nothing but testimony can 
 bring us acquainted with the whole series of his dis- 
 ^ JJnc^cIopEedia Brilannica, art. Ahridgment, 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 138 
 
 pensations, and this kind of knowledge is absolutely 
 necessary previously to our correctly inferring those 
 laws. Testimony, therefore, must be admitted as con- 
 stituting the principal means of discovering the real 
 laws by which the universe has been regulated ; that 
 testimony assures us, that the apparent course of nature 
 has often been interrupted to produce important moral 
 effects : and we must not at random disregard such tes- 
 timony, because, in estimating its credibility, we ought 
 to look almost infinitely more at the moral, than at the 
 physical, circumstances connected with any particular 
 event 
 
 III. But the defence of miracles against the objec- 
 tions of infidels need not be thrown wholly upon these 
 general and abstract reasonings, satisfactory and cogent 
 as they are. The miracles recorded in Scripture, and 
 especially those performed by Moses, by Jesus Christ, 
 and his Apostles, are accompanied by evidence such 
 as you will find it difficult to adduce in support of any 
 other historic fact, and such as cannot possibly be 
 brought in support of any pretended fact whatever; 
 evidence, such as the pretended miracles of Mahomet- 
 anism, and those of the Romish church, are totally 
 destitute of. 
 
 The truth of a matter of fact may be positively in- 
 ferred and known, if it be attended by certain criteria, 
 such as no pretended fact can possibly have. These 
 criteria are at least four. It is required, first, that the 
 fact be a sensible fact, such as men’s outward senses 
 can judge of : secondly, that it be notorious, performed 
 publicly in the presence of witnesses : thirdly, that 
 there be memorials of it, or monuments, actions, and 
 customs, kept up in commemoration of it : fourthly, 
 that such monuments and actions commence with the 
 fact”. There may be facts in favour of which these 
 
 This argument is pursued to a considerable extent by the late 
 Professor Vince, in his “ Sermons on the Credibility of Miracles, 
 preached before the University of Cambridge.’’ 
 
 These criteria were first proposed as decisive in favour of the 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 139 
 
 four marks cannot be produced ; but the argument of 
 Leslie, and St. Real, is, that whatever has all these four 
 marks cannot be false 
 
 For example, could Moses have persuaded six hun- 
 dred thousand men that he had led them through the 
 Red Sea in the manner related in Exodus, or have in- 
 stituted the passover in commemoration of the destruc- 
 tion of the Egyptian first-born, if these circumstances 
 had never occurred ? Could he make the Israelitesyhwcy 
 that they were fed miraculously with manna forty years 
 in the wilderness, or that, during all that period, their 
 raiment waxed not old, neither did their feet swelFV^ 
 unless those things, however extraordinary, were facts? 
 Here our four criteria apply. The first two secure 
 from any cheat or imposture, at the time the facts oc- 
 curred, and the last two preserve equally against any 
 imposition in after ages ; because the authors of the 
 book in which these facts are related, speak of it as 
 written at that time by the actors or eye-witnesses, and 
 as commanded by God to be carefully kept and pre- 
 served to all generations, and read publicly to all the 
 
 Scripture Miracles about 1697, by Mr. Charles Leslie, in his admi- 
 rable and unanswerable book, “ A Short and Easy Method with the 
 Deists” (from which I select the instances given in tliis section), and 
 by the Abbe St Real. It is of no consequence to the argument, to 
 determine whether these authors invented it independently of each 
 other, or borrowed it one from the other ; but it is important to re- 
 mark, on the authority of the late very able Mr. Jones, of Nayland, 
 that Dr, Conyers Middleton, feeling how necessary it was to his 
 principles that he should find some way of getting over Mr. Leslie’s 
 arguments, looked out assiduously, for twenty years together, to find 
 some pretended fact to which these four criteria could be applied, 
 but without success. Dr. Middleton died a Deist notwithstanding ! 
 Alas ! is this the conduct of one who professed to yield to nothing but 
 reason ? or of one, who, through some strange fatality, “ loved dark- 
 ness rather than light?” 
 
 The miracles of Scripture have two additional tests, upon which, 
 however, no stress is laid in this argumentation. They have an im- 
 portant end, worthy of their author : and they are independent of 
 second causes. 
 
 Deut. viii. 4 ; xxix. 5. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 140 
 
 people at stated times And farther, the institutions 
 appointed in this book were to be perpetually observed 
 from the day of each institution for ever among these 
 people, in memory of the miraculous facts. Now, 
 suppose this book to have been forged a hundred or a 
 thousand years after the time of Moses; would not 
 every one say when it first appeared, We never heard 
 of this book before; we know of no such institutions, 
 as of a passover, or circumcision, or sabbaths, and the 
 many feasts and fasts therein appointed ; we know 
 nothing of a tribe of Levi, or of a tabernacle in which 
 they were to serve in such an order of priesthood : this 
 book must be an arrant forgery, for it is destitute of all 
 those marks which it gives of itself, as to its own con- 
 tinuance, and of those institutions which it relates.^^ 
 No instance can be shown since the world began of 
 any book so substantiated that w^as a forgery, and yet 
 passed off, as exhibiting truth, upon any people. 
 
 Mr. Leslie, however, does not stop here, but adds a 
 Jifth mark as peculiar to our Bible, distinguishing it 
 from all other histories, relating facts that formerly oc- 
 curred : that is, that the book, in which the facts are 
 related, contains likewise the law of that people to 
 whom it belongs, and is their statute book by which 
 their causes are determined. This will render it iiUr 
 possible for any one to coin or forge such a book, so as 
 to make it pass as authentic among any people. If, 
 for example, a person should forge a statute-book for 
 England, and publish it next term, could he make all 
 the judges, lawyers, and people believe that this was 
 their genuine and only statute book by which their 
 causes had been determined for centuries past? They 
 must forget their old statute-book, and believe that this 
 new book, which they never saw or heard of before, 
 was the very book which had been referred to in the 
 pleadings in Westminster-hall for so many ages, which 
 had been so often printed, and of which the originals 
 
 DeiUtXxxi. 10, 11, 12, Josh. viii. 34, 35, Neh, viU. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 141 
 
 are now kept in the Tower, to be consulted, as there is 
 occasion. Thus it is that the books of Moses contain, 
 not only the history of the Jews, but also their muni- 
 cipal law, as well civil as ecclesiastical: and thus, also, 
 it is with respect to the New Testament, which is the 
 spiritual and ecclesiastical law to the Christian church 
 in all nations ; and which cannot, therefore, be cor- 
 rupted, unless all persons in all nations whithersoever 
 Christianity is spread, should conspire in the corrup- 
 tion of the Gospel. 
 
 Mr. Leslie selects some striking, though familiar, 
 examples in illustration of his general argument; 
 among others, he adverts to the Stonehenge on Salis- 
 bury Plain, and compares it with the stones set up at 
 Gilgal. Every one, as he observes, knows this Stone- 
 henge, or has heard of it ; and yet none know the rea- 
 son why those great stones were set there, or by whom, 
 or in memory of what. Now, suppose a person should 
 publish a book to-morrow, and therein affirm that these 
 stones were set up by Hercules, Polyphemus, or Gara- 
 gantua, in memory of such and such of their actions: 
 if he merely make the affirmation, some few perhaps 
 give him credit. But if, for farther confirmation of his 
 assertion, he should say in this book, that it was writ- 
 ten at the time when such actions were performed, and 
 by the very actors themselves, or by eye-witnesses : 
 and that this book had been received as true, and 
 quoted by authors of the greatest reputation in all ages 
 since; moreover, that this book was well known in 
 England, and enjoined by act of parliament to be 
 taught our children ; and that in consequence we did 
 teach it our children, and had been taught it ourselves 
 when we were children ; it would seem impertinent 
 to ask any Deist whether he thinks such a delusion 
 could be passed upon the people of England. 
 
 Let us now compare this with the Stonehenge, as we 
 may call it, or twelve great stones set up at Gilgal; 
 and erected in order that when the children of the 
 Israelites in after ages should inquire their meaning. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 it should be told them‘d. The occurrence, in comme^ 
 moration of which these stones at Gilgal were set up, 
 is as wonderful and miraculous as the passage of the 
 Israelites through the Red Sea, and free from the 
 puerile carpings which have been raised by unbelievers 
 against that remarkable event. Notice of this miracu- 
 lous passage over the Jordan at Gilgal was given to the 
 people on the preceding' day ^®. It took place at noon- 
 day before the whole nation. And when the waters of 
 the Jordan were divided, it was not at any low ebb, 
 but at the time when the river overflowed its banks*’. 
 It was effected, too, not by winds, or in length of time, 
 which winds would require to accomplish it ; but all 
 on a sudden, as soon as the ‘‘ feet of the priests that 
 bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, then 
 the waters which came from above stood, and rose up 
 upon an heap : and they that came down toward the 
 sea of the plain, even the salt-sea, failed, and were cut 
 off; and the people passed over right against Jericho. 
 And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jor- 
 dan, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. 
 And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the 
 ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of 
 the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet 
 were lift up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jor- 
 dan returned into their place, and flowed over all his 
 banks, as they did before. And the people came out 
 of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and en- 
 camped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho. And 
 those twelve stones, which the twelve men (from every 
 tribe a man) took out of the midst of Jordan, did Joshua 
 pitch in Gilgal. And he spake unto the children of 
 Israel, saying. When your children shall ask their fa- 
 thers in time to come, saying. What mean these stones? 
 then ye shall let your children know, saying, Israel 
 came over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord 
 
 Josh. iv. 6, 7. 
 
 Josh. iii. 5, 
 
 Josh. iii. 15. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 143 
 
 your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before 
 you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God 
 did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us 
 until we were gone over : that all the people of the 
 earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: 
 that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever^^.^^ 
 
 Now to frame our argument, let it be supposed that 
 there never was any such occurrence as that passage 
 over Jordan ; that these stones at Gilgal were set up 
 on some other occasion, in some after age ; and then 
 that some designing man invented this book of Joshua, 
 and pretended that it was written by Joshua at this 
 time; adducing this erection of stones at Gilgal as a 
 testimony of the truth of it. Would not the Israelites 
 say to him, "'We know the stonage at Gilgal, but we 
 never before heard this reason assigned for it: nor of 
 this book of Joshua. Where has it been all this while? 
 and where, and how came you, after so many ages, to 
 find it? Besides, we are told in this book, that this 
 same passage over Jordan was ordained to be taught 
 our children, from age to age; and therefore that they 
 were always to be instructed in the meaning of that 
 stonage at Gilgal, as a memorial of it. But we were 
 never taught it when we were children; nor did we 
 ever teach our children any such thing. And it is not 
 at all likely that could have been forgotten, while so 
 remarkable a stonage continued, which was set up for 
 that and no other purpose.^^ 
 
 If, then, for the reasons before assigned, no such im- 
 position could be practised successfully upon us as to 
 the Stonehenge upon Salisbury Plain, how much less 
 could it be with regard to the erection at Gilgal? 
 
 And farther, if, when we know not the reason of an 
 insulated monument, such a delusive reason cannot be 
 imposed ; how much more impossible is it to impose 
 on us in actions and observances which we celebrate 
 in memory of particular miraculous events ? How im- 
 possible to make us forget those passages which we 
 Josh. iii. 15—17 ; iv. 18—24. 
 
144 ON MIRACLES, 
 
 daily commemorate ; and to persuade us that we had 
 always observed such institutions or ceremonies in me- 
 mory of what we never before heard of ; that is, that 
 we knew it before we knew it ! And if it be found thus 
 impossible to practise an imposition upon us, even in 
 some things which have not all the four criteria before- 
 mentioned, how much more impossible is it that there 
 should be any deceit with regard to particulars in which 
 all those criteria actually meet. 
 
 Similar reasoning is applied with equal success by 
 this acute writer to the principal facts, including the 
 miraculous ones, recorded in the Evangelical history. 
 The works and the miracles of Jesus Christ are said, 
 by the Evangelists, to be done publicly in the face of 
 the world ; and so, indeed, himself affirmed in reason- 
 ing with his accusers: “I spake openly io the world, 
 and in secret have I said nothing^^.^^ We learn also in 
 the Acts of the Apostles, that three thousand at one 
 time, and more than two thousand at another^®, were 
 converted, upon conviction of what themselves had 
 seen and known, what had been done publicly before 
 their eyes, and in particulars respecting which it was 
 impossible to impose upon them. So that here we find 
 the two first of Mr. Leslie’s criteria. 
 
 Then for the two second : Baptism and the Lord^s 
 Supper were instituted as perpetual memorials of these 
 things: they were not instituted in after ages, but at 
 the very time when the circumstances to which they 
 relate took place ; and they have been observed with- 
 out interruption, through the whole Christian world, 
 in all ages down from that time to the present. Besides, 
 Christ himself ordained apostles, and other ministei*s 
 of his Gospel, to preach and administer the sacraments: 
 and that always even unto the end of the world 
 Accordingly, they have continued by regular succes- 
 sion to this day. So that the Christian ministry is, 
 
 John, xviii. 20. See on this point, Horne on the Study of the 
 Scriptures, vol. i. p. 541, 1st edit. 
 
 Acts, ii. 41 j iv. 4. 
 
 21 Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 145 
 
 and always has been, as notorious in point of fact, as 
 the tribe of Levi amon^ the Jews. The Gospel also is 
 as much a law, a rule of conduct to the Christians, as 
 the books of Moses to the Jews : and it being part of 
 the matters of fact or truths related in the Gospel that 
 pastors and teachers were appointed by Christ, 
 and to continue till the end of the world ; consequently 
 if the Gospel history and doctrines were invented (as 
 they must be, if forged at all) in some ages after Christ ; 
 then, at the time of the invention, there could be no 
 such order of clergy or ministers as derived themselves 
 from the institution of Christ; a circumstance which 
 must give the lie to the Gospel, and demonstrate the 
 whole to be false. The miraculous actions of Christ 
 and his Apostles being affirmed to be true no other- 
 wise than as there were at that identical lime (when- 
 ever the Deist will suppose the Gospel history to be 
 forged), not only sacraments or ordinances of Christas 
 institution, but an order of Christian pastors, &c. to 
 administer them ; and it being impossible there could 
 be any such things before they were invented, it is as 
 impossible they should be received and accredited 
 when invented. Hence it follows that it was as im- 
 possible to have imposed these miraculous relations 
 upon mankind in after ages, as it would have been to 
 make persons believe they saw the miracles, or were 
 parties concerned in the beneficial effects resulting 
 from them, if they were not. 
 
 IV. Notwithstanding all that has been said, how- 
 ever, by Leslie and others, since there is no making a 
 fence high enough to keep out extravagant conjectures 
 and surmises, we find unbelievers exclaiming after all, 
 that still men’s senses might be imposed upon. To 
 reasoning we may always oppose reasoning; and it is 
 often perfectly legitimate to oppose conjecture to con- 
 jecture; yet, with regard to the New Testament mira- 
 cles, we cannot have so ill an opinion of the intellects 
 of infidels as to conjecture that they really believe — 
 
 22 Ephes. iv. 11. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 ON MIRACLES. 
 
 "" That persons afflicted with the most excruciating 
 maladies and diseases should be juggled into perfect 
 ease and health, and cured (as Celsus pretended) by 
 legerdemain : 
 
 That blind men should see, the lame walk, the 
 deaf hear, the dumb speak, lepers be cleansed, and 
 dead men come to life, merely by the play of fancy, 
 and the force of imagination : 
 
 That the senses of whole multitudes should be 
 imposed upon to such a degree that they should all 
 fancy together, they saw, heard, spake; ate and drank, 
 repeated these actions many times over, and that in 
 different places and circumstances, too, and yet, after 
 ail, did nothing of all this; but were either asleep, or 
 in ecstasy, or under the influence of some strange 
 charm all the while : 
 
 That five thousand men, for example, at one time 
 and four thousand at another (besides women and 
 children), should persuade themselves they fed only 
 upon a few loaves and fishes; should publish it to ail 
 the country that they did so; refer to time, place, and 
 persons present ; and yet, instead of this, have been in 
 fact at a splendid and magnificent feast, where plenty 
 and variety of all provisions, fit to entertain such mul- 
 titudes, were set before them.^^ 
 
 If these things may be, of what utility are our 
 senses? What dependence can be placed upon them? 
 or what credit can be due to a Deist who attests 
 nothing but upon experience, and yet admits that thou- 
 sands together may be deceived in reference to some of 
 the most common and frequent actions and functions 
 in human life ? 
 
 In truth, there are but four hypotheses that can be 
 assumed with respect to the miracles of Jesus Christ, 
 one or other of which a reasonable being must adopt. 
 
 Either, first, the recorded accounts of those miracles 
 were absolute fictions wickedly invented by some per- 
 sons w^ho had a wish to impose upon mankind : 
 
 Or, secondly, Jesus Christ did not work any true 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 147 
 
 miracles; but the senses of the people were in some 
 way or other deluded, so that they believed he really 
 did perform miracles, when in fact he did not : 
 
 Or, thirdly, that the spectators were not in any way 
 deluded, but knew very well he wrought no miracles : 
 yet were all (both enemies and friends, the Jews them- 
 selves not excepted, though they daily sought occa- 
 sion against him^^) united in a close confederacy to 
 persuade the world that he performed the most sur- 
 prising things. So that, while some actively circulated 
 reports of these amazing occurrences, the rest kept 
 their counsel, never offering to unmask the fraud, but 
 managing the matter with so much cunning and dex- 
 terity, and such an exact mutual harmony and corres- 
 pondence, that the story of Jesus Christas performing 
 miracles should become current, should obtain almost 
 universal credit, and not a single person be able to dis- 
 prove it: 
 
 Or, fourthly, that he did actually perform these 
 astonishing works, and that the accounts given of 
 them by the Christian writers in the New Testament 
 are authentic and correct. 
 
 He that does not adopt the last of these conclusions 
 will find it a matter of very small consequence which 
 of the three others he chooses. For that the stories 
 cannot be fictions is evident from the reasoning of 
 Leslie already adduced: and it will be seen farther, 
 from a few moments’ consideration, that the denial of 
 the miracles of Jesus Christ, in any way, leads neces- 
 sarily to the admission of a series of real miracles of 
 another kind. 
 
 The progress of the human mind, as may be seen by 
 all the inquiries into it, is a thing of a determinate 
 nature : a man’s thoughts, words, and actions, are all 
 generated by something previous; there is an esta- 
 blished course for these things (as well as for the 
 physical part of the universe), an analogy, of which 
 every man is a judge from what he feels in himself, 
 and observes in others: and to suppose any number 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 148 
 
 of men in determinate circumstances to vary from this 
 general tenour of human nature in like circumstances 
 is a miracle, and may, as Dr. Hartley remarks, be made 
 a miracle of any magnitude, i. e. incredible to any de- 
 gree, by augmenting the number and magnitude of the 
 deviations. It is therefore a miracle in the human 
 mindy as great as any that can possibly be conceived 
 to take place with regard to the body, to suppose that 
 multitudes of Christians, Jews, and Heathens, in the 
 primitive times, should have borne such unquestion- 
 able testimony, some expressly, others by indirect cir- 
 cumstances, as we learn from history they did, to the 
 miracles said to be performed by our Lord upon the 
 human body, unless they were really performed. In 
 like manner, the reception which the miracles recorded 
 in the Old Testament met with is a miracle, unless 
 those miracles were true. These are not however the 
 only miracles which unbelievers in the Scripture mi- 
 racles must admit. The very determination of the 
 apostles to propagate the belief of false miracles (inde- 
 pendent of the additional difficulty arising fi’om the 
 silent concurrence of the Jews and Gentiles in the 
 story, according to the third hypothesis suggested 
 above), in support of such a religion as that taught in 
 the New Testament, is as great a miracle as human 
 imagination can conceive. For when they formed this 
 design, whether they hoped to succeed, or conjectured 
 that they should fail, in their undertaking, they chose 
 what they knew to be moral evil, with the contingency 
 of experiencing natural evil; nay, so desirous were 
 they to obtain nothing but misery, that they* made 
 their own persecution a test of the truth of their doc- 
 trines; — thus violating the strongest possible of all 
 laws of human nature, namely, that no man can 
 choose evil for its own sakeP 
 
 Here, then, an unbeliever must either deny all 
 analogy, association, uniformity of action, operation 
 of motives, selection of good in preference to evil, &c. 
 and become an absolute sceptic in the most extensive 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 149 
 
 acceptation of the term, or acknowledge that very 
 strong physical analogies may sometimes be violated ; 
 that is, he must have recourse to something miraculous 
 in order that he may get quit of something miraculous. 
 Let him next inquire which of the two opposite classes 
 of miracles will agree best with his other notions : 
 whether it be more analogous to the nature of God, 
 the course of providence, the history of the world, the 
 known progress of man in this life, &c. to allow that 
 God imparted to certain select persons, of eminent 
 piety, the power of working miracles; or to suppose 
 that he confounded the understandings, affections, and 
 whole train of associations, of thousands of persons, 
 nay, of entire nations, in such a manner that men, who 
 in all other things seemed to have acted like other 
 men, should, in respect of the history of Jesus Christ, 
 the Prophets, or the Apostles, abandon all established 
 rules of thinking and acting, and conduct themselves 
 in a way miraculously repugnant to all our ideas 
 and all our experience. In order to determine this 
 inquiry, let it not be forgotten that the object, of the 
 class of miracles against which the Deists contend, is 
 worthy a God of infinite wisdom, power, and good- 
 ness : while the object of the latter is decidedly and 
 absolutely inconsistent with wisdom and goodness, 
 attributes which all Theists ascribe to that Great Being 
 by whom alone miracles can be performed, allowing 
 that they can be wrought at all. 
 
 V. Much of the preceding reasoning is entirely 
 independent of any minute investigation of the nature 
 of concurrent or successive testimony; and the whole 
 discussion might safely be terminated without any 
 reference to these abstruser inquiries, were it not that 
 Hume and his disciples have frequently adverted to 
 them, and that silence might be construed into inability 
 to break through their web of sophistry. The argument 
 of Dr. Campbell has already been briefly sketched ; I 
 shall here add a few distinct considerations. And, 
 first, with regard to concurrent testimony, it has been 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 loO 
 
 demonstrated upon genuine mathematical principles'*^, 
 tliat where the credibility of each witness is great, a 
 very few witnesses will be sufficient to overcome any 
 contrary probability, derived from the nature of the 
 fact; that the evidence resulting from testimony can 
 not only approach indefinitely near to certainty, but can 
 at length exceed the evidence of any inference, however 
 cogent, which can possibly be deduced from personal 
 experience, or from personal and derived experience 
 conjointly ; that is, that the evidence of testimony can 
 overcome any degree of improbability, however great, 
 which can arise from the nature of the fact. The 
 reason is, that the evidence of testimony admitting of an 
 unlimited increase on two different accounts (namely, 
 that of the veracity of the witnesses, and that of the 
 number of concurrent witnesses), while the probability 
 of the happening of any specific event admits only 
 one of them, the former is capable of indefinitely sur- 
 passing the latter. 
 
 But, indeed, the force of the evidence resulting from 
 concurrent testimony is avowedly so great upon the 
 minds of all who have not been biassed by the perusal 
 of deistical speculations, or an indulgence in them, that 
 the matter scarcely needs the support of mathematical 
 investigation. Let it be supposed that twelve men of 
 probity and good sense were circumstantially and seri- 
 ously to tell, each independently of the others, on his 
 own personal conviction, “ a round unvarnished tale^’ 
 of a miracle performed before their eyes, and respecting 
 which it was impossible (as they affirm) for them to be 
 deceived ; I believe few persons would wait to receive 
 a thirteenth concurrent testimony, before they yielded 
 their assent to the truth of the relation, however extra- 
 ordinary. Let it be supposed, farther, that the twelve 
 evidences, on being suspected of bearing false wit- 
 ness,^^ subjected themselves to be scourged, tortured, 
 nay strangled, rather than deny the truth of their attes- 
 tation ; could any reasonable or reasoning man refuse 
 See the article Credibility in the Pantalogia. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 151 
 
 to believe their testimony? According to Mr. Hume’s 
 argumentation, we are not to believe them, were we to 
 witness such a story and such sufferings ; but I am so 
 persuaded that no person in his senses would disbelieve 
 them, that I will venture to say even Mr. Hume, under 
 such circumstances, could not have withheld his assent 
 to the truth of their story. 
 
 ‘‘ But,” say his disciples, whatever might be done 
 or conceded in such a case, those who live a thousand 
 years after the event, can have no reason to believe it : 
 if we admit that concurrent testimony may augment ; 
 still successive testimony diminishes, and that so rapidly 
 as to command no assent, after a few centuries at most.” 
 This is specious ; but, as I remarked at the commence- 
 ment of this letter, far from correct. I do not deny that 
 there may be cases in which credibility diminishes with 
 time ; but no testimony is really, in the nature of 
 things, rendered less credible by any other cause, than 
 the loss or want of some of those conditions which first 
 made it rationally credible. A testimony continues 
 equally credible, so long as it is transmitted with all 
 those circumstances and conditions which first procured 
 it a certain degree of credit amongst men, proportionate 
 to the intrinsic value of those conditions. Let it be 
 supposed that the persons who transmit the testimony 
 are able, honest, and diligent, in all the requisite 
 inquiries as to what they transmit, and how should the 
 credibility due to their testimony be weakened, but by 
 the omission of circumstances? which omission is con- 
 trary to the hypothesis. No calculation of the decrease 
 of the credibility of testimony, in which a man bears 
 witness respecting realities, and not the fictions of his 
 own brain, can ever proceed upon any other principle 
 than that of the characters and qualifications of the 
 witnesses : and therefore, so far as the credibility of 
 any matter of fact depends upon pure testimony, they 
 who live at the remotest distances of time may have 
 the same evidence of the truth of it as those persons 
 who lived nearest to the time in which the thing was 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 152 
 
 said to be done ; that identical lime being, of course, 
 excluded. 
 
 In what possible manner, for example, can the evi- 
 dence on which loe believe the facts related in the 
 Gospels be less than that on which those facts were 
 accredited by Christians in the second or third cen- 
 turies? They possessed the standard writings of the 
 Evangelists; so do we: what those books then con- 
 tained, they now contain ; and the invention of printing 
 seems likely, under the care of Providence, to preserve 
 them genuine to the end of time. This admirable in- 
 vention has so far secured all considerable monuments 
 of antiquity, that no ordinary calamities of wars, disso- 
 lutions of governments, &c. can destroy any material 
 evidence now in existence, or render it less probable 
 to those who shall live in a thousand years’ time than 
 it is to us. With regard to the facts of the Christian 
 religion, indeed, it is notorious that our evidence in 
 favour af them has increased instead of diminished since 
 the era of printing, the reformation of religion, and the 
 restoration of letters: and, as even the recent inquiries 
 of learned men^"^ have produced fresh evidence, there 
 is every reason to hope it will continue to increase. 
 
 Indeed, it is only with regard to the facts related in 
 the Bible that men ever talk of the daily diminution 
 of credibility. Who complains of a decay of evidence 
 in relation to the actions of Alexander, Hannibal, 
 Pompey, or Caesar? How many fewer of the events 
 recorded by Plutarch, or Polybius, or Livy, are believed 
 now (on account of a diminution of evidence) than 
 were believed by Mr. Addison, or Lord Clarendon, or 
 Geoffrey Chaucer? It might be contended with some 
 semblance of probability, that we know more of those 
 ancients than the persons now mentioned : but that it 
 is widely different from accrediting less. We never 
 hear persons wishing that they had lived ages earlier, 
 that they might have had better proofs that Cyrus was 
 the conqueror of Babylon, that Darius was beaten in 
 24 Sgg close of Letter V. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 153 
 
 several battles by Alexander, that Titus destroyed .Jeru- 
 salem, that Hannibal was entirely routed by Scipio, or 
 Pompey by Julius Caesar: thoujO'h we sometimes find 
 men of ardent and enterprising minds exclaiming, O 
 that I had lived and been present when such and such 
 splendid events occurred : how lively an interest should 
 I have taken in such scenes, how much concern in their 
 termination And, indeed, it is the frequent hearing 
 of like exclamations that causes men to confound 
 weight of testimony with warmth or depth of feeling; 
 and to lose sight of the essential difference between 
 real evidence, or the true basis for belief of history, 
 and the sensible impression or influence which such 
 history may make upon the mind. We believe as 
 firmly that Lucretius stabbed himself in the delirium of 
 a fever, as that Lucretia stabbed herself in consequence 
 of the wrongs she had received from Tarquin’s son ; 
 yet we feel a much more lively interest in the latter 
 event than in the former. The fate of Carthage, or the 
 result of the contest between Antony and Octavius 
 respecting the empire of the world, would doubtless be 
 much more deeply felt, and much more warmly con- 
 versed about, within two centuries of the circumstances, 
 than they ever are now : yet those w ho then conversed 
 about them had just as much reason to doubt their 
 occurrence as we have ; that is, just none at all. Similar 
 reasoning will apply to all the circumstances recorded 
 in authentic history. So that, having established the 
 genuineness and authenticity of the books of Scripture, 
 on evidence far superior to that on which other historic 
 books are received, it is the most idle and ridiculous 
 thing imaginable to affect to disbelieve any of the facts 
 therein recorded, on account of the remoteness of the 
 times in which they occurred. 
 
 Let me now attempt to collect the scattered argu- 
 ments in this letter, with a few additional suggestions, 
 to one point, and conclude. If^ then, we have found, 
 upon careful examination, that the miraculous facts 
 proposed for our belief, and on the credit of which the 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 154 
 
 divine authority of a particular system of doctrines 
 and precepts depends, are such, — 1. As do not imply 
 a self-contradiction in them. 2. If they appear to have 
 been performed publicly, in the view of several people, 
 and with a professed intention to establish the divine 
 authority of the person or persons who wrought them. 
 3. If they were many in number, frequently repeated 
 and continued for a series of years together. 4. If 
 they were of an interesting nature in themselves, likely 
 to have made strong impressions upon the minds of 
 all who saw and heard of them ; and for that reason, 
 probably, much attended to, talked of, and examined, 
 at the time of their performance. 5. If the effects 
 produced by them were not transient, but lasting, such 
 as, however instantaneous the change might be, must 
 have existed for many years, and were capable all the 
 w'hile of being disproved if they were not real. 6. If 
 the relations were committed to writing at or very near 
 the time when the facts are said to have occurred, and 
 by persons of unimpeachable integrity, who tell us, that 
 that which they have seen and heard, the same declare 
 they unto us;” by persons who, having sufficient oppor- 
 tunity of knowing the whole truth of what they testify, 
 could not possibly be deceived themselves ; and who, 
 having no conceivable motive or temptation to falsify 
 their evidence, cannot, with the least shadow of proba- 
 bility, be suspected of an intention to deceive other 
 people. 7. If there be no proof, or even well-founded 
 suspicion of proof, that the testimony of those who bear 
 witness to these extraordinary facts was ever contra- 
 dicted even by such as professed themselves open 
 enemies to their persons, character, and views, though 
 the accounts of the facts were first published upon the 
 spot where tliey were affirmed to have been originally 
 performed, and amongst persons who were engaged 
 by private interest, and furnished with full authority, 
 inclination, and opportunity, to have manifested the 
 falsity of them, and to have detected the imposture, had 
 they been able. 8. If, on the contrary, the existence 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 155 
 
 of these facts be expressly allowed, by the persons 
 who thought themselves most concerned to prevent the 
 genuine consequences which might be deduced from 
 them ; and there were, originally, no oilier disputes 
 about them, than to what sufficient cause they were 
 to be imputed. 9. If, again, the witnesses from whom 
 we have these facts were many in number, all of them 
 unanimous in the substance of their evidence, and 
 all, as may be collected from their whole conduct, men 
 of such unquestionable good sense as secured them 
 against all delusion in themselves; if they were men 
 who evinced the sincerity of their own conviction, by 
 acting under the uniform influence of the extraordinary 
 works to which they bore witness, in direct contradic- 
 tion to all their former prejudices and most favoured 
 notions; in direct contradiction, also, to every flattering 
 prospect of worldly honour, profit, or advantage (as 
 was remarkably exemplified in the case of St. Paul); 
 and when they could not but be previously assured 
 that bonds and afflictions awaited them^^;’’ that 
 ignominy, persecution, misery, and even death itself, 
 most probably would attend the constant and invaria- 
 ble perseverance in their testimony. 10. If these wit- 
 nesses, in order that their evidence might have the 
 greater weight with a doubting world (each nation 
 being already in possession of an established religion), 
 were themselves enabled to perform such extraordinary 
 works as testified the clear and indisputable interpo- 
 sition of a divine power in favour of their veracity; 
 and, after having experienced the severest afflictions, 
 vexations, and torments, at length laid down their 
 lives in confirmation of the truth of the facts asserted 
 by them. 1 1. If great multitudes of the contemporaries 
 of these witnesses, men of almost all nations, tempers, 
 professions, and scales of intellect, were persuaded by 
 them that these facts were really performed in the 
 manner related, and gave the strongest testimony which 
 it was in their power to give of the firmness and active 
 25 Acts, XX. 23. 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 156 
 
 tendency of their belief, by immediately breaking 
 through all their previous attachments and connections 
 of interest or friendship, and acting in express contra- 
 diction to them. 12. If concurring testimony, carried 
 to a sufficient extent, and especially of this kind, be in 
 its nature really irresistible ; and if successive testimony, 
 under the circumstances of the case before us, rather 
 increase than diminish in credibility. 13. If ceremo- 
 nies and institutions were grounded upon the miracu- 
 lous fads, and have been uninterruptedly observed in 
 all the successive periods of time, from the date of the 
 facts in commemoration of which they were established. 
 14. If we have all the proof which the severest rules 
 of criticism can require, that no alterations have been 
 made in the original writings and records left us by 
 these witnesses in any material article of their evidence 
 since their first publication, either through accident 
 or design ; but that they have been transmitted to us 
 in all their genuine purity, as they were left by their 
 authors. In such a situation of things, where so great a 
 variety of circumstances, where, indeed, all imaginable 
 circumstances, mutually concur to confirm, strengthen, 
 and support each other’s evidence; without a single 
 argument on the other side, but what arises merely 
 from the extraordinary nature of the facts, and the 
 admission of which inevitably leads to consequences 
 at least as extraordinary as those our opponents are 
 inclined to reject; may not they be justly accused of 
 an unreasonable incredulity who refuse their assent to 
 them ? And will not such incredulity be as dangerous 
 as it is ridiculous? If facts, attested in so clear, 
 decisive, and unexceptionable a manner, and delivered 
 down to posterity with so many conspiring signs and 
 monuments of truth, are, nevertheless, not to be be- 
 lieved : it is, I think, impossible for the united wisdom 
 of mankind to point out any evidence of historical 
 events which will justify a wise and cautious man 
 in accrediting them. Where there is the strongest 
 assurance of the occurrence of any particular series of 
 
ON MIRACLES. 
 
 157 
 
 miraculous facts, which we are capable of acquiring, 
 according to the present frame of our nature, and the 
 state of things in the world ; to reject these miracles 
 after all, and the religion in attestation of which they 
 were wrought, and to pretend to exculpate ourselves 
 for not believing them, upon the bare suspicion of a 
 possibility that they 7nay be false, is, instead of being 
 an indication of freedom from shackles, and erectness 
 and greatness of mind, a monstrous contradiction to the 
 principles of common sense, and the universal practice 
 of mankind. That you and I, my friend, may be 
 preserved from such a preposterous and dangerous 
 absurdity, is the fervent wish of. 
 
 Yours, sincerely. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 On the 'Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 
 Several of the facts recorded in the Christian Scrip- 
 tures have this to distinguish them from others, that 
 they are intimately connected with doctrines ; so inti- 
 mately, indeed, that the doctrine grows out of the facb 
 and that, consequently, the denial of the fact causes 
 the annihilation of the doctrine, and prevents the 
 springing forth of those happy effects which the doc- 
 trine is calculated to produce. Thus the resurrection 
 of Jesus Christ is a fact; our resurrection is a doctrine 
 founded upon that fact. The denial of one requires 
 the renunciation of the other. If,’^ says Paul, “ there 
 be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 
 and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, 
 and your faith is also vainh^^ And again, '^If we be- 
 lieve that Jesus Christ died, and rose again, even so, 
 them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with 
 him^.^^ Thus also, the ascension of Jesus Christ to 
 heaven is a fact; his return from thence to judge the 
 world is a dependent doctrine. Thus spake the angels 
 
 » 1 Cor. XV. 13, 14. 2 1 Tbes. iv. 14. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 158 
 
 to the disciples at the ascension of our Lord : Why 
 stand ye grazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, 
 which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, 
 in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven 
 Shall come to be admired in his saints, and to be 
 glorified in all them that believe 
 
 Hence, since the most exalted hopes of a Christian, 
 the most animating doctrines of his religion, have for 
 the basis, the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; 
 it is requisite that his faith in that fact be firmly 
 rooted and grounded/^ x\nd, happily, the general 
 evidences in confirmation of so important an event 
 flow from various and satisfactory sources. As from 
 the predictions of Jesus Christ, that at a certain time 
 he should raise himself from the dead. From the fact 
 that, at this precise time, his body was not to be found 
 in the sepulchre, although the most effectual precau- 
 tions had been taken to prevent its removal. From 
 the positive testimony of many, that after this time they 
 saw him, conversed with him, the most incredulous 
 touched and felt him, to remove their doubts, and all 
 received from him those instructions on which they 
 acted in promulgating his Gospel. From the clumsy 
 and self-destructive story invented by the Jews in con- 
 tradiction of this fact^. And from the success which 
 attended the preaching and declaring that he was 
 crucified and raised from the dead.^^ 
 
 It is not my intention to enlarge upon these various 
 
 ^ Acts, i. 11. 
 
 ^ 2 Thes. i. 10. It may also be observed that so indissoluble is 
 the connection between one fact and another revealed to us in the 
 New Testament, that the admission of one, by necessity involves the 
 admission of the rest. Thus, by proving the resurrection of our Lord, 
 you establish, — 1. His death and burial. 2. The occasion and be- 
 nefits of his death. 3. His promise of the Spirit. 4. His ascension 
 (for, if he did not ascend, what became of him?) 5. His ever living 
 in heaven. 6. The objects which he there incessantly carries on. 
 
 This suggests an important train of argument, at which I now 
 merely glance, and leave it to be pursued by others. 
 
 ® Matt, xxviii. 13, 14. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 159 
 
 sources of evidence; but merely, assuming (as I may 
 now, I trust, fairly do) the genuineness of the first four 
 books of the New Testament, to describe, briefly, the 
 leading circumstances of Christ’s resurrection, and se- 
 veral appearances previous to his ascension ; and then 
 to adduce a few general, though, I hope, unanswerable 
 arguments, in favour of this extraordinary event. 
 
 The circumstances of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 and the subsequent appearances, as they may be col- 
 lected from the accounts of the several Evangelists, 
 have been related, with slight variations, by different 
 authors. The order I shall adopt appears to me as 
 free from objection, and as little exposed to the cavils 
 of unbelievers, as any I have met with. To render 
 this history the more perspicuous, it may be proper to 
 begin with reminding you, that, when Jesus Christ was 
 led to be crucified, a great company of his friends and 
 acquaintance followed, bewailing and lamenting him®. 
 Among the rest was his own mother, who, with two 
 more of her name, and the apostle John, stood so near 
 him, that he could speak to them. While he was nailed 
 to the cross, he consigned his mother to John’s care, it 
 appearing that she was then a widow. This beloved 
 disciple, probably, took her immediately to his own 
 home, before the three hours’ supernatural darkness^, 
 that she might not be there to see him expiring. But 
 the other two women continued there still, as well as 
 many more who stood farther off. When the darkness 
 was over, and our Lord had yielded up his spirit, they 
 were there still ; and all of them attended till he was 
 buried®. It should seem, also, that the two Marys ^ 
 waited later than the rest, till all was over, and he was 
 laid in the sepulchre^®. A considerable company of 
 the women seem to have agreed to embalm their Lord’s 
 
 6 Luke, xxiii. 27. 7 John, xix. 25 — 27. 
 
 ® Matt, xxvii. 55, 56. Mark, xv. 40, 41. Luke, xxiii. 49, 55. 
 
 ® Namely, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the wife of Cleopas, and 
 mother of Matthew, James, Simon, and Jude. 
 
 Matt, xxvii. 61. Mark, xv. 47. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 160 
 
 body early on the third day ; they therefore that even- 
 ing prepared what time and circumstances would 
 admit, and rested on the sabbath, conformably with 
 the commandment 
 
 Not so the priests and pharisees. With all their pre- 
 tended zeal for the sabbath, they were very busy on 
 that day, consulting, arranging, preparing an address, 
 waiting with it on Pilate, obtaining a guard, sealing 
 the stone, and setting all safe. This was their sabbath 
 employments’^. By the end of the day all was as safe as 
 they could make it. But very early on the following 
 morning, the first day of the week, L e. about the break 
 of day, or a little earlier, an angel descended from hea- 
 ven, came and rolled back the stone from the entrance 
 of the grave, and sat upon it, regardless of either seal 
 or guard. The keepers or guards were terrified at his 
 appearance, and became as dead men^^. Recovering 
 themselves a little, however, some of them went to the 
 chief priests, and related what had happened : the chief 
 priests and elders gave large money to the soldiers,’^ 
 saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and 
 stole him while we slept 
 
 About the time of the earthquake which occurred on 
 the descent of the angel, the two Marys were preparing 
 to go, very early, to see whether all about the sepulchre 
 was safe, before the rest of the company could go’^. 
 Either they called on Salome, or met her in their 
 way^®; and as all three passed on towards the sepul- 
 chre, being desirous, probably, to begin to embalm the 
 body before their friends arrive,^ they said among 
 themselves. Who shall roll us away the stone from the 
 door of the sepulchre?^’ All this time they knew no- 
 thing of the guard, or of the opening of the grave: but 
 as they came near the sepulchre at the rising of the 
 sun,^^ they looked forward, and saw that the stone 
 was rolled away; for it was very great This, as 
 
 ** Luke xxiii. 56. Matt, xxvii. 62 — 66. 
 
 *3 Matt, xxviii. 2— 4. Matt.xxviii.il — 13, 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 1. Mark, xvi. 1. Mark, xvi. 2 — 1. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 161 
 
 was natural, caused a multiplicity of varying emotions 
 in their minds. Mary Magdalene, being at once warm 
 in her affection, and anxious in her disposition, con- 
 cluded that the body was stolen ; and would therefore 
 go no farther, but hastily ran back to tell Peter and 
 John what she had seen, and what she thought : those 
 two zealous disciples, therefore, hastened thither to 
 ascertain the truth of her relation But while she 
 ran back, the other Mary and Salome approached 
 nearer to the sepulchre. The angel, who formerly sat 
 on the stone to terrify the guard, had by this time 
 moved into the sepulchre; for Christ rose and went 
 out as soon as the stone was rolled away : and though 
 the women were near enough to see the stone, they 
 could see no angel upon it before Mary Magdalene ran 
 back. Mary and Salome thus advancing, they found 
 no obstruction, and resolved to ascertain whether the 
 body was taken away or not. Just entering, therefore, 
 into the sepulchre, they saw the angel, who invited 
 them farther in, to “ behold the place where the Lord 
 had lain.’^ But they were affrighted : so the angel told 
 them ‘‘ the Lord was risen,^^ directed them to go and 
 inform his disciples, and Peter, and to tell them, more- 
 over, that they should see him in Galilee ; as he had 
 assured them previous to his crucifixion‘s. The women, 
 under the joint influence of fear, joy, and amazement, 
 ran away, saying nothing to any one, but fled trem- 
 bling^. They were just gone when Mary Magdalene 
 arrived the second time, with Peter and John, though 
 it was yet early. These two disciples, before they 
 reached the sepulchre, ran quicker than Mary : the 
 angel having now disappeared, the two men went into 
 the sepulchre, found the body was not there, but saw 
 the grave-clothes lying folded up, indicating that there 
 had been no indecent haste. John believed the Lord 
 was risen but they both soon went away home with- 
 
 John, XX. 1 — 4. 
 
 Matt, xxviii, 5 — 7. Mark, xvi. 5 — 7. Matt. xxvi. 32. 
 
 Mark, xvi. 8. 
 
 M 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 162 
 
 out seeing him. Mary Magdalene now tarried behind, 
 to weep alone, appearing in much doubt as to what 
 had become of the body of Jesus. While in this mourn- 
 ful, anxious state of mind, she stooped down and looked 
 earnestly into the sepulchre, where she saw two angels, 
 one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body 
 had lain. They asked why she wept: she replied it 
 was because she had lost her Lord ; and as she made 
 the answer, she in haste looked another way and saw 
 Jesus; but not knowing him, being half blinded by 
 her apprehensions and her tears, she supposed it was 
 the gardener who cultivated the garden in which the' 
 sepulchre was, and therefore said to him, ^‘Sir, if thou 
 hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, 
 and I will take him aw ay.^^ Then Jesus made himself 
 known unto her. This therefore was his first appear- 
 ance after his resurrection, to any of his followers : and 
 it was early Mary Magdalene departed immedi- 
 ately, ‘‘and told the disciples that she had seen the 
 Lord, and that he had spoken to her.’^ Thus, as some 
 of our old divines have remarked, woman, who was 
 first in the original transgression, was first in proclaim- 
 ing the fact of the resurrection, and laying the grand 
 corner stone in the Christian edifice. 
 
 The other Mary and Salome, full of fear and amaze- 
 ment, had turned aside into some retired place ; and 
 needed time to recover themselves before they could 
 carry any tidings. But while they were in this con- 
 sternation, their compassionate Lord met them, and 
 said, “ All hail : be not afraid,’’ proceed cheerfully on, 
 and deliver to my disciples the message you have re- 
 ceived from the angel, “ that they go into Galilee^^.” 
 This was the second appearance of Christ; and it was 
 to two women. 
 
 These three women and two of the apostles having 
 been at the sepulchre, and Mary the last of them hav- 
 ing departed, it being yet early just as she was gone 
 
 John, XX. 3—18. Mark, xvi. 9, 10. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 9, 10. 23 Mark, xvi, 9. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 163 
 
 Joanna came, and a considerable company with her ; 
 bring^ing’ the spices, &c. in order to embalm the body 
 of Jesus, as they had agreed before the sabbath. They 
 spent no time in reasoning about the removal of the 
 stone, as the others had done ; being a sufficient num- 
 ber to effect it, and expecting to meet the other three 
 women at the place : for they knew nothing of what 
 had passed at the sepulchre in the earlier part of the 
 morning, before they arrived. When they got there, 
 they found the stone rolled away : so they went into 
 the sepulchre, and immediately perceived that the body 
 was not there : but when they went in they saw no 
 angel, as Mary and Salome had seen, sitting at the 
 right side^^; nor did the two angels, who spake to 
 Mary Magdalene, now appear. Joanna and her com- 
 panions, like the other women, were full of amaze- 
 ment : and while they were in this perplexity, behold 
 two angels stood by tliem and said, Why seek ye the 
 living among the dead ? He is not here, but is risen, 
 &c.‘^^ Then the women returned from the sepulchre, 
 and told all these things to the eleven, and to others, 
 who, it seems, were now gathered together, by reason 
 of the report Peter and John had made on their return 
 from the sepulchre an hour or two before. When Peter 
 and John were at the sepulchre, they had seen no 
 angels ; nor had they heard any report that Jesus v. as 
 actually risen : but on Joanna’s relating what she had 
 seen and heard, Peter, evincing the ardour which 
 marked all his actions, ran a second time to the sepul- 
 chre*^ ; and some others either along with him, or soon 
 after him‘^®: they all found that the body was not in 
 the grave ; but they saw not Jesus. 
 
 Soon after this, two of them went a journey as far as 
 Emmaus, about seven and a half miles from Jerusalem. 
 We have no account of any more persons going to the 
 sepulchre. But Peter, soon after the departure of the 
 two disciples for Emmaus, retired to a place alone to 
 
 Mark, xvi. 5. “ Luke, xxiv. 1 — 9. 
 
 Luke, xxiv. 12. 24. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 164 
 
 meditate upon what bad occurred, where his liOrd 
 appeared to him. This was the tim'd appearance of 
 Christ; but the first^ to any of his apostles. Jesus, 
 having conversed a little with Peter, left him ; and 
 soon coming up with the two disciples who were jour- 
 neying to Emraaus, conversed with them a good while, 
 and afterwards revealed himself unto them^®. This 
 was the fourth appearance. 
 
 While these two disciples were from Jerusalem, 
 those who continued at that city were in great concern; 
 for though Joanna had told them, from the angels, that 
 Jesus was risen, yet her words were as idle tales.” 
 Some time after, Mary Magdalene brought them the 
 tidings that she had seen the Lord ;” she found them 
 mourning and incredulous, notwithstanding the cheer- 
 ing tenor of the news she communicated The other 
 Mary and Salome likewise conveyed their tidings, as 
 they were directed, first by the angels, and then by 
 Christ himself^^. Late the same evening Peter came 
 and informed them that he had seen Jesus. And as 
 the disciples were discussing the evidences of his resur- 
 rection, some believing, others doubting, the two re- 
 turned from Emmaus; and while they received, on the 
 one hand, the joyful intelligence '‘the liOrd is risen 
 indeed, and hath appeared to Simon,” they in their 
 turn confirmed the account, telling " what things were 
 done in the way, and how he was known of them in 
 breaking of bread^^ ;” by this significant act reminding 
 them of his last supper with them, and of the impor- 
 tant institution he then established. Still, however, 
 " some of them believed not,” though Jesus had now 
 appeared four times ; first to one woman, then to two; 
 after that to one man, and then to two. 
 
 Our Lord’s fifth appearance after his resurrection 
 was much more public than any of the preceding ones; 
 for while they were earnestly conversing upon this most 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. XV. 5. 28 Luke, xxiv. 13 — 31. 
 
 ‘29 [vXark, xvi. 10, 11. Joliii, xx. 17, 18. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 7 — 10. Mark, xvi. 13. Luke, xxiv. 34, 35. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 165 
 
 interesting topic, still on the evening of the first day of 
 the week, just after the return of the two from Emmaus, 
 Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and said 
 unto them. Peace be unto you^^.^’ Though Thomas 
 was at this time absent, yet there was a considerable 
 number of the disciples gathered together, besides ten 
 of the apostles in order to inquire and learn more 
 about Jesus Christ. Besides this, the guard having 
 said that they had seen an angel at the sepulchre, the 
 Jews were enraged that their precautions to detain the 
 body were defeated, circulated the ridiculous story that 
 it was stolen by the disciples of Jesus while the guards 
 slept, and began to threaten the disciples ; they, there- 
 fore, being "'afraid of the Jews,^’ dare not sleep in their 
 own lodgings, but had assembled together, and shut 
 the door, previously to this appearance of Jesus^^ His 
 sudden and unexpected appearance and address to 
 them terrified them, so that they thought “ it was a 
 spirit,^' and not their Lord in the same identical body 
 that was crucified and buried. But the Redeemer, to 
 remove their distressing unbelieving thoughts, directed 
 them to behold him steadfastly, to feel and touch him, 
 and observe his lately wounded and pierced hands and 
 feet. Then he ate before them, still farther to confirm 
 their faith ; and " opened the Scriptures to them,^' 
 showing them that “ thus it behoved Christ to suffer, 
 and to rise from the dead the third day^^.'^ After that, 
 conversing still farther with them, he gave them ano- 
 ther sign of his real existence and life, by breathing 
 upon them ; of his divine power, by conferring upon 
 them the Holy Spirit; and then departed^. Presently 
 after, Thomas came in ; but when the disciples told 
 him they had “ seen the Lord/^ consistently with the 
 unbelieving spirit which he seemed usually to manifest, 
 he refused his assent, and replied, “ Except I shall see 
 in his hands the print of the nails, and put my hnger 
 into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his 
 
 Luke, xxiv. 3(5. Luke, xxiv. 33. John, xx. 19. 
 
 Luke, xxiv. 37 — 48. John, xx. 2J. John, xx. 22, 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 166 
 
 side, I tuill not helieve ^'^ Such was the incredulity of 
 this apostle, although Jesus had then been seen oxjive 
 distinct times in the course of that one day. 
 
 At the close of the feast of unleavened bread, that 
 is on the succeeding first day of the week, Jesus again 
 appeared unto the eleven, Thomas being with them : he 
 upbraided him for his unbelief, allowed him the tests 
 he wished for, and extorted from him the confession. 
 
 My J^ord and my God^!^^ On this occasion, which 
 was the sixth time of Jesus Christas appearing, there 
 does not seem to have been much conversation. The 
 appearance was probably for the especial purpose of 
 convincing J'homas. 
 
 After this, the feast being now over, the eleven tra- 
 velled to Galilee, being encouraged by promises both 
 before and after the resurrection, to expect the sight of 
 their Loi'd there^^. The distance was more than eighty 
 miles from Jerusalem to Tiberias, and more still to 
 Bethsaida and Capernaum. Thither, however, they 
 went, inspired by these hopes ; and shortly after their 
 arrival there, Jesus appeared again at the sea of Tibe- 
 rias, or, as it was sometimes called, the sea of Galilee'**^. 
 Here were seven of the disciples, probably of the ele- 
 ven, following their occupation of fishers; they had 
 been “ toiling all night, and caught nothing,” when 
 Jesus appeared, whom they knew not at first. In con- 
 sequence of following his advice, they had a large and 
 miraculous draught of fishes in their net; which was 
 succeeded by a long, familiar, and interesting conver- 
 sation, related pretty fully by the apostle John'*^ who 
 was one of the disciples present. This was, as John 
 terms it, the tkwd time he had appeared to the body of 
 the apostles ; but it was his seventh appearance since 
 his resurrection. 
 
 Probably it was at this familiar interview by the sea 
 of Tiberias, that Jesus told these seven disciples when 
 
 John, XX. 2.5. Jolin, xx. 26 — 29. Mark, xvi. 14. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 16. John, vi. 1 ; xxi. 1. 
 
 .41 John, xxi. 12—23. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION, 
 
 167 
 
 and where they might expect to see him in a very pub- 
 lic manner, agreeably to the promise made them before 
 his death And hence probably they gave notice of 
 it privately to as many disciples as might be thought 
 proper ; for even then, though he was to appear openly, 
 yet it was not to a great variety, but to chosen wit- 
 nesses who ate ancl drank with him after he rose from 
 the dead.^’ Pursuant to this previous notice, as it 
 should seem, there was a most numerous and public 
 meeting upon a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus made 
 his eighth appearance. Matthew says expressly Jesus 
 had appointed the mountain. The number assembled 
 there was between five and six hundred, called empha- 
 tically brethren^'^, denoting that they were all chosen 
 witnesses, as Peter observed in the house of Cornelius. 
 Here, as he found that '"some” still ‘"doubted,^^ he 
 gave infallible proofs of his resurrection, and spake 
 much of the things concerning the kingdom of God'*®;’^ 
 being now about to take his final farewell of the great- 
 est part of them on earth. It is w’orthy of observation, 
 that the majority of the witnesses of this appearance 
 were living, and appealed to as such, twenty years 
 afterwards, when Paul wrote his first Epistle to the 
 Corinthians. 
 
 The ninth appearance of Christ recorded in the Scrip- 
 tures was to James. This, Paul informs us, was after 
 that to the five hundred Probably it took place in 
 Galilee, as well as the two last mentioned ; but the 
 evangelists give us no particular information about it. 
 Paul, however, refers to it as a fact well known; other- 
 wise he would not have adduced it in proof of the resur- 
 rection, denied as it was by some, and little understood 
 by many who believed the fact. 
 
 The tenth and last appearance of the risen Saviour 
 was at Jerusalem, to all the apostles'*®,’^ is, to the 
 eleven remaining ones, Judas being gone to his own 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 7. 10. Mark, xvi. 17. Acts, x. 40, 41. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 16, 17. 1 Cor. xv. 6. 
 
 -•s Acts, i. 3. 47 1 Cor. xv. 7. i Cor. xv. 7. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 168 
 
 place/^ It was about six weeks after the passover, and 
 about forty days after the resurrection, when several of 
 the disciples from Galilee repaired a<^ain to Jerusalem, 
 in order to keep the approaching feast of weeks, called 
 the Pentecost by the Grecian Jews. Being assembled 
 together with the disciples at Jerusalem in one house, 
 probably the same as that where Jesus had kept the 
 passover and instituted his supper; and the same in 
 which they met on the day of the resurrection, and on 
 that day week, and where they w^orshiped till the day 
 of Pentecosl'^^; there they had the conversation with 
 their Lord recorded in the first chapter of the Acts’^®. 
 There he gave them commandments, and spake more 
 '‘of the things j)ertaining to the kingdom of God^k^’ 
 There he delivered to them the commission to go forth 
 into all the world to preach, and baptize \^for baptism, 
 it should be remembered, was not instituted as a Chris- 
 tian ordinance till after the resurrection), and gave them 
 animating promises of his presence with them while 
 their life continued, and with their successors in the 
 ministry "to the end of the workG‘^.^’ There he com- 
 manded them not to depart into Galilee again, but to 
 tarry at Jerusalem till they should "be baptized with 
 the Holy Ghost,"’ which he assured them would be in 
 the course of a few days^^ This last interview would, 
 doubtless, be very endearing, affecting, and instructive. 
 And, as if to impress the circumstance with all its im- 
 portant lessons, and all its solemn tendencies, more 
 deeply on their minds, he led them out tow'ards Beth- 
 any, or Mount Olivet, conversing as they went, according 
 to his wonted manner. Often had he retired with his 
 dear and beloved disciples to that secluded spot; and 
 thither he now for the last time conducted them. There, 
 near the place whence he commenced his triumphant 
 ride into Jerusalem — where he had frequently con- 
 versed, expounded parables, and prayed with his dis- 
 
 Acts, i. 13; ii. 1. Acts, i. 6 -8. Acts, i. 3. 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 18 — 20. Mark, xvi. 15 — 18. 
 
 Luke, xxiv. 49. Acts, i. 4, 5. 8. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 169 
 
 ciples, — where, in so much a^ony, he had recently 
 prayed, and sweat as it w'ere drops of blood,’^ — where 
 he was betrayed with a kiss, taken by his enemies, and 
 forsaken by his disciples; there he once more assem- 
 bled them, “ lifted up his hands and blessed them and 
 while he blessed them,^’ he was taken up gradually 
 from them into heaven, a cloud receiving him out of 
 their sight^'^.^’ Thus, then, it appears, from apostolic 
 testimony, that Jesus Christ not only rose from the 
 dead, but rendered himself manifest to many after his 
 resurrection, removing the doubts of the incredulous by 
 the most infallible proofs,^^ and confirming the faith of 
 the weak by the most consoling and cheering promises: 
 promises which speedily after were amply fulfilled 
 
 “ Twice twenty days he sojourn’d here on earth, 
 
 And show’d himself alive to chosen witnesses 
 By proofs so strong, that the most slow-assenting 
 Had not a scruple left. This having done, 
 
 He mounted up to heaven.” blair. 
 
 Such, in few words, is the history of our LoixPs resur- 
 rection from the dead, and of his various appearances 
 after that important event. I have drawn this account 
 not from the writings of any one evangelist, but from a 
 collection and comparison of their separate stories : for 
 the relations of these four historians, though not dis- 
 cordant, do not each comprise all the circumstances. 
 This, however, is by no means to be regretted. Such 
 a complete coincidence between four narratives relating 
 to the same events, as should extend to every minute 
 circumstance, would argue collusion, or, at least, de- 
 pendence; whereas, four narratives, each exhibiting 
 the grand outlines of the story, but varying as to 
 minuter matters, some mentioning one, and some an- 
 other, according to the particular object or individual 
 feeling of each respective writer, naturally suggest the 
 ideas of honest and independent narration, and exclude 
 those of contrivance and forgery. 
 
 Mark, xvi. 19. Luke, xxiv. 50 — 52. Acts, i. 9 — 12. 
 
 Acts, ii. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 170 
 
 Admitting, then, the genuineness and authenticity 
 of tlie historical books of the New Testament (both 
 satisfactorily established, I trust, in my fifth letter), the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ cannot be denied. Yet, as 
 this extraordinary fact is of the greatest moment in the 
 Christian system, you will naturally expect that I will 
 not quit the subject merely with this summary argu- 
 ment in its favour. I shall, therefore, devote the re- 
 mainder of the present letter to the consideration of 
 two or three such particular evidences as in themselves 
 force our assent ; and to a cursory view of some of the 
 difficulties that spring from a denial of the fact. 
 
 Both the Jewish and the Gentile opposers of Chris- 
 tianity, in the primitive ages, admit that Jesus Christ 
 suffered death by crucifixion, was buried, and that his 
 tomb was found empty on the third day. Either, then, 
 the body must have been taken away, or he rose from 
 the dead. If the body were stolen, it must have been 
 either by the enemies, or by the friends, of Christ : of 
 these alternatives the former cannot be assumed for a 
 moment; and I shall soon show that the latter, though 
 rather more specious, is utterly untenable. The dis- 
 ciples of the Saviour affirm that he rose from the dead, 
 and often appeared to them, as I have already related. 
 They also, immediately after the event, set apart a so- 
 lemn periodical day, and instituted a ceremony founded 
 upon it, and commemorating it; the returning day, 
 and the significant ceremony, having been observed 
 regularly from that time, through all succeeding ages, 
 to the present. Thus, with regard to the day, it appears 
 from various passages, to two or three of which I refer 
 you''^®, that the apostles, very soon after the death of 
 their Lord, set apart the first day of the week, being 
 that on which they affirmed he rose from the dead, as 
 a day of religious worship, of Christian rejoicing on 
 account of that important event, calling it the hordes 
 Day: it appears, too, that the Christian converts in 
 general, both at Jerusalem and at other places, united 
 Acts, XX. 7. 1 Cor. xvi. 2. Rev. i. 10. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 171 
 
 with them in solemnizing* this day, and for the reason 
 just specified. Farther, the most ancient writers in the 
 Christian church, after the apostles, agree in assuring 
 us that the observation of the first day of the week pre- 
 vailed early and constantly. Barnabas tells us, that 
 in his time the eighth day was observed with glad- 
 ness, being that on irhich Jesus rose from the dead,^^ 
 Ignatius calls it the Queen of Days, and assigns the 
 same reason for its being kept holy. Melito wrote a 
 book concerning it. Justin Martyr and 7’ertullian 
 speak expressly, in their apologies, of stated Christian 
 assemblies held on that day. Clemens Alexandri- 
 nes, and many others, furnish similar evidence. Nay, 
 Pliny, a very few years after the death of St. John, 
 speaks of it as the sacred day of the Christians. By 
 the observance of this day, which has ever since con- 
 tinued in the Christian Church, the memory of the 
 event of Christ’s resurrection is engraven upon time 
 itself — upon that which, by its perpetual flux, con- 
 sumes all things, and is itself perishing, yet will last 
 through the successions of finite beings. Let the rea- 
 soning of Mr. Leslie adduced in my letter on miracles, 
 be applied, then, to the case before us, and you will 
 find it impossible to account rationally for the observ- 
 ance of the Lord’s day without allowing the fact of the 
 resurrection. 
 
 Thus again, with respect to Baptism: as a Christiaji 
 ordinance, it was instituted (as I have already re- 
 marked) offer the resurrection of Jesus Christ^b None 
 were to be baptized except they believed : If thou 
 believest with all thine heart,” said Philip to the 
 Eunuch, thou mayest” be baptized^®. This ante- 
 cedent belief included both the crucifixion and the 
 resurrection of Jesus; and the primitive mode of ad- 
 ministering baptism aptly represented both, agreeably 
 to the language of Paul : Buried with him in bap- 
 tism, wherein also you are risen with him, through the 
 faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from 
 Matt, xxviii. 19. Mark, xvi. 16. Acts, viii. 37. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 172 
 
 the dead^^” Now, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter 
 addressed the multitude then collected together, he 
 reasoned principally upon the fact of the resurrection, • 
 and affirmed that Jesus, whom they had crucified, was 
 thus raised up in proof that he was both Lord and 
 Christ/’ So convincing were his arguments within that 
 short distance from the epoch assigned to the resurrec- 
 tion, that on this one day three thousand believed, and 
 were baptized, that is, baptized in token of their belief 
 that Jesus died, rose again, and instituted Baptism 
 after his resurrection. Here, therefore, in like man- 
 ner, the reasoning is conclusive. It is impossible to 
 account for the introduction of Baptism ‘‘ in the name 
 of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost^V^ 
 at any time, and much less for the circumstance of 
 thousands submitting to the ordinance within a few 
 days of that on which the apostles declared Je,sus rose, 
 unless it be allowed that they were thoroughly con- 
 vinced of the truth of the fact: and if thousands who 
 were at Jerusalem at the precise period assigned to the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ had satisfied themselves of 
 its reality, it is the most puerile of all puerile things (to 
 say nothing of its banefulness) to devise and urge objec- 
 tions at the distance of eighteen hundred years: such, 
 however, is the puerility of men whose minds are too 
 strong to bend to the teachings of Infinite Wisdom. 
 
 But, as arguments in favour of this great fact flow 
 from various quarters, let it be farther considered, that, 
 if the account of Christ’s resurrection had been false, 
 the imposture must necessarily have been detected. 
 For the advocates for Christianity may argue, and its 
 opponents cannot with any appearance of reason deny, 
 — that the apostles immediately after the resurrection 
 declared it; — that they made this declaration upon 
 the very spot where the thing was pretended to have 
 occurred ; — that they did not disseminate their story 
 coverlly ; but proclaimed it in the most open and pub- 
 lic manner possible; — that they did not begin to circu- 
 Co!, ii. 12. Matt, xxviii. 19. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 173 
 
 late their report in some secret and obscure corner; 
 but in one of the most celebrated and public places 
 then existing in the world : — that they made choice of 
 a season in which there was the greatest concourse and 
 resort of all sorts of people thither, that they might 
 gain the greatest number of hearers and of inquirers 
 into the truth of their extraordinary narration: — that 
 the professed adversaries of the Christian doctrine then 
 at Jerusalem had many cogent reasons to stimulate 
 them to exert their utmost efforts to prove it false : — 
 that they had as much time and opportunity as could 
 well be desired to devote to the detection of the impos- 
 ture, had there been any : — and, that they had likewise 
 power in their hands, by which they were enabled to 
 examine all persons and things that might in any way 
 conduce to throw light upon this remarkable and highly 
 interesting subject. 
 
 Under circumstances so favourable to refutation, 
 there can be no doubt that the Jews would have re- 
 futed the story of the apostles and disciples of Jesus 
 Christ, had it been in their power: and, besides this, 
 the Jews had an additional motive arising from the 
 injury sustained by their moral character, unless they 
 could prove the statements of the Christians to be in- 
 tentionally and wickedly erroneous. It will be readily 
 granted, I suppose, that, when two parties of men are 
 directly and strongly opposed to each other, if the one 
 asserts and publishes a statement as to matter of fact 
 which is of the highest moment, and absolutely de- 
 structive of the interest of the other, and is not so 
 palpably false as to carry with it plain indications of 
 malignity and revenge, or of studied slander and 
 scandal ; that then, if the other party, upon whom this 
 charge is made, does not in as solemn and public a 
 manner refute it, or do something in their own vindi- 
 cation, which will, in the opinion of unbiassed and un- 
 prejudiced persons, bear some proportion to the attack 
 made upon them — in such case, the accused party 
 tacitly acknowledge the truth of what the accusing 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 174 
 
 party have alleged against them, and thus, of conse- 
 quence, relinquish the cause. Now this is exactly the 
 state of the case between the Jews and early Christians. 
 The evangelist, Matthew, publishes to the world in un- 
 equivocal terms, that the Jews bribed the soldiers to 
 report that the body of Christ was stolen by his disci- 
 ples when they (the guards) were asleep®^; and the 
 early Christians uniformly asserted the same thing. To 
 record thus in the evangelical history that the Jews 
 were guilty of this ridiculous and self-destructive, and 
 yet horrid and abominable, piece of forgery and bribery ; 
 to tell the world that they acted so foul and sordid a 
 part as to tamper with the soldiers, and get them to 
 circulate a story which in their hearts they knew to be 
 notoriously false, as well as absurd, since no man can 
 accurately ascertain what is carried on near him when 
 his senses are locked up in sleep ; to do this, was to 
 depict the ruling Jews to the world in the very w^orst 
 colours in which men could be drawn, and to expose 
 the cause of these enemies of Christ, as desperate and 
 forlorn to the last degree. Is it not natural to con- 
 clude that the Jews would in some signal manner 
 have vindicated themselves from this charge, if they 
 had not known and felt that vindication was impos- 
 sible, the thing being notorious P and is it not an equally 
 necessary inference, that the Jew's at that time were 
 fully persuaded that Jesus Christ was indeed risen P 
 otherwise, why should they offer bribes, and invent an 
 absurd story, to conceal it? 
 
 Thus much may suffice to establish the truth of the 
 momentous fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ 
 from the dead. From this outline of arguments, for it 
 is indeed nothing more than an outline, you will per- 
 ceive that the evidence in favour of this event is both 
 forcible and satisfactory. To believe it, then, is reason- 
 able ; and it is freed from absurdity, because resurrec- 
 tion from the dead is manifestly as much within the 
 power of God as creation ; and every consistent t heist 
 Matt, xxviii. 13. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 175 
 
 admits the latter. But the adoption of a contrary 
 opinion is pregnant with absurdities and natural im- 
 possibilities ; with the mention of a few' of which I 
 shall close this letter. 
 
 He, who denies the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 must believe, — That twelve poor fishermen and tent- 
 makers, without power, and (all except Paul) without 
 human learning', were able to deceive the wise, the 
 learned, the prudent; and to lay their plot so deep, that 
 neither their cotemporaries, nor any succeeding genera- 
 tion, should be able to detect and expose the cheat. 
 
 — That those very persons who but a few hours be- 
 fore were trembling with timidity and fear, whose w'ant 
 of courage (even according to their own account) over- 
 came their fidelity, and caused them to forsake their 
 master in his greatest extremity, notwithstanding their 
 various professions, nay, protestations, of inviolable 
 attachment and zeal ; being so terrified with apprehen- 
 sions that they dare not acknowdedge themselves to be 
 his disciples, but secreted themselves by day for fear of 
 the Jews; — yet that these timid, irresolute creatures 
 should all at once not only form the plan, but execute 
 the bold, hazardous, and useless undertaking of con- 
 quering the guards, forcing the sepulchre, and carrying 
 off the body of their crucified Lord. 
 
 — That men thus rash and desperate, engaged in an 
 enterprise of so much danger, an enterprise wdiich 
 therefore recjuired all possible expedition and des- 
 patch, should waste time in unaccountable niceties, 
 and ceremonies (such as divesting the body of its 
 burial-clothes, disposing them in separate parcels, &c.) 
 which could be of no manner of use; but evidently 
 exposed them to the danger of being surprised by the 
 guards, and taken into custody. 
 
 — That these timid, yet desperate men, who con- 
 stituted a company of the greatest impostors that ever 
 existed in the world, and who, therefore, must neces- 
 sarily be the worst men that ever were, did, notwith- 
 standing, furnish mankind wdth the most comprehensive 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 176 
 
 and exact system of morality extant, teach such voles 
 of living as were infinitely superior to any of the pro- 
 ductions of Greek or Roman philosophers, and though 
 their whole business was only to promote and dissemi- 
 nate falsehood and deception, yet denounced the se- 
 verest eternal punishments upon all who indulged in 
 such wicked practices. 
 
 — That these impostors, having themselves no cor- 
 rect notions of God, should notwithstanding impart 
 the most rational and becoming opinions respecting 
 him to the rest of mankind; and, by no other prin- 
 ciples than those of delusion and irreligion, kindle a 
 flame of desire in the breasts of thousands to serve and 
 worship God. 
 
 — That they took far more pains to expose themselves 
 to all the world, as the most abandoned sinners that 
 ever came into it (for that they should deceive them- 
 selves so as to believe Jesus was seen ten distinct times 
 after his resurrection, when he was not seen at all, can- 
 not be imagined), than they need have done to establish 
 the best reputation among their cotemporaries, and 
 procure an immortal fame in all succeeding ages. 
 
 — That these impostors, after spending their lives in 
 promulgating falsehood, died, not to testify their belief 
 in a speculative doctrine respecting which they might 
 be deluded by others, or self-deluded ; but in attesta- 
 tion of a pretended fact, while they knew it was no 
 fact ; and all this under the strongest declarations of 
 devotedness to God, and of adoration to their risen Sa- 
 viour, who, they pretended, was now sitting in heaven 
 to receive them^l 
 
 Hence you will perceive that, as a general denial of 
 revelation leads to numerous gross absurdities, of which 
 a few were detailed in my first letter, so a denial of 
 individual topics of revealed truth brings each its ap- 
 propriate and dependent string of difficulties. He who 
 denies the truth of Scripture prophecy must admit that 
 things have occurred, although there was an infinitely 
 Acts, vii. 59. 
 
ON THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 177 
 
 ^reat probability against their occurrence. He who 
 disbelieves the miracles recorded in Scripture, must 
 believe in other miracles. And he who denies the par- 
 ticular miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in 
 consequence involves himself in the particular class of 
 absurdities to which I have just adverted: besides 
 which he voluntarily excludes himself from the only 
 strong consolation a rational creature can possess at 
 the hour of death, that which flows from a full persua- 
 sion of the resurrection to eternal life. ‘‘ I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life,’’ said Jesus Christ: who- 
 soever believeth in me shall not die eternally and 
 his own resurrection fully establishes the truth of this 
 consolatory declaration. But the proud philosophist 
 who rejects this doctrine, so suited to the wishes and 
 the wants of man, not only places himself below the 
 Christian, but below the Indian^ in point of prospects 
 of futurity. The poor untutored, despised Indian 
 
 ‘‘ Thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company.” 
 
 While many of those who pity the stupidity of the 
 Indian, and sneer at the credulity of the Christian, live 
 and die under the embasing conviction that at death 
 themselves and their dogs will be alike extinct, alike 
 free from responsibility, alike unconscious of all around 
 them, alike excluded from pleasure, alike liberated 
 from pain^M I am, &c. 
 
 John, xi. 25, 26. 
 
 It was a common assertion of Diderot, that between him and 
 his dog “ il ny avoit de difference que habit,''’ 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 RAPID PROMULGATION 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 Evidence drawn from the rapid Diffusion of Christianity, 
 and its Triumph over Persecution ; also from the Pu- 
 rity and Excellency of the Scripture Morality and 
 Theology. 
 
 The two topics I have selected for discussion in this 
 letter mioht each furnish matter for a volume ; and 
 the argument, if judiciously handled, would rather 
 gain strength, than become weakened, by such dilation. 
 I mean, however, in either case to present you with u 
 mere outline of the argument, and leave you to give 
 colour and force to the former, by your acquaintance 
 with the history of the first four centuries of the 
 Church, and to the latter, by a careful perusal of the 
 Holy Scriptures. 
 
 Our reasoning is simple, and rests upon the princi- 
 ples of Natural Religion. God will aid that which is 
 good, and check that which is bad, in so far that each 
 shall be rendered subservient to a higher good : hence 
 it is agreeable to Divine Providence to give the most 
 rapid and extensive diffusion, independently of secular 
 concurrence, to that which is, in itself and its tenden- 
 cies, best; and hence it will follow, since God has 
 regard to human affairs, and since the Christian Reli- 
 gion cannot be good if it be not true, or could not 
 gain ground as it did in opposition to earthly power 
 and unassisted by heavenly power, that it is what it 
 professes to be, and is therefore divine. 
 
 It is, I believe, an undeniable fact, that before the 
 end of the second century Christianity had been more 
 widely disseminated over the face of the earth, than 
 any one religion, true or false. Heathenism, in all its 
 varieties of dismal shades, had been thickening for 
 thousands of years, until “ darkness covered the lands, 
 and gross darkness the people.^’ But as the natural 
 sun chases away darkness from whole regions, with 
 analogous rapidity did the “ Sun of Righteousness^^ 
 
OF CHIIISTIANITY. 
 
 179 
 
 dispel the moral ^loom which every where prevailed. 
 Thus Tren^eus affirms that, in his lime, not only those 
 who dwelt near Palestine, but the Egyptians, the 
 liihyans, the Celts, the Germans, &c. had one belief: 
 nay, says he, the preaching of the truth shines every 
 where, and enlightens all men who are willing to come 
 to the knowledge of the truth Clemens Alexan- 
 drines again affirms that, in his time, “ Christ was 
 known in all nations^” And, that I may not need- 
 lessly multiply quotations, let me, once for all, cite 
 Tertullian^. '' In whom else have all nations be- 
 lieved, but in Christ, who lately came? In whom have 
 all these nations believed ? i, e. Parthians, Medes, 
 Elamites, and the dw'ellers in Mesopotamia, Armenia, 
 Phrygia, Cappadocia; the inhabitants of Pontus, and 
 Asia, and Pamphylia ; they that dwell in Egypt, and 
 they who live in Africa, beyond Cyrene ; Romans, and 
 strangers ; Jews, and other nations in Jerusalem ; the 
 various sorts of people in Getulea ; the many countries 
 of the Moors; all the borders of Spain ; the different 
 nations ‘of Gaul ; and those parts of Britain which 
 the Romans could not reach, even they are subject to 
 Christ; the Sarmatae also, and Daci, the Germans 
 and Scythians ; and many other obscure nations, with 
 many provinces and islands scarcely known to us: in 
 all these the name of Christ, lately as he came, reigns.^’ 
 Presently after, this distinguished apologist shows how 
 much larger the kingdom of Christ was, even in his 
 time (the end of the second century), than any of the 
 
 * Iren. lib. i. c. 3. ^ Strom, v. 
 
 ^ Cont, Jud. lib. 1. The following is the reluctant testimony of 
 Gibbon, Hist. Rom. Empire, ix. 244. “ The progress of Christianity 
 was one hundred and twenty at the Ascension (Acts, i. 15), soon 
 after three thousand (c. ii. 41), then five thousand, and in little less 
 than two years after the Ascension to great multitudes at Jerusalem 
 only. Mahomet was three years silently occupied in making fourteen 
 converts, and they of his own family ; and proceeded so slow at 
 Mecca, that in the seventh year only eighty-three men and eighteen 
 women retired to Ethiopia— and he had no establisleed religion at 
 Mecca to contend with.” 
 
RAPID PPvOMULGATTON 
 
 180 
 
 Great Alonarchies, as they are usually called, and then 
 proceeds thus : “ The kingdom of Christ is every where 
 extended, every where received ; in all the above-men- 
 tioned nations is esteemed. He reigns every where, is 
 adored in all places, is divided equally amongst all 
 known countries.^^ From this wonderful success at- 
 tending the promulgation of Christianity in all nations, 
 it soon obtained the name of ?} Kparnaa or the 
 
 prevailing doctrine; as Porphyry and Julian both ac- 
 knowledge. 
 
 Now what religion was there that could compare 
 with this for the extent of its possession? The only 
 plausible answer is — Heathenism. But Heathenism, 
 it should be recollected, though it be one name, is not 
 one religion. Heathens do not all worship the same 
 thing, as I have abundantly shown in a former letter; 
 nor are they governed by the same law, or bow to 
 one common master in religious matters. The only 
 religions which even now can bear any comparison in 
 point of number of votaries with the Christian, are the 
 Jewish and the Mahometan ; and both of them are 
 decidedly inferior in respect of rapid diffusion. The 
 Jews, indeed, though very much scattered over the face 
 of the earth, are but one nation, and profess one reli- 
 gion, namely, that which in the Divine dispensations 
 prepared the way for Christianity. But their religion, 
 it is well known, has received no remarkable increase 
 since the time of Christ ; and even their sacred law is 
 made more known through the efforts of the Christians 
 than their own. As to Mahometanism, it is settled 
 and established in many countries; but not alone: for 
 Christianity is esteemed in some of those countries ; 
 nay, in some, indeed, by a greater proportion of the 
 inhabitants: whereas, on the contrary, there are many 
 parts of Christendom where there is not a single Maho- 
 metan to be found, except as a sojourner or a visitor. 
 
 How, then, was this rapid promulgation, and per- 
 manent preponderancy, of the Christian religion occa- 
 sioned ? Was it primarily, by courting the aid of the 
 
OF CHRISTIAMTY. 
 
 181 
 
 great, the learned, the powerful ; by enlisting states 
 and governments in the cause of Christ? Certainly 
 not. Most men, we observe, are prepared to follow 
 the example, and comply with the wishes, of kings and 
 rulers; especially if they are enforced with retributive 
 or compulsive laws. To these the religion of the Jews, 
 of the Pagans, and of the Mahometans, owed much 
 of their increase. But Christianity, during the time 
 it spread most rapidly, was not incorporated with the 
 state, as was Judaism, and many systems of Paganism ; 
 nor was it propagated by the sword of its advocates, 
 as was Mahometanism. They who first taught the 
 Christian religion were not only men without any secu- 
 lar authority, but of low fortune, such as fishermen and 
 tent-makers : and yet, by the instrumentality of these 
 men, that doctrine was in the course of thirty years 
 disseminated, not only through all parts of the Roman 
 empire, but as far as the Parthians and Indians. And 
 not only at its earliest commencement, but for nearly 
 three hundred years, by the industry and zeal of pri- 
 vate, obscure persons, without any threats, without any 
 invitations, nay, opposed as much as possible by those 
 who were in authority, this religion was so widely 
 promulgated, that long before Constantine professed 
 Christianity, it was received in the greatest part of the 
 Roman empire. We are but of yesterday,’^ says 
 Tertcjllian, and have filled all places belonging to 
 you ; your cities, islands, castles, towns, councils ; your 
 Yevy camps, wards, companies, the palace, senate, and 
 forum : we have left you only your temples'^ 
 
 Nor was this efiected by adventitious means. They 
 among the Greeks who delivered their perfect precepts 
 
 Tert. Apol. ii. cap. 37. He adds: We could make a terrible 
 war upon you, by simply being so passively revengeful as only to 
 leave you. Should the numerous host of Christians retire from the 
 empire into some remote region, the loss of so many men of all ranks 
 and degrees would leave a hideous gap, and inflict a shameful scar 
 upon the government. You would stand aghast at your desolation, 
 and be struck dumb at the general silence and horror of nature, as if 
 the whole world were departed.” 
 
RAPID PROMULGATION 
 
 182 
 
 of morality, at the same time rendered themselves ac- 
 ceptable by other arts: as the Platonists, by the study 
 of geometry ; the Peripatetics, by the history of plants 
 and of animals ; the Stoics, by logical subtlety ; the 
 Pythagoreans, by the knowledge of numbers, and their 
 ajjplications to the principles of harmony. Many of 
 them, as Plato, Xenophon, Theo[)hrastus, &c. were 
 endowed with the most admirable eloquence. Not so 
 the Apostles and first teachers of Christianity. ‘‘When 
 I came to you,^’ says Paul to the Corinthians ^ “ I came 
 not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring 
 unto you the testimony of God ; for I determined not 
 to know any thing among you save Jesus Christ, and 
 him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and 
 in fear, and in much trembling; and my speech and 
 my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s 
 wisdom ; but in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
 power.” Indeed, as if in order to mortify human va- 
 nity, to convince the world that religion was a plain, 
 simple thing, and that a little common sense, accom- 
 panied with an honest good heart, was sufficient to 
 propagate it, without any aid derived from the cabinets 
 of princes, or the schools of human science, the Founder 
 of the Christian Religion took twelve poor illiterate 
 men into his company, admitted them to an intimacy 
 with himself, and after he had kept them awhile in 
 tuition, promised them the aid of his Spirit, and sent 
 them to preach the good tidings of salvation to their 
 countrymen. A while after he selected seventy more, 
 giving them a simple but efficacious preparation : and 
 sent them forth to preach the Gospel. “ As ye go,” 
 says he, '^preach, saying. The kingdom of heaven is at 
 band. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, 
 cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 
 Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your 
 purses: nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, 
 neither shoes, nor yet staves. And fear not them which 
 kill the body, but are not able to kill the souP.” Thus 
 s 1 Cor. ii. 1—4. 6 Matt. x. 7—10, 28. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 183 
 
 equipped, they went forth to their momentous but 
 dangerous undertaking. They delivered the history, 
 they taught the doctrines, they declared the precepts, 
 promises, and ihreatenings, in bare words, unaccompa- 
 nied by any secular power. Yet they were every where 
 successful as to the object of their mission, and in the 
 course of two centuries accomplished what I have al- 
 ready described: so that we must of necessity allow, 
 either that they were attended by miracles, or that the 
 secret influence of God favoured their efforts, or both : 
 and in either case it follows, that the cause they es- 
 poused was the cause of God. 
 
 This will appear still more obviously, if we consider 
 the impediments with which they had to contend, and 
 the difficulties which arose even from the nature of the 
 religion they professed. Considered as a system in- 
 tended to effect proselytism by the usual means, it was 
 fundamentally erroneous. No quality could be ima- 
 gined more directly calculated, considering the state of 
 the world about the Christian era, to frustrate the at- 
 tempts of the primitive Christians, than the inflexibility, 
 or, as it has been called, the intolerance of their zeal. 
 It is true, the religion they proposed was so far of a 
 general nature, that none were necessarily excluded 
 from the benefit of it: all were invited to partake of its 
 blessings. Yet, notwithstanding this liberality, Chris- 
 tianity was ill the strictest sense, in relation to other 
 religions then prevailing, an unsocial religion. Unlike 
 the various schemes and modifications of polytheism, 
 it would neither accommodate itself to the reigning su- 
 perstitions, nor would it admit of any association with 
 them. ^‘Keep yourselves from idols '^ was an injunc- 
 tion incessantly ringing in the ears, and meeting the 
 eyes of the first disciples. What can be the reason,^^ 
 said J^milian, prefect of Egypt, to Dionysius, Bishop 
 of Alexandria, why you may not still adore that God 
 of yours, supposing him to be a God, in conjunction 
 with our Gods?’’ “We worship no other God,” re- 
 7 1 John, V. 21. 1 Cor. x. 14. 2 Cor. vi. 16, 17. 
 
RAPID PROMULGATION 
 
 184 
 
 plied Dionysius®. In the ears of a Polytheist such 
 language was unpardonable; yet it was the language 
 uniformly suggested by the Christian religion. Thus 
 when C?//)ri«wwas brought before the Proconsul, “Thou 
 art Thascius Cyprian (says he) who hast been a ring- 
 leader to men of a perverse mind : the emperor com- 
 mands thee to do sacrifice ; consult, then, thy welfare.^^ 
 To this he answered, “ I am Cyprian, I am too a Chris- 
 tian, and I cannot sacrifice to your gods: do, therefore, 
 what you are commanded ; as for me, in so just a cause 
 I need no time for consideration.’^ Similarly noble 
 and decided was the conduct of Polycarp and Basil; 
 all tending to evince that their religion was formed to 
 stand alone ; and wherever it prevailed, it was over the 
 ruins of other systems. With such pretensions the 
 heralds of the Gospel could not well hope for a favour- 
 able reception. Their apparent arrogance could only 
 serve to provoke the indignation of those whom they 
 endeavoured to convert ; and the ardent zeal with 
 which they prosecuted their cause would, “ according 
 to the NATURAL course of thing s,^^ have a direct tendency 
 to defeat their object ^ 
 
 Besides this, the minds of those to whom this new 
 religion was proposed were preoccupied. They were 
 filled with opinions, and moulded into habits, all of 
 which were directly and powerfully repugnant to the 
 spirit of Christianity. The Hebrews were prepared 
 for the reception of the Law of Moses by the previous 
 appointment of circumcision, and by their knowledge 
 of one God. But, from a moderate acquaintance with 
 the state of the Jewish and Gentile world at the origin 
 of Cliristianity, it must be evident that every thing that 
 most strongly influences and tyrannizes over the mind 
 of man, — religion, custom, law, policy, pride, interest, 
 vice, and even philosophy, — were united against the 
 GospeP^ These enemies were, in their own nature, 
 
 ® Vide Eiiseh. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. 11. 
 
 ® See Warburton’s Divine Legation, book ii. sect. 6. 
 
 Justin Martj’r, in bis dialogue with the Jew Trvpho, affirms 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 185 
 
 very formidable and difficult to be subdued, bad they 
 even suffered themselves to be attacked upon equal 
 ground. But, not relying upon their own strength, 
 w'hen barely opposed to the obscure disciples of a cru- 
 cified malefactor (for prejudice and falsehood are always 
 timid and fearful), they entrenched themselves behind 
 that power of which they were in possession, and ren- 
 dered themselves inaccessible, as they imagined, to 
 Christianity, by planting round them, not only all kinds 
 of civil discouragements, but even torments, chains, 
 and death; terrors which no one could despise, who 
 had any views of ambition or interest, and who was 
 not even contented to resign his reputation, his ease, 
 his fortune, and his life ; — for the relinquishment of all 
 these was, as Jesus Christ himself had predicted, the 
 frequent consequence of the early profession of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 ‘‘ And now,^^ said St. Paul, on taking leave of the 
 elders of the Church at Ephesus, now behold I go 
 urged by the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the 
 things which shall befall me lliere: save that the Holy 
 Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying, that bo7ids and 
 
 tliat the Jews in the first century established a universal mission, for 
 the express purpose of counteracting the propagation of the Christian 
 faith. The High-priests and teachers, he assures us, caused the 
 name of Christ to be blasphemed and profaned throughout the known 
 world : “ They sent messengers into all countries to say that an im- 
 pious and unjust sedition had been raised by one Jesus a Galilean, 
 whose body, after crucifixion, was stolen away by his disciples 
 and noiv their descendants are every where scattered, a perpetual 
 monument of the divine origin and truth of the religion, which eigh- 
 teen hundred years ago was so assiduously and vehemently opposed ! 
 See Just. Mart. Dial, cum Tryp. sect. 25, Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. 
 iv. cap. 18, Cave’s Apostolici, vol. i. p. 147, or Collinson’s Key to 
 the Fathers, p. 344. 
 
 We who have been accustomed to read of the persecutions of sin- 
 cere, devotional Christians, in all ages of the world, are apt to for- 
 get that on the introduction of Christianity, persecution for religion 
 was a neiv thing. Origen (cont. Celsus, lib. ii. cap. 14), adduces 
 this fact in proof of our Lord’s divine mission, and asks, “ What re- 
 ligion is tliere in the whole habitable world, that wants the advan- 
 tage of a toleration^ except that which our Saviour introduced ? ’ 
 
RAPID PROMULGATION 
 
 186 
 
 nj/ltctioii^ await me. But none of these things move 
 me, neither count I my life clear unto myself, so that I 
 might finish my course with joy, anci the ministry 
 which I have received of the Lorcl Jesus, to testify tlie 
 Gospel of the grace of God Similar to this in kind, 
 if not in degree, must have been the expectation of all 
 zealous Christians in the primitive ages. They were 
 called, in consequence of their profession, to the great- 
 est sufferings. For centuries they were excluded from 
 all p! aces of honour, were fined, had their goods con- 
 fiscated, were banished ; and these w ere comparatively 
 small things. They were condemned to the mines, 
 had inflicted upon them the most cruel torments that 
 men could invent; such as the rack, the wheel, throw- 
 ing to wild beasts, tearing asunder by branches of 
 trees, burning in pitched coats, boiling in oil or lead, 
 crucifixion with the head downwards: thus, in a short 
 time, the punishments of death were so common that, 
 as related by the wu’iters of those times, no famine, 
 pestilence, or war, ever consumed more men at a time. 
 The persecutions, to which the early Christians were 
 exposed, followed one another with furious and unre- 
 lenting rapidity, leaving the Church scarcely time to 
 breathe between the several sanguinary attacks under 
 which she languished and suffered. No sooner had 
 the converts to Christianity, in the language of Tacitus, 
 become a vast multitude than the first great perse- 
 cution began, under Nero, A. D. 65. The second hap- 
 pened under Domitian, A. D. 90. The third com- 
 menced under Trajan, A. D. 100. The fourth under 
 Adrian, A. D. 126, and continued under Antoninus 
 Pius, to A.D. 140. The fifth under Marcus Aurelius, 
 A. D. 162. The sixth under Severus, A.D. 203. The 
 seventh under Maximinus, A. D. 236. The eighth under 
 Decius, A.D. 251. The ninth under Valerian, A.D. 
 258. The tenth under Dioclelia7i, A.D. 303. And 
 what, you will ask, was the nature of these persecu- 
 
 Acts, XX. 22— 24. 
 
 Ingens raultitudo. Tac. Hist. lib. xv. sect. 44. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 187 
 
 lions? In reply, I shall briefly describe tlie last. In 
 the edict issued by Diocletian, in 303, he commanded 
 all the churches to be demolished, and the Christians 
 to be deprived of their sacred writings, and of all their 
 civil privileges and immunities : it occasioned the death 
 of’ very many, who refused to surrender their religious 
 books to the magistrates. Indeed Tertullian informs 
 us that twenty thousand Christians were burned b}^ 
 Diocletian’s orders on one Christmas Day; of whom 
 many were burned in a church where they were assem- 
 bled for worship. A second edict ordered the impri- 
 sonment of all bishops and ministers of the Gospel. A 
 third commanded that the most exquisite tortures 
 should be employed, to constrain these captives to 
 lead the way in open apostasy. In the fourth, promul- 
 gated A. D. 304, magistrates were enjoined to exercise 
 these tortures upon all Christians, without distinction 
 of rank or sex, for the purpose of forcing them to re- 
 nounce their religion. These edicts, which extended 
 over the whole Roman empire, with the exception of 
 Gaul, were executed with such active, brutal, and suc- 
 cessful zeal, that pillars were erected in Spain in 
 honour of Diocletian, for having every where abolished 
 the superstition of Christ; and a medal of this empe- 
 ror, still extant, was struck with the inscription, — 
 Nomine Christianorum deleto^'^J' Besides these, there 
 were persecutions in Africa, in Persia, in Arabia, Cap- 
 padocia, Mesopotamia, Nicomedia, Phrygia, and in 
 almost every place where the Christian name was 
 known. Christianity had every where armed against 
 it, the policy of empires, the jealousy of magistrates 
 both supreme and subordinate, the interests of the 
 priesthood, the virulent, systematic, and well disci- 
 plined rancour of the philosophers, and the furious 
 passions of an inflamed and superstitious populace; 
 and thus, those who suffered for “ the cause of Christ,” 
 
 Milner’s Church History, vol. ii. p. 6, 7. See also Eusebius, 
 Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. viii. and the testimonies collected by D’Oj'lej, 
 in his “ Four Dissertations,” p 210, &:c. 
 
RAPID PROMULGATION 
 
 188 
 
 men, women, youths of both sexes, were so numerous 
 as to be estimated only in the mass ; many of them 
 falling under the weight of such excruciating torments, 
 as cannot be read or thought of without agony and 
 horror. Still, as Cyprian, when exhorting the martyrs 
 of his time, tells them of those who had gone before, 
 in the hottest conflict they never shrunk, hut main- 
 tained their ground with a free confession, an unshaken 
 mind, a divine courage, destitute indeed of external 
 weapons, but armed with ^ the shield of faith in 
 torments they stood stronger than their tormentors; 
 their bruised and mangled limbs proved too hard for 
 the instruments with which their flesh was racked and 
 pulled from them ; the blows, however often repeated, 
 could not conquer their impregnable faith ; even though 
 they not only sliced and tore off the flesh, but raked 
 into their very bowels, and let out blood enough to 
 extinguish tlie flames of persecution, or mitigate the 
 heat of their hellish fire.” Thus, though such as these 
 were the difficulties with which Christianity had to 
 struggle for many ages, still she prevailed. The 
 blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church^^.^^ 
 That which might have been thought most uncongenial 
 
 The more 3 ou mow us down, the thicker we rise : the Christian 
 blood 3 'ou spill is like the seed you sow; it springs from the earth 
 again, and fructifies the more.” Tertullian, Apol. c. 50. 
 
 D’Oyle}^, in the book referred to in the last note, says, “ I cannot, 
 I confess, reflect upon these examples but with the highest admira- 
 tion. For, though it is very natural to conceive, that, for a man to 
 huff and bluster, when shelled in steel, and indebted to the armourer 
 for his bravery, is no great argument of merit ; as, when the ancient 
 poets first made i\\e\r heroes mvulner able ^ and then represent them as 
 fearless, they give but a poor idea of their courage. Yet, when every 
 stroke wounds, and sufterings make a smart and piercing impression : 
 nay, as in the case of torture, when cruelty gorges itself upon the 
 naked tender body, as a prostrate, defenceless prey ; for a man to be 
 then daring and regardless, to resist unto blood, shows a boldness and 
 constancy truly Christian ; an evidence not barely of a well praised 
 and masculine spirit, but of such a faith as disarms fear and pain, and 
 despises death ; a faith which is greater and more honourable in the 
 sight of heaven, than that which removes mountains, or, like Joshua s, 
 arrests the iiiolion of the sun,” 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 189 
 
 to the growth of the new religion, was found most 
 propitious to it. It prevailed, notwithstanding this 
 astonishing, this unprecedented, this universal oppo- 
 sition, so as to change the whole face of things, to 
 overturn the temples and the altars of the gods, silence 
 the oracles, mortify the impious pride of emperors, 
 confound the presumptuous w isdom of philosophers, — 
 and infuse into the hearts of thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands a new spirit, and transform them into new men. 
 
 Whence did the new religion acquire this mysterious 
 and inextinguishable potency? Was it from Heaven, 
 or of men?’’ No natural cause can account for it : indeed 
 it is contrary to the whole course of natural causes. 
 Weak, illiterate men, of the lowest class, — men, who 
 had nothing in this ivorlcl to offer their converts, but 
 sufferings, tortures, and the cross, — who were every 
 where oppugned, persecuted, and ill treated, even 
 unto death — these were they who triumphed ‘‘ over 
 flesh and blood, and converted the universe. They 
 continued to suffer, century after century, till they had 
 subdued the world by dying for their religion. The 
 cause is to be found alone in the omnipotence of truth, 
 and especially the truth of God. “ In the name of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, the lame walk, the lepers are 
 cleansed, the deaf hear, the blind see, the dead are 
 raised, the poor (reckoned of no estimation in the eyes 
 of the world) the poor have the Gospel preached unto 
 them*".” In this name the Legislator of the universe 
 speaks, nations hear, and rejoice, and live: and thus 
 we arrive at the only competent and adequate solu- 
 tion of the difficulty, w hy genuine Christianity, whose 
 peculiar characteristic was non-resistance, should be 
 every where and in all ages opposed ; and yet should 
 every where and in all ages increase. Thus, in the 
 clearest and purest manifestation of himself to the 
 world, God evinced his perfect independence of human 
 wisdom and human power : he passed by the splen- 
 dour of thrones and the glory of philosophy, and 
 showed that he could command all nature, and influ- 
 Matt. xi. 5. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALITY 
 
 190 
 
 ence all hearts, by means the most humble, and most 
 likely to be contemned. He chose the foolish things 
 of the world to confound the wise ; and the weak thing’s 
 of the world to confound those which are mighty ; and 
 base things of the world, and things which are despised, 
 did God choose, yea, and things which are not, to 
 bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should 
 glory his presence^^.^^ 
 
 Having thus exhibited the argument drawn from the 
 early propagation of Christianity, let me now briefly 
 advert to that which flows from the purity, excellency, 
 and extent, of the Christian morality and theology. 
 
 The nature of these may be gathered from the testi- 
 mony of the enemies to Christianity, from its effect upon 
 the character and conduct of its converts in all ages, 
 and from the tenon r of the Holy Scriptures. Here then, 
 first, as to the testimony of enemies to Christianity, 
 since I must conform to the principle of selection, I 
 shall cite only two; but they will be amj)ly sufficient 
 for my purpose. Of these, the first is Pliny, the 
 younger, who, in his celebrated letter to Trajan, writes 
 thus from Nicomedia, concerning the Christians under 
 his government : — ‘‘ The sum total of their fault, or of 
 their error, consisted in assembling upon a certain 
 stated day, before it was light, to sing alternately among 
 themselves hymns to Christ as to a God; binding them- 
 selves, by oath, not to be guilty of any wickedness ; 
 not to steal, nor to rob; not to commit adultery; nor 
 break their faith when plighted ; nor to deny the depo- 
 sits in their hands, whenever called upon to restore 
 them. These ceremonies performed, they usually de- 
 parted, and came together again to take a repast, the 
 meat of which was innocent, and eaten promiscuous- 
 ly The only crime this governor could discover in 
 the Christians, was merely an obstinate kind of super- 
 stition, carried to great excess.^^ He therefore asks. 
 Must they be punished for the name, though otherwise 
 innocent? Or is the name itself so flagitious, as to be 
 
 '6 1 Cor. i. 27—29. 
 
 Orrery’s Pliny, book x. epist. 97. 
 
AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 191 
 
 punishable?’^ Conformably with this, we find that the 
 early Christian apologists are frequently exposing the 
 cruelty and folly of the heathen magistrates ; because, 
 while they put others to the rack to extort confession of 
 their crimes, they tormented Christians that they might 
 deny and renounce their characteristic name. 
 
 My next evidence is Lucian, one of the ablest 
 writers of his age, and one of the chief magistrates of 
 a great province of the empire. "" The legislator of 
 the Christians (says he) persuades them that they are 
 all brethren. Idiey secede from us : they abjure the 
 gods of the Grecians. They adore their crucified teacher, 
 and conform their lives to his laws. They despise 
 riches; every thing amongst them is in common ; and 
 they are constant in their failh. To this day they adore 
 their great man crucified in Palestine*®.” 
 
 Such, then, according lo the testimony of Pliny and 
 Lucian, was the effect of Christianity upon the minds 
 and condnctof those who embraced it, that they engaged 
 not to commit a^iy crime, that they adhered strictly to 
 their promises, that they could have no crime imputed 
 to them but obstinate attaciiment to their religion, that 
 they despised riches, and that they loved one another 
 as brethren. If any person were seeking for criteria of 
 a false religion, of a religion founded upon wickedness, 
 and cemented by deceit (and such must the Christian 
 religion be, if it did not emanate from God), would he 
 he satisfied with such as these ? 
 
 But let us notice the effect of Christianity upon one 
 who was long a hater of it, and became, notwithstand- 
 ing, its illustrious defender. I mean the apostle Paul. 
 What was his character before his conversion to Chris- 
 tianity? That of a furious bigot, an unrelenting per- 
 
 Lucian de Morte Peregrin). For other testimonies from Anto- 
 ninus Pius, Trypho, &c., see Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. 
 ch. 4. And for Tertullian’s powerful raillery on Trajan’s celebrated 
 letter to Pliny, delineating the conduct which he was to pursue 
 with respect to the Christians, see Apologet, cap. 2, or the Pantologia, 
 art. Trajan. 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALITY 
 
 192 
 
 secutor of all whose religious opinions were different 
 from his own, — a man who “ breathed threatenings 
 and slaughter'^ against others whose only crime was 
 sublime virtue, — a man who delighted in sanguinary 
 scenes, who held the clothes of those who stoned 
 martyrs, probably gnashing his teeth for vexation all 
 the while, that he was too young to be more actively 
 engaged in the brutal scene, — a man whose principal 
 delight was in ‘‘ making havoc of the church,^^ disturb- 
 ing domestic privacy, “ entering into houses, and haling 
 men and women to prison who punished them oft 
 in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, 
 and being exceedingly mad against them, persecuted 
 them unto strange cities How different were his 
 actions and his sentiments after he had been converted 
 on his way to Damascus, and became ‘‘ obedient unto 
 the heavenly vision’/’ Observe how gentle, tender, 
 and sympathizing, is the demeanour; how pure, how 
 elevated, how benevolent, how peculiarly fitted to the 
 wants of universal society, are the ethics become of the 
 man who just before found his greatest pleasure and 
 glory in persecuting and torturing his fellow-creatures! 
 
 Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which 
 is evil, cleave to that which is good. Be kindly-affec- 
 tioned one to another with brotherly love ; in honour 
 preferring one another ; not slothful in business; fer- 
 vent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; 
 patient in tribulation; continuing instant ir> prayer ; 
 distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospi- 
 tality. Bless them which* persecute you; bless, and 
 curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice; and 
 weep with them that weep. Mind not high things. 
 Be not wise in your own conceits. Live peaceably 
 with all men. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give 
 place unto wrath. If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; 
 if he thirst, give him drink. Be not overcome of evil, 
 but overcome evil with good^^.” Where, except in the 
 
 Acts, vii. 58 ; viii. 1 — 3 ; ix. 1 ; xxvi. 10, 11, 19. 
 
 20 Rom. xii. 9—21. 
 
AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 193 
 
 Bible, or in books which inculcate the sentiments of 
 the Bible, will you find such a group of admirable, 
 peace-inspiring, precepts ? Observe, again, how forcibly 
 this apostle depicts the sublime importance of charity, 
 or love. Though I speak with the tongues of men 
 and of angels, and have not charity, I am becoiue a 
 sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though 1 
 have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, 
 and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so 
 that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I 
 am nothing. And though I give my body to be burned, 
 and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing^b^^ Surely 
 this was not always the language of the fanatical 
 persecutor Saul ! Whence, then, did he derive these 
 elevated sentiments, this preference of universal bene- 
 volence to the most splendid and miraculous endow- 
 ments ? Are these the notions of a vile impostor, or of 
 a poor deluded enthusiast, or of one whom ‘‘ much learn- 
 ing has made mad?’^ No ; they are the genuine pro- 
 ductions of the religion of Jesus, invariably manifested 
 in a greater or less degree wherever it is efficacious ; 
 and proving clearly that that religion proceeds from 
 Him who wills the harmony and the happiness of the 
 physical and rational world. 
 
 Look again at the language of the Divine Founder 
 of the Christian religion. Bead some of his discourses. 
 Take those, for example, which are recorded in the 
 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th, and 25th chapters of Matthew^s 
 Gospel; and those in the 12th, 14th, 15th, 16lh, and 
 17th chapters of John^s Gospel. I know your soul 
 is susceptible of exquisite feelings, and that you can 
 readily discern and distinguish the good, the beautiful, 
 the pathetic, the sublime, the sincere : and I therefore 
 may ask you again with confidence, could these admir- 
 able and astonishing discourses proceed from the mouth 
 of an impostor? Could they be the workings of a 
 heated imagination? Could they proceed from any 
 
 1 Cor. xiii. 1 — 3. See also Acts, xxi. 13. 2 Cor. ii. 4. Phil, 
 iii. 18. 
 
 O 
 
CHRISTIAN MORALITY 
 
 194 
 
 7nere morlal ? It is impossible for any man of correct 
 understanding*, and unbiassed mind, to answer these 
 questions in the affirmative. 
 
 But we need not stop at an examination of a few 
 discourses of our Lord and his apostles; we may go 
 much farther, and take in the whole scope, object, and 
 tendency of Scripture; and may boldly affirm, in the 
 language of the poet, that 
 
 “ if we trace the globe around, 
 
 And search from Britain to Japan, 
 
 There shall be no religion found 
 So just to God, so safe for man.” 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven may naturally be 
 expected to furnish the most elevated, impressive, and 
 glorious conceptions of the attributes and operations of 
 the Deity. So does the religion of the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven should furnish 
 incentives to the most sublime virtue, and the strongest 
 motives to avoid sin ; its promises and threatenings 
 should be respectively of the most inviting and alarm- 
 ing kind. Such are the promises and threatenings of 
 the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven should teach man 
 his true character, should tell him what he is, and what 
 he may become ; should give him correct estimates of 
 all around him, especially as they relate to morals and 
 happiness. So does the religion of the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven would naturally 
 condemn selfishness, pride, a secular spirit, discontent, 
 and sensuality; and inculcate the principles of self- 
 denial, resignation, universal harmony, love, and peace. 
 So does the religion of the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven should teach the 
 art of keeping the heaiV' and regulating the affec- 
 tions. So does the religion of the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven, and that is 
 formed for universality, should develope the great 
 principles of social union, should explain and enforce 
 all the relative duties, should soften and civilize the 
 
AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 195 
 
 humap characler^^, should perfect and ennoble every 
 natural sentiment which tends to make man cooperate 
 with his fellow-creatures for good. So does the religion 
 of the Bible. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven may naturally be 
 expected to contain new precepts, such as obviously 
 correspond with the object of it. So does the religion 
 of the Bible, and especially that of the perfective dis- 
 pensation of the New Testament, where the precepts 
 tend in an especial manner to prepare us for the king- 
 dom of Heaven.'^ Here the new precepts point to poor- 
 ness of s])irit, humility, self-abasement, detachment 
 from the world, repentance, faith, forgiveness of inju- 
 ries, charity. All these were unknown to the Pagan 
 moralists. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven may be expected 
 to rest upon some such scheme or plan as would never 
 have entered the mind of man. So does the Christian 
 religion. Its Founder made his oivn sufferings and 
 death a requisite part of his original plan, essential 
 to his mission, and necessary to the salvation of his 
 followers. This infinitely surpassed all human con- 
 ceptions, inventions, or expectations. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven should teach the 
 purest and most rational worship. So does the Chris- 
 tian religion. It teaches us that God is a Spirit, 
 and that they who worship him must worship him in 
 spirit and in truthJ^ These two words exclude formality, 
 iiypocrisy, and deadness in devotion ; and teach us that 
 God requires of us the sincere homage of the heart. 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven will incessantly 
 invite men thither. So does the Christian religion. 
 
 To this effect, Theodoret, writing against the Gentiles, in favour 
 of the excellenc}' of Christian precepts compared with those of the 
 philosophers, gives various instances of whole tmtions which were con- 
 verted from the most brutish, savage, and lewd manners, to mildness, 
 gentleness, benevolence, and chastity, by the power of Christianity. 
 Sie Theod. De Curand. Graec. Affectib. Serin. 9, de Leg. ; or Cave’s 
 Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. 3, p. 58, &c. 
 
196 CHRISTIAN MORALITY 
 
 A religion that comes from Heaven, and that is con- 
 stituted to be universal, should meet man in all direc- 
 tions, and come in contact with him at every point. 
 So does the religion of the Gospel. Its precepts and 
 doctrines are adapted to our advantage in all circum- 
 stances of life and conduct. Like the stars in the 
 glorious firmament of the sky,^^ the precepts and pro- 
 mises applicable to human life are universally scattered 
 over the face of the Scriptures ; though, like the stars, 
 they are more thickly grouped, and shine with more 
 beauty and refulgence in some places than in others. 
 Still the one and the other exist for our good, and both 
 may be contemplated as 
 
 For ever singing as they shine, 
 
 The hand that made us is divine.’^ 
 
 Examining the various portions of the word of God 
 under these impressions, and with this view, we shall 
 find that there is a mutual connexion and harmony 
 between them. Thus, every precept will be found to 
 have its exemplification ; every command its corres- 
 ponding benefit ; every want its corresponding prayer ; 
 and the aids of the Spirit uniformly offered. Thus, 
 also, every duty is urged by an appropriate motive; 
 every blessing has its dependent duty ; every trial its 
 adequate support; every temptation its peculiar way 
 of escape” from it ; every affliction its commensurate 
 consolation ; every situation has suggested its suitable 
 religious employments ; every period in life, and every 
 relation in society, brings with it vocations and difficul- 
 ties peculiar to itself, all of which are provided for in 
 the richness and exuberance of Scripture. Nay, even 
 in the last great and solemn change, when the friends 
 of a dying Christian show, by their aching hearts and 
 streaming eyes, that earthly hopes are at an end , 
 when a human creature most needs the consolations 
 and supports of religion, then does the Christian religion 
 often most manifest its power — enabling the w^eeping 
 relatives to endure the acuteness without the bitterness 
 
AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 197 
 
 of grief, and sorrow not as those who are without 
 hope/^ — and, at the same time, plucking away the sting 
 of death, and giving the departing saint to feel that 
 when Jlesh and heart fatly God is the strength of his 
 hearty and his portion for ever^^,^^ Such are the benefits, 
 the blessings, and the aids of the Christian religion. 
 It fills the minds of its genuine disciples with true 
 light, it reforms their hearts, it rightly disposes them 
 towards God and their fellow-creatures : it teaches them 
 how to bear prosperity without highmindedness, adver- 
 sity without murmuring ; how humility may exist 
 without meanness, and dignity without pride ; it makes 
 them more reasonable in all their actions ; and inspires 
 them with fortitude, contentment, devotion, and con- 
 tempt of the world : it communicates correct notions 
 of its own supreme value, of the sanctity of morality, 
 the vanity of earthly passions, the misery and corrup- 
 tion of our nature, the littleness of every thing but God : 
 it delivers its disciples from the greatest, that is, from 
 moral evils; teaches them the proper use of temporal 
 mercies; and provides»for them an inexhaustible and 
 eternal store of intellectual and moral good. If the 
 religion which accomplishes all this be false, where can 
 we seek for truth ? If the inestimable advantages it 
 promises are to be despised and rejected, what is there 
 upon or under the earth (and on this hypothesis there 
 is nothing above it ) that is worth retaining ? 
 
 Be it recollected, however, and with this remark I 
 shall conclude the present letter, that the enjoyments of 
 the Christian religion are confined exclusively to sincere 
 Christians. To these enjoyments, therefore, you will 
 necessarily continue a stranger unless you resign your- 
 self wholly to its power : for the consolations of religion 
 are reserved to reward, to sweeten, and to stimulate 
 obedience. Many, without renouncing the profession 
 of Christianity, without formally rejecting its distin- 
 guishing doctrines, live in such an habitual violation 
 of its laws, and contradiction to its spirit, that, conscious 
 they have more to fear than to hope from its truth, they 
 
 Fs. ixxiii. 26 . 
 
198 CHRISTIAN MORALITY AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 are never able to contemplate it without terror. It 
 haunts their imagination instead of tranquillizing their 
 hearts, and hangs with depressing weight on all their 
 enjoyments and pursuits. Their religion, instead of 
 comforting them under their troubles, is itself their 
 greatest trouble, from which they seek refuge in the 
 dissipation and vanity of the world, until the throbs 
 and tumults of conscience force them back upon reli- 
 gion. Thus suspended between opposite powers, the 
 sport of contradictory influences, they are disqualified 
 for the happiness of both worlds, and neither enjoy the 
 pleasures of sin, nor the peace of piety. Is it surpris- 
 ing to find a mind thus bewildered in uncertainty, and 
 dissatisfied with itself, court deception, and embrace 
 with eagerness every pretext to mutilate the claims, 
 and enervate the authority of Christianity ; forgetting 
 that it is of the very essence of the religious principle 
 to preside and control, and that it is impossible to 
 serve God and mammon F It is this class of persons 
 who are chiefly in danger of being entangled in the 
 snares of infidelity. Yet the champions of infidelity 
 have much more reason to be ashamed than to boast of 
 such converts I am, &c. 
 
 See a very profound and eloquent discourse entitled, “ Modern 
 Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society,’’ by my 
 highly esteemed friend, Robert Hall, A. M. This author, in the pre- 
 face to the valuable publication just quoted, pledged himself “ to enter 
 into a fuller and more particular examination of the Infidel Philosophy, 
 both with respect to its speculative principles, and its practical effects ; 
 its influence on society and the individual:” and every one who has 
 resigned himself to the splendour, and magic, and force of his elo- 
 quence, an eloquence, which, like the solar light, warms while it 
 illuminates, and is alike calculated to delight the imagination, to enrich 
 the understanding, and to amend the heart — must lament that he has 
 not long before now redeemed this pledge. O ! why will the most 
 ^ captivating, energetic, and profound preacher and religious writer now 
 living, rest satisfied with giving to the world scarcely any but fugitive 
 publications of temporary interest, the whole of which it is already 
 difficult to collect ; — when all who know him, or who are able to 
 appreciate the value of his efforts, have been long and anxiously an- 
 ticipating the period when he will favour the public with some work 
 of respectable magnitude and permanent interest, which shall enlighten 
 and instruct its successive readers for ages to come? 
 
199 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 On the Inspiration of Scripture. 
 
 The various trains of argument and observation laid 
 open to you in my former letters have, I hope, fully 
 convinced you that the several books of Scripture de- 
 serve credence as genuine and authentic ; but, in order 
 that the truths and doctrines which they contain may 
 press upon your mind with their full weight, it is ne- 
 cessary you should have a conviction of their Divine 
 authority. A firm and cordial belief of the Inspiration 
 of the Bible is, indeed, of the highest moment ; for 
 unless you are persuaded that those who were employed 
 in the composition of the respective books were entirely 
 preserved from error, a conviction of their honesty and 
 integrity w ill be but of little avail. Honest men may 
 err, may point out the wrong track, however unwilling 
 they may be to deceive ; and if those who have penned 
 what we receive as revelation are thus open to mistakes, 
 we are still left to make the voyage of life in the midst 
 of rocks and shelves and quicksands, with a compass 
 vacillating and useless, and our pole-star enveloped in 
 mists and obscurity. 
 
 But some of these writers assure us that all Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God ^ meaning, at 
 least, the Jewish Scriptures; a declaration which de- 
 serves attention on the score of the general veracity by 
 which we have already shown their assertions are always 
 marked. Still, as a like claim is made by writers who, 
 it has been ascertained, were wicked and designing, let 
 us inquire on what grounds and to what extent the 
 divine inspiration of the Bible ought to be admitted. 
 
 Theologians have enumerated several kinds of In- 
 spiration ; such as an inspiration of superintendency, in 
 which God so influences and directs the mind of any 
 person as to keep him more secure from error in some 
 complex discourse, than he would have been merely 
 by the use of his natural faculties : plenary super in- 
 * 2 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 200 
 
 tendent inspiration^ v/hich excludes any mixture of 
 error whatever from the performance so superintended ; 
 inspiration of elevation, where the faculties act in a re- 
 gular, and, as it should seem, in a common manner, 
 yet are raised to an extraordinary degree, so that the 
 composition shall, upon the whole, have more of the 
 true sublime, or pathetic, than natural genius could 
 have given: — and inspiration of suggestion, in which 
 the use of the faculties is superseded, and God does, 
 as it were, speak directly to the mind, making such 
 discoveries to it as it could not otherwise have obtained, 
 and dictating the very words in which such discoveries 
 are to be communicated, if they are designed as a 
 message to others. 
 
 It is not my purpose to attempt to ascertain how far 
 different portions of Scripture were composed under 
 one or other of these kinds of inspiration. I have 
 enumerated them merely to show you that those, who 
 contend that Scripture is inspired, have not arrived at 
 their decision by a gross and careless process, but by 
 sedulous, critical, and discriminating investigation. I 
 mean, however, to affirm, and I trust the references I 
 have thrown at the foot of the page, together with a few 
 particular arguments which I shall advance, will prove 
 to you the reasonableness of admitting, that, while the 
 authors employed in the composition of the Bible ex- 
 ercised generally their own reason and judgment'^, the 
 Spirit of God effectually stirred them up to write^; 
 appointed to each his proper portion and topic, corre- 
 sponding with his natural talents, and the necessities 
 of the church in his time^; enlightened their minds 
 and gave them a distinct view of the truths they were 
 to deliver^; strengthened and refreshed their memo- 
 ries to recollect whatever they had seen or heard, the 
 
 “ Ps.xlv 1. Mark, xii. 36. Luke, i. 3. Acts, i. I. IPet. i.ll. 
 
 ^ 2 Pet. i. 21, ^ 2 Pet. i 21. Matt. xxv. 15, 
 
 ^ Jer. i. 11 — 16; xiii. 9 — 14. Ezek. iv. 4 — 8. Dan. viii. 15 — 
 19 ; ix. 22 — 27 ; x. 1. 8. Amos, vii. 7, 8 ; viii. 2. Zech. i. 19 — 
 21 ; iv. 11 — 14; v, 6. John, xvi, 13, Eph. iii. 3, 4. 1 Pet. i. 
 
 10, 11, 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 201 
 
 insertion of which in their writings would be benefi- 
 cial®; directed them to select from a multitude of 
 facts what was proper for the edification of the churchy 
 and neither more nor less^ ; excited afresh in their 
 minds such images and ideas as had been laid up in 
 their memories, and directed them to other ends and 
 purposes than themselves would ever have done of their 
 own accord®; suggested and imprinted upon their 
 minds such matters as could not have been discovered 
 or known by reason, observation, or information, but 
 were subjects of pure revelation® ; superintended every 
 particular writer, so as to render him infallible in his 
 matter, words, and order, especially whenever they re- 
 lated to facts, discourses, or doctrines, the communica- 
 tion of which is the great object of Scripture; thus render- 
 ing the whole canon at any given period an infallible 
 guide to true holiness and everlasting happiness’®. 
 
 Now, that the Scriptures were actually dictated by 
 an inspiration of this kind may, I think, be inferred 
 both from the reasonableness and from the necessity 
 of the thing. It is reasonable that the sentiments and 
 doctrines, developed in the Scriptures, should be sug- 
 gested to the minds of the writers by the Supreme Being 
 himself. They relate principally to matters concerning 
 which the communicating information to men is worthy 
 of God : and the more important the information com- 
 municated, the more it is calculated to impress man- 
 kind, to preserve from moral obliquity, to stimulate to 
 holiness, to guide to happiness, the more reasonable is 
 it to expect that God should make the communication 
 in a manner free from every admixture of risk or error. 
 Indeed, the notion of inspiration enters essentially into 
 
 ® Lake, i. 3. John, xiv. 26. Jer. xxxi. 3. 
 
 John, XX. 30, 31 ; xxi. 25. Rom iv. 23, 24 ; xv. 4. 1 Cor. x. 
 6 — 11 . 
 
 ® Amos, i. and ix. Acts, xvii. 28. 1 Cor. xv. 33. Tit. i. 12. 
 
 ^ Gen. i. ii. iii. Lev. xxvi. Is. xli. 22, 23 ; xlv. 21 ; xlvi. 9, 
 10. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 Deut. viii. 1~4. Ps. xix. 7 — 11 ; cxix. Matt. xxii. 29. Luke, 
 xiv. 25 — 31. John, v. 39. Rom. xv. 4. 2 Tim. iii. 15 — 17. 2 
 
 Pet. i. 19. 
 
202 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 our ideas of a Revelation from God ; so that to deny 
 inspiration is tantamount to affirming there is no Re- 
 velation. And why should it be denied? Is man out 
 of the reach of him who created him P Has he, who gave 
 man his intellect, no means of enlarging or illuminating 
 that intellect? And is it beyond his power to illumi- 
 nate and inform in an especial manner the intellects of 
 some chosen individuals — or contrary to his wisdom, 
 to preserve them from error when they communicate 
 to others, either orally or by writing, the knowledge he 
 imparted to them, not merely for their own benefit, but 
 for that of the world at large, in all generations ? 
 
 But farther. Inspiration is necessary. The necessity 
 of Revelation has been evinced in a former letter; and 
 the same reasoning, in connexion with what I have 
 just remarked, establishes the necessity of inspiration. 
 Besides this, the subjects of Scripture render inspira- 
 tion necessary. Some past facts recorded in the Bible 
 could not possibly have been known had not God 
 revealed them. Many things are recorded there as 
 future, that is, are predicted, which God alone could 
 foreknow and foretell, which notwithstanding came to 
 pass, and which, therefore, were foretold under divine 
 inspiration. Others, again, are far above human capa- 
 city, and never could have been discovered by men : 
 these, therefore, must have been delivered by divine 
 inspiration. The authoritative language of Scripture, 
 too, argues the necessity of inspiration, admitting the 
 veracity of the writers. They propose things, not as 
 matters for consideration, but for adoption ; they do 
 not leave us the alternative of receiving or rejecting; 
 do not present us with their own thoughts ; but ex- 
 claim, “ Thus saith the Lord,’^ and on that ground de- 
 mand our assent. They must, of necessity, therefore, 
 speak and write as they were inspired by the Holy 
 Ghost,^^ or be impostors; and the last supposition is 
 precluded by reasonings which I have repeatedly 
 brought forward in these letters. 
 
 Very striking proofs of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures might be deduced from a consideration of their 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 203 
 
 matchless sublimity, their union of perspicuity with 
 profundity, their piety, their pure and holy tendency, 
 their efficacy, their harmony, and their miraculous pre- 
 servation. But I shall leave you to reflect upon these 
 at your leisure, and proceed to lay before you, as an 
 argument of no small weight the testimony of those 
 who lived nearest the apostolic times, on this point. 
 They may naturally be expected, so far I mean as is 
 independent of the written word, to know more of the 
 sentiments of those who, in regard to religious topics, 
 had the mind of Christ,’^ than any Christians in sub- 
 sequent ages. Consider in this view the weight of the 
 following quotations : — 
 
 1. Clemens Romanes says, that ‘Uhe apostles preach- 
 ed the Gospel, being filled with the Holy Spirit : that 
 the Scriptures are the true w^ord of the Spirit; that 
 Paul wrote to the Corinthians things that were true, by 
 the aid of the Spirit and that the Pentateuch, as well 
 as all that the Jews received as Holy Scripture, “ were 
 indeed the oracles of God” 
 
 2. Justin Martyr says, “ that the Gospels were writ- 
 ten by men full of the Holy Ghost, and that the sacred 
 writers were moved by inspiration and in his argu- 
 mentations he generally, if not always, assumes as in- 
 controvertible the inspiration of the Old Testament. 
 
 3. iRENiEUS says, that all the apostles as well as 
 Paul received the Gospel by divine Revel at ion ; and that 
 by the will of God they delivered it to us as the foun- 
 dation and pillar of our faith ; that the Scriptures were 
 dictated by the Spirit of God, and therefore it is wicked- 
 ness to contradict them, and sacrilege to make any the 
 least alteration in them.^^ 
 
 4. Clemens Alexandrines says, "" We that have 
 the Scriptures are taught of God; that the Scriptures 
 are established by the authority of God ; that the whole 
 Scripture is the law of God; and that they are all 
 divine.^' 
 
 5. Origen says, that the Scriptures proceeded from 
 the Holy Spirit ; that there is not one tittle in them but 
 ivhat expresses a divine ivkdom ; that there is nothing in 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 204 
 
 the Law, or the Prophets, or the Gospels, or the Epis- 
 tles, which did not proceed from the fulness of the Spi- 
 rit ; that we ought with all the faithful to say that the 
 Scriptures are divinely inspired ; that the Gospels were 
 admitted as divine in all the churches of God ; that the 
 Scriptures are no other than the oracles of God ; that, 
 if a man would not confess himself to be an infidel, he 
 must admit the inspiration of the Scriptures.^^ 
 
 6. Tertulltan lays down as a fundamental princi- 
 ple in disputing with heretics, ‘‘ that the truth of doc- 
 trines is to be determined by Scripture and affirms 
 most positively, ^^that Scripture is the basis of faith; 
 that all Christians prove their doctrines out of the Old 
 and New Testament ; and that the majesty of God dic- 
 tated what Paul wrote/^ 
 
 7. Eusebius quotes with approbation a writer more 
 ancient than himself, wffio says, “they who corrupt the 
 sacred Scriptures abolish the standard of the ancient 
 faith, neglecting the words of the divine writings, out 
 of regard to their own reasonings and afterwards, 
 “ that they either do not believe that the Holy Spirit 
 uttered the Divine Scriptures, and then they are infi- 
 dels; or think themselves wiser than the Spirit, and in 
 that case seem to be possessed 
 
 8. Theophilus Antiochenus says, that “the evan- 
 gelists and apostles wrote by the same Spirit that in- 
 spired the prophets.’^ 
 
 9. Nearly all the other Christian writers in the first 
 three centuries, whose performances have wholly or 
 partly reached us, speak of the Scriptures as divine, 
 call them the Holy Scriptures, the sacred fountain, the 
 divine fountains of salvation, &c. evidently implying 
 their inspiration. And in those early ages the whole 
 church agreed in sentiment, that no books should be 
 received into the Canon of Scripture of whose inspira- 
 tion there was any doubt". 
 
 The curious reader may consult farther the testimonies collected 
 by Dr. Whitby, vol. i. Pref., by Dr. Lardner in the Second Part of 
 his Credibility, Dr. Doddridge in his Lectures on Divinity, and in his 
 Family E^iposito •, vol. iii. 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 205 
 
 Thus, then, we see, that in the primitive ages the 
 universal opinion was in favour of the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures. Let us next inquire how far this opinion 
 grows naturally out of an examination of the Scriptures 
 themselves. Considered in relation to the present sub- 
 ject, the books of Scripture fall under three classes: — 
 the prophetical books ; the historical books of the Old 
 Testament; and the New Testament, being in part 
 historical, and in part doctrinal. 
 
 Now, as to the prophetical books, their divine autho- 
 rity and their inspiration follow at once from the com- 
 pletion of several of the predictions they contain : the 
 entire fulfilment of the whole is not essential to the 
 argument. 
 
 The inspiration of the New Testament may be in- 
 ferred from the language of our Lord, and that of the 
 apostles. Thus, Jesus Christ promised extraordinary 
 assistance to his apostles. He promised them the 
 ComforteiV’ the Holy Spirit,’^ the Spirit of Truth,^’ 
 who should testify of him,^’ should ‘‘ teach them all 
 things, bring all things to their remembrance whatso- 
 ever Christ had said unto them, should guide them into 
 all truth, should abide with them for ever, and show 
 them things to come^^'^ Again, he says, When the 
 Comforter is come, whom I will send to you from the 
 Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth 
 from the Father, he shall testify of me; and ye also 
 [being so assisted] shall bear witness From these 
 passages it is but fair and reasonable to conclude, that 
 the aid of this Heavenly Guide was to be vouchsafed 
 them on all suitable occasions ; and surely no occa- 
 sions could render it more expedient than when they 
 were engaged in delivering written instructions, whe- 
 ther in the form of Gospels or of Epistles, which were 
 intended for the edification of the Christian church 
 till time should be no longer.^^ In fact, the Spirit 
 could not abide with them for ever, in relation to the 
 church, in any other way than by preserving the word 
 they delivered from such human or diabolical depre- 
 John, xiv. 16 — 26; xvi- IS. John, xv. 26, 27. 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 206 
 
 ciation and corruption as might render it injurious 
 instead of being salutary. 
 
 It will also be worth our while to notice the remark- 
 able language in which Jesus Christ promises his apos- 
 tles the extraordinary assistance of the Spirit while 
 they are defending his cause before magistrates. Set- 
 tle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate before 
 what ye shall answer; for I will give you a mouth 
 and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be 
 able to gainsay or resist. Take no thought how or what 
 ye shall speak ; for it shall be given to you in that same 
 hour what ye shall speak : for it is not you that speak, 
 but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you^V^ 
 If this were to be the case when they pleaded before 
 magistrates, how much more reason is there to con- 
 clude, that when they were writing for the use of all 
 future generations, it was not so much they wrote, 
 as the Spirit of the Father who dictated to them, and 
 thus wrote by them. For the occasion is evidently 
 much more important in the latter instance than in the 
 former; an error in their writings would have a much 
 more extensive, permanent, and injurious influence 
 than any error that could occur in a pleading or argu- 
 ment, necessarily of transient impression, before a ma- 
 gistrate. In truth, it is quite incredible that they w^ho 
 were assisted by the Holy Spirit, in their pleadings 
 and when they preached, should be deserted by that 
 Spirit when they committed what they had preached 
 to writing. It is equally incredible that they who pos- 
 sessed the gift of discerning spirits should be endowed 
 w ith no gift of discerning the truth of facts. We have 
 an instance on record in which St. Peter detected a 
 falsehood by the light of inspiration : and surely it w'as 
 not of less importance to the church, that the apostles 
 and evangelists should be enabled to detect falsehoods 
 in the history of our Saviour’s life, than that St. Peter 
 should be enabled to detect Ananias’s lie about the 
 sale of an estate. The apostles were led by the Spirit 
 
 Luke, xxi. 14, 15. Matt. x. 19, 20. Mark, xiii. 11, 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 207 
 
 into “ all truth would they he permitted to lead the 
 whole church for a^es into error? Would they be per- 
 mitted to leave behind them as authentic memoirs of 
 their master’s life and discourses, and of the doctrines 
 which he appointed them to teach, narratives compiled 
 without judgment or selection, and without the guid- 
 ance of the Spirit he promised to confer upon them? 
 
 Let it be considered in this connexion, that even the 
 apostles who had enjoyed the benefit of the society, the 
 example, the instruction of their Divine Master, were 
 not competent to become even oral teachers in his king- 
 dom, until the effusion of the Spirit at the day of Pen- 
 tecost; and that, d fortiori^ new converts, whether Jews 
 or Gentiles, would, without extraordinary aid, have 
 been less competent than they. The “hundred and 
 twenty,” also received the Spirit; for it is said, “ They 
 were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak 
 with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” 
 That is, they were inspired to speak with truth ; and 
 hence, as the apostles were endowed with the highest 
 illumination, theirs was an inspiration suited to the 
 exigencies of what were meant to be permanent records 
 for the instruction of the church. 
 
 We who not only are favoured with the complete 
 canon of Scriptures ; but, by means of the art of print- 
 ing, can multiply copies to every imaginable extent 
 with the utmost facility, are seldom led to ask how cor- 
 rect religious instruction could be given, or how could 
 the ordinary services of religious assemblies be con- 
 ducted, before the sacred penmen had delivered in 
 writing the new covenant revelation. Yet that was 
 neither a short nor an unimportant interval in the 
 annals of the church. 
 
 Matthew’s Gospel was written some say eight, others 
 fifteen years, after our Lord’s ascension. The Gospels 
 by Mark and Luke, some years later. The book of the 
 Acts still later. John’s Gospel, probably not until after 
 his return from his banishment in Palmos. The earliest 
 of the Epistles is not supposed to have been written 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 208 
 
 sooner than seventeen or eighteen years after the ascen- 
 sion. And it took nearly forty years more to publish 
 the remainder of them. A much longer period would be 
 required to circulate the whole of these books, or nearly 
 the whole, historical and doctrinal, even partially among 
 the churches, that is, so that each church should pos- 
 sess one complete series of the books which constitute 
 what we now denominate The New Testament. 
 
 Now, during all this interval, how was religious 
 truth diffused? how were the facts of the evangelical 
 history announced? how were the praises of God cele- 
 brated ? how were disorders in the church prevented or 
 corrected ? how were errors detected ? how, in brief, 
 were the purposes of public worship ensured, the pro- 
 prieties of public worship maintained ; or how, indeed, 
 could they be, without supernatural illumination, with- 
 out those manifestations of the Spirit^^ in the church 
 assemblies by which the primitive Christians were 
 edified, encouraged, and preserved in the faith? 
 
 It is plain, from the Epistles of St. Paul to the 
 Corinthians and the Ephesians, that spiritual gifts of 
 extraordinary energy, diversity, and utility, in the fur- 
 therance of truth and the detection of error, were 
 possessed, not merely by the apostles, but by several 
 persons in every religious assembly. It is not neces- 
 sary to my present argument to attempt a classification 
 or explication of those extraordinary powers ; but, re- 
 ferring you to the researches of D'Oyley, Macknight, 
 and Macleod (especially the latter) upon this interest- 
 ing topic, I simply entreat you to consider whether 
 those gifts and endowments, conferred not upon a few, 
 but upon many Christians (see their enumeration in 
 1 Cor. xii.) were not absolutely necessary for the pre- 
 servation and extension of the church in that early 
 part of its history of which I am now speaking? 
 
 And if neither the existence, nor the necessary exist- 
 ence, of these gifts among ordinary Christians can be 
 reasonably doubted, why should any one hesitate to 
 allow that the Apostles, to whom a still more moment- 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 209 
 
 ous task was assigned, received also their appropriate 
 illumination from that '' selfsame Spirit which divideth 
 to every man severally as he will?^^ 
 
 Under the old covenant dispensation, when an indi- 
 vidual was selected for an extraordinary undertaking, 
 his commission seems often to have been sealed with 
 the inspiring assurance I will he with thee. Maimonides 
 asserts that supernatural power was regarded as con- 
 veyed by this striking formula. And thus, indeed, we 
 find that it endowed Moses with political wisdom and 
 the spirit of a wise governor; Joshua and Gideon, with 
 military courage and prowess ; Jeremiah, with superna- 
 tural constancy, and undaunted boldness in enforcing 
 his reproofs and asserting his authority. 
 
 It is not, I think, unnatural to infer that our Lord, 
 when giving his commission of ineffable mercy to 
 eleven Jews, to go forth, and teach all nations,’^ em- 
 ployed the same language to convince them that in 
 their arduous undertaking they should receive such 
 communications of Holy influence and illumination, 
 as should be in every respect commensurate with the 
 importance of that commission, and the otherwise in- 
 superable difficulties which it involved. Nor were 
 those communications withheld. It is evident that, in 
 order to ensure the ends for which the apostles were 
 appointed and sent forth, besides the ability of con- 
 firming the truth of their mission by the occasional 
 exercise of miraculous energy, it was necessary that 
 they and their assistants should be understood by the 
 inhabitants of every country which they should visit 
 in the course of their ministry ; that they should be 
 furnished with a clear and perfect knowledge of the 
 facts and doctrines they were selected to announce, 
 and of the institutions which they were to establish ; 
 and that, whether they communicated the knowledge 
 with which they were thus endowed, by preaching or 
 
 Maimon. Doctr. Perplex, p. 2, c. 38. Gen. xxxix. 2, 3, 21. 
 Exod. iii. 12. Josh. i. 5. Judges, vi. 13 — 16. Jer. i. 6 — 8. Matt, 
 xxviii. 20. 
 
 P 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 210 
 
 Other oral instruction, or in writings, historical or epis- 
 tolary, they were preserved from error by the imme- 
 diate influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus every degree 
 of inspiration proceeded from God : and though in- 
 spired men reasoned as others do, yet they might justly 
 regard their conclusions as infallible, from the irresist- 
 ible conviction that their reasoning faculties were en- 
 lightened, elevated, and expanded, that they might 
 adequately comprehend and treat the deep things of 
 God.^^ Not,^’ says St. Paul, “ that we are sufficient 
 of ourselves, XoycaaaOai, to reason any thing as of our- 
 selves, but our sufficiency is of God.’^ This sufficiency 
 gave them their wonderful success ; and it will be our 
 highest wisdom to peruse their writings, providentially 
 handed down for our instruction, with the entire per- 
 suasion that they are not merely interesting, impressive, 
 and instructive, but divine. 
 
 In estimating the authority claimed by the eight wri- 
 ters of the New Testament, we must not only consider 
 their unbroken, unimpeachable integrity, but that five 
 of them were of the number of the apostles to whom 
 the promises just cited were made. Of the other three, 
 one, namely, Luke, is generally admitted to have been 
 of the seventy disciples sent out by Christ, and who 
 received the promise of divine superintendence and 
 inspiration recorded in his GospeP®. With regard to 
 Mark, if his own immediate inspiration cannot be esta- 
 blished, that of his Gospel can, since it has never been 
 questioned that he wrote under the superintendence of 
 Peter, an inspired apostle. There then remains only 
 Paul, who repeatedly and solemnly asserts his own in- 
 spiration, and his equality in every respect with all the 
 other apostles : who even taught before he conversed with 
 them, recorded words of our Lord referred to by 7ione 
 of the Evangelists, and appeals to miracles publicly 
 wrought by himself in proof of his divine commission. 
 
 That the apostles themselves had a firm persuasion 
 that they wrote under Divine inspiration is evident 
 Luke, xii. 11, 12. See also Luke, x. 16. 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 211 
 
 from a ^reat variety of texts ; to some of the most im- 
 portant of which I shall refer you^^ that you may 
 consult them carefully, and allow them their full im- 
 pression upon your mind. They professed themselves 
 to be inspired by God, in books whose genuineness 
 and authenticity we have established ; and God has 
 attested their commission by miracles; therefore we 
 are bound to believe them. You will find, too, that the 
 apostles considered themselves as communicating to 
 the world a perpetual rule of faith and practice, which 
 would be comprehended by all except the finally im- 
 penitent. If, say they, if our Gospel be under a veil, 
 it is veiled to those that destroy themselves On 
 these accounts, as it should seem, they preferred them- 
 selves before the Prophets, not merely of their own but 
 of preceding times, saying God hath set in the 
 church, first. Apostles; secondly. Prophets; thirdly. 
 Teachers language which could not properly have 
 been employed, had the apostles been inspired only to 
 preach and not to write ; for in that case they would 
 manifestly be inferior to the Prophets, who in their 
 writings, as well as their oral denunciations, spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost.^^ 
 
 The preceding are arguments for the general inspira- 
 tion of the writers of the New Testament; but it also 
 behoves me farther to remark, that the care with which 
 the most voluminous writer among the apostles distin- 
 guishes between those instances in which he delivers 
 the dictates of the Spirit, and those in which he pre- 
 sents merely his own private judgment, leads us natu- 
 rally to infer that, wherever he has not made such 
 distinction, he ought to be understood as teaching with 
 Divine authority. Thus, when he treats of the relative 
 
 *7 ICor.ii. 10— 16; iii. 21— 23 ; xi. 23 ; xiv. 37. 2 Cor. ii. 10; 
 
 iii. 5,6; iv. 8 ; xi. 7 ; xiii. 3. Gal. i. 11, 12. Eph. iii. 3 — 5.10; 
 
 iv. 11, 12. 1 Tim. i. 11. 1 Pet. i. 12, 21. 2 Pet. iii. 2, 15, 16. 
 
 John, X. 35. 1 John, ii. 20; iv. 6. Rev. i. 1, &c. 1 Thes. i. 5. 
 
 2 Thes. ii. 13. 
 
 2 Cor. iv. 3. See the original. 1 Cor. xii. 28. Eph. ii.20. 
 
212 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 advantages and disadvantages of the single and the 
 married state in the perilous times in which he lived, 
 he says, I speak this by permission^ not by command- 
 ment.^^ Again, a little farther on, Unto the married I 
 command, yet not /, but the Lord.^^ And soon after- 
 wards, To the rest speak 7, not the LordJ^ Again 
 ‘‘ Concerning virgins, I have no command of the 
 Lord ; yet I give my jiidgment.^^ And once more, at 
 the conclusion of the same chapter, She is happier if 
 she so abide, a fter my judgment ; and I think also that 
 (in this particular) I have the Spirit of God.^^ Is it 
 not absurd to imagine that an apostle, who guards his 
 readers four if not five times in one chapter against 
 making his private judgment of equal authority with 
 commandments dictated to him by God, would on all 
 other occasions assume the authority of a divine and 
 inspired teacher, without a full and perfect conscious- 
 ness that he had a just claim to if^^? 
 
 These observations will, I trust, convince you that 
 the historical and doctrinal parts of the New Testa- 
 ment, and the prophetical portions of both the Old and 
 New Testaments, contain, in the complete sense of the 
 phrase, the word of God.^^ It remains that I state to 
 you two or three cogent reasons for admitting that the 
 whole of the received Jewish Scriptures is entitled to 
 the same character, and of course to the same submis- 
 sion of intellect and of heart. In order to this I shall 
 first lay before you the language of Dr. Doddridge in 
 his valuable Dissertation on the Inspiration of the 
 Scriptures: The inspiration, and consequently the 
 
 genuineness and credibility, of the Old Testament, may 
 be certainly inferred from that of the New, because our 
 Lord and his apostles were so far from charging the 
 
 20 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10, 12, 25, 40. 
 
 21 See also 2 Cor, viii. 8. Admitting, with Wolfius and others, 
 that ^OKiOy in 1 Cor. vii. 40, imports not an uncertain opinion, but 
 conviction and knowledge, as in John, v. 39, still the argument as to 
 the distinction made by the Apostle between the authority of his 
 private sentiments and his inspired doctrines remains unimpaired. 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 213 
 
 Scribes and Pharisees (who on all proper occasions are 
 censured so freely) with having introduced into the 
 sacred volume any merely human compositions ; that, 
 on the contrary, they not only recommend a diligent 
 and constant perusal of these Scriptures, as of the 
 greatest importance to men’s eternal happiness, hut 
 speak of them as divine oracles, and as written by the 
 extraordinary influence of the Holy Spirit upon the 
 minds of the authors. 
 
 I desire that the following list of Scriptures may 
 be attentively consulted and reflected on in this view. 
 I might have added a great many more, indeed several 
 hundreds, in which the sacred writers of the New Testa- 
 ment argue from those of the Old in such a manner, as 
 nothing could have justified but a firm persuasion that 
 they were divinely inspired. Now as the Jews always 
 allowed that " the testimony of an approved prophet was 
 sufficient to confirm the mission of one who was sup- 
 ported by it,’ so I think every reasonable man will 
 readily conclude, that no inspired person can errone- 
 ously attest another to be inspired; and indeed the 
 very definition of plenary inspiration absolutely ex- 
 cludes any room for cavilling on so plain a head. I 
 throw the particular passages which I choose to men- 
 tion into the margin below and he must be a very 
 indolent inquirer into a question of so much import- 
 ance, who does not think it worth his while to turn 
 carefully to them ; unless he have already such a con- 
 viction of the argument that it should need no farther 
 to be illustrated or confirmed.” 
 
 But, before you totally dismiss the subject, meditate 
 upon a few important particulars, in which those por 
 
 John, V. 39. Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10. Mark, xii. 24. Luke, x. 26, 
 27. Matt. V. 17, 18 ; xxi. 42 ; xxii. 29, 31, 43 ; xxiv. 15 ; xxvi. 
 54, 56. Luke, i. 67, 69, 70 ; xvi. 31 ; xxiv. 25, 27. John, vi. 31 ; 
 X. 35. Acts, ii. 16, 25 ; iii. 22, 24 ; iv. 25 ; xvii. 11 ; xviii. 24, 28 ; 
 xxviii. 25. Rom. iii. 2, 10 ; ix. 17, 25, 27, 29 ; x. 5, 11, 16 ; xv. 
 4 ; xvi. 26. 1 Cor. x. 11. 2 Cor. iv. 13 ; vi. 16, 17. Gal. iii. 8. 
 
 1 Tim. V. 18. 2 Tim. iii. 15, 16. Heb. i. 1, 5 — 13 j iii. 7 ; Jam. ii. 
 8; iv.5, 6. 1 Pet. i. 10-12. 2 Pet. i. 19—21. 
 
2J4 INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 tions of the Old Testament which are not altogether or 
 principally prophetic, differ from all compositions that 
 are merely human. 
 
 Thus, 1st. They do not accommodate themselves to 
 the tastes, inclinations, and prejudices of mankind. For, 
 instead of fostering the voluptuousness of men, they 
 extirpate it ; at least, that is their tendency ; as well as 
 to eradicate injustice, self-love, and all unholy passions. 
 Instead of gratifying our pride, they tend to overthrow 
 it, by presenting a most vivid picture of our weakness, 
 misery, and corruption. Instead of feeding the vain 
 curiosity of those who would fain know the nature of 
 things, that they may have the fame which accrues 
 from the knowledge, or become wise, that they may be 
 thought wise; the Hebrew Scriptures teach us that 
 this knowledge is but vanity and vexation of spirit. 
 Instead of exhibiting to us the niceties, and dwelling 
 upon the distinctions of polished life, they present an 
 amiable simplicity of manners, and teach us that 
 ‘‘ though a man have riches, and wealth, and honour, 
 so that he can glut his soul with what he desireth,^^ 
 yet if his wishes centre and terminate in these, he 
 cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness, and 
 his name shall be covered with darkness.^’ Instead of 
 exhorting us to love virtue merely for its own sake, or 
 for some other motive taken from the glory which will 
 redound from the practice of it, the Hebrew teachers 
 soar much higher, and exhort us to love virtue from 
 love to God, and to rejoice not more at the remem- 
 brance of his mercy than at the remembrance of his 
 holinessJ*^ Does not this argue an emanation from the 
 
 fountain of lights?’^ 
 
 2. They do not write to gratify their own prejudices. 
 Thus Moses believed that God had set apart the Is- 
 raelites as his chosen people, depositing his oracles in 
 their hands, and honouring them with his covenant. 
 What other nation, says he, has God so dealt vjithP Yet 
 Moses speaks of Melchisedech, king of Salem, whom 
 he calls a priest of the most high God, although he lived 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 215 
 
 among other nations, and was not of the family of 
 Abraham. Thus, also, what he relates of Abimelech, 
 that he had feared God; and of Balaam, that he had 
 received the gift of prophecy, though he had daily con- 
 versed with idolatrous nations, was equally repugnant 
 to his prejudices. So again, Moses was a firm believer, 
 and an unequivocal assertor, of the unity of God. How 
 is this reconcileable with Gen. iii. 22; xviii. 17 — 20; 
 Gen. xiv. xvii. xviii. xxviii. xxxi. xlv. xlix? with Exod. 
 iii. 1, 2, 14 ; v. 3 ; vi. 2, 3, &c. ? Jehovah is confounded 
 with an angel ; a man is called Jehovah ; creatures are 
 invested with the attributes of the Creator of the uni- 
 verse; and this, in the writings of Moses, a man of 
 great natural talents, enriched with all the wisdom of 
 the Egyptians, and whose great design was to excite 
 the Israelites to glorify God, nor ever give his glory 
 to another.^^ Much that was said by Joshua and 
 others is equally repugnant to all their opinions and 
 prejudices: would they, could they, have thus run 
 counter to themselves, but in consequence of an irre- 
 sistible superior influence? 
 
 Then, 3dly. Not to dwell upon the repugnancies 
 between the belief of the Jewish prophets, as to the 
 Israelites being God^s peculiar people, and their reite- 
 rated predictions of the kingdom of the Messiah, and 
 the universal diffusion of divine truth and knowledge ; 
 let the attention be simply directed to a few predictions 
 comprised in the Pentateuch. How, but in virtue of 
 inspiration, properly so called, could it be announced 
 in the time of Moses, nay, by Moses (for to ascribe his 
 books to any other author is the refinement of ab- 
 surdity), that God would raise a strange nation against 
 the Jews, that they should be dispersed among other 
 people, who should seduce them to idolatry during 
 their captivity, that their cities should be razed to the 
 ground, that in the extremity of famine some of them 
 should feed upon their own children : but that they 
 should be converted to God, and that God would then 
 bring back the captives of Israel, and gather them from 
 
INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 216 
 
 among other people? All these particulars, with others 
 which Ido not now enumerate, are announced, as you 
 will recollect, in one book, that of Deuteronomy. I 
 should quite despair of bringing any arguments to 
 bear upon the mind, which is proof against the con- 
 siderations to which I have thus adverted. 
 
 Here, then, may safely terminate our inquiry into 
 the inspiration of Scripture. We have ascertained that 
 it is the Word of God : and, if we read it attentively, 
 we shall soon find it profitable “ for doctrine, for in- 
 struction, for reproof/^ Let us, therefore, my friend, 
 believe and rejoice that the grace of God which bring- 
 eth salvation hath thus appeared to all men ; to the end 
 that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live 
 soberly, righteously, and godlily, in the present world ; 
 looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appear- 
 ing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 On some of the most plausible Objections urged against the 
 Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures. 
 
 It has been my object, in the preceding letters, to con- 
 vince you that the collection of writings received by 
 Christians as sacred and authoritative, are indeed ge- 
 nuine, authentic, and inspired. I shall be happy if 
 this great object be obtained. At all events, I trust I 
 have shown that the Christian religion has the strongest 
 probability in its favour; and, if that be the case, you 
 will at once see that the rejection of it is the height of 
 folly. In the economy of human life we act almost 
 entirely upon probabilities; and in most instances, I 
 believe it will be found that the more important the 
 tendency or the result of a particular action or series of 
 actions may be, the slighter need be the preponderance 
 of probability to determine our adopting it. It is pro- 
 bable, for example, that we may be heirs at law to a 
 23 Tit. ii. 11—13. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURES. 217 
 
 valuable estate : therefore we examine into the legal 
 instruments which ascertain our title to such estate. It 
 is probable a particular line of conduct will be success- 
 ful : therefore we pursue it. It is probable a certain 
 commercial speculation will be productive : therefore 
 we put it in practice. It is probable a certain regimen 
 will be highly injurious to our health : therefore we 
 abandon it. It is probable a particular medicine will 
 be beneficial to the constitution : therefore we have re- 
 course to it. It is probable the house we inhabit will 
 fall : therefore we quit it. And thus it might be shown 
 in a variety of other instances, that where there appears 
 a presumption however low on one side of an inquiry, 
 and none on the other, — where there appears a prepon- 
 derancy however slight in favour of one side, — this de- 
 termines the point, even in matters of speculation, and 
 usually impels to action in matters of practice. But 
 alas ! this wise and prudential rule of conduct is only 
 applied generally in regard to the things of the present 
 world : for although it is probable, nay, infinitely pro- 
 bable, that the Christian religion is true, that the evils 
 against which we are warned in the Bible will be our 
 portion unless we flee from the wrath to come,^^ that 
 the ineffable and interminable happiness it promises 
 believers may be ours, unless we thoughtlessly or con- 
 temptuously spurn it from us ; yet, in direct opposition 
 to the conduct discreet persons adopt in every other 
 concern, men disbelieve the evidence, despise the warn- 
 ings, laugh at the threatenings, reject the blessings, 
 held out to them in the Scriptures, go through life 
 wrapped in an impenetrable insensibility to eternal 
 things; and at death rush upon the thick bosses of 
 God^s buckleiV’ and plunge naked into fierceness and 
 darkness,^’ instead of bathing in those perennial “ rivers 
 of pleasure’^ which flow from the throne of God, and 
 to which the condescending Deity had invited them ! 
 
 We do not deny that the scheme of revelation has 
 its difficulties: for if the things of nature are often 
 difficult to comprehend, it would be strange indeed if 
 
218 OBJECTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 supernatural matters were so simple, and obvious, and 
 suited to finite capacities, as never to startle or puzzle 
 us at all. Origen remarked, with his usual sagacity, 
 that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded 
 from him who is the Author of Nature, may well ex- 
 pect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as are 
 found in the constitution of nature and this obviously 
 suggests the reflection, that he, who denies the Bible 
 to have come from God on account of these difficulties, 
 may, for exactly the same reason, deny that the world 
 was formed by him. Indeed the Bible could not have 
 been, as many declarations included in it show it to be, 
 — a touchstone by which to try men^s honest dispositions b 
 were it so free from difficulties that every man^s faith 
 would be inevitably excited on the perusal. 
 
 To reject Christianity, therefore, on account of its 
 difficulties, is unreasonable : because it is to reject it 
 for possessing what its own writings declare to be essen- 
 tial to its nature and purpose : and to proceed by way 
 of objections drawn from these difficulties is unfair; 
 because it is walking in a path in which a man can 
 never be stopped unless he please, and in which, though 
 he travel for ever, it is impossible he can arrive at truth 
 and certainty. Let him propose a thousand objections 
 in succession, and suppose nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine of them to be answered satisfactorily ; still the 
 one which he retains, and which he supposes to be un- 
 answerable, because he has not received an answer to 
 it, will be deemed a sufficient plea to justify his conti- 
 nuing incredulous. He will boast of this single objec- 
 tion, though probably the point to which it relates may 
 be one which it is impossible for us to place in a proper 
 light, unless we could see and know as God does. 
 
 Many and painful are the researches usually neces- 
 sary to be made for settling points of this kind. Pert- 
 ness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, 
 
 ' Ut ita sermo evangelii tanquam lapis esset Lydius ad quern 
 iugenia sanabilia explorarentur. Grotius De Ver. Rel. Christ, lib. ii. 
 sect. 19. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURES. 219 
 
 which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages 
 to answer. When this is clone, the same question shall 
 be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing 
 had ever been written upon the subject. And as peo- 
 ple in general, for one reason or another, like short 
 objections better than long answers, in this mode of 
 disputation (if it can be styled such) the odds must 
 ever be against us ; and we must be content with those 
 for our friends, who have honesty and erudition, can- 
 dour and patience, to study both sides of the question^’^ 
 You must not, however, infer from these observa- 
 tions, that I wish to avoid all discussion of the objec- 
 tions urged against Scripture. They are, it is true, too 
 multifarious in their nature to render it possible we 
 should meet them all ; and many of them would lead 
 us into too wide a field of inquiry, to admit of their 
 being considered in the compass of a letter. Still it 
 may be proper to select a few which you have probably 
 heard advanced, and to present you with such answers 
 as have been given, or may be given to them ; that you 
 may judge how trifling some of them are, and how sa- 
 tisfactory solutions may be furnished to others, the most 
 specious and plausible, that have been brought forward. 
 
 Obj. I. It has been thought strange that God should 
 select, as the principal recipients of his favours, so 
 obscure a people as the ancient Jews were ; a nation 
 described by Voltaire as “ wretched, ever ignorant, and 
 vulgar, and strangers to the arts.^^ 
 
 The following reply was made to Voltaire : and it is 
 unnecessary we should seek for any other, until the 
 disciples of Voltaire and Hume shall have shown us 
 that this is weak and unsatisfactory. Does it become 
 you, a writer of the eighteenth century, to charge the 
 ancient Hebrews with ignorance P A people, who, while 
 your barbarous ancestors, whilst even the Greeks and 
 Latins, wandering in the woods, could scarcely pro- 
 cure for themselves clothing and a settled subsistence, 
 already possessed all arts of necessity, and some of 
 2 Horne’s Letters on Infidelity, p. 82. 
 
220 OBJECTIONS TO THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 mere pleasure ; who not only knew^ how to feed and to 
 rear cattle, till the earth, work upon wood, stone, and 
 metals, weave cloths, dye wool, embroider stuffs, polish 
 and engrave on precious stones ; but who even then, 
 adding to manual arts those of taste and refinement, 
 surveyed land, appointed their festivals according to 
 the motions of the heavenly bodies, and ennobled their 
 solemnities by the pomp of ceremonies, by the sound 
 of instruments, music and dancing; who even then 
 committed to writing the history of the origin of the 
 world, that of their own nation, and their ancestors; 
 who had poets and writers skilled in all the sciences 
 then known, great and brave commanders, a pure wor- 
 ship, just laws, a wise form of government: in short, 
 this was ihe only one of all ancient nations that has left 
 2is authentic monuments of genius and of literature. Can 
 this nation be justly charged with ignorance and inur- 
 hanity 
 
 Obj. II. The books of Moses are scarcely mentioned 
 k by any ancient pagan writers ; a circumstance which 
 seems irreconcilable with the extreme antiq uity assigned 
 to them by Jewish and Christian authors. 
 
 They are, however, noticed by some writers of cele- 
 brity, as I showed in the letter on the genuineness of 
 Scripture; so that this objection is overthrown. But, 
 even though reference could not be made to a single 
 heathen author who speaks of Moses, it would be unfair 
 to infer from thence that Moses never existed, and that 
 the books distinguished by his name are spurious. 
 Neither Herodotus nor Thucydides ever mention Rome, 
 though the conquests of the Roman people were in the 
 times of those historians extended far and wide : would 
 it not be thought extremely unreasonable to affirm, on 
 this account, that the received histories of Rome are 
 fabulous ? 
 
 Obj. III. The massacres and desolations which 
 marked the expulsion of the Canaanites from their 
 land, and led to the establishment of the Israelites in 
 it, could never be authorized by the good and merciful 
 
DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. 2'2l 
 
 Governor of the universe; and, of consequence, those 
 parts of the Old Testament history which relate these 
 horrid stories must be rejected. 
 
 So have argued Morgan, Tindal, Bolingbroke, Paine, 
 and many others; yet it may be shown that these trans- 
 actions were calculated for a beneficial purpose, even 
 for the general advantage of mankind ; and were, there- 
 fore, neither inconsistent with the justice of God, nor 
 with the usual proceedings of Divine providence. Let 
 the objectors to this portion of the Old Testament his- 
 tory consider : 
 
 1. That God, as the offended Creator of the Canaan- 
 ites, had a right to their forfeited lives, and therefore 
 might as well destroy them and their posterity by the 
 sword of the Israelites, as by famine, pestilence, fire and 
 brimstone rained from heaven, or any other calamity 
 appearing more obviously to come from himself. 
 
 2. The unparalleled wickedness of this people, espe- 
 cially as aggravated by the destruction of Sodom, was 
 such as macle the execution inflicted upon them a use- 
 ful lesson to neighbouring nations^ 
 
 3. The people of those ages were affected by no proof 
 of the power of the gods which they worshiped, so 
 deeply as by their giving them victory in war. Hence, 
 the destruction of the Canaanites by the Israelites 
 tended to convince surrounding nations, and all who 
 were observers and spectators of what passed, 1st. That 
 the God of Israel was a real God ; 2dly. That the gods 
 which other nations worshiped were either no gods, or 
 had no power against the God of Israel. 3dly. That it 
 was he, and he alone, w'ho had both the power and the 
 will to exterminate from before his face both nations and 
 individuals, who gave themselves up to the crimes and 
 abominations for which the Canaanites could not but be 
 notorious. Destruction from an earthquake, or a plague, 
 might not have been attributed to divine agency at all, 
 or not to the interposition of the God of Israel. 
 
 4. Had not the extermination been complete, those 
 
 ® Compare Gen. XV. 16. Lev,xviii.20 — 28. Jude, *1.4 — 7. Wisd. 
 xii. 3 — 7. Acts, xiii. 19. Judges, n. 1 — 5. 19 — 23. 
 
222 DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. 
 
 old inhabitants which were left might have seduced the 
 new coiners by degrees into the same crimes and cor- 
 ruptions. Vice^ and especially that of the licentious kind, 
 is astonishly infectious ; of which striking proofs are 
 furnished in the last of the chapters just quoted. 
 
 5. That the punishment was preceded by mercy : the 
 forbearance of God had been manifested towards their 
 
 abominable customs^^ long, and Divine judgments were 
 not executed till their wickedness was 
 
 6. This signal exercise of Divine punishment is ac- 
 companied by evidence tending to show that God's 
 abhorrence and treatment of crimes is impartial, without 
 distinction, and without respect of nations, or persons. 
 It served likewise as an awful lesson even to the "'Jews, 
 the people of God," themselves; they being over and 
 over again reminded, that notwithstanding they were 
 the appointed instruments of extermination, if they 
 followed similar practices they must expect a like fate. 
 “ Ye shall not walk in the way of the nations which I 
 cast out before you ; for they committed all those 
 things, and therefore, I abhorred them : as the nations 
 which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall ye 
 perish, because ye were not obedient to the voice of the 
 Lord your God." — The Israelites would thus be more 
 strongly impressed with an abhorrence of the abomina- 
 tions of idolatry, and this impression would subserve 
 the design of keeping them a distinct people, adhering 
 to the worship of the true God, so beneficial to them 
 in particular, and ultimately so gracious to mankind 
 in general. 
 
 7. The miracles wrought in favour of the Israelites, 
 not only at their coming out of Egypt, but at their 
 entrance on Canaan, proved that they were indeed 
 (‘omrnissioned as God’s executioners : and consequently 
 that their conduct was not to be a model for conquerors 
 in ordinary cases. 
 
 8. We may remark, farther, that had any among 
 the Canaanites surrendered themselves at discretion to 
 the God of Israel, a new case would have arisen not 
 expressly provided for in the law, in which, it is pro- 
 
DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. 223 
 
 bable, God, being consulted by Urim and Thummim, 
 would have spared the lives of such penitents; and 
 either have incorporated them with the Israelites by cir- 
 cumcision, or have ordered them a settlement in some 
 neighbouring country, as the family of Rahab seems to 
 have had. 
 
 But it may be objected, after all, that these argu- 
 ments do not show that it is not repugnant to God^s 
 moral justice ""to doom to destruction the crying or 
 smiling infants of the Canaanites/^ To this we reply : — 
 
 9. Why is it not maintained repugnant to his moral 
 justice, that he should suffer crying or smiling infants 
 to be swallowed up by an earthquake, drowned by an 
 inundation, consumed by a fire, starved by famine, or 
 destroyed by pestilence? The earth, at the command 
 of God, opened, and swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and 
 Abiram, with their wives, their sons, and their little 
 ones. "" Two she-bears’^ destroyed "" forty-two children^^ 
 who had just before been ""mocking^^ Elisha. These, 
 as well as the destruction of the Canaanites, are deemed 
 so repugnant to God^s moral justice, that infidels spurn, 
 as spurious, the books in which the circumstances are 
 related. When Catania, Lima, and Lisbon, were seve- 
 rally destroyed by earthquakes, men, with their wives, 
 their sons, and their little ones, were swallowed up 
 alive: why do not these inquirers spurn, as spurious, 
 the book of nature, in which these facts are written P 
 The latter circumstances are as apparent infringements 
 upon the moral justice of God as the former; and a 
 person would just as forcibly, upon this ground, argue 
 against the latter being facts as against the former. 
 Besides, it should be recollected, with respect to "" cry- 
 ing and smiling infants,’’ that their early death, so far 
 from being a punishment, as these objectors represent 
 it, might be an act of the greatest mercy, since it might 
 save them from the dreadful future punishment due to 
 the actual guilt they would probably have incurred 
 had they reached maturity'*. 
 
 * Pantologia, art. Canaanites, 
 
224 ABRAHAM OFFERING UP ISAAC. 
 
 Obj. IV. The story of Abraham’s offering* up his 
 only son Isaac is so highly unnatural, that neither it 
 nor the book which advances it as true can possibly be 
 reckoned credible. 
 
 There is nothing so very unreasonable in this story 
 as the objectors seem to imagine. Abraham had him- 
 self received so many divine communications, and had 
 been acquainted with so many which had been made 
 to his ancestors, that he could easily ascertain whether 
 the command really came from God ; and God could 
 manifestly accompany it by such marks of his power 
 and will, as w^ould leave Abraham no room to enter- 
 tain a single doubt about it. Abraham could as little 
 doubt of God’s right to Isaac’s life, nay, the youth 
 himself could as little doubt it, as of his care of him in 
 another state. These were essential parts of the patri- 
 archal religion. Still it must be acknowledged, that 
 great faith was required in Abraham, before he could 
 overcome his natural affection and tenderness for Isaac 
 by a principle of obedience to God, and trust God 
 for the accomplishment of his promise when he com- 
 manded him to destroy the only apparent means of 
 accomplishing it. Had not Abraham been highly 
 advanced in faith and obedience, he could not have 
 sustained so severe a trial ; but such a trial would 
 greatly confirm both. And thus this history is so far 
 from being liable to objection, that it is peculiarly 
 conformable to those methods, which mere reason and 
 experience dictate as w^ell suited for advancing and 
 perfecting true religion in the soul. When the typical 
 nature of the whole is also considered, it seems very 
 difficult indeed to question the divine authority of the 
 appointment. And in the previous steps over which 
 Abraham passed in order to obtain the blessings con- 
 ferred upon him, we have a striking adumbration and 
 example of that faith, patience, and gradual advance- 
 ment in the spiritual life, which are essential to all those 
 who hope to be blessed with faithful Abraham.” 
 
 As to the particular cavil drawn from the supposed 
 
CHINESE CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 226 
 
 delusive declaration of Abraham to his servants, I 
 and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come 
 again to you it receiv es an obvious reply in the lan- 
 guage of the Apostle Paul. Abraham knew and most 
 probably believed that God was able to raise his son 
 up, even from the dead'^;’’ and therefore that he should 
 return to his servants with his sacrificed though living 
 son. 
 
 Obj. V. The Mosaic chronology is unworthy of cre- 
 dit, since it makes the era of the creation only about 
 four thousand years earlier than the Christian era; 
 while the established chronology of the Chinese carries 
 us back to a point of time earlier by many thousands 
 of years than that assigned by Moses to the creation. 
 
 That this objection may be of any weight we must 
 give greater credit to monstrous chronologies, contain- 
 ing nothing but names without actions, than to regular 
 methodical histories, which relate in succession all the 
 most important events occurring amongst a particular 
 people for thousands of years; — we must forget that 
 the Chinese pretensions are inconsistent with them- 
 selves ; — we must forget that it has been proved that 
 the earliest Chinese observations are those of two fixed 
 stars, one in the winter solstice, the other in the vernal 
 equinox, in the reign of their king Yao, who lived after 
 the Mosaic date of the General Deluge, that is, two 
 thousand three hundred and fifty-seven years before 
 Christ®; we must forget that Cassini assigned the date 
 of another of their most early observations to be only 
 two thousand and twelve years before Christ^; assum- 
 ing the correctness of the Chinese accounts of those 
 observations. To give force to this objection, we must, 
 farther, disregard the testimony of M. de Guignes, who 
 has very recently shown most satisfactorily, that the 
 existence of the Chinese empire cannot be traced farther 
 back than five hundred and twenty-nine years before 
 
 ^ Gen. xxii. 5. Heb. ix. 19. 
 
 ® Bianchini Histor. Univers. cap. 17. 
 
 ^ Burn's Officer’s Complete Armour, p. 32. 
 
CHINESE CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 226 
 
 Christ®; and we must equally disregard the similarly 
 decisive evidence of President Goguet in the following 
 passage : 
 
 What dependence can we place upon the certainty 
 of Chinese chronology for the early times, when ue 
 see these people unanimously avow, that one of their 
 greatest monarchs, interested in the destruction of the 
 ancient traditions, and of those who preserved them, 
 caused all the books which did not treat of agriculture, 
 or of medicine, or of divination, to be burnt ; and ap- 
 plied himself, for many years, to destroy whatever 
 could recall the knowledge of the times anterior to his 
 reign ? About forty years after his death, they wanted 
 to re-establish the historical documents. For that pur- 
 pose, they gathered together, say they, the hearsays of 
 old men. They discovered, it is added, some fragments 
 of books which had escaped the general conflagration. 
 They joined these various scraps together as they could, 
 and vainly endeavoured to compose of them a regular 
 history. It was not, however, till more than one hun- 
 dred and fifty years after the destruction of all the 
 monuments, that is to say, till the year 37 before Christ, 
 that a complete body of the ancient history appeared. 
 The author himself who composed it, Sse-Ma-tsiene, had 
 the candour to own, that he had not found it possible 
 to ascend with certainty eight hundred years beyond the 
 times in which he wrote. Such is the unanimous con- 
 fession of the ChineseV^ 
 
 8 De Guignes’s Voyages a Peking, &c. tom. i. 
 
 ^ Goguet’s Origin of Laws, Dr. Henry’s translat. vol. iii. Similar 
 pretensions have been set up for the antiquity of the Chaldeans and 
 Egyptians, of whom it has been said that they had observed the mo- 
 tions of the stars for four hundred and seventy thousand years. This 
 is easily said, and easily believed by those who would rather believe 
 any thing than the Mosaic records : yet, as none gives to the art of 
 writing so early a date, this could only be preserved by tradition, 
 and the idea of a tradition of astronomical facts for four hundred and 
 seventy thousand years is too absurd to need any refutation. Plutarch 
 puts us in a ready way of estimating the whole, when, in his life of 
 Numuy he says, “ Though their year, according to some authors, con- 
 
INCONSISTENCIES, ETC. IN SCRIPTURE. 227 
 
 It is not a little curious, however, to mark the dif- 
 ferent ways in which unbelievers attack the authority of 
 Scripture, in respect of the age it gives to the w^orld. 
 Voltaire is fiery, and even furious, in contending for 
 the superior antiquity given by the Chinese, while 
 Laplace insinuates, as if almost unconscious he was 
 making any such insinuation, that the world cannot be 
 above half as old as Moses makes it, and hunts about, 
 very philosophically, for reasons to explain la nou- 
 veaute du monde moral, dont les monumens ne remon- 
 tent guere au-deld de trots mille ans^^. 
 
 Obj. VI. The Scriptures contain so many inconsist- 
 encies, contradictions, and absurdities, that it is difficult 
 to think them authentic, much less inspired. 
 
 This objection presents itself with a very formidable 
 aspect, and will, therefore, require something more 
 than a mere glance at it. Let me remark, then, first, as 
 to those few and small apparent inconsistencies which 
 are supposed to run counter to the notion of inspiration, 
 or at least to restrict the inspiration of the Scriptures to 
 its lowest sense, that they decrease daily, in proportion 
 as the inquiries of learned men are extended farther ; 
 and that even if, in the originals, the Scriptures were 
 perfectly exact and accordant in every particular, there 
 would, notwithstanding, be some apparent difficulties, 
 arising merely from our ignorance of ancient languages, 
 customs, distant places, &e. ; and consequently, that if 
 
 sisted of four luontlis, yet at first it was composed but of one, and 
 contained but the course of a single moon. Thus their making a year 
 of a single month, is the reason that the time elapsed since their 
 origin seems extremely long; so that, though it is but lately that 
 they first inhabited their country, yet they are reckoned the most 
 ancient of all nations.” 
 
 Expos, du Systeme du Monde, liv. iv. chap. 4. Attempts have 
 also been made to destroy the credibility of the Mosaic ohronology,. 
 from the phenomena of volcanic lava, and the great length of time 
 requisite to form a scanty surface of soil upon them ; but these 
 objections carry their own refutation with them ; as has been shown 
 by Mr. Gisborne, in his “ Familiar Survey,” note p. 515, and by the 
 Contemplative Philosopher,” in vol. ii. No. 55., 
 
228 INCOISSISTENCIES, ETC. IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 difficulties arising from this source are not more nu- 
 merous than may fairly be ascribed to our ignorance, 
 they constitute in fact no objection at all. Besides, it 
 must not be forgotten, that in other cases apparent 
 inconsistencies, to a certain extent, exclude the suppo- 
 sition of forgery ; because they, who bear testimony to 
 that which is false, take care so to make their stories 
 correspond, that there shall not be any apparent dif- 
 ference. It may be observed, moreover, that the 
 principle of the objection goes much farther than the 
 objectors themselves wish to carry it: for if, on account 
 of some small irreconcileable differences, we may im- 
 mediately disbelieve and reject whole books, then no 
 book of history can possibly be believed. Yet Polybius, 
 Livy, Plutarch, and others, in whom much greater con- 
 tradictions are to be found, preserve their authority 
 and credibility amongst us, as to most points : how 
 much more reasonable then is it, that no such thing 
 should destroy the credibility of those, who prove by 
 their own writings that they had constantly a high 
 regard to piety and truth. 
 
 With respect to the discrepances between the four 
 Gospels, which are so often and triumphantly urged 
 in this connexion, it should be recollected that most of 
 them arise from omission^ which is always an uncertain 
 ground of objection. Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dio Cas- 
 sius, have all written of the reign of Tiberius, and each 
 has omitted many things mentioned by the rest. These 
 discrepances will also of course be more numerous 
 when men write rather memoirs than histories; when 
 they do not undertake to deliver, in the order of time, 
 a regular account of all things of importance which the 
 subject of the history did and said ; but only such 
 passages as were suggested by their particular design 
 at the time of writing. 
 
 It has been often affirmed, that the genealogies given 
 by Matthew and Luke are irreconcileable ; but Dr. Hart- 
 ley has struck out an hypothesis, which in my estima- 
 tion removes all reasonable ground of hesitation. He 
 
DISCORDANT GENEALOGIES. 
 
 229 
 
 supposes that Matthew mentions the real progenitors 
 of Joseph, while Luke gives the series of those who were 
 heirs to Davidhy birthright; and that both transcribed 
 principally from genealogical tables well known to the 
 Jews of those times. Matthew, after David, takes Solo- 
 mon, from whom Joseph lineally descended. Luke 
 takes Nathan, upon whom, though he was younger 
 than some others, and even than Solomon, it may be 
 supposed the birthright was conferred, as in the in- 
 stances of Jacob and Joseph. Matthew proceeds by 
 real descent to Salathiel, at the time of the captivity ; 
 Luke proceeds by the heirs according to birthright, 
 and comes to Salathiel likewise. Hence Hartley sup- 
 poses, that Salathiel, Solomon’s heir, was at that time 
 David’s also, by the extinction of all the branches of 
 Nathan’s family. Matthew then takes Zorobabel as 
 Joseph’s real progenitor; Luke takes him as heir or 
 eldest son to Salathiel. Again, Matthew takes Abiud, 
 the real progenitor ; Luke mentions Rhesa, the eldest 
 son; and thus Matthew proceeds by lineal descent to 
 Joseph ; Luke, by heirs, to the same Joseph ; for it is 
 to be supposed that, Heli dying without heirs male, 
 Joseph became his heir by birthright, that is heir to 
 Zorobabel, that is, heir to David. If it be farther sup- 
 posed, that the Virgin Mary was daughter to Heli, for 
 which there appears to be some evidence, the solution 
 will be more complete, and more agreeable to tbe Jewish 
 customs. This solution is conhrmed by the considera- 
 tion that Matthew uses the word iyervtjo'e, which re- 
 strains the genealogy to lineal descent; whereas Luke 
 uses the article row, which is very generaDb It is far- 
 ther confirmed also by the fact that Luke’s descents, 
 reckoning from David to Salathiel, are but about twenty- 
 two years each; which is much too short for descents 
 from father to son, but agrees very well to descents by 
 birthright 
 
 A^QavLfi kysvpriae tov 'icraaK. Matt. i. 2. 
 
 Tov'laaaK tov 'Appadix. Luc. iii. 34. 
 
 Hartley on Man, part ii. prop. 25. See also Christian Observer, 
 
CONTRADICTORY TEXTS. 
 
 230 
 
 With regard to several passages apparently contra- 
 dictoryy the contradiction may be removed by a slight 
 and justifiable change in the translation. Thus, in the 
 often-cited example of the thirteenth chapter of John^s 
 Gospel, the expression in the second verse, And sup- 
 per being ended, ^ is irreconcileable with the twenty-sixth 
 verse, He it is to whom I shall give a sop, when I have 
 dipped ity^ according to the received translation. But 
 let the phrase Zdirvov yEvopdvov be rendered supper 
 being come, a sense which it will very well bear, and is 
 consistent with the rendering given to the word in seve- 
 ral other places*^, and every appearance of difficulty 
 vanishes. In the version of Doddridge, and in the new 
 version of the Socinians, this translation is given. In 
 Dr. CampbelPs translation, the passage is given ver- 
 bally different, but essentially the same as the one 
 proposed above, i. e. while they were at supper: thus 
 reconciling the text with verse twenty-six. 
 
 So again, with respect to supposed absurdities, it may 
 be most positively affirmed, that they are such as for 
 the most part disappear entirely, whenever we have 
 obtained the knowledge requisite to make us competent 
 judges of any specific case. Thus an instance, fre- 
 quently urged, is taken from the prophet Jeremiah’s 
 description of the advance of Cyrus to efiect the de- 
 struction of Babylon: He shall come up as a lion 
 from the swelling of Jordan Why, exclaim the ani- 
 madverters triumphantly, why should a lion come from 
 the swelling of a river? The answer is by no means 
 difficult. Maundrell informs us, that the river Jordan 
 may be considered as having two banks on one side of 
 ir, the lowermost of which is annually overflowed in 
 March. After having descended the outermost bank, 
 Feb, 1812, p. 72, 73. It is proper to add, that an analogous expli- 
 cation of the difticulty, founded upon the distinction between “ sons 
 by nature” and “ sons by the law,” was given early in the second 
 century by Africanus in an Epistle to Aristides. See Euseb. Hist. 
 Eccles. lib. i. cap. 7. 
 
 John, xxi. 4. Acts, xii. 18; xvi. 35 ; xxi. 50. 
 
 Jeremiah, xlix. 19 ; 1. 34. 
 
ABSURD TEXTS. 
 
 231 
 
 the distance is about a furlong over the strand to the 
 immediate bank of the river. This second bank is so 
 covered with bushes and trees, such as tamarisk, wil- 
 lows, oleanders, &c. as to make a complete thicket, in 
 which the various kinds of wild beasts, known in those 
 regions, are wont to harbour themselves. These animals 
 are driven from their covert by the periodical overflow- 
 ings of the river ; and of course burst from their hiding- 
 places with an eagerness and fury, which but too appo- 
 sitely represent the passions that impel a conqueror in 
 his approach to a city he has devoted to destruction*^. 
 
 Before I quit this part of our subject, you will expect 
 me to notice the absurd story of Jonah in the whale’s 
 belly.” It could not be a whale that swallowed the 
 prophet, says every objector, for whales are not found 
 in the Mediterranean, and they have not throats capa- 
 ble of receiving a man. Suppose we admit that to be 
 the case (though whales are sometimes found in the 
 Mediterranean, and indeed thrown on the Italian 
 shores), still the difficulty is not insurmountable. It 
 might be replied, that the same God who preserved the 
 
 See Wells's Scripture vol. ii. p. 1.52. And for illus- 
 
 trations of several other passages which have been made the subjects 
 of infidel cavil, consult Harmer's OhservationSy Burder's Oriental 
 Customs, the Fragments at the end of the new edition of Calmet’s 
 JDictionary ; and Horne's Introduction to the Critical Study of the 
 Bihle^ vol. i. In this latter mentioned work, there are many valu- 
 able remarks in reference to apparent contradictions — in circum- 
 stances, in chronology, in prophecies, in doctrine, between sacred 
 and profane writers, and apparent contradictions to philosophy and 
 the nature of things. 
 
 A variety of other objections have originated entirely in inatten- 
 tion to the metaphorical language of many parts of the Bible. To 
 those who are in danger from this cause I would most earnestly re- 
 commend the very ingenious and interesting “ Lectures on the Figu- 
 rative Language of the Holy Scriptures,” by the late truly learned, 
 able, and excellent William Jones, M. A. of Nayland. The whole 
 volume is highly instructive and entertaining : and it may be proper 
 to add (as an apprehension of the contrary seems much to have im- 
 peded the circulation of the work), that it scarcely contains a single 
 explication founded upon the author’s peculiar tenets as a Hutchin- 
 soniaii. 
 
ABSURD TEXTS. 
 
 232 
 
 prophet alive within the fish, could have enlarged the 
 swallow of the whale so as to absorb him : yet, on the 
 present occasion, there is no necessity for our infring- 
 ing upon the judicious maxim of Horace — 
 
 Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus. 
 
 The word fccroc in Greek, and Hebrew scholars in- 
 form us the analogous word tanim, may signify amj 
 large fish. The learned authors of the Universal His- 
 tory say, The word here used signifies no more a 
 tuliale than any other large fish that has fins; and there 
 is one commonly known in the Mediterranean by the 
 name of the carcharias, or lamia, of the bigness of a 
 whale, but with such a large throat and belly, as to be 
 able to swallow the largest man whole. There was one 
 of this kind caught, within these thirty years, on the 
 coast of Portugal, in whose throat, when stretched out, 
 a man could stand upright Conformably with this, 
 M. Pluche, speaking of the shark, says, “ It has a very 
 long gullet, and in the belly of it are sometimes found 
 the bodies of men half eaten, sometimes tvhole and 
 entire^^.^^ These extracts may suffice to show that the 
 story of Jonah and the whale is not so pregnant with 
 absurdity, as many of those who scofi’ where they ought 
 to admire will endeavour to persuade you. 
 
 Obj. VH. The Scripture doctrine of Redemption 
 is inconsistent with the opinions now received of the 
 magnitude of creation. 
 
 This was a favourite objection with Mr. Paine, urged 
 with his usual confidence, and thrown into a shape 
 the most ludicrous he could devise. On this objection, 
 which I have been requested to notice here (though by 
 so doing I must necessarily anticipate part of the topics 
 of subsequent discussion), I have been favoured with the 
 following remarks, which seem to comprehend all that a 
 candid inquirer need wish for upon this subject. 
 
 From what is known by sensible experiment of the 
 
 Matt. xii. 40. Univ. Hist. vol. x. p, 554. 
 
 Nature Displayed, vol. iii. p. 140, Bochart, vol. iii. p. 742, 
 
REDEMPTION, ETC. 233 
 
 world we live in, it is reasonable to infer, that in space 
 there must be contained a multitude of similar worlds, 
 so great, that with respect to our limited faculties, it 
 may be termed infinite. We may conclude, upon 
 similar grounds, that in each of these worlds there 
 exists a race of animals endued with reason ; and most 
 probably between us and the Fountain of Reason, there 
 is an infinite gradation of rational creatures. Now all 
 creatures must, necessarily, come short of the perfec- 
 tion of their Creator. They are, therefore, fallible; 
 and being fallible, must fall, unless their defects are 
 supplied by the aid of a nature more perfect than their 
 own. Those who stray into a road leading away from 
 the object at which they should arrive, must continually 
 increase their distance. The natural consequence of 
 falling is therefore continual deterioration. There is 
 only one species of rational creatures which God has 
 permitted to exist within the scope of our observation. 
 We know that they have fallen, and we also know that 
 it has pleased God, in his infinite goodness, to prepare 
 for them a way of salvation, and to restore them by his 
 power. Since all the counsels of God are perfect, and 
 therefore uniform, eternal, and immutable, we may also 
 conclude, with tolerable safety, from what we know in 
 one instance to have been the law of his working, that 
 such it has been, and will be, in every similar instance. 
 We may therefore assume as certain that there is a 
 way of salvation for each of the mighty multitude of 
 rational species which exist in space and eternity, and 
 that the provision for their restoration, as far as their 
 case corresponds with ours, resembles that which has 
 been made for us. 
 
 Three questions now present themselves. 1. How is 
 this to be reconciled with the scheme for the redemp- 
 tion of mankind? 2. Are we to suppose that the Son 
 of God has suffered as many times as there are species 
 of rational beings ? 3. If not, why was that method of 
 cancelling guilt employed with regard to our earth? 
 The answers to these seem to me very obvious. 
 
234 REDEMPTION INCONSISTENT WITH 
 
 It would be most unreasonable to conclude, on the 
 general proposition, otherwise than we have stated 
 already. Where the cases are the same, the same 
 means will have been pursued. But those who take 
 what is by many regarded as the narrowest view of the 
 subject, and consider the suffering of Christ as a price 
 paid to cancel guilt and to redeem mankind, need not 
 surely be under any embarrassment in admitting that 
 a similar sacrifice may have been offered whenever a 
 similar occasion has occurred. Christ will still have 
 laid down his life but once for men. That one oblation 
 will have completed their redemption. And it is not 
 in the least more derogatory from the infinite dignity 
 and the infinite beatitude which we attribute to him, 
 that he should have suffered a million of times, than 
 that he should have suffered once. This answer com- 
 prehends the first two questions; and, of course, dis- 
 poses of the third. 
 
 The difficulty in most of these matters is not in 
 the things themselves, but in the expressions we must 
 use. We may fancy that we comprehend a scheme of 
 redemption (and we may doubtless comprehend it with 
 sufficient clearness for all its practical uses) : but to 
 pretend that we can express it in incontrovertible terms, 
 except those of Scripture, is surely an absurdity too 
 great for any man, capable of logical deduction, to en- 
 tertain ; for it must involve both the nature of man and 
 the nature of God. We cannot at all express our dark 
 and limited conceptions of the one or of the other, but 
 by metaphor, and comparison with the objects of our 
 bodily senses. We collect something of the attributes 
 of God from his works, and more from Revelation. 
 We know also something of the qualities of man by 
 means of our senses, and something, by the same 
 means, of the operations of his mind ; but of the sub- 
 stance either of the mind or of the body of man, or the 
 principle of his generation, or of his animal life, we are 
 absolutely ignorant. Can we then presume to lift our 
 inquiry to the substance of GodP Even our capacity 
 
THE MAGISITUDE OF CREATION. 235 
 
 of receiving Revelation is limited by bis limitation of 
 our faculties. Man must cease to be what he is, before 
 be can comprehend things so much above him. Why 
 God has done any thing, why he made this world, why 
 he created, why he restorecl us, he has not revealed 
 to us ; it does not concern us to know^ ; it is impossible 
 for us to discover; and can it be consistent with that 
 perfect submission, faith, and resignation, which are 
 clue to him, from our frail, lowly, and dependent 
 nature, to inquire? 
 
 From the infirmity of our nature we cannot speak of 
 God at all, without using figurative expressions, drawn 
 from natural objects. We limit in terms his immen- 
 sity to particular form. We speak of his smelling a 
 sweet savouiV’ of his inclining his ear,’^ of his ‘‘ look- 
 ing from heaven;’^ and having thus brought him down 
 to our imaginations, in the likeness, and with the 
 passions and senses of man, we are apt to attribute 
 to him all our intellectual and material qualities and 
 infirmities ; and make him love and hate, and forget 
 and remember, and be jealous and take vengeance. 
 Who does not see and feel, that when we cannot speak 
 of him at all, but in terms so far below even our gross 
 conceptions of him, we ought to be very careful indeed 
 how we presume to scan those matters which he has 
 not made obvious to all capacities, lest we should be led 
 away by the literal meaning of the terms to blaspheme 
 him in our hearts. 
 
 Suffice it, then, that we know that we are created in 
 a rational and fallible nature; that without the con- 
 tinual support of God w^e must fall; that by leaning 
 upon our own powers and our own understanding, we 
 all have fallen ; that the consequences of the fall must 
 be perpetual deterioration; that we cannot be restored 
 but by the grace and power of God ; that it has pleased 
 God in his mercy and goodness, through his wisdom, 
 by his power, to decree that he will pardon and restore 
 the penitent and the faithful, through the mediation of 
 Jesus Christ, and the operation of the Holy Spirit ; and 
 
BELIEVERS OFTEN IMMORAL. 
 
 236 
 
 to give us by the incarnation, death, resurrection, and 
 ascension, sensible evidence of this his merciful dispen- 
 sation, and an example of the obedience he requires ; 
 promising that he will give, by the intercession, and 
 for the merit of his son Jesus Christ, his Holy Spirit to 
 those who turn to him with all their hearts ; and lead 
 them finally to peace and salvation, of which, by any 
 other means, they must have despaired. God has been 
 pleased to reveal to us, fully, the plan of salvation ; 
 and this (with regard to such subjects) is not only all 
 that it concerns us to know, but probably all that our 
 nature is capable of comprehending^^. 
 
 Obj. VIII.. It very often happens, that the Christian 
 Religion does not produce good moral effects upon 
 those who profess to believe it. 
 
 Be it so. This is matter of lamentation, but it 
 certainly furnishes no real ground of objection against 
 Christianity; nay, if any such objection be urged, it 
 includes within itself a tacit concession in favour of 
 the Christian system: since it acknowledges, that, if 
 human conduct were universally consistent with this 
 despised system, a correct and exalted morality would 
 as universally prevail. The legislator of the universe, 
 in promulgating the sublime laws of Christianity, 
 though he furnished men with motives calculated to 
 
 I was honoured with the preceding observations by a nobleman 
 of great learning, taste, and judgment; for whose generous advice 
 and assistance on numerous occasions, during the course of thirty 
 years, I know not how to express adequately my sense of obligation. 
 I do not expect that his lordship’s theory will in every respect be 
 adopted by every reader; but I shall pity from my heart the man 
 who can peruse his remarks, and not admire that accurate estimate 
 of the human powers, and that fine strain of devotional sentiment, 
 which they throughout evince. 
 
 This constant and highly valued friend being now dead, I need no 
 longer out of regard to his diffidence, which was commensurate with 
 his talents and his erudition, conceal that the observations inserted 
 above, are due to the late Earl of Carysforl, 
 
 For another able reply to this objection, upon a widely difibrent 
 theory, I heg to refer to the late Mr. Fuller’s excellent work. The 
 Gospel its own Witness, 
 
BELIEVERS OFTEN IMMORAL. 237 
 
 elevate them to his throne, and to extend their hopes 
 far beyond the grave, did not at the same time trans- 
 form the intelligent creatures to whom he gave those 
 laws into mere machines. He has given them the 
 power either to conform to Christian precepts, or to 
 infringe them : and thus has placed in their own hands 
 their own destiny. If, after this, a great many of 
 them reject the good, and choose the evil, the fault is 
 manifestly theirs, and not His, who by so many the 
 most tremendous denunciations, warns them against 
 the latter, and by the most alluring invitations solicits 
 them to the former. The objectors inuHl allow, that no 
 man is any farther a sincere Christian, than he is pure, 
 and holy, and upright, and free from guile, and this, if 
 they would only permit their reason to take the lead of 
 their prejudices, would set the great question between 
 them and us at rest for ever. For if, notwithstanding 
 this the acknowledged tendency of the doctrine, we 
 perceive that it has not always answered its end, the 
 only just conclusion to be drawn from the circumstance 
 is, — that the prejudices, the passions, and the consti- 
 tution of man, frequently weaken or destroy the im- 
 pressions which that doctrine naturally tends to produce 
 on the soul. We ought not to be surprised, much less 
 ought we to raise an objection on this basis : for it is 
 easy to conceive, that a free and intelligent being can- 
 not be necessarily impelled by motives and reasons ; 
 since they are not causes which have certain and neces- 
 sary effects, like weights, levers, or springs: they 
 influence (says Dr. Waring), but not compel.^’ Besides, 
 it ought not to be forgotten, that all those who make an 
 external profession of a doctrine are not always really 
 and effectually convinced of its truth : in proportion to 
 the real excellency of Christianity is the probability of 
 hypocrisy; counterfeit Christians may abound as well 
 as counterfeit guineas, and that for a like reason. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, that the mode of argu- 
 mentation on which this objection is founded is not 
 general. No one thinks of objecting against philosophy. 
 
238 BELIEVERS OFTEN IMMORAL. 
 
 that all those who profess it are not philosophers. 
 Yet, like as the tendency of Christianity is to make 
 Christians, so in its different kind and manner is it 
 the tendency of philosophy to make philosophers. Let 
 it then be allowed as a fact, that all who profess the 
 doctrine of Christ are not saints ; and, as an analogous 
 fact, that all who profess to be philosophers are not 
 such ; yet, let none be so weak, or so unwise, as to be 
 laughed out of his religion, or of his philosophy, on 
 this account. 
 
 Indeed, here, as in many other respects, religion has 
 greatly the advantage of philosophy. No person rests 
 the truth of any philosophical system upon the difficulty 
 with which it is received, or upon the paucity of those 
 who adopt it : while many of the declarations of Scrip- 
 ture show clearly that the Christian religion was for 
 a long period to be the religion of the minority ; and 
 that it is only in the latter times that great multitudes 
 
 of every nation, and kingdom, and tribe, and people,’^ 
 shall be converted unto God, and become sincere disci- 
 ples of Christ. The actual state of the world, even 
 where religion is known, therefore, rather proves the 
 truth of Christianity, than militates against it. 
 
 I might add much more in reply to this objection, 
 as well as to the kindred one that is founded upon the 
 evils which have been done in the name of Christianity; 
 but I prefer substituting a quotation from an author of 
 great celebrity, who has never been accused of undue 
 partiality towards the system these letters are intended 
 to support. — To pretend to say that religion is not a 
 restraining motive because it does not always restrain, 
 is equally absurd as to say that the civil laws are not 
 
 Matt. vii. 14, 21 ; xx. 16 ; xxii. 14 ; xxvi. 11. Luke, xiii. 24. 
 Is. xi.6;xl. 1 — 11; Ixv. 25, &c. Another objection, founded upon, 
 the circumstance that an interval of four thousand years was per- 
 mitted to elapse between the epochs of the creation and the birth of 
 Christ, was satisfactorily repelled by Arnobius, in the third century 
 (Adv. Gentes). See also Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. cap., 
 2, p. 28; and Baxter’s valuable Reasons of the Christian Religion,, 
 part ii. cap. 10, p. S9G.. 
 
BELIEVERS OFTEN IMMORAL. 239 
 
 a restraining motive. It is a false way of reasoning 
 against religion, to collect, in a large work, a long detail 
 of the evils it has produced, if we do not give at the 
 same time an enumeration of the advantages which 
 have flowed from it. Were I to relate all the evils 
 that have arisen in the world from civil laws, from 
 monarchy, and from republican government, I might 
 tell of frightful things. Were it of no advantage for 
 subjects to have religion, it would still be some if princes 
 had it, and if they whitened with foam the only rein 
 which can restrain those who fear not human laws. A 
 prince, who loves and fears religion, is a lion who stoops 
 to the hand that strokes, or to the voice which appeases 
 him. He, who fears and hates religion, is like the savage 
 beast that growls and bites the chain which prevents his 
 flying on the passenger. He, who has no religion at all, 
 is that terrible animal, who perceives his liberty only 
 when he tears in pieces and devours 
 
 Obj. IX. The Bible is a tasteless, insipid, inelegant, 
 uninteresting book, composed almost always in a dull 
 heavy style ; and therefore cannot come from Him who 
 is the Author of language and sentiment. 
 
 In replying to this we must relinquish reasoning, 
 and oppose assertion to assertion. To overthrow the 
 objection then, I cheerfully refer to the Bible itself, 
 and ask where else can be found such wonderful and 
 varied specimens of sublimity, as in the fifth chapter 
 of Judges, the fourth, twenty-sixth, and thirty-seventh 
 chapters of Job, the twenty-ninth, hundred and fourth, 
 hundred and seventh, and hundred and thirty-ninth 
 Psalms, several portions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, the 
 first and second chapters of Joel, and the first chapter 
 of the Apocalypse? Taking them even as they appear 
 under the disadvantage of a translation, I will venture 
 
 2* Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, book xxiv. chap. 2. For a very 
 masterly refutation of the numerous attempts to weaken the authority 
 of Scripture, founded upon the real or imaginary anomalies in the con- 
 duct of David, see Dr. Delany’s admirable and elegant Historical 
 Account of the Life and Reign of David, King of Israel, in 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
INSIPIDITY OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 240 
 
 to affirm, that nothing can be found in Homer, Virgil, 
 Shakspeare, or Milton, that will bear comparison with 
 most of them in point of beauty, splendour, majesty, 
 and grandeur. Where, again, will you find such in- 
 teresting stories, so artlessly, yet often so pathetically, 
 told, as those of Jacob and Rachael, of Joseph and his 
 brethren, of the death of Jacob, of the widow of Zare- 
 phath’s and of the Shunamite’s sons, of Naomi and 
 Ruth? Where will you find more genuine touches of 
 nature, more delightful pictures of the effects of friend- 
 ship and sympathy, than those in the eleventh and 
 fourteenth chapters of John’s Gospel, and the twentieth 
 chapter of the Acts? 
 
 Be assured that those, who lay aside the Bible under 
 the notion of its being dull, dry, and unentertaining, 
 deceive themselves most miserably, and thereby deprive 
 themselves of the highest intellectual delight. This 
 most excellent of all books, besides being of the highest 
 authority in its historical portions, and of invaluable 
 utility, as furnishing the only consistent and practicable 
 scheme of morality, contains very much that is super- 
 latively adapted to gratify the finest mental taste. It 
 enters more sagaciously and more deeply into human 
 nature ; it developes character, delineates manners, 
 charms the imagination, and warms the heart, more 
 effectually than any book extant : and if once a person 
 would take it into his hand, without the strange unrea- 
 sonable idea of its flatness, and be only not unwilling to 
 be pleased, I doubt not that he would find all his favour- 
 ite authors dwindle in the comparison, and soon perceive 
 that he was not merely reading the most religious, but 
 the most entertaining book in the world 
 
 The great objects, however, for which the Scriptures 
 were put into our hands, are vastly more important than 
 
 For numerous examples and quotations in proof of this position, 
 I refer those who have any doubts, to BlackwalFs Sacred Classics, 
 and Melmoth’s Sublime and Beautiful in Scripture: also to Burke 
 on the Sublime, part ii. sec. 4, 5, 13 ; and to various parts of Blair's 
 Rhetoric, 
 
REAL VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 241 
 
 the mere famishing us with amusement. God, who is 
 infinitely wdse as well as infinitely good, knows our 
 compound nature, and has regard to it, by bestowing 
 upon us a Revelation which is fitted to man who has a 
 mind to be instructed as well as entertained, a heart to 
 be amended and renewed, and a soul to be saved. 
 
 By this time, I hope, you feel persuaded, upon the 
 solicl ground of the most rational conviction, that the 
 Bible contains the pure and unadulterated word of God; 
 such as comported with the majesty and mercy of the 
 Supreme Being to bestow, and such as it will be highly 
 salutary to man to receive with humility and gratitude. 
 Study it, then, with daily attention, thankfulness, and 
 reverence. Consider it as an unerring light to your 
 feet, and lamp to your path.^’ Here we are strangers 
 and pilgrims : the Bible points to heaven as our home. 
 Here we are in an enemy’s country : the Bible directs 
 us to fight the good fight of faith,” under the guid- 
 ance of the Captain of our salvation.” Here we are 
 exposed to temptations, even to all the fiery darts of 
 Satan the Bible furnishes us with the whole ar- 
 mour of God,” and exhorts us to put on the breast- 
 plate of righteousness, and the shield of faith ; and to 
 take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the 
 spirit.” Here we are subject to want, distress, and dis- 
 appointment : the Bible cheers us with the prospect of 
 “ a better and an enduring substance” in a happy 
 region, where God shall wipe aw^ay all tears from all 
 faces.” Here we may be poor, destitute, and despised ; 
 but if we are Christians indeed, the Bible assures us 
 we are heirs of an invaluable and indestructible inhe- 
 ritance, “ an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and 
 that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.” 
 
 Thus numerous and inestimable are the benefits 
 offered to those who believe the Scriptures, and live 
 conformably to the precepts therein exhibited. That 
 these benefits and blessings may be yours, my dear 
 friend, sufter me to entreat you sedulously to cherish 
 the dispositions essential to a profitable perusal of the 
 
 R 
 
REAL VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 242 
 
 sacred pages: those dispositions have been ably de- 
 lineated by an excellent clergyman now living in 
 a passage with which I shall close this branch of our 
 correspondence. 
 
 In the first place, study them devoutly. Remember 
 that they are the word of God: that they were written 
 under the superintendence of his Spirit ; and that their 
 great purpose was to introduce and extend over the 
 whole earth the Gospel and the kingdom of his Son. 
 Remember, also, that they were written to conduct you 
 to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Read them, 
 therefore, with a reverence and holy fear ; and make it 
 your earnest and constant prayer to Him, from whom 
 alone cometh every good and perfect gift, that his grace 
 may open your understanding, enable you clearly to 
 comprehend the import of the Sacred Writings, and 
 deeply impress it upon your heart. 
 
 “ Secondly, study the Scriptures with Humility; with 
 a sincere desire to receive instruction from them, and 
 to submit your own opinions to the declared will of 
 your Maker and your Saviour. If we may judge, by 
 the manner in which some persons speak concerning 
 the Scriptures, of the temper and spirit with which 
 they read them, we may almost conclude that they read 
 them for the purpose of cavilling, finding fault, and 
 raising difficulties and objections. Be not thus blind 
 and presumptuous. If you take up your Bible with 
 Christian humility, you will not say concerning any 
 doctrine, ^ This is a strange and unreasonable doctrine, 
 and I cannot receive it.^ Your language will rather be, 
 ‘ This doctrine is clearly contained in the word of God, 
 and therefore must be true.^ You will not say concern- 
 ing any rule of practice, ‘ This is a hard and grievous 
 commandment, and I may be excused from regarding 
 it very strictly.^ Your language will be, ‘ This com- 
 mandment is positively enjoined by my Lord and 
 Judge, and I must obey it, if I would prove my love to 
 him, or escape condemnation at the last day.^ 
 
 Mr, Gisborne, in liis Familiar Survey, &:c. p. 231. 
 
REAL VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 243 
 
 Finally, read the Scriptures with a full purpose of 
 heart, not merely to learn what they require of you, 
 but faithfully to practise it, through God’s blessed as- 
 sistance every day of your life. " Not every one that 
 sailh unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father.’ 
 " Not the hearers of the law are just before God; but 
 the doers of the law shall be justified If you read 
 the Scriptures carelessly or merely from custom, or 
 rather from a spirit of curiosity than from anxiety to 
 profit by them, and to grow in grace ; you do not read 
 them as you ought to read the word of your Maker. 
 You do not read them like a person solicitous above 
 all things to obtain through Christ the Kingdom of 
 Heaven ; and conscious it will be bestowed by Christ 
 on those only, who strive according to their power to 
 learn from the Scriptures the way of his commandments, 
 and faithfully to walk in it, by his help, unto death.” 
 
 Believe me, dear Friend, unalterably yours. 
 
 END OF THE LETTERS ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 • LETTER XII. 
 
 Introductory Letter on the Leading Doctrines of the 
 Christian Religion, 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 It is much more easy for you to conjecture, than for 
 me to describe, the pleasure I received from learning 
 that you are now fully persuaded of the truth and 
 Divine authority of the Christian Religion : and I cheer- 
 fully accede to your renewed request that this series of 
 letters shall be extended until I have furnished you 
 with a view of the principal doctrines proposed in 
 Scripture for your belief, and of the grand duties wdiich 
 we are called upon as Christians to discharge. Had I 
 not, however, a decided conviction of your supreme 
 Matt. vii. 21. Roiu. ii. 13. 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 244 
 
 love of truth, and of your stedfast determination to 
 follow it whithersoever it may lead you, I should be 
 somewhat apprehensive that, in performing this second 
 part of the task your friendly deference to my opinions 
 has assigned me, my efforts will be attended with less 
 success than they have been in what I have already 
 attempted. The truths which lie at the basis of the 
 Christian system are so humiliating to human nature, 
 so revolting to the sentiments of those who have too 
 exalted ideas of the powers of reason, and who cherish 
 erroneous conceptions of the dignity of man, that though 
 they are so plainly stamped in the universal character 
 and conduct of mankind, that he who runs may 
 read yet they require to be asserted repeatedly in the 
 Word of’ God before they receive our assent : and after 
 all we yield that assent more reluctantly than to any 
 other truths ever presented to the mind. 
 
 Still, when a person admits, as you do, that the Holy 
 Scriptures are a collection of books whose authors were 
 divinely inspired, were led into all necessary truth, and 
 preserved from all doctrinal error by the superintend- 
 ence of God himself, he at once sees the necessity of 
 studying those sacred treasures under different feel- 
 ings, and with different intentions, from those with 
 whicli he turns to the perusal of any other work. He 
 is aware that there are two points known to God, the 
 inspire!* of the Scriptures, which man cannot compre- 
 hend ; that is to say, the secrets of the heart, and the 
 succession of times. He therefore interprets the Bible 
 with that entire submission of his own understanding 
 to the divine teaching, which such a persuasion is cal- 
 culated to produce; and proceeds to the study of The- 
 ology with the maxim of Lord Bacon in his head at 
 least, if not in his heart, that by how much any di- 
 vine mystery is more unpalatable and incredible, by so 
 much the more honour is given to God in believing, and 
 the victory of our faith is made more nobleb"" 
 
 Now to me it appears impossible, and I trust you will 
 
 1 Advancement of Learning, book ix. 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 245 
 
 find it so, for any person attentively to read the Bible, 
 and especially the New Testament, free from any previ- 
 ous bias, without coming to the conclusion that what 
 distinguishes Christianity from all other religious sys- 
 tems is the circumstance of its being a restorative dispen- 
 sation. The great dramatic poet, who, in one of his 
 admirable descriptions of mercy, remarked that 
 
 “ All the souls that are were forfeit once ; 
 
 And he, that might the ’vantage best have took, 
 
 Found out the remedy!’’ 
 
 correctly expressed, whether he intended it or not, the 
 most humbling fact, and most consoling doctrine, the 
 Bible proclaims to us. Had not “ all sinned and come 
 short of the glory of God,^^ it would never have been 
 declared that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of 
 the whole world‘s . Nor can we imagine that our Lord 
 would himself have declared, I came not to call the 
 righteous but sinners to repentance^ or the Apostle 
 Paul have affirmed, it is worthy of all acceptation 
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 5/«- 
 ners^ had not the universal prevalence of iniquity, 
 in all ages, called for the Divine invention of that stu- 
 pendous scheme of mercy, whereby God should at once 
 be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly^.’^ 
 Christianity, it is true, is distinguishable from all 
 other systems by the purity, excellency, and extent of 
 the morality it enforces ; yet this is not, I conceive, its 
 most prominent characteristic. It no where presents us 
 with a connected scheme of ethics, but it does far better 
 in advancing the most simple precepts relative to every 
 part of moral duty, and accompanying them with the 
 most powerful incentives to upright and holy conduct. 
 Its grand peculiarity consists in assuming the fact that 
 man is in a fallen state, that he has lost the image of 
 God, that he is of himself incapable of regaining the 
 favour of his Creator, and in providing a remedy by 
 
 ^ 1 John, ii. 2. ^ Mark, ii. 17. 
 
 ^ 1 Tim. i. 15. ^ Rom. iii. 26 j iv. 5, 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 246 
 
 which man may be cured of his moral disorder; this 
 remedy being’ no less than the gift of the Son of God:'’ 
 who, in relation to mankind, is not so frequently called 
 their pattern, as the Physician of Souls,^^ “ the great 
 DelivereiV’ the Saviour of the world/^ 
 
 The more intimately you become acquainted wdth 
 Christianity, as depicted in the New Testament, the 
 more forcibly will you be struck with the wisdom of its 
 constitution. It does not, if I may so say, insult and 
 triumph over man by prescribing him a code of law^s 
 which he cannot obey, by referring him to statutes 
 every one of which he has broken, and commanding 
 him to preserve them entire; but it takes man as he is, 
 provides for his restoration, points out the means of 
 salvation, invites him to embrace those means, and 
 then presents him with precepts, by the observance of 
 which he may adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour 
 in all things^’’ The scheme by which all this is effected 
 is, doubtless, extraordinary; but it is not less worthy 
 of acceptance on that account. Had it not been far 
 beyond human capacity, and human discovery, it need 
 not have been transmitted from heaven. God need not 
 make supernatural communications to reveal to us what 
 might have been found out by a natural process. Hav- 
 ing ascertained that the Bible is the word of God, it is 
 our duty to receive all it makes known to us (whether 
 it coincide or not wdth our preconceived notions), with- 
 out appeal to any other quarter. I cannot comprehend 
 the reason of this,^^ may an inquirer after scriptural 
 truth often say, ‘‘ but it is God who declares it ; I re- 
 ceive it on his authority, and I humbly rely upon the 
 promise, that what I know not now, I shall know 
 hereafter 
 
 It is of extreme importance to have right views of 
 the Christian system in general, because our eternal 
 safety depends upon it. Probably there is no commu- 
 nion, nor any individual, whose religious notions are 
 in every point correct; because human explications 
 ® Titus, ii. 10. ^ John, xiii. 7. 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 247 
 
 even of the true religion are likely more or less to be 
 affected by human imperfection. Still, we may rest 
 assured, because God has promised it, that the devout, 
 humble, and sincere inquirer, shall, in every thing that 
 is essential to salvation, be preserved from error. Now, 
 among the various sects into which the Christian world 
 is divided, all except one embrace the hypothesis that 
 Christianity is a provision of mercy for an apostate and 
 sinful world, through a divine Mediator. To determine 
 whether the majority or the minority are wrong in this 
 respect is of the utmost consequence : for they who adopt 
 this hypothesis and they who reject it, having differ- 
 ent objects of worship, and different grounds of confi- 
 dence, must be allowed to be of religions essentially 
 different.^^ What, then, saith the Scriptures? for to 
 them must be our ultimate appeal. 
 
 A man of plain understanding, who has no previously 
 adopted system to favour, who reads for the sake of 
 arriving at truth, and who therefore attaches to Scrip- 
 ture its most palpable and obvious meaning, being per- 
 suaded that it is incompatible with the character of a 
 revelation from God to abound in enigmas, will soon 
 find that the evangelical scheme is this: — God, fore- 
 seeing the fatal apostasy into which the whole human 
 race would fall, did not determine to deal in a way of 
 strict severity with us, so as to consign us over to 
 universal ruin and inevitable damnation ; but, on the 
 contrary, determined to enter into a treaty of peace 
 and reconciliation, and to publish to all whom the 
 Gospel should reach, the express offers of life and 
 glory, in a certain method which his infinite wisdom 
 judged suitable to the purity of his nature, and the 
 honour of his government. This method is so asto- 
 nishing and peculiar, that for man to have proposed 
 it, independent of Divine teaching, would have ap- 
 proached to blasphemy, and to have believed it on any 
 other than divine authority, next to impossible. ‘‘ God 
 so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but en- 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 248 
 
 joy everlasting life/’ He sent into the world ‘'the bright- 
 ness of his glory, and the express image of his person^/’ 
 partaker of his own divine perfections and honours, to 
 be not merely a teacher of righteousness, and a messen- 
 ger of grace, but also a sacrifice for the sins of men. 
 Accordingly, at such a time as infinite wisdom saw 
 most fitted for the purpose, the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 when he took upon him to deliver man did not abhor 
 the virgin’s womb,” but was horn ‘‘ of a virgin and ap- 
 peared in human flesh : after he had fulfilled the whole 
 law, gone through incessant fatigues, and borne all the 
 injuries which the ingratitude and malice of men could 
 inflict, he voluntarily ‘‘ submitted himself to death, 
 even the death of the cross,” and having been delivered 
 for oiir offences, was raised again for our justification^^ ” 
 
 When he had overcome the sharpness of death, he 
 opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers:” forty 
 days after his resurrection he, ascended into heaven,” 
 in sight of his disciples, where he has become our Inter- 
 cessor; and, agreeably to his promise, sent down his 
 Spirit upon his apostles to enable them, in the most 
 persuasive and authoritative manner, to preach the 
 Gospel ;” giving it in charge to them and their succes- 
 sors to publish it to every creature and declaring 
 that all who repent and believe in that Gospel may be 
 saved, may be released from punishment, and restored 
 to the image and favour of God, by virtue of its abid- 
 ing energy, and the immutable power and grace of its 
 Divine Author 
 
 It is possible that a belief of these truths, striking 
 and momentous as they are, may float loosely in the 
 understanding, without being efficacious. But they 
 are exquisitely formed to affect us deeply : and when- 
 ever the secret links which connect the understanding 
 with the heart are acted upon by the mysterious energy 
 of him who knoweth our frame,” and all its hidden 
 
 ® John, iii. 16. Heb. i. 3. 
 
 ® Is vii. 14. Matt. i. 23. Luke, i. 31. Rom. iv. 25. 
 
 ** See Doddridge’s Works, vol. i. p. 274. 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 249 
 
 springs, ibis belief leads to that saving change which 
 is called conversion. Then he who is the subject of 
 it becomes a new creature : old things are passed 
 away ; behold, all things become new He has new 
 apprehensions of things, new hopes, new fears, new 
 joys, new sorrows, new affections, new employments, 
 new prospects, and, it may be, new friends and new 
 foes : he feels a perfect renovation of character ; his 
 greatest solicitude is to be a fellow worker with God, 
 and a fellow heir with the saints and impelled by 
 the joint influence of delight and self-abasement, he 
 may be ready to exclaim, with Baxter, “ O wonderful ! 
 that heaven will be familiar with earth, God with man, 
 the Most High with a worm, and the Most Holy with 
 a vile sinner ! Man refuses me when God entertains 
 me. Those I never wronged reproach me; and God, 
 whom I have unspeakably injured, invites and entreats 
 me, and condescends to me, as if he vyere obliged to 
 serve me. Men may abhor me, whom 1 have deserved 
 well of : but God, from whom I deserve eternal tor- 
 ments, graciously accepts me. I upbraid myself with 
 my sins, but he now upbraids me not: I condemn 
 myself for them, but he will not condemn me. He 
 forgives me sooner than I can forgive myself. I have 
 peace with him, before I can have peace in my own 
 conscience.^^ 
 
 The Christian religion, as portrayed in the Gospel, 
 differs from all others in furnishing an internal princi- 
 ple, from which the purest conduct emanates. It is 
 not a religion of forms and ceremonies, but the religion 
 of the inner man.^^ The language of God to every 
 Christian is, My son, give me thine heart. The true 
 Christian, as depicted in the New Testament, is a 
 faithful and active servant, who inquires what his 
 LorcPs will is, and performs it with cheerful alacrity. 
 He makes it his meat and his drink to do the will of 
 his heavenly Father and he knows that, conforma- 
 bly with that will, he must relieve the fatherless and 
 2 Cor. V. 17. 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 250 
 
 widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted 
 from the w orld He considers it his duty, and 
 finds it his delig^ht, to please God, and render as far 
 as possible his fellow creatures happy ; to add to 
 his faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ; and to 
 knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; 
 and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly 
 kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity Still 
 he walks as on the confines of the eternal state, and is 
 anxious, therefore, to renounce the world, its course and 
 its spirit, yea, to be “ dead unto the world^^ and alive 
 unto God,^^ to attain more and more of the Divine image, 
 to grow up to Christ in all things, to enjoy ‘‘ fellow- 
 ship with God,^^ and, if he be risen with Christ, to 
 seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth 
 on the right hand of God 
 
 Such are the dispositions and the employments 
 which are required to be exemplified in the sincere 
 Christian. He is exhorted to flee from a contrary tem- 
 per and conduct, by the assurance that the wrath of 
 God ahideth on^^ all those who reject the offer of the 
 Gospel; and he is stimulated to persevere in the 
 Christian course by the assurance that heaven is the 
 inheritance of every sincere and humble follower of 
 Jesus. His hopes are constantly directed to that 
 happy period when he shall be ever with the Lord, 
 to behold^’ and participate in his glory He lives 
 under the persuasion that, after he has passed through 
 
 the valley of the shadow of death,’’ God will wipe 
 away all tears from his eyes,^’ and he will be no more 
 exposed to fear or sorrow, to mourning or death. He 
 believes that his spirit will be united to his glorified 
 body in those delightful regions, where an enemy shall 
 never enter, and from whence a friend shall never de- 
 part ; where there will be satiety without disgust, day 
 and no night, joy and no weeping, difference in degree 
 
 >3 James, i. 2T. 2 Pet. i. 5—7. 
 
 Gal. vi. 14. Rom. vi. 11. 2 Cor. iii. 18. Eph. iv. 15. 1 John, 
 i. 3. Col. iii. 1. 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 251 
 
 and yet all full^ ‘‘ love without dissimulation/^ excel- 
 lency without envy, multitudes without confusion, 
 harmony without discord ; w here the understanding 
 shall be astonishingly enriched, the will perfectly recti- 
 fied, the affections all transformed into love and joy ; 
 where the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, 
 shall feed him, and lead him unto living fountains of 
 waters^® where God shall be the light and the glory 
 of the place for ever and ever ! 
 
 These, in brief, are the doctrines of the New Testa- 
 ment, the fruits of the Spirit/^ manifested in those 
 who believe, and the glorious expectations of a future 
 w^orld, which are intended at once to stimulate and to 
 reward “^a patient continuance in well doing.^’ "‘But 
 these,^^ you will probably say, “ are not recognised by 
 many who call themselves Christians; for there are 
 many that profess a belief in Christianity, who never- 
 theless ridicule the idea of living under its power. If 
 that system of religion, which is inculcated in the New 
 Testament, teach, as your language clearly implies, the 
 depravity of human nature, the necessity of regenera- 
 tion, the influences of the Spirit, particular Provi- 
 dence, the atonement and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, 
 justification by faith, the resurrection of the body, and 
 the eternity of future punishment; it teaches what not 
 many rich, not many noble, not many wise, are pre- 
 pared to receive, and what none can receive without 
 being exposed in consequence to contumely, derision, 
 and reproach/^ While I acknowledge the justice of 
 this observation, I would wish to guard you against 
 drawing any such conclusions from it as w^ould be 
 unfavourable to a cordial reception of the great and 
 essential peculiarities of the evangelical system. That 
 several of the rich and noble should reject the religion 
 of Jesus Christ is not at all to be wondered at, when it 
 is recollected that the most genuine fruits of that reli- 
 gion are meekness humility, godly simplicity, an aver- 
 sion to pomp and display ; — dispositions, w hich flow 
 Rev. vii. 17. 
 
GENERAL VIEW OF 
 
 252 
 
 in a current directly opposite to all the natural tenden- 
 cies of opulence, and which, notwithstanding (such is 
 the irresistible energy of Christian principles), have 
 often been found to adorn the character of persons of 
 the most exalted rank. Blessed be God, there are those 
 
 ** Who wear a coronet and pray:” 
 
 there are also monarchs who delight in acknowledging 
 their allegiance to the King of kings, and whose piety 
 is to them a greater ornament than the richest gem 
 which decks their crowns. So that God is not without 
 witnesses, nor Jesus Christ without sincere disciples, 
 among those who surround, or those who sit upon, 
 earthly thrones. 
 
 As to the frequent rejection of the peculiarities of 
 the Christian religion by men of learning and science, 
 neither can that be a matter of surprise. It is very 
 possible to know much without being wise, and espe- 
 cially without being wise unto salvation.^^ 
 
 “ — Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one. 
 
 Have ofttimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; 
 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 
 Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass. 
 
 The mere materials with which wisdom builds. 
 
 Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place, 
 
 Does but encumber Whom it seems t’ enrich. 
 
 Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much ; 
 
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.” COWPER. 
 
 That great literary and philosophical endowments 
 may be possessed by persons, who, notwithstanding, 
 have the most low and grovelling conceptions of almost 
 every thing connected with religion, is evident from the 
 sketch of the notions of heathen poets, legislators, and 
 philosophers, which I presented you in an early part 
 of these letters. From that sketch you will perceive, 
 that while no subject in art or science was too lofty or 
 too difficult for the acquisition of those men, no object 
 in nature was too mean, no conception of the basest 
 mind too obscene, to serve as objects of worship; there 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 253 
 
 you saw that the men whose genius has been the admi- 
 ration of all successive ages, whose performances as 
 poets, orators, historians, logicians, or mathematicians, 
 are, after the lapse of two thousand years, held up as 
 models of excellence in their respective kinds, — were 
 yet sunk in such deplorable ignorance respecting reli- 
 gion, as to be not a whit superior to the most barbarous 
 and uncultivated inhabitants of South America or New 
 Zealand. But the reason is evident. The reception 
 of religious truth depends on the state of the heart, not 
 on that of the intellect ; and hence it has happened 
 that though some men of enlarged intellect have had 
 hearts in which the seeds of grace could not germinate, 
 there have been others, such as Newton and Euler, 
 who, while they have extorted from nature some of her 
 profoundest secrets, and have illuminated the world by 
 their discoveries, have thought it their greatest honour 
 to ‘^sit at the feet of Jesus,^^ to imbibe the pure spirit of 
 the Gospel, and to be not merely philosophical, but 
 practical and devotional, believers of Christianity, in- 
 cluding its peculiarilies and mysteries. 
 
 You will often, I doubt not, hear it asserted, notwith- 
 standing the authority of the great names which I have 
 already mentioned, that Christianity is a scheme fitted 
 only to the measure of vulgar and uncultivated minds. 
 Yet be assured that they who say so have deluded 
 themselves, if they are in earnest, in thus dealing with 
 you. Rather, consider it a vulgar and grovelling intel- 
 lect, which suffers itself to be enchained and riveted to 
 the sensible objects immediately at hand. Why, in- 
 deed, should men be thus enchained when nature her- 
 self, rightly contemplated, invites them to expatiate? 
 Look downwards, and your eyes have something imme- 
 diate to fix upon; but can they penetrate beyond the 
 surface? Why is all shut up in darkness beyond the 
 mere shell and exterior, except to teach you that you 
 should have your desires shut out from those earthly 
 things which are under your feet, and hidden from your 
 sight ^ If all the beauty and all the fruit of the earth are 
 
SUMMARY OF 
 
 2o4 
 
 placed on its surface, should it not at least teach you, 
 that though they may delight and interest you, you must 
 guard against giving them (in comparison of eternal 
 things) more than the surface of your affections? And 
 why is it that when you raise your head and direct your 
 eyes upwards, they can expatiate without limit, but to 
 teach you that the heavens are bright and transparent 
 by day, and glitter with splendour by night, because 
 the Great Spirit is beyond, who lets forth a little of his 
 glory and majesty through those chinks and crannies 
 of his pavilion, to remind you how vast should be your 
 affections towards Him, how incessant your desires and 
 aspirations towards his kingdom ? 
 
 You well know that, with respect to navigation and 
 geography, we correct and fix our knowledge of the 
 earth, by means of the heavenly bodies. Sun, moon, 
 and stars, all lend their aid in determining the magni- 
 tude of the planet which we inhabit, and the relative 
 positions and dimensions of the towns, cities, king- 
 doms, and empires upon its surface. If, then, the 
 philosopher, the geographer, and the mariner, are thus 
 compelled to consult heaven that they may know the 
 earth, why should it be thought an indication of a 
 vulgar and ignoble man to look to heaven to learn his 
 nature, his duty, and his expectations? 
 
 But this, you will probably be told, is to declaim on 
 a bare analogy. Consider, then, since man is a moral 
 and responsible, as well as a sinful, creature, whose 
 future and everlasting condition will be influenced by 
 the habitual tenor of his life and conduct; whether any 
 pursuit can display a wisdom more becoming a culti- 
 vated mind than the acquisition of the means by which 
 it may regain the forfeited favour of heaven, and the 
 knowledge which connects time with eternal duration, 
 and inspires a hope full of immortality ? All else, unless 
 it be duly restricted to its appropriate use, and each sub- 
 ordinate to the nobler purposes of our entire nature, — 
 
 “ is fume, 
 
 Or emptiness, or fond impertinence j 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 255 
 
 And renders us, in tilings that most concertiy 
 Unpractised, unprepared, and still to seek” MILTON. 
 
 Then, as to intellectual pursuits, instead of conceding- 
 to the opposers of evangelical religion, that the topics 
 which Christianity supplies, are adapted merely to. vul- 
 gar and uncultivated minds, ought it not to be conceded 
 to us that they furnish meditation for the most soaring 
 and inquisitive genius; since they relate to matters of 
 infinite moment, infinite dignity, infinite diversity, ma- 
 nifesting the richness of infinite love. What a field for 
 the noblest excursions ! Eternal duration : — souls im- 
 mortal, ranked in an order of existences from which 
 none have the power to escape, and involving the awful 
 alternatives of perennial bliss or endless woe : — other 
 created beings, altogether spiritual, ever active, ever 
 watchful ; pure intelligences, from whom the secrets of 
 the Ancient of Days,^' and the closets of men's hearts 
 alone are hidden ; always enjoying the beatific vision 
 of their Maker, always delighting to do his will, always 
 ministering to the heirs of salvation — other created 
 beings, too, the powers of darkness, the spiritual wick- 
 ednesses in high places, whose number, energy, and 
 combination, constitute a dreadful world of evil spirits, 
 conflicting where they prevail not, and often harassing 
 those whom they are not permitted to overcome : — the 
 Son of God, who was also Son of Man, he who 
 cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah," 
 — yielding himself to humiliation, derision, suffering, 
 and death ; — then bursting the bonds of the tomb, tri- 
 umphing not only over death, but over “ him that had 
 the power of death, even the Devil assuming his seat, 
 as the Kathemenos, “ the Sitting One,’^ at the right hand 
 of his Heavenly Father, and seeing the promise veri- 
 fied, that God will make his foes his footstool — the 
 kingdoms of the world becoming the kingdoms of God, 
 and of his Christ; — holiness, happiness, and harmony, 
 incessantly extending themselves, and vivifying the 
 assurance that not one jot or one tittle of what the 
 Scriptures announce shall fail. Topics such as these. 
 
SUMMARY OF 
 
 256 
 
 far from being ignoble, far from tending to contract the 
 mind, give it an expansion of occupation, and a glow 
 of delight, which no discoverer but him who has found 
 the Pearl of great price” can ever attain ! Ye are 
 come” (says St. Paul, and invites us to unite with him 
 in the sublime and ecstatic contemplation), ye are 
 come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable 
 company of angels, to the general assembly and church 
 of the first-born which are written in heaven, and to 
 God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new 
 covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh 
 better things than that of Abel. See, then, that you re- 
 fuse not him that speaketh and suffer not men who, 
 wdiatever may be their knowledge in other respects, are 
 ignorant of religion, to tempt you to reject it. 
 
 I address you thus earnestly, my friend, because I 
 know that they who misconceive the characteristics of 
 our faith, in consequence underrate its mental tenden- 
 cies; not seeing that while it is more certain, more 
 attainable, and more useful, than any other knowledge, 
 it is also more refined and elevated ; and because I am 
 anxious to impress it upon your mind, that Chris- 
 tianity, apart from its distinguishing doctrines (if it be 
 possible to conceive of so strange a disruption of body 
 and soul, in that which will endure for ever), wdll have 
 no firm hold upon the heart; nor, in those great con- 
 junctures where its aid is most necessary, can it reason- 
 ably be expected to have any abiding influence upon 
 the conduct. I wish you, farther, to believe (and trust 
 I shall, ere I close these letters, succeed in causing you 
 to believe) that there is no intermediate ground in argu- 
 ment, which a fair, candid, and unsophistical reasoner 
 can render tenable, between pure Deism, and moderate 
 orthodoxy; that is, between the system exploded in 
 my first letter, and that which in the remainder of the 
 series I purpose to defend. Let me also be permitted 
 to remark, that it is no 7iew scheme of religion which I 
 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 257 
 
 am recommending for your adoption. I have not 
 argued, nor will I argue, exclusively in favour of Cal- 
 vinism, or Arminianism, or Methodism, or any set of 
 opinions of human fabrication ; but shall endeavour to 
 attain that middle point where all that is good in either 
 seems to meet, and all that is exceptionable to be ex- 
 cluded*’; and therefore shall defend those sentiments 
 
 Since the publication of the first edition of these Letters, I have 
 met with two passages in the writings of Dr. Watts, which, as the}'^ 
 verj clearly express sentiments on th« disputed topics, analogous to 
 those which I have long entertained, I shall beg leave to transcribe 
 into this note. 
 
 Let it be observed that when the Remonstrants assert that Christ 
 died for all mankind, merely to purchase conditional salvation for 
 them, and when those who profess to be the strictest Calvinists 
 assert that Christ died only and merely to procure etFectual pardon 
 and salvation for the elect ; it is not because the whole Scripture 
 every where expressly or plainly reveals or asserts the particular 
 sentiments of either of these sects, with an exclusion of the other: 
 but the reason of these different assertions of men is this, that the 
 holy writers in different texts, 'pursuing different subjects, and speak- 
 ing io different persons, sometimes SEEM to favour each of these two 
 opinions ; and men being at a loss to reconcile them by any medium, 
 run into different extremes, and entirely follow one of these tracks 
 of thought, and neglect the other. But surely, if there can be a waj^ 
 found to reconcile these two doctrines of the absolute salvation of 
 the elect, by the obedience, righteousness, and death of Christ pro- 
 curing it for them, with all things necessary to the possession of it; 
 and also of the conditional salvation provided for all mankind, and 
 offered to them in the Gospel, through the all-sufficient and overflow- 
 ing value of the obedience and suflferings of Christ; this will be the 
 most fair, natural, and easy way of reconciling these different texts 
 of Scripture, without any strain or torture put upon any of them,” 
 Waits’s Ruin and Recovery of Mankind, Quest. 13. See also, Bax- 
 ter on Doctrinal Controversies, pp. 17, 18; and the Rev. Robert 
 Hall’s preface to the third edition of his father’s “ Help to Zion’s 
 Travellers.” 
 
 The second passage relates to the Divinity of Christ. In my 
 vounger years (says he) when I endeavoured to form my judgment 
 on that article, the Socinians were the chief or only popular oppo- 
 nents. Upon an honest search of the Scripture, and a comparison of 
 their notions with it, I wondered how it was possible for any person 
 to believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and yet to believe that 
 Jesus Christ^ was a mere man. So perverse and preposterous did 
 their sense of the Scripture appear, that I was amazed how men, who 
 
 S 
 
258 ON TERMS OF REPROACH 
 
 and doctrines which are so clearly contained in the 
 Bible, that none deny them who are not in conse- 
 quence compelled to give up the authority of some 
 part of Sacred Writ, — which were held and taught by 
 the ablest and best men in the first three centuries, — 
 which warmed the breasts of saints and martyrs, — 
 which have inspired the hopes and regulated the con- 
 duct of a great majority of pious men in all ages of 
 the universal church, — which, through the providence 
 of God, have been inserted in the formularies of most 
 established churches, — and which, if language have a 
 plain and obvious interpretation, are defined in the 
 Articles, incorporated in the Ritual, and enforced in 
 the Homilies of the Church of England. 
 
 The adoption of these opinions, and especially the 
 manifestation of them in a holy, pure, and exemplary 
 life, will probably subject you to the ridicule of the 
 most thoughtless of your former associates. But for 
 this you will be amply compensated by enjoying peace 
 of conscience, and reconciliation with God.^^ And 
 that you may be in some measure fortified by the ob- 
 servation of others against the derision to which you 
 will be exposed, allow me to extract for your use three 
 or four quotations from authors of the present times, 
 whom no person of taste and judgment (to say nothing 
 of piety) will affect to despise. 
 
 You may, perhaps, be called an enthusiast, or at 
 least told that these notions lead to enthusiasm ; but 
 you may repel the charge by the following quotation. 
 "" The preacher (or the religious writer) who neglects the 
 'peculiarities of the Gospel, neglects the most profound 
 and the most copious — the most important and the 
 most interesting — the most impressive, and the most 
 moral, part of his profession ; and, above all, he aflbrds 
 an advantage to the delusions of enthusiasts, of which 
 an opposite system would effectually deprive them. 
 
 pretended to reason above their neighbours, could wrench and strain 
 their understandings, and subdue their assent to such interpretations. 
 And I am of the same mind still. Pref. to Chris. Doct. of Trinity. 
 
APPLIED TO MEN OF PIETY. ^ 259 
 
 Enthusiasm, in the sense here used, is not a natural 
 product of the Gospel, but an accidental perversion of 
 its tendencies; the origin of which is to be traced, in 
 every age, to the neglect of the Gospel as a peculiar sys- 
 tem, and to the confounding its authoritative sanctions 
 with the more indefinite obligations of natural mora- 
 lity. Look at the early ages of Christianity, when its 
 peculiarities were first communicated, and largely in- 
 sisted on, as the essential parts of the system, in every 
 sermon. The effect was powerful, and it was moral, 
 beyond all example, — producing the utmost efforts of 
 heroic and disinterested virtue, with very few, and com- 
 paratively feeble, examples of that wretched enthusi- 
 asm, or interested hypocrisy, which combines the pro- 
 fession of the most important truths with the practice 
 of the most contemptible and sordid vices 
 
 Seeing that the vocabulary of reproach is indefinite, 
 others may apply to you a different term, and brand 
 you as a methodist. If so, try whether you cannot 
 laugh at the unmeaning absurdity of the appellation. 
 “ The vain and malignant spirit (says a most acute 
 and profound Essayist), which had decried the ele- 
 vated piety of the Puritans, sought about, as Milton 
 describes the wicked one in Paradise, for some vehicle 
 in which it might again, with facility, come forth to 
 hiss at zealous Christianity, and in another lucky mo- 
 ment fell on the term methodist. If there is no sense in 
 the word as now applied, there seems, however, to be a 
 great deal of aptitude and execution. It has the advan- 
 tage of being comprehensive as a general denomination, 
 and yet humiliating as a special badge, for every thing 
 that ignorance and folly may mistake for fanaticism, 
 or that malice may wilfully assign to it. Whenever a 
 grave formalist feels it his duty to sneer at those opera- 
 tions of religion on the passions which he never felt, he 
 has only to call them method istical ; and notwithstand- 
 ing that the word is both so trite and so vague, he feels 
 as if he had uttered a good pungent thing. There is 
 Edinburgh Review, vol. xvii. p. 470. 
 
2C0 ON TERMS OF REPROACH. 
 
 satiric smartness in the word, though there be none in 
 the man. In default of keen faculty in the mind, it is 
 delightful thus to find something that will do as well, 
 ready bottled up in odd terms. It is equally conve- 
 nient to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of 
 character is to be supported by laughing indiscrimi- 
 nately at all the symptoms of religion ; the one to 
 evince that his courage is not sapped by conscience, 
 the other to make the best advantage of his instinct of 
 catching at impiety as a substitute for sense. Each 
 feels that he has manfully set them dowri, when he has 
 called them methodism. Such terms have a pleasant 
 facility of throwing away the matter in question to 
 scorn, without any trouble of making a definite, intel- 
 ligible charge of extravagance or delusion, and attempt- 
 ing to pi’ove it^^.’^ 
 
 Others, to give vent to their contempt, may charac- 
 terise you as evangelical. And such is the new mean- 
 ing now assigned to old terms, that we doubt if the 
 application of the epithet in question would not excite 
 a sneer, if not a suspicion, in some minds against the 
 character of Isaiah himself, were we to name him by 
 his ancient denomination. The Evangelical Prophet. 
 This laconic term includes a diatribe in a word. It is 
 established into a sweeping term of derision of all seri- 
 ous Christians, and its compass is stretched to such an 
 extent as to involve within it every shade and shape of 
 real or fictitious piety from the elevated, but sound and 
 sober Christian, to the wildest and most absurd fanatic; 
 its large enclosure takes in all, from the most honour- 
 able heights of erudition to the most contemptible 
 depths of ignorance. Every man who is serious, and 
 every man who is silly; every man who is holy, and 
 every man who is mad, is included in this comprehen- 
 sive epithet. We see perpetually that solidity, subli- 
 mity, and depth, are not found a protection against the 
 magic mischief of this portentous appellation 
 
 Foster’s Essays, vol. ii. Lett. i. 
 
 Mrs. More’s Christian Morals, vol. ii. p. 81. 
 
ON DERIDING MEN OF PIETY. 261 
 
 The men, who are so fond of employing terms of 
 reproach to designate those who think that religion is 
 something more than a mere matter of speculation, 
 seem to have forgotten that the first and most indis- 
 pensable requisite in religion is seriousness ; and that 
 levity in religion upon religious topics, or sneering at 
 men who are in earnest whenever such topics are intro- 
 duced, has a very prejudicial effect upon those who 
 indulge in such practices. Of such you may call the 
 attention to the sentiments of a late venerable moralist 
 and divine, as exhibited in the passage below. 
 
 The turn which this levity usually takes is in jests 
 and raillery upon the opinions, or the peculiarities, or 
 the persons, of men of particular sects, or who bear 
 particular names : especially if they happen to be more 
 serious than ourselves. And of late this loose, and I 
 can hardly help calling it profane, humour has been 
 directed chiefly against the followers of methodism. 
 But against whomsoever it happens to be pointed, it 
 has all the bad effects, both upon the speaker and the 
 hearer, which we have noticed ; and as in other in- 
 stances, so in this, give me leave to say that it is very 
 much misplaced. In the first place, were the doctrines 
 and sentiments of those who bear this name ever so fool- 
 ish and extravagant (T do not say that they are either), 
 this proposition I shall always maintain to be true, viz. 
 that the wildest opinion that ever ivas entertained, in ynaL 
 ters of religion, is more rational than unconcern about 
 these matters. Upon this subject nothing is so absurd 
 as indifference: no folly so contemptible as thought- 
 lessness and levity. In the next place, do methoclists 
 deserve this treatment? Be their particular doctrines 
 what they may, the professors of these doctrines appear 
 to be in earnest about them : and a man who is in 
 earnest about religion cannot be a bad man, still less a 
 fit subject for derision. I am no methodist myself. In 
 their leading doctrines I differ from them. But I con- 
 tend that sincere men are not for these, or indeed any, 
 doctrines, to be made laughing-stocks to others. I do 
 
ON DERIDING MEN OF PIETY. 
 
 262 
 
 not bring in the case of the methodists for the purpose 
 of vindicating their tenets, but for the purpose of ob- 
 serving (and I wish that observation may weigh with 
 all my readers) that the custom of treating their cha- 
 racters and persons, their preaching or their preachers, 
 their meetings or worship, with scorn, has the perni- 
 cious consequence of destroying our own seriousness, 
 together with the seriousness of those who hear, or join 
 in, such conversation ; especially if they be young 
 persons; and I am persuaded that much mischief is 
 actually done in this very way^h^’ 
 
 Leaving these admirable sentiments to make their 
 full impression on your mind, or to steel you against 
 the puny attacks of those who imagine burlesque and 
 buffoonery are the proper instruments to correct what 
 they deem fanatical eccentricities, while others may 
 class them among religious excellencies : 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, your sincere Friend. 
 
 May aO, 1811. 
 
 LETTER XIIL 
 
 On the Fall of Man, and the Depravity of Human 
 Nature. 
 
 Plato, as you will doubtless recollect, defined man, 
 in his time, a biped without feathers : and Diogenes, 
 in order to show what he deemed the absurdity of this 
 definition, plucked all the feathers from a cock, and 
 placing it in the midst of the academy, exclaimed. 
 There is one of Plato’s men !” Diogenes, it seems, 
 was not aware that Plato’s definition was suggested by 
 a tradition which had reached him, that man was once 
 in a far superior state with regard to morals, but had 
 been degraded by vice, and was now so lowered as to 
 become, with respect to his former condition, what a 
 bird would be when stripped of his feathers, so as to 
 
 Dr. Paley’s Posthumous Sermons, Ser. 1 ; On Seriousness in 
 Religion indispensable above all other Dispositions.” 
 
DEPRAVITY OF H CM AN NAT C RE. 263 
 
 be no longer able to fly. In conformity with this, the 
 Plalonists in general believed a pre-existent state, in 
 which all souls had sinned, and thus lost their wings, 
 whereby they were once capable of ascending; and so 
 they sunk into these bodies partly as a punishment for 
 former follies. This was called in their form of speech, 
 TTTepoppvrio-n;, or a moulting of their wings. Their daily 
 experience in themselves, and their wise observance of 
 others, convincing them that all mankind come into 
 the world with a propensity to vice rather than to 
 virtue ; and that man is not such a creature now as he 
 came from his Maker’s hand, but is some way or other 
 plucked of his feathers, or degenerated from his primi- 
 tive rectitude and glory. 
 
 So again, Marcus Antonius confessed that men 
 were horn mere slaves to their appetites and passions ; 
 and very many of the Heathen philosophers, guided 
 only by the light of nature, affirmed that men are of 
 themselves destitute of true knowledge, purity, and 
 reason, while in the Hebrew scriptures, the w^ord used 
 for man as the son of Adam, is Enosh, indicating that 
 he is sorry, wretched, and incurably sickJ*^ Several 
 modern philosophers, however, and some modern Di~ 
 vines, represent this doctrine as absurd and contempt- 
 ible in the highest degree: on which account it will be 
 proper to employ a little time in ascertaining its cor- 
 rectness, and evincing its conformity, as well with what 
 may be observed in the world, as with the declarations 
 of Scripture. 
 
 According to every conception w^e can form of the 
 wisdom and goodness of the Deity, as well as accord- 
 ing to the most express and unequivocal language of 
 the Bible, God formed man upright he was fur- 
 nished with a clear and sagacious mind, with reason 
 bright and strong, and possessed transcendent qualifi- 
 cations for the most elevated happiness. But, that he 
 might be accountable, he was necessarily created /r^^; 
 and, that he might never forget that he was under the 
 cognizance and dominion of a moral governor, a test of 
 obedience was set before him. 
 
264 
 
 DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 ** God made thee perfect, not immutable ; 
 
 And good he made thee ; but to persevere 
 He left it in thj? power ; ordained thy will 
 By nature free, not overrul’d by fate 
 Inextricable, or strict necessity : 
 
 Our voluntary service he requires. 
 
 Not our necessitated ; such with him 
 Finds no acceptance, nor can find ; for how 
 Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve 
 Willing or no, who will but what they must 
 By destiny, and can no other choose?” — Milton. 
 
 In this respect, God did not deal worse with man 
 than with his other creatures; but man acted worse 
 towards his Maker than any of them. He did not 
 conform to the laws of his nature, but broke his alle- 
 j^iance to God by choosing evil instead of good. Thus 
 he sunk from his original happy state, and, according 
 to the constitution of things, 
 
 ‘‘ Brought death into the world, and all our woe f ’ 
 
 his whole nature and race becoming tainted, so that he 
 was viler than the brutes that perish, forfeited his native 
 blessings, and, with his progeny, became rebels, and 
 obnoxious to their Maker^s displeasure. Thus, it was 
 the sin of man that filled the creature with vanity; and 
 it is the vanity of the creature that fills the soul of 
 man with vexation : such is the circle of unrenewed 
 nature. Without having regard to this original dege- 
 neracy, it is hard, nay, I believe impossible, to account 
 satisfactorily for the poor, dark, stupid, and wretched 
 circumstances, in which so great a part of mankind are 
 brought into this world, in which they grow up age 
 after age in gross ignorance and vice, thoughtless of 
 their duty to the God that created them, and negligent 
 of the true happiness which flows from the enjoyment 
 of his favour. For, on looking upon man before he is 
 turned unto God by the spirit of holiness, what do you 
 find? The mind, full of vanity, ignorance, darkness, 
 contradiction: the conscience, full of insensibility or of 
 false excuses : the heart, full of deceit, impenitence, 
 and hardness; no sins, no judgments, no mercies, no 
 allurements, no hopes, no fears, able to awake and 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 265 
 
 shape it aright, without Divine energy : the will, full of 
 disability, of aversion, of enmity, and opposition : the 
 memory, unfaithful in retaining the good, tenacious in 
 recollecting the evil : and thence is the whole man full 
 of perturbation and disorder. 
 
 The history of the Fall of Man is succinctly related, 
 as you will doubtless remember, in the third chapter of 
 the book of Genesis. Its effects are indelibly marked 
 upon every individual, inasmuch as in Adam all die;’^ 
 and even upon the earth itself, which, still groaning 
 under the original malediction, brings forth thorns, 
 and thistles, and briers,’^ and thus will continue to do 
 till the restitution of all things.^^ These are not, as 
 has been often insinuated, the notions of men of dis- 
 tempered minds, made imbecile by infirmity, or soured 
 by disappointment ; but of the wisest and best men in 
 all ages. Consult the writings of the Christian Fathers, 
 and you will find Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue 
 with Trypho the Jew, saying, ‘‘ The whole race of men 
 descending from Adam, have become liable to death 
 and to the deception of the serpent, each of them by 
 reason of the same thing, having fallen under the in- 
 fluence of sin.^^ Clemens Romanes, and others, most 
 fully express the same sentiment. Attend also to the 
 language of the Reformers, and especially to the foun- 
 ders of the English church. ‘‘Forasmuch (say they) 
 as the true knowledge of ourselves is very necessary 
 to come to the right knowledge of God, ye have heard 
 how humbly all good men ought always to think of 
 
 themselves.^'’ “The Holy Ghost, in w'riting the holy 
 
 Scriptures, is in nothing more diligent than pulling 
 down man^s vain-glory and pride, which of all vices is 
 most universally grafted in all mankind, even from the 
 first infection of our first father Adam.^'’ “ Of our- 
 
 selves we be crab-trees that can bring forth no apples. 
 We be of ourselves of such earth, as can but bring 
 forth weeds, nettles, brambles, briers, cockle, and dar- 
 nel. Our fruits be declared in the fifth chapter of Ga- 
 latians. We have neither foith, charity, hope, i)atience. 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 266 
 
 chastity, nor any thing else that good is, but of God ; 
 and therefore these virtues be called there the fruits of 
 
 the Holy Ghost, and not the fruits of man/’ We 
 
 are, of ourselves, very sinful, wretched, and damnable. 
 Of ourselves, and by ourselves, we are not able either 
 to think a good thought, or work a good deed, so that 
 we can find in ourselves no hope of salvation, but 
 rather whatsoever maketh unto our destruction. 0 
 Israel, thy destruction cometh (^’thyself, hut in me only 
 is thy help and comfort^. 
 
 Our very virtues (says Richard Hooker) may be 
 snares unto us. The enemy that waiteth for all occa- 
 sions to work our ruin, hath found it harder to over- 
 throw an humble sinner, than a proud saint. There is 
 no man’s case so dangerous as his whom Satan hath 
 persuaded that his own righteousness shall present 
 him blameless in the sight of God. If we could say, 
 we were not guilty of any thing at all in our con- 
 sciences (we know ourselves far from this innocency ; 
 we cannot say, we know nothing by ourselves ; but if 
 we could) should we therefore plead not guilty before 
 the presence of our Judge, who sees farther into our 
 hearts than we ourselves can do.f^ If our hands did 
 never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought 
 doth prove us murderers before him: if we had never 
 opened our mouth to utter any scandalous, offensive, 
 or hurtful word, the cry of our secret cogitations is heard 
 in the ears of God. If we did not commit the sins, 
 which daily and hourly, either in deed, word, or 
 thoughts, we do commit ; yet in the good things which 
 we do, how many defects are intermingled ! God, in 
 that which is done, respecteth the mind and intention 
 of the doer. Cut oft', then, all those things wherein 
 we have regarded our own glory, those things which 
 men do to please men, and to satisfy our own liking, 
 those things which we do for any by-respect, not sin- 
 cerely and purely for the love of God ; and a small 
 score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds. 
 
 ^ Homilj on the Miserj of all Mankind: see also Article the 9tb. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 267 
 
 Let the holiest and best things which we do, be consi- 
 dered : we are never better affected unto God than 
 when we pray; yet when we pray how are our affec- 
 tions many times distracted ! How little reverence do 
 we show unto the grand majesty of God, unto whom 
 we speak ! How little remorse of our own miseries ! 
 How little taste of the sweet influence of his tender 
 mercies do we feel ! Are we not as unwilling many 
 times to begin, and as glad to make an end, as if in 
 saying, call upon me, he had set us a very burthensome 
 task? It may seem somewhat extreme, which I will 
 speak; therefore let every one judge of it, even as his 
 own heart shall tell him, and no otherwise ; I will but 
 only make a demand : — If God should yield unto us, 
 not as unto Abraham : — If fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, 
 yea, or if ten good persons could be found in a city, 
 for their sakes that city should not be destroyed : but, 
 and if he should make us an offer thus large; search 
 all the generations of men, since the fall of our father 
 Adam, find one man that hath done one action, which 
 hath past from him pure, without any stain or blemish 
 at all, for that one marCs only action neither man nor 
 angel shall feel the torments which are prepared for 
 both. Do you think that this ransom, to deliver men 
 and angels, could be found to be among the sons of 
 men ? The best things which we do have somewhat in 
 them to be pardoned. How then can we do any thing 
 meritorious, or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed, God 
 doth liberally promise whatsoever appertaineth to a 
 blessed life, to as many as sincerely keep his law, though 
 they be not exactly able to keep it. Wherefore, we 
 acknowledge a dutiful necessity of doing well; but the 
 meritorious dignity of doing well we utterly renounce. 
 We see how far from the perfect righteousness of the 
 law ; the little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, 
 God knoweth, corrupt and unsound : we put no confi- 
 dence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the world 
 for it, we dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had 
 him in our debt books : our continual suit to him is, and 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 268 
 
 must he, to hear with our infirmities, and pardon our 
 offences^ y 
 
 But many will say, in opposition to all this, "'We 
 admit the fact of the great, though not universal, wick- 
 edness that prevails in the world : but we cannot assent 
 to what you give as the Natural History of it. We do 
 not think it inseparable from man^s present nature, but 
 an accidental acquisition ; we do not ascribe it to the 
 influence of an hereditary taint, but conceive it to be 
 the effect of imitation and custom, of acquired habit, of 
 corrupt example, of injudicious tuition.^^ This, by the 
 way, is only saying in other words, that depravity is 
 the effect of depravity. Let us, however, examine the 
 matter a little more closely. That vile passions may 
 in some be the result of improper tuition or of imita- 
 tion, I have no inclination to deny ; but they cannot 
 always be referred to such an origin. How often do 
 we see children in the veriest infancy exhibit strong 
 and unquestionable indications of boisterous tempers, 
 of obstinacy, or impatience? How often do children 
 of the most pious parents, who are so brought up as 
 during the first six or seven years of their lives, never 
 to witness any species of crime, any instances of ingra- 
 titude, of falsehood, or deception, or any indulgence in 
 irascible passions, furnish painful proofs that they can 
 be deceivers, wilful liars, ungrateful, passionate, malig- 
 nant, and unforgiving? These instances, I will ven- 
 ture to say, occur very frequently when it is impossible 
 to ascribe them to imitation. But suppose the contrary 
 were admitted, the opposers of the Scriptural doctrine 
 would gain nothing by the concession. For of whom 
 could a child acquire iniquity by imitation, but of 
 some one who was born before him ? And whom did 
 that person imitate, but some one born before himF 
 And where must this series terminate? If you say 
 any where short. of the first man, you have to account 
 for the remarkable phenomenon of sin^s making its 
 first inroad at the identical time, and fixing upon the 
 2 Hooker’s Discourse on Jasiification, § 7. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 269 
 
 identical person you have selected ; and this will be 
 found infinitely more difficult than extending the series 
 to the great progenitors of the human race. Besides, 
 does not the very circumstance of an aptitude to imi- 
 tate evil, and rather to imitate evil than good, indicate 
 something like that hereditary taint, which it is brought 
 forward to contravene and supersede? Can an inhe- 
 rent tendency to imitate evil, an undeviating propen- 
 sity to slide into vice, (unless the strong hancl of moral 
 discipline, or the suasive influence of Divine grace, 
 |)revents,) be fairly or rationally ascribed to any thing 
 less than such a cause as that with which the Bible 
 makes us acquainted ? Pursuing this train, you will 
 see that the Scriptural solution of the difficulty before 
 us is reasonable ; and that it has the farther advantage 
 of showing, that moral evil was not, as some have been 
 presumptuous enough to assert, produced by the Crea- 
 tor, but contracted by the creature, who, though he was 
 endowed with power to stand, was free to falD.^^ 
 
 Sceptical writers, who are solicitous either to destroy 
 or diminish the authority of the sacred records, have 
 usually selected three points at which to attack the 
 
 ^ Let it be recollected, however, that though our defection is a 
 necessary consequence of the fall of our first parents, it by no means 
 follows that if they had continued upright we should. The notion of 
 a covenant “ that Adam should stand as well as fall for himself and 
 his posterity,” appears to me totally unsupported by Scripture. We 
 obviously suffer by his fall ; and, if he had stood, we might have 
 been benefited by it in some way : yet some of his progeny, we 
 know not how early or how late, might, by virtue of their freedom, 
 have introduced sin and all its miserable attendants into the world. 
 In this view it would rather seem that the fall of the first pair was 
 a benefit to mankind ; because the partial though extensive intro- 
 duction of sin, might have caused many to perish irretrievably, there 
 being no provision for their escape; whereas the foreseen univer- 
 sality of the disorder led, in the exuberance of the Divine mercy, 
 to the gracious plan which furnishes us with a universal and all- 
 sufiicient remedy. But on such a topic it behoves us to speak with 
 reverence : I have ventured simply to suggest this thought, because 
 I have found it tend to remove from the minds of well-disposed but 
 undecided men, one of their greatest objections to the doctrine of 
 “ the fall.” 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 270 
 
 Mosaic account of the Fall of Man. 1st. They ask^ 
 why was so strange an act of obedience as that of 
 refraining from eating a particular fruit, exacted of 
 Adam and Eve? 2dly. How could eating that fruit 
 destroy the perfection of their nature, and entail guilt 
 and misery upon themselves and their latest posterity? 
 3dly. Why should the earth be cursed for the transgres- 
 sion of man ? 
 
 Supposing we were not able to furnish satisfactory 
 answers to these questions, that circumstance would 
 not justify any person in withholding his assent to the 
 portion of sacred history to which they relate. “ Secret 
 things helo7ig unto God:^^ and though he has been gra- 
 ciously pleased to reveal unto us every thing essential 
 to our well-being here, and that is calculated to invite 
 and draw us to eternal felicity hereafter, we have no 
 reason to expect that all the questions, doubts, and 
 speculations, which might be started by ingenious men 
 should be cleared up by immediate revelation. When 
 an apostle indulged in useless inquiries, the reply of 
 his Master was, What is that to thee? follow thou 
 me'*;’^ and if Jesus were speaking to many querists in 
 our days, he might employ similar language. The 
 difficulties, however, to which the present questions 
 relate are by no means insurmountable. To the first it 
 may be replied, that none but God can be absolutely 
 independent: that dependance in a creature, without 
 some criterion or test of that dependance, is unintelli- 
 gible, or, in truth, a contradiction ; because it would 
 in such case become with regard to that creature a state 
 of independence ; that in a free and rational creature 
 this test of dependance should be such as would often 
 remind him of his dependance, and lead him to acknow- 
 ledge it ; that this acknowledgment could only be by 
 obedience, that is, by some restraint of natural liberty ; 
 that the first and only man and woman upon earth 
 could not be guilty of any of the crimes which arise 
 from the connexion of human beings with society — ‘ 
 
 ^ John, xxi. 22. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 271 
 
 were safely prevented by mutual affection, from com- 
 mitting- any crime with regard to each other — and could 
 therefore only sin by infringing upon the obedience 
 due to their Maker. It seems almost idle to propose 
 such questions, yet it may serve still farther to show 
 the suitableness of the actual prohibition to Adam’s 
 state, if we ask, could he be tempted to make idols, 
 when he thought himself Lord of all creatures? would 
 a temptation to sabbath-breaking avail with him who 
 had no need to work? To kill — who? his wife, and 
 be left alone? To steal or to covet — when every thing 
 was his own? To bear false witness — against whom ? 
 To commit adultery — impossible? Since, then, some 
 restraint of natural liberty was necessary, and some 
 permanent and visible memorial of man’s dependance 
 upon his Creator beneficial, what could be more proper 
 and easy than a restraint of his appetite from one fruit, 
 amidst an infinite variety of others equally delicious? 
 what more worthy the wisdom and goodness of the 
 Supreme Being, than the prohibition of a fruit which 
 He knew would be injurious to man? what more kind 
 and merciful than the placing the dangerous and pro- 
 hibited object (expressly prohibited because it was dan- 
 gerous) in so conspicuous a situation as to preclude the 
 possibility of its being mistaken for any other? 
 
 The cavil about this fruit’s being an object of temp- 
 tation, is almost too idle to deserve specific notice ; for 
 surely no being can be out of the reach of temptation 
 but God alone. The same may be said respecting the 
 puerile objection founded on the supposed dispropor- 
 tion between the crime and the punishment. Was 
 man and his posterity to incur death for eating an 
 apple No. But who ever said this was the case? 
 The sin consisted not simply in eating the fruit, but in 
 breaking the commandment of God by so doing. 
 
 Besides, though this act of disobedience may appear 
 very trivial to those who do not duly consider it ; "‘a 
 little reflection will render it evident that it contains in 
 it the seeds of all sin. It was ingratitude. God had. 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 272 
 
 of his free bounty, given to man every thing that could 
 be conducive to his happiness ; yet he could not refrain 
 from that one fruit which God had reserved for his own 
 purposes, li breach of trust ; he was placed in the 
 garden to keep and to dress it; every thing else was 
 his own ; yet he availed himself of the confidence 
 placed in him, to take what God had told him was to 
 be reserved. It was rebellion; he knowingly put forth 
 his hand to do what God had prohibited. It was 
 intemperance; — Eve saw that the tree was good for 
 food and pleasant to the eyes, and she did eat, and gave 
 to her husband also, and he did eat. It was ambition; 
 — they imagined that they were to become as gods, 
 knowing good and evil. It was charging God iviih 
 falsehood: — God had said, in the day thou eatest of it 
 thou shalt surely die. Had Adam believed that decla- 
 ration, he would as soon have eaten of the most deadly 
 poison as of that fruit. But the serpent said ye shall 
 not surely die, and Adam believed the serpent rather 
 than God, and proved this by the overt act of eating 
 the fruit. Are these to be represented as forming no 
 just ground of expulsion and exclusion from the Divine 
 presence'^ 
 
 With regard to the second question, it may be simply 
 necessary to remind the querist, that even now there 
 are fruits, the eating of which will destroy the best 
 bodily and mental constitution upon earth, will inflame 
 the blood, cause frenzies, and in many cases idiotism. 
 Might not, then, some such fruit as now produces these 
 deleterious effects upon the human constitution, operate 
 most unfavourably upon those of our first parents? 
 Might it not, in consequence of its previously endowed 
 properties, ordained for a specific purpose, sow the 
 seeds of disorder and death in their mortal frames — 
 weaken the energy of their minds, and reduce their 
 godlike understandings to the present standard of 
 ordinary men? Might it not destroy the just equili- 
 brium of their powers, and render passion no longer 
 ^ Carlisle on the Deity of Christ, p. 416. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 273 
 
 subordinate to reason — thus occasioning guilt, misery, 
 disease, — and (since man can, by a necessity of his 
 nature, only produce bis like) entailing these upon 
 their posterity to the latest ages? — IF there be any thing 
 unreasonable in these admissions,! confess I am unable 
 to detect it. 
 
 As to the circumstance included in the third question, 
 it was clearly the effect of mercy, not of relentless fury, 
 as the inquiry usually implies. When man by his folly 
 and disobedience had contracted a mortal disease, and 
 had merely the power of communicating to his children 
 that “ life’^ which is nothing but their death begun 
 surely it was the height of mercy in an insulted God, 
 to take away some of its allurements and fascinations 
 from a world which man must quit — to make the earth 
 the scene of troubles and disquietude, as soon as life 
 became temporary — that when this was no longer his 
 home, it should no longer be supremely desirable ; at 
 the same time graciously assuring the offender, that 
 more than what he had lost by transgression might be 
 regained by repentance, and “ turning unto God 
 that thus, though 
 
 “ Blooming Eden withers in his sight, 
 
 Death gives him more than was in Eden lost.” — Y oung. 
 
 Some persons, and (as I have already hinted) even 
 some Divines, whose minds lean towards the Socinian^' 
 
 ® I do not wish to give any olTence by employing the term Socinian 
 in this place : but I am really unable to find any other word that 
 will be both appropriate and distinctive, when applied to the class 
 of Theologians to whom I now refer; and I am not aware that the 
 use of it occasions any doctrine to be ascribed to them which thej^ 
 do not hold. It is not at all essential to our present purpose, to in- 
 quire in what minute particulars the opinions of Faustus Socinus 
 difiered from those of his uncle Laelins : or in what respects the mo- 
 dern Socinians differ frona either : all of them differ from other 
 Christians, by denying the doctrines of original sin, of imputed righ- 
 teousness, and of Christ’s divinity. To call them by the name Uni- 
 tarian, is to give them a name comparatively new, and to concede 
 them a term which they have often unfairly turned against us; al- 
 though they know that every firm believer in the doctrine of the Tri- 
 nity as much abhors the notion of a plurality of Gods as they do. 
 
 T 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 274 
 
 hypothesis, contend that the whole story of the fall of 
 man is allegorical. To this it is easy to reply by many 
 
 Besides, they generally include under the appellation Unitarian the 
 Arians, who hold at least two doctrines essentially distinct from 
 theirs, namely, that of a propitiation for sin, and that of the divinity 
 of Christ in some sense. If this sense, whatever it be, is not equi- 
 valent to Christ’s being the supreme and only God, the holders of 
 it are in theory Polytheists ; and therefore can no more be classed 
 with the Socinian believers in the Unity of God, than with the Trini- 
 tarian asserters of the same great truth. 
 
 [^Addition to the ^d Edition.^ Mr. Fullagar, who has honoured 
 me with a pamphlet on the subject of this note, and two or three other 
 gentlemen whom I really esteem, wish me to employ the term Unita- 
 rian instead of Socinian, I am sorry to say that their reasonings 
 and observations have rather strengthened than weakened ray objec- 
 tions to the term they request me to adopt. I have told them that if 
 they will present me with any term that will be universally admitted 
 as designating the sect, and not in great measure assume the truth of 
 their own system, I will gladly adopt it ; but they decline comply- 
 ing with this proposal. 
 
 On cool, mature, and conscientious deliberation, I can think of no 
 correct method of employing the word Unitarian in this controversy, 
 but what would, I fear, give these gentlemen greater offence than 
 the term Socinian. It would, for example, be used correctly to de- 
 signate a class of unbelievers: — Unitarian Unbelievers, persons who 
 loudly profess theirbelief in one God ; who believe also, that great part 
 of the New Testament was written by the apostles ; yet do not there- 
 fore believe iitrue. Unbelievers in general deny the truth of Revealed 
 Religion in toto ; Unitarian unbelievers deny the truth of all which 
 does not accord with their own theory. They do not deny that the 
 apostles taught that Jesus Christ is “ God over all, blessed for ever- 
 more,” that he died “ a sacrifice for sin, the just for the unjust, to 
 bring us unto God,” that we are “ redeemed by the precious blood 
 of Christ,” or that it is “ by grace we are saved, through faith, and 
 that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God but they deny the truth 
 of these doctrines, notwithstanding the apostles taught them. That 
 is, they believe that they themselves know more of the nature of true 
 religion, than the apostles who were inspired to teach it. Admirable 
 humility ! 
 
 Whether the majority of modern Socinians do or do not belong 
 to this class of speculators, Ihave no inclination to determine. But 
 if they do, I may then add, that unless belief retain all, or nearly all, 
 the essential characteristics of unbelief ; and unless true religion be 
 that which, among all known religions professing to regard a Reve- 
 lation, approximates most nearly to infidelity in its nature and ten- 
 dencies, modern Socinianism cannot he the true religion. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 276 
 
 obvious arguments. The Scriptures are intended to 
 lead us into all truth, to preserve us from all error. 
 But will this be effected by thrusting an allegory into 
 the midst of an important, interesting, and remarkably 
 simple narration, and not furnishing us with the least 
 clue by which we can ascertain where the allegory is 
 interposed between the links of the history ? Besides, 
 if the fall of man be allegorical, does it not follow as a 
 necessary consequence, that the redemption of man is 
 allegorical also? for “ as in Adam all die, even so in 
 Christ shall all be made alive^.^^ Yet every well-regu- 
 lated mind revolts from so strange an inference. Again, 
 if the fall of man be allegorical, it follows, by parity of 
 reason, that its effects are allegorical, and the effects of 
 the curse denounced in consequence of that fall are 
 allegorical likewise. How has it happened, then, that 
 moral turpitude has been traced every where, and in 
 all ages? for we have seen that the hypothesis which 
 imputes it to imitation is untenable. And how can it 
 be that the curse should have been always so astonish- 
 ingly fulfilled, as I showed in the first letter I wrote to 
 you? What, besides the female human species, has 
 sorrow’^ during pregnancy, — has, as Aristotle long 
 ago remarked, headaches, vertigos, faintings, loathings, 
 and a sad train of concomitants ? What animal besides 
 man is compelled to labour^^ for necessaries, and even 
 for knowledge? Quadrupeds graze the turf untilled, 
 drink at an unbrewed stream, sleep on a bed prepared 
 for them by their Creator, are clothed with a garment 
 as durable as themselves, 6nd a paradise in every field, 
 and possess by instinct a knowledge perfect in its kind, 
 needing no cultivation : while man, the Lord^^ of 
 these animals, can neither eat, drink, sleep, nor be 
 clothed, but in consequence of labour ; obtains his know- 
 ledge by an effort, greater and more continuous than 
 all others ; and, after all, does not reach the wine in 
 the goblet, but sips merely the dew from the outside — 
 refreshing, it is true, but ne\ev filling. Call all this, as 
 7 1 Cor. XV.* 22. 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 276 
 
 Moses authorizes you to do, the result of just punish- 
 ment, and every thing is plain and easy : deny the 
 fall of man, its permanent eflfects upon mankind in the 
 tendency to sin, the maladies attending pregnancy, and 
 the necessity for labour, and you must then be precipi- 
 tated into the conclusion, that because “ Man is un- 
 happy, God is unjust/’ 
 
 There are those, I am aware, w^ho not only refuse 
 their assent to the doctrine of the fall of man, but who 
 advance still farther in the same train of sentiment, and 
 affirm most positively that the notion of the universal 
 depravity of human nature is incompatible with the 
 general tenour and language of the Bible. Let us see 
 how far an unstrained abstract of the sentiments of the 
 principal Scripture writers, as to this particular, will 
 tend to confirm their assertion. 
 
 Moses gives us the result of the observation of Deity, 
 and not of a fallible man, when he says, God saw that 
 the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that 
 every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only 
 evil CONTINUALLY.’’ And again, after the Deluge, 
 
 The Lord said, The imagination of man’s heart is evil 
 from his youth®.” 
 
 The language of the Psalmist, descriptive of him- 
 self and of all men in his time, is not less decisive. 
 ‘^Men are corrupt; they have done abominable works; 
 there is none that doeth good. They are all gone aside ; 
 they are altogether become filthy : there is none that 
 doeth good, no not one.^^ I was shapen in iniquity, 
 and in sin did my mother conceive me.” If thou, 
 Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall 
 stand?” “In thy sight shall no man living be justi- 
 fied 
 
 Job’s reprover, Eliphaz, inquires, “ What is man 
 that he should be clean ; and one born of a woman 
 that he should be righteous? How abominable and 
 filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water^^ 
 
 ® Gen. vi. 5 ; viii. 21. 
 
 ^ Ps. xiv. 1, li. 5 ; cxxx. 3 ; cxliii. 2. Job, xv. 14, 16. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 277 
 
 Solomon says, “ the way of man is froward and 
 strange.^^ There is not a just man iqion earth, that 
 doelh good and sinneth not.^^ “ God made man upright : 
 but they have sought out many inventions.^^ The 
 heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” 
 
 The heart is full of evil, and madness is in their 
 heart while they live”.” 
 
 The language used by Isaiah, when influenced by 
 the Spirit of prophecy, is, Thy first father hath sin- 
 ned, and thy teachers have transgressed. All we, like 
 sheep have gone astray : the Lord hath laid on him the 
 iniquity of us all A ‘‘We are all as a polluted thing, 
 and all our righteous deeds are as a rejected garment, 
 and our sins, like the wind, have borne us away^V^ 
 
 Jeremiah says, “ We have sinned against the Lord 
 our God, ive and our fathers, from our youth even unto 
 this day.” “ The heart is deceitful above all things, and 
 desperately wicked: who can know it^^?” 
 
 Micah, in like manner, affirms, “ There is none up- 
 right among men^^;” and similar language might be 
 quoted from other of the minor prophets. 
 
 The New Testament abounds with declarations 
 equally express and decisive. Thus Jesus Christ 
 himself, in his conference with Nicodemus, assumes 
 the fact, that the whole world has sinned and soon 
 after affirms, that “ Men loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds were evil.” 
 
 The apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, after he 
 had received the spirit which should “lead him into all 
 truth,” said, not to a select party of great sinners, but 
 to a promiscuous multitude of “ Parthians, Medes, 
 Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, 
 Egyptians, Cyreneans, Romans, Cretes, Arabians, Jews, 
 and Proselytes,” — “ Repent, and let every one of you 
 be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis- 
 
 Prov. xxi. 8. Eccles. vii. 20, 29; 11 ; ix. 3. 
 
 Is. xliii. 27 ; Jiii. 6 ; Ixiv. 6. Lowth. 
 
 Jer. iii. 25 ; xvii. 9. 
 
 Mic. vii. 2. John, iii. 16, 19, 
 
DEPRAVITY OF 
 
 278 
 
 sion of A plain proof that, in the estimation 
 
 of this inspired apostle, every one of them had sins to 
 be remitted. 
 
 The epistles of Paul are full of passages of the same 
 import. I select the following. When reasoning upon 
 the general subject, but speaking of himself if to 
 avoid giving otfence, he says : I know that in me, 
 that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, Again : 
 
 Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.^’ All have 
 sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.^’ Death 
 hath passed upon all men, inasmuch as all have sin- 
 ned.^^ By the disobedience of one, the many were 
 made sinners.^’ “ The Scripture hath included all to- 
 gether under sin, that the ])romise, by faith in Jesus 
 Christ, might be given to those who believe.^^ All of 
 us likewise lived “ formerly in the desires of our flesh, 
 &c. ; and were hy nature children of anger, even as 
 others.^' If one died for all, then were all in a state 
 of death 
 
 James, who is generally imagined to dwell less upon 
 the peculiarities of the Christian system, than the other 
 apostles, says, In many things we all offend 
 
 The apostle John says, If we say that we have no 
 sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.^^ 
 ‘‘Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins; and not 
 for ours only, but for the whole world “ The whole 
 world lieth (in wickedness, or lieth) in subjection to 
 the evil one^^.^’ 
 
 Now, my friend, examine the passages here cited 
 
 Acts, ii 38. I have here quoted from the translation of the 
 New Testament, published in 1808, under the patronage and authority 
 of the Socinians, and I shall continue to do thus, whenever the quo- 
 tation is intended to establish any doctrinal point which they dispute ; 
 unless I conceive their translation erroneous, and in such cases shall 
 specify mj reasons for not adopting that version. 
 
 Rom. vii. 17 ; iii.9. 23 : v. 12. 19. Gal. iii .22. Ephes.ii. 3. 
 2 Cor. V. 14. Tit. iii. 3. 
 
 James, iii. 2. 
 
 1 John. i. 8 ; ii. 2 ; v. 19 : 6 Kofffxog oXo^ kv t(^ Tzovtpi^ KHTai. 
 Mundus totus in maligno positus est. Lkusd. 
 
HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 279 
 
 attentively, compare them with their respective con- 
 texts, to ascertain that they contain the genuine senti- 
 ments of the several writers; and then devise, if you 
 can, any means by which I could offer a greater insult 
 to your understanding than by saying, as those from 
 whose sentiments I wish to preserve you are often say- 
 ing, “ Hence you may safely infer, that the doctrine 
 of the depravity of human nature is not supported by 
 Scripture.^^ 
 
 Indeed, it seems next to impossible to deny this 
 doctrine, without at the same time impugning the wis- 
 dom of God, as manifested in the economy of redemp. 
 tion. In this there is an amazing apparatus, for which, 
 upon the hypothesis of our opponents, there can be no 
 necessity : for there certainly can be no necessity that 
 
 Christ should die for all,’^ if all have not sinned. 
 According to this scheme, every human creature must 
 be born of God/^ “ be created anew,^^ be quickened,” 
 ‘‘ be reconciled to God by Jesus Christ,’^ be washed 
 from his sins in His blood.” Here, therefore, are 
 requirements and provisions where none are needed, 
 if the doctrine of human depravity be unfounded. 
 God, who alone can see and provide for future contin- 
 gencies, has fancied there would be a universal apos- 
 tasy when there has been no such thing — foretold by 
 his prophets, that he would provide a way for the re- 
 storation of his people, when no restoration was required, 
 — appointed a Saviour to die for the sins of the whole 
 w^orld, and whose blood” was to wash away the sins 
 of many who had no sins to be thus cancelled. And 
 this, even this, is called rational religion ;” a religion 
 that evinces the wisdom and goodness of God, confor- 
 mably to the most liberal, and pure, and philosophical 
 principles ! 
 
 Shall we then continue in sin, that grace may 
 abound? God forbid.” Though the powers of man 
 are vitiated, and his inclinations to evil are so strong 
 that they will never be thoroughly subdued but by 
 Divine influences; yet God, who cannot be otherwise 
 
280 DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 than holy, continues still to demand a perfection of 
 obedience. Ours is a moral inability to fuKil the Law ; 
 but he who knows the heart can, and has graciously 
 promised he will ultimately destroy this inability, by 
 communications from himself. To the Lord our 
 God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have 
 rebelled against him.^’ Though we cannot of ourselves 
 fulfil what God requires in his Law, yet we ^^can do all 
 things through Christ, who dwelleth in us.^^ If we 
 ‘Give according to the flesh, we must die hereafter: 
 but if through the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the 
 body, we shall live^V^ God condescends, by the 
 dispensation of the Gospel, to pardon and accept the 
 humble, sincere, penitent sinner, on account of the 
 perfect obedience and atoning sacrifice of his own Son, 
 who died to deliver his people from the power of sin, as 
 well as from the punishment due to it. The promises 
 of the New Dispensation relate as well to the recovery 
 of the Divine image, as the recovery of the Divine /a- 
 vour. On both these accounts we are solicited to come 
 to Christ that we may have life.^^ The invitations 
 of the Gospel are free and open to all; yet, this should 
 not cause us to sink into supineness, or to treat the 
 invaluable gift with indifference; for the blessings of 
 redemption are restricted to penitent believers, and to 
 them alone. I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 On the Atonement for Sin, by the Death of Jesus ChrisL 
 
 “ God hath so loved the world, that he hath given his 
 only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
 may not perish, but enjoy everlasting lifeb^^ Such is 
 20 Rorn. viii. 3. 
 
 * John, iii. 16. When reflecting upon this text, and many others 
 in the New Testament, it has often occurred to me that it Vvoald be 
 extremely difficult to defend either our Lord or his apostles from 
 the charge of egregious trifling upon the most solemn subjects, ac- 
 cording to that interpretation of Christianity which denies the extent 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 281 
 
 the remarkablelang'iuig’eof the great Head of the Church, 
 concerning himself. It is important for us to deter- 
 mine the precise meaning of this proposition ; and 
 therefore to inquire whether we believe in him when we 
 consider him as one who came merely to teach us and 
 to set us an example, or when we farther regard him as 
 one who died a sacrijice for sin P 
 
 To me it appears that the latter is the correct inter- 
 pretation of the passage: and that, therefore; though 
 the preaching of “ Clirist crucified was unto the Jews 
 a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness^ 
 both in the primitive and most succeeding times, yet 
 it is a genuine and awfully momentous Christian doc- 
 trine, that Christ by his death has made atonement or 
 satisfaction for the sins of all those who truly repent, 
 and return unto God in the way of sincere though im- 
 perfect obedience. 
 
 of human depravity, and the Doctrine of Christ’s divinity. Thus, in 
 the case before us, a Jewish Ruler, convinced that Jesus Christ was 
 “ a teacher sent from God,” solicited a conference with him. In the 
 course of it, this Jew hesitated much at the doctrine of regeneration ; 
 but his teacher prepared his mind for still more extraordinary disco- 
 veries of divine truth, by saying, “ If I have told you earthly things, 
 and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly 
 things?” What, then, is the mysterious truth for which the mind 
 of Nicodemus was thus prepared? Why, that “ God so loved the 
 world as to send” a good man into it ! That is, to send a good man 
 as an example to a world that already contained many good men, 
 and to give unto those good men eternal life ! Or “ God so loved the 
 Avorld as to give,” not his Son by nature, but by adoption and eleva- 
 tion from a state of wretchedness and poverty, to inexpressible glory 
 at his own right hand ! ! Who would ever extol so wonderfully the 
 clemency of a monarch that should pretend to give his oicn son to 
 die for rebels, and instead of so doing should adopt one of the most 
 indigent and wretched of his subjects for that purpose ? So again, 
 the language of the apostle to Timothy, “ Without controversy great 
 is the mystery of Godliness, God was manifested in the llesh,” has an 
 intelligible and important meaning, if it signify that the Divine na- 
 ture was mysteriously united to human nature in the person of Jesus 
 Christ. But deprive the passage of this interpretation, and give it 
 that of the Socinians, and you cannot, I think, conceive any thing 
 more puerile. 
 
 2 1 Cor. i. 23. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 282 
 
 This great truth (for such I doubt not you will find 
 it to be) has been believed and defended by good men 
 in all ages. Among the Christians of the earliest times, 
 we have, first, Clemens Romanus (whose first epistle 
 even Mr. Belsham commends) saying, Let us look 
 steadfastly to the Blood of Christ, and see how precious 
 it is in the sight of God ; which, being shed for our sal- 
 vation, has obtained the grace of repentance for all the 
 world.^^ And again, By the blood of our Lord there 
 shall be redemption to all that believe and hope in 
 God Ignatius, also, in his epistle to the Smyrnseans, 
 says, Now all these things he suffered for us, that we 
 might be saved. And he suffered truly, as he also 
 truly raised up himself ; and not as some unbelievers 
 say, that he only seemed to suffer 
 
 Polycarp, again, in his epistle to the Philippians, 
 quotes 1 Pet. ii. 22 — 24, in proof of the doctrine of 
 Christas atonement; adding, ‘‘ He suffered all thisyhr 
 us, that we might live through him.’^ And in the 
 account given of his martyrdom by the church at 
 Smyrna, over which he presided, they speak of it as an 
 indisputable Christian sentiment, that Christ suffered 
 for the salvation of all such as shall be saved through- 
 out the whole world, the righteous for the ungodly^. 
 
 Let it be recollected that unless this be a true doc- 
 trine of Christianity, Ignatius and Polycarp are not, in 
 the restricted sense of the word, martyrs, witnesses 
 of the truth and farther, that in the case of Polycarp, 
 at whose martyrdom a miracle was wrought, if the 
 doctrine of the atonement is erroneous, God permitted 
 a miracle to be wrought, or rather, wrought a miracle, 
 in attestation of a false doctrine, and caused many 
 thereby to be seduced into error. 
 
 It would be easy to quote pages from Barnabas, 
 Justin Martyr, and the succeeding fathers, in favour of 
 the atonement ; but, for the sake of brevity, I shall cite 
 
 ^ Clem. Ep. ad Corint. § 7, 12. 
 
 Ignat. Ep. ad Smjrn. § 2. 
 
 5 Pol. Ep. ad Phil. § 8. Pol. Mart. § 17. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 283 
 
 only one more passage, and that from a work of ac- 
 knowledged antiquity, the Apostolical Constitutions, 
 most probably compiled in the third century. In the 
 fine prayer given in the Liturgy for the Eucharist, we 
 read, ‘‘ He was pleased by thy good will to become 
 man, w^ho was man’s Creator; to be under tbe laws, 
 who was the Legislator; to he a sacrifice, w^ho was an 
 High Priest; and reconciled thee to the world, and 
 freed all men from the wrath to come.” He that was 
 the Saviour was condemned ; he that was impassable 
 w^as nailed to the cross; he who was by nature immor- 
 tal died, and he that is the giver of life was buried, 
 that he might loose those for whose sake he came, 
 from suffering and death®.” 
 
 Descending to later times we find the same doctrine 
 maintained as essential, in the Greek and in most of 
 the reformed churches. It is clearly stated by the 
 venerable fathers of the English church, and by many 
 of the most profound, eloquent, and learned of the 
 episcopal clergy. To prove this the three following 
 quotations may suffice. 
 
 We are all miserable persons, sinful persons, 
 damnable persons, justly driven out of Paradise, justly 
 excluded from heaven, justly condemned to hell-fire: 
 and yet (see a wonderful token of God’s love) he gave 
 us his only begotten Son, us, I say, that were his ex- 
 treme and deadly enemies, that we, hy virt ue of his blood 
 shed upon tho cross, might be clean purged from our sins, 
 and might become righteous again in his sight’.” 
 
 In correspondence to all the exigencies of the case 
 (that God and man both might act their parts in saving 
 us), the blessed eternal Word, the only Son of God, by 
 the good-will of his Father, did vouchsafe to intercede 
 for us, and to undertake our redemption : in order 
 thereto voluntarily being sent down from heaven, as- 
 suming human flesh, subjecting himself to all the 
 
 6 Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 12. 
 
 Second Homily on the Passion. See also Art. 31. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 284 
 
 infirmities of our frail nature, and to the worst incon- 
 veniences of our low condition ; therein meriting God^s 
 favour to us, by a perfect obedience to the law, and 
 satisfying God^s justice by a most patient endurance 
 of pains in our behalf ; in completion of all willingly 
 laying down his life for the ransom of our souls, and 
 pouring forth his blood in sacrifice for our sins^J^ 
 
 In what particular way the blood of Christ had 
 this efficacy there are not wanting persons who have 
 endeavoured to explain: but I do not find that the 
 Scripture has explained it. We seem to be very much 
 in the dark, concerning the manner in which the an- 
 cients understood atonement to be made, i. e. pardon 
 to be obtained by sacrifices. And, if the Scripture has, 
 as surely it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of 
 Christ mysterious, left somewhat in it unrevealed, all 
 conjectures about it must be, if not evidently absurd, 
 yet at least uncertain. Nor has any one reason to 
 complain for want of farther information, unless he 
 can show his claim to it. 
 
 ‘‘ Some have endeavoured to explain the efficacy of 
 what Christ has done and suffered for us, beyond what 
 the Scripture has authorized. Others, probably because 
 they could not explain it, have been for taking it away, 
 and confining his office, as Redeemer of the world, to 
 his instruction, example, and government of the church. 
 Whereas the doctrine of the Gospel appears to be, not 
 only that he taught the efficacy of repentance, but ren- 
 dered it of the efficacy which it is, by what he did and 
 suffered for us: that he obtained for us the benefit of 
 having our repentance accepted unto eternal life: not 
 only that he revealed to sinners, that they were in a 
 capacity of salvation, and how they might obtain it; 
 but moreover that he put them into this capacity of 
 salvation, by what he did and suffered for them; put us 
 into a capacity of escaping future punishment, and obtain- 
 ing future happiness. And it is our wisdom thankfully 
 
 ® Dr. Isaac Barrow’s Sermon on the Passion. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 285 
 
 to accept the benefit, by performing' the conditions upon 
 which it is offered, on our part, without disputing how 
 it was procured on his^.^^ 
 
 In a question of such moment, however, you will 
 naturally look for something higher than human au- 
 thority. I shall, therefore, endeavour to convince you 
 from Scripture that Christ died a sacrifice for sin; and 
 the evidences I shall adduce will be partly typical, partly 
 prophetical, partly historical, and partly declaratory. 
 
 First, then, with regard to the typical evidences of 
 the doctrine of the atonement, besides the practice of 
 sacrifices in general, we have them in several persons 
 and various observances. Thus, we have an express 
 representation of Christ in the brazen serpent in the 
 wilderness, by looking upon which the people were 
 cured of the wounds inflicted by the fiery serpents. 
 So, in looking upon Christ by faith, the sting of that 
 Old Serpent the deviP^ is taken away. The lifting up 
 of the brazen serpent typified the lifting up of Christ 
 upon the cross. This is no fanciful interpretation of 
 mine; our Lord himself makes the allusion. As 
 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must 
 the Son of man be lifted up : that every one who be- 
 lieveth in him may not perish, but have everlasting 
 life‘^’^ 
 
 Another lively representation of Christ’s bearing our 
 sins, and taking them away from us, was exhibited in 
 the custom relative to the scape-goat^K 
 
 There was also a standing and continual representa- 
 tion of him appointed, in the person of the high priest, 
 under the Law ; who, entering into the Holy of Holies 
 once a year with the blood of the great expiatory sacri- 
 fice, and he only, to make atonement for sin, did thus 
 represent in a lively manner our great High Priest 
 entering into heaven, once for all, with his own blood, 
 to expiate the sins of the whole world. This again is 
 
 ® Butler’s Analogy, part ii. cli. 5. John, iii. 14, 15. 
 
 " Lev. xvi. 21, 22. 
 
286 ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 not an imag-inary interpretation, but it is largely insisted 
 upon by the apostle PauP^ 
 
 Our deliverance by the death of Christ is typified 
 again in that ordinance of the Law, that the" man- 
 slayer who bed to one of the cities of refuge should 
 not come out thence till the death of the high priest, 
 and no satisfaction be taken till then ; and then he 
 should be acquitted, and return into the land of his 
 possession 
 
 But the most remarkable type of the atonement of 
 Jesus Christ is the sacrifice of the paschal Lamb, in 
 correspondence with which "" Christ our Passover is 
 sacrificed in our stead Justin Martyr, in his con- 
 ference with Trypho the Jew, evinces from the Scrip- 
 tures, and the nature of this rite, that it was a type of 
 Christ crucified for the sins of the world. One curious 
 circumstance which he notices, without any contradic- 
 tion from his learned opponent, is this : ‘‘ The paschal 
 lamb (says he) which was to be entirely roasted, was a 
 symbol of the punishment of the cross, which was in- 
 flicted on Christ: for the lamb which w^as roasted was 
 so placed as to resemble figure of a cross: with one 
 spit it was pierced longitudinally, from the tail to the 
 head ; with another it was transfixed through the shoul- 
 ders, so that the fore legs became extended^^.^^ The 
 same learned apologist has another passage still more 
 extraordinary, in relation to this ceremony. The Jews, 
 he affirms, expunged passages from their sacred writ- 
 ings which bore testimony to the vicarious sufferings 
 and death of Jesus Christ, and among them the follow- 
 ing : When Ezra celebrated the passover (as is related 
 Ezra, ch. vi. 19, &c.), Justin says he spoke thus: — 
 '' And Ezra spoke unto the people, and said. This 
 
 Heb. vii. viii. ix. x. Consult Owen and Maclean on the Hebrews ; 
 also Outrain’s Dissertations on Sacrifices, and the judicious and in- 
 structive observations of Dr. J. P. Smith, in his “ Four Discourses 
 on the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Nuin. XXXV. 6, 25 — 28. 1 Cor. v. 7. Vide the Greek. 
 
 Just, Martjri Opera ab Oberthur, vol. ii. p. 106. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 287 
 
 Passover is our Saviour and our Refuge : and if ye shall 
 understand and ponder it in your hearts^ that we shall 
 afflict him for a sign ; and if afterwards we shall believe 
 on him, this place shall not be desolated for ever, saith 
 the Lord of hosts. But if ye will not believe on him, 
 nor hear his preaching, ye shall be a laughing-stock to 
 the Gentiles.^’ This, Justin asserts, the Jews blotted 
 from the Septuagint translation ; and if so, they took 
 care to expunge it from the Hebrew likewise; for, at 
 present, it exists in neither’®. Another circumstance 
 connected with the passover is recorded in the Mishna. 
 After the blood was sprinkled, the lamb was hung up 
 and flayed. This hanging up was deemed so essential 
 a part of the ceremony, that if there was no conveni- 
 ence to suspend the lamb, two men standing with their 
 hands on each other^s shoulders had the lamb sus- 
 pended from their arms till the skin was taken off’^. 
 These are manifestly typical of Christ’s crucifixion 
 and sacrifice. 
 
 In the second place, let me point to the prophetical 
 evidence of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Those 
 things (says Peter), which God foreshowed by the 
 mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, 
 he hath fulfilled’®.” Numerous are the passages in the 
 prophecies which declare that the Messiah should suffer; 
 but the only ones I now recollect which declare why he 
 should suffer, are given by Isaiah and Daniel ; they are, 
 however, quite sufficient for our present purpose : 
 
 “ Surely our infirmities he hath borne : 
 
 And our sorrows he hath carried them.” 
 
 “ He was wounded for our transgressions ; 
 
 Was smitten for our iniquities : 
 
 The chastisement by which our peace is eflfected was laid 
 upon him ; 
 
 And by his bruises we are healed.” 
 
 “ Jehovah hath made to light upon him the iniquity of us all” 
 
 “ For the transgression of my people he was smitten to death.” 
 
 Just. Martyri Opera ab Oberthur, vol. ii. p, 196. 
 
 Dr. A. Clarke on the Eucharist, p. 35. Acts, iii. 18. 
 
28S 
 
 ATOTs’EMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 Although he had done no wrong, 
 
 Neither was there any guile in his mouth : 
 
 Yet it pleased Jehovah to crush him with affliction.” 
 
 “ or the travail of his soul he shall see, and be satisfied : 
 
 By the knowledge of him shall my servant justify raau}^ ; 
 
 For the pn7iishme?it of their iniquities he shall hear,^’ 
 
 “ He poured out his soul unto death ; 
 
 And was numbered with the transgressors ; 
 
 And he hare the sin of the many ; 
 
 And made intercession for the transgressors^^.” 
 
 To the same effect Daniel predicts that the Messiah 
 shall be cut off, but not for himself; but to make recoiu 
 ciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righte- 
 ousness.^^ 
 
 By historical evidence that Christ died as a sacrifice 
 for sin, which I intended to produce in the third place, 
 I mean especially that which arises from the considera- 
 tion of his mental ‘‘ agony previously to his cruci- 
 fixion, and at that solemn event. When he was at 
 Gethsemane, the evening on which he was betraybd, 
 the evangelist Matthew says, he began to be very 
 sorrowful full of anguish, and said to his disciples. 
 My soul is very sorrowful, even unto death Mark, 
 in like manner, says, ‘‘ he began to be greatly asto- 
 nished, and to be full of anguish^^.^^ Indeed, the ori- 
 ginal language employed by Mark conveys a stronger 
 sense than that in this translation; for iKda/upeioOai 
 imports the most shocking mixture of terror and amaze- 
 ment; and TTeptXvTog, in the next verse, intimates that 
 he felt on every side surrounded with sorrow, and 
 pressed down with despondency. While thus “ drink- 
 ing of the brook by the way thrice did he pray to 
 his Father to take away the bitter cup,’^ and though 
 it was in the cool of the evening, the sweat occa- 
 
 Lovvth’s Isaiah, liii. 4 — 6, 8 — 12. Dan. ix. 24, 26. See also 
 Zechariah, xiii. 1, where, though the name of the Messiah does not 
 appear, the language is very expressive and fully to the purpose, 
 obviously pointing, as Blaney and Seeker remark, to “ the blood of 
 Christ (1 John, i. 7) which cleanseth from all sin.” 
 
 20 Matt. xxvi. 37, 38. 21 Mark, xiv. 33, 3 1. 
 
 22 p^. cx. 7. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 289 
 
 sionec] by the agony of his mind was as it were great 
 drops of blood falling down to the ground And 
 when hanging on the cross, his piteous and heart- 
 rending exclamation, My God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me^^?’’ doubtless arose from the want of 
 a comfortable sense of God’s presence. 
 
 Now whence arose this agony, this interruption of 
 the sense of God’s presence, this intense feeling of 
 destitution, during our Lord’s great extremity, but 
 from the necessity that he should suffer? Bodily pain 
 might have been lost in enjoyment, even during cruci- 
 fixion (as has been manifested in the delights of some 
 martyrs in the midst of their tortures) ; but in that 
 case the soul” of the Messiah could not have been 
 
 an offering for sin,” as Isaiah predicted it must be. 
 To this end it was that it pleased Jehovah to crush 
 him with affliction?^ and it is next to impossible to 
 meditate upon his pathetic exclamations amid his severe 
 sufferings, without adopting again the recently quoted 
 language of the same prophet, — 
 
 “ Surely oUR wfirmities he hath borne; 
 
 And OUR sorrows he hath carried” 
 
 If this explication be rejected, it is natural to ask 
 upon what principles of equitable retribution, or of 
 consistency of character, can that extreme anguish be 
 accounted for, which was endured by a pure and perfect 
 being, who had not on his own account "" one recollec- 
 tion tinged with remorse, or one anticipation mingled 
 with dread?” This question admits but of a single 
 answer, and that in my estimation a very absurd one : 
 for, to allot a series of exquisite sufferings to an indi- 
 vidual who is without sin, and with regard to whom of 
 course they cannot be penal, and at the termination of 
 his life, when they cannot be corrective, merely for the 
 
 23 Luke, xxii. 44. 
 
 2^ Matt, xxvii. 4G. On this subject see some very profound and 
 exquisite reflections in Hooker’s Eccles. Polity, lib. v. § 48, p. 202, 
 Ed. of 1606. 
 
 U 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 290 
 
 purpose of calling into exercise patience and resigna- 
 tion/^ and thus tending to our benefit and example^^’'■ 
 is to adopt a mode of government entirely irreconcile- 
 able with all “ rationaP^ ideas of wisdom and justice, 
 and completely repugnant to every attribute of Deity. 
 
 The answer here adverted to, is, moreover, as con- 
 trary to matter of fact as it is to reason : for, if the 
 doctrine of satisfaction be denied, Jesus Christ did not 
 present a splendid example of patience and resignation. 
 Compare his behaviour under suflering with that of 
 other martyrs, many, for example, in the third century. 
 He suffered for the space of a few^ hours only ; they 
 were made to sustain sufferings for days, weeks, months, 
 nay, in some cases, years. He suffered the punishment 
 of the cross ; they have agonized under boiling oil, 
 melted lead, plates of hot iron ; or have been broiled 
 for days over a slow fire, or shut up in fiercely glowing 
 brazen bulls; or have had their members cut and torn 
 off, one after another, in tedious and barbarous succes- 
 sion. Yet he lamented, and they triumphed. Is not 
 this infinitely astonishing, upon any other theory of 
 religion than oursP Is it not incomprehensible that 
 the Master of our faith, the “ Captain of our salvation,^^ 
 should be abashed and astounded at the sight or even 
 the contemplation of death, and that his servants and 
 followers should triumph in the midst of unequalled 
 torments ? The one is seized wdth sorrow even unto 
 death ; the others are transported with joy. The one 
 sweats as it were drops of blood at the approach of 
 
 23 Fellows’s Theology, vol. i. p. 210. They who assign this reason 
 for our Lord’s sufferings should, before they urge it confidently, free 
 it from an objection advanced by themselves against our opinions. 
 For even this would be to suffer for us, — for our good. If it he just 
 in God to permit the innocent to sutler for such an end as this, why 
 should it be unjust in him to permit him to sufler for that which we 
 specify as the true cause of his suffering? “ Can it he just in God 
 (asks Dr. Wardlaw) to inflict sufferings on the innocent for an 
 inferior end, and yet unjust in him to inflict the same sufferings, on 
 the same person, for an end obviously and incalculably superior ?” 
 Sermons, p. 217. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 291 
 
 (icath ; the others behold a divine hand wiping off 
 their blood, but not their tears, for none do they shed. 
 The one complains that God forsakes liim ; the others 
 cry aloud with rapture that they behold Him stretching 
 forth his hands to encourage and invite them to him ! 
 
 All this cannot be because his bodily torment is 
 greater than theirs ; nor can it be, because they have 
 more internal strength and holiness than he has. But 
 it is, because God administers more comfort to them 
 than to him. Yet why so, if Jesus Christ be his Son 
 in whom he is well pleased Why, indeed, but be- 
 cause he regards him as our pledge, having constituted 
 him a sin offering for us?^^ 
 
 Contrast, again, the dismal agony of our Lord with 
 the holy serenity of Stephen, or the joyful anticipation 
 of Ignatius, or the heroic fortitude of Blandiria, whose 
 patience outstood the successive labours of a series of 
 tormentors^®; and then ask — If the approbation of 
 God ordinarily comforts those who suffer for righteous- 
 ness’ sake, could it not much better have consoled 
 Jesus Christ? If the certainty of possessing an eternal 
 life of bliss makes the martyrs leap with joy and exulta- 
 tion when they are about to lose a temporal life, shall 
 not a like certainly, superadded to that of “ finishing 
 the work for w hich his Father sent him into the world,” 
 fill Jesus with joy, too? Shall men, who are accus- 
 tomed to love the earth, rejoice to leave it; and shall 
 Jesus Christ, who loves heaven alone, be smitten with 
 a thousand mortal terrors because he is going thither ! 
 How truly inexplicable must all this for ever remain, 
 if the orthodox hypothesis be rejected. 
 
 Before I produce the fourth class of evidences from 
 the Scripture, or those which are positively declaratory, 
 I request you will bear it in mind, that the New Testa- 
 ment, being intended for universal use, and of course 
 for that of plain unlettered men as well as others, does 
 not deal in logical distinctions and metaphysical subtle- 
 ties, but conveys its momentous truths in the simplest 
 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 1. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 292 
 
 language; and, to rivet them the more firmly upon the 
 mind, often has recourse to a variety of apt and striking 
 metaphors and allusions, to communicate the same 
 general idea. Thus, with regard to atonement, and 
 words of analogous import, correct notions may be 
 readily obtained when the different lights in which sin 
 is represented are contemplated. If, for example, sin 
 be regarded as a breach of the law, which calls down 
 its curses, and excites God^s anger, then an atonement 
 (which literally signifies a covering) screens from the 
 curses of the law, covers, or appeases, or propitiates 
 the angry countenance of Deity. If sin be that which 
 interrupts the friendship which would otherwise subsist 
 between man and his Maker, then what is needed is 
 something to procure reconciliationheXy^^e^n the parties 
 at variance. If sin be considered as a debt incurred by 
 man, then what he requires is something which will 
 give satbfacAion for that debt. If sin be depicted as 
 slavery to Satan, then the grand requisite is a ransom. 
 If sin be described as an impurityy then what the sinner 
 needs is something that will purge or wash it away. 
 All these, and perhaps some other views of sin, its 
 effects, and the means of cancelling them, are included 
 in that sacrifice and offering for sin, in consequence of 
 which iniquity is not imputed, transgression for- 
 given, and sin cover ed^.^^ 
 
 These observations being premised, I shall transcribe 
 some passages from the New Testament, in which the 
 doctrine of Jesus Christ’s surrendering his life as an 
 atonement for sin is plainly declared, beginning with 
 those that were furnished during his own personal 
 ministry. The Son of man (says he) came not to be 
 served, but to serve; and to give his life a ransom for 
 many I lay down my life for the sheep^V’ The 
 
 bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give 
 for the life of the workDV’ And when he instituted 
 the Eucharist, which was expressly intended, not to 
 
 ^ Ps. xxxii. 1, 2. Malt. xx. 28, 
 
 29 John, X. 15. 30 gi. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 293 
 
 remind his disciples of the purity of his conduct, or 
 the exemplary holiness of his life, but to show forth 
 the Loixhs death till he come^b” Judas (whose sins 
 were not to be remitted having previously departed, 
 He took bread and brake it, saying, This is my body, 
 which is given for you^^.^^ And taking the cup and 
 blessing it. He said, Drink ye all out of it : for this 
 is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for 
 many for the remission of sins"^^.^^ Giving to these 
 passages- their natural and obvious import, it seems 
 impossible to eradicate the doctrine of the atonement 
 for sin, made by Christ’s death, from the minds of 
 plain, humble, sincere Christians, so long as the ordi- 
 nance of the Eucharist continues to be observed with 
 reference to the time and manner of its institution. I 
 have not forgotten that a writer of great ingenuity, who 
 seems to have carefully weighed the meaning of all 
 words except those which relate to religious topics, 
 has recently had the boldness to say, that If the 
 Unitarian Society, on their English Anniversary Festi- 
 val, were to consecrate the first goblet to the immortal 
 memory of the great founder of their faith, they would 
 more faithfully copy the spirit of his institution than 
 any rival creedsmen, and would accomplish the associ- 
 ation of religion with the natural and habitual pleasures 
 of mankind^^J^ But this attempt at transmuting the 
 orgies of Bacchus into a Christian rite will not succeed 
 with those who have beheld by faith the Lamb of 
 God, that taketh away the sins of the world^®.” No ; 
 
 1 Cor. xi. 26. 32 jyjatt. xxvi. 24. 
 
 33 Luke, xxii. 19. 34 ]\iatt. xxvi. 28. 
 
 33 Synonymic Elucidations, in Athenagura, vol. iv. p. 497. Such 
 of my readers as wish to judge fully of this writer’s horrid perversio/j 
 of terms in allusion to the most solemn of all religious ordinances, 
 may peruse an account of the “ Unitarian Tavern Dinner,” in Nos. 7 
 and 8 of the Freethinking Christian’s Magazine ; — a work to which 
 I should not refer, were it not to show that even Infidels, and they of 
 no common kind, are disgusted that this anniversary revel should ) 3 e 
 misnamed a religious commemoration. 
 
 35 John, I 29. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 294 
 
 the enemies of this heart-reviving truth might as well 
 hope to pierce through a coat of mail with a straw, as 
 to reach such a truth, defended by such an ordinance 
 as this, by any of their trifling sophistries^M^^ 
 
 In showing the opinion of the apostles as to this 
 fundamental point, my business must be selection: for 
 no one can read the Epistles without perceiving that 
 the grand object of their authors is to preach ‘‘ Christ 
 crucified;^’ and that for every reference to the life of 
 the Redeemer there may be found at least ten trium- 
 phant appeals to the benefits resulting from his death. 
 Thus St. Paul: ‘‘God forbid (or let it not be) that 
 I should glory, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ.^’ “ Christ our passover is sacrificed in our 
 stead.^^ “Christ died in due season /br the imgodly : 
 while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” “ Through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ we have now received the recon^ 
 ciliation.^^ “ Ye have been bought with a, price.^^ 
 “ Christ died /br our sins, according to the Scriptures.” 
 “Christ died for all, that those who live should no 
 longer live to themselves, but to him who died and 
 rose again for them.” “ God hath made him who knew 
 no sin to be a sin for us.^^ Thus, “ he hath favoured 
 us through the beloved Son ; through whom we have 
 redemption hy his blood, even forgiveness of our of- 
 fences.” “ Reconciling both unto God in one body hy 
 the 6T05.S.” “ Christ gave himself for us, an offering 
 and a sacrifice \o God.” “Christ Jesus gave himself 
 a ransom for all.” “ Who gave himself /br us that he 
 might redeem us from all iniqiiity.^^ “Christ by his 
 own obtained an everlasting “Where 
 
 a covenant is, there is a necessity for the death of that 
 which establishes the covenant.” “So Christ was 
 fered once to bear away the sins of the many.” “ He 
 who despised the law of Moses died without mercy ; of 
 how much greater punishment, think ye, will he be 
 deemed w^orthy who hath trodden under foot the Son 
 of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, by 
 Doddridge’s Fam. Expos, note f, on Matt, xxvi, 
 
ATONEMEIST OF CHRIST. 295 
 
 which he was sanctified, an unholy [or unimportant] 
 ihing^^.^^ 
 
 As these texts are of themselves sufficient to establish 
 the point in question, I shall merely cjuote one or two 
 from the other apostles : Peter, for example, says, 
 ^‘Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as 
 with silver and gold, from your vain behaviour deli- 
 vered down by your fathers ; but with the precious 
 blood of Christ, as of a spotless and unblemished 
 Lamb.^’ Christ suffered for you and himself 
 hare our sins in his own body on the crossJ^ “Christ 
 suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, 
 that he might bring us to God.^^ And to the same pur- 
 pose is the language of John: “The blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth us from all sins.^^ “Jesus Christ is the 
 propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but 
 also for the whole world. “ Herein is love, not that 
 we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son, 
 to be a propitiation for our sins"^^.^^ 
 
 Surely, if language have any definite meaning, these 
 texts declare the innocence of Jesus Christ who suf- 
 fered, and the iniquities of those for w hom he suffered ; 
 they declare, that a righteous person died for the 
 guilty, and that thereby the guilty w ere saved. Hence 
 arises the grand difference between the dispensations 
 of the Law and of Grace. The law requires perfect 
 obedience and satisfaction to be wrought out in our 
 
 Gal. vi. 14. 1 Cor. V. 7. Rom. v. 6, 8, 11. 1 Cor. vi. 20 ; xv. 3. 
 2 Cor. V. 15, 21. Eph. i. 7 ; ii. 16 ; v. 2. 1 Tim. ii. 6. Tit. ii. 14. 
 Heb. ix. 11, 16, 28 ; x. 28, 29. See also Heb. ii. 10 ; and ix. 22. 
 
 39 IPet. i. 18, 19; ii.21,24; iii. 18. IJohn, i. 7 ; ii. 2; iv. 10. 
 Consult also Rev. i. 5 ; v. 9; xiii. 8. 
 
 Objections are sometimes raised upon a mere misunderstanding 
 of the terms. Thus, the language, he “ bare the sins of many,” and 
 he was “ numbered with the transgressors,’^ implies that he was 
 treated as a guilty person ; guilt was imputed to him. The inter- 
 pretation is unobjectionable, if we distinguish, as accurate theolo- 
 gians always do, between “ guilt in the sense of legal answerableness 
 (reatus'), and of blameworthiness (culpa);” and remember that it is 
 in the former sense alone that we here employ it. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 296 
 
 persons ; grace allows of the obedience and satisfaction 
 of a substitute. The law makes no allowance for the 
 least failure, but says, ^"He that ofFendeth in the least 
 tittle is guilty of all ; the soul that sinneth shall die:^^ 
 Grace says, If any man sin, we have an advocate 
 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.^^ The 
 Law demands sternly, Pay me that thou owest 
 but Grace points ‘Ho the hand-writing of ordinances, 
 blotted out and cancelled by the blood of Jesus so 
 that we can say, “ Behold, O God, our shield, and look 
 upon the face of thine Anointed,” who manifested his 
 love to his friend Lazarus by his tears, and to us by 
 shedding his blood for us, while we were enemies! 
 
 “ A truth so strange, Hwere bold to think it true j 
 
 If not far bolder still to disbelieve.” — Young. 
 
 It is the great glory of the Gospel that it gives such 
 a satisfactory account of the method whereby sin may 
 be pardoned, in a manner consistent with the honours 
 of Divine government ; yet so astonishing and surpass- 
 ing human expectation is the plan of redemption we are 
 now^ contemplating, that many, who notwithstanding 
 profess themselves Christians, object against it; and 
 that, unfortunately, in a very dogmatical and assuming 
 tone. Thus, Faustus Socinus : — “If not once only, 
 but often, it should be written in the Sacred Scriptures, 
 that Christ made satisfaction to God for sins, I would 
 not, therefore, believe it.” And again, “ Any, even 
 the greatest force is to be used with words, rather than 
 take them in this the obvious sense Sentiments 
 like these, though they seem much more compatible 
 with Deism than with any principles that can be incor- 
 porated with the belief that the Scriptures are of Divine 
 authority, are avowed by many of the professors of 
 “ Rational Religion” (as it is often arrogantly called) 
 in the present day. Yet I conceive the difficulties 
 hanging about the subject, and which occasion the 
 
 Socinus on the Satisfaction, and in his Second Epistle to Bal- 
 cerimicius. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 297 
 
 adoption of such strong language, may be removed 
 with tolerable facility. 
 
 It is asserted, for instance, in the first place, that if 
 the doctrine of atonement for sin be true, then, since 
 it was only obscurely declared by our Lord, he cannot 
 be said to have taught his own religion.’^ This argu- 
 ment, I think I have already shown in the present let- 
 ter, cannot very fairly be urged on the present occasion, 
 since the language of our Lord is too unequivocal to 
 be easily misunderstood : yet, as similar reasoning is 
 advanced against other branches of Christian doctrine, 
 it at least deserves a specific reply. Let it be observed, 
 then, first, that, as both Macknight and Magee have 
 correctly stated it, the object of our Saviour's life was 
 to supply the subject, not to promulgate the doctrines of 
 the Gospel:" next, that an infidel might, upon the 
 principles here adverted to, deny Christ's Messiahship, 
 and the doctrine of the resurrection ; and might ask. 
 Why did not Christ, on his first advent, openly declare 
 that he was the Messiah P Why did not he fully deve- 
 lope the doctrine which Dr. Priestley says it was the 
 sole object of his mission to ascertain and exemplify, 
 namely, that of a resurrection and a future state?" 
 Let it be remarked farther, that if Christ had publicly 
 and plainly preached the doctrine of the atonement of 
 his death to all who heard him, he must of course have 
 predicted openly that he should die as a sacrifice; and 
 this might have provoked the malicious Jews either to 
 kill him before his hour was come, to prevent his teach- 
 ing, and pretend that they only fulfilled his own pro- 
 phecy ; or to lay hold of him, and keep him a prisoner 
 without killing him, for the purpose of falsifying the 
 prophecies of his death, and making void his doctrine 
 of atonement 
 
 My ingenious opponent, Mr. Fullagar, who selects and criti- 
 cises my least important arguments, and then exults as though he had 
 refuted the whole (forgetting that it is one thing to break a single 
 palisade on a detached outwork of a fortress, and another to destroy 
 the fortress itself), asks, “ What is this, Sir,. but saying that Jesus 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 298 
 
 Let it be observed again, that many passages in the 
 writings of the evangelists prove decisively that it was 
 not the design of our Lord in his life-time, and indeed 
 
 not expedient, to publish the grace of the Gospel so 
 fully and clearly as it was afterwards to be revealed to 
 and hij his apostles. But shortly before his death he 
 said unto them, have still many things to say unto 
 you ; but ye cannot hear them now. However, when he 
 cometh, even the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into 
 all truth : for he will not speak of himself : but what- 
 soever he shall hear he will speak ; and he will show 
 you things to come. He will glorify me: for he will 
 receive of mine, and will declare it unto you^‘^,^^ Here, 
 then, the question is simply. Was this prediction ac- 
 complished, or was it not? And the only answer a 
 consistent believer in the New Testament can give, is, 
 that it was fulfilled in the forty days’ communication 
 our Lord had with his disciples after his resurrection, 
 when he spake to them ""of things pertaining to the 
 kingdom of God^^,^^ and in the gift of the Spirit on the 
 day of Pentecost. Either, these truths "" pertaining to 
 the kingdom of God” were revealed for the benefit of 
 the church in all ages, or they were not? If they were 
 not, why were they revealed at all? If they were, 
 
 was afraid to reveal an important doctrine, &c.” Why, Sir, it is 
 this; it is saying that he abstained from “ casting his pearls before 
 swine” at a time when he knew they would trample them under foot ; 
 or it is amplifying his own language in Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. Two 
 pages farther on this gentleman says, “ There is no proof that the 
 death of our Lord was a sacrifice, using that term in reference to an 
 act of devotion,” Here, I would ask, in return, what man of common 
 understanding ever so employed the term in this connexion? Did 
 not the whole pamphlet contain too much of such playing with the 
 subject, my respect for its author would have induced me to give it 
 more than this cursory notice ; especially as I most fervently wish 
 he may enjoy and communicate all possible good, and should there- 
 fore rejoice to see him devoting the leisure and the talents with 
 which God has blessed him, to a far nobler and holier cause (at least 
 in the judgment of prophets, apostles, and martyrs) than that which 
 he has espoused. 
 
 John, xvi. 13, 14, 
 
 Acts, i, 3. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRTST. 299 
 
 where are they to be found except in the writings of 
 the apostles? And if the writings of the apostles con- 
 tain them, is it not the most stupendous folly or arro- 
 gance to deny, in the positive tone of many Socinians, 
 that those writings are of the same divine veracity, 
 authority, and efficacy, as the rest of Scripture; or 
 that He who dictated them taught his own religion? 
 
 A second objection, frequently advanced with great 
 vehemence and confidence, and to wffiich I have al- 
 ready adverted in note 25 of this letter, is, that it does 
 not agree with the moral perfections of God to punish 
 sin in a surety; that it is unjust and inequitable to 
 appoint such a way of salvation as would require an 
 innocent creature to suffer that the offender may be 
 spared.’^ Indeed ! Then how was it that Abel, w ho 
 slew the innocent firstlings of his flock,” thus '^offered 
 unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain,” who 
 brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto 
 the Lord^^,” and by so doing avoided the injustice of 
 shedding innocent blood ? This objection, as you must 
 at once perceive, by aiming at too much, accomplishes 
 nothing; for it applies just as forcibly against sacrifices 
 of every kind, as against that of the Redeemer ; and 
 should, therefore, come from a professed unbeliever, 
 and not from one who bows to “ the law and the testi- 
 mony.” Now, taking the question for a moment upon 
 its broadest ground, it is a notorious and incontro- 
 vertible fact, that sacrifices have almost universally pre- 
 vailed in all ages and in all countries, as well the most 
 civilized as the most barbarous. Reasoning from this 
 fact, we say, either sacrifices had some foundation in 
 true religion, which led the whole world to practise 
 them for four thousand years, and the heathen part of 
 the world to practise them till the present time ; or else 
 the principle of reason so much boasted of for its effi- 
 cacy and energy, which suffered men to pursue this 
 train of idiotism and inhumanity for six thousand years, 
 is a very defective and insufficient guide. One of these 
 Gen. iv. 3, 4. Ileb. xi. 4. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 300 
 
 positions is indisputable. If the latter be admitted, 
 then Revelation was absolutely necessary to reform and 
 instruct the world : if the former, then, sacrifices were 
 of Divine institution. The adversaries of Revelation 
 may take their choice of these alternatives^^. 
 
 But to those who allow the truth of the Mosaic his- 
 tory, and will therein trace the origin of sacrifices, it 
 must appear evident, that sacrifice was from the begin- 
 ning (as in the case of Abel) acceptable to God ; and 
 that faith made it so : — that offerings of creatures were 
 sacrifices of atonement for sin ; while offerings fruits 
 were thank-ofl’erings ; — that sacrifices for sin enforced 
 plainly, though typically, these two important truths : 
 1st, that every sin caused a forfeiture of the offender's 
 life ; and, 2dly, that God vouchsafed notwithstanding 
 to have mercy on the sinner, and to accept of some 
 other life as a ransom, in lieu of that forfeiture. Sacri- 
 fices, in short, were, from the first, seals of the covenant 
 of mercy, into which God entered wfith man immedi- 
 ately after the fall ; and there is nothing in point of 
 their injustice that does not apply with greater force 
 against the patriarchal and Mosaic sacrifices, than 
 against that of Jesus Christ ; for this latter, it must not 
 
 “ It has been made a question (sajs the late Mr. Jones, of Nay- 
 land) by those who question every thing, whether sacrilices were of 
 Divine Institution. But sacrifices are descriptive; and as the thing 
 described is the redemption of man by the shedding of the blood of 
 Christ, which never could be known but by revelation ; the supposi- 
 tion that sacrifice could be of human invention is an absurdity. It 
 is as if we were to imagine that words could be invented by those 
 who had no knowledge of things ; or that signs could be brought into 
 use without any prior idea of the things signified. The knowledge of 
 a redeemer was first given to man; and the observation of sacrifice 
 was the expression of that knowledge by a significant act. All man- 
 kind were derived from those to whom this knowledge was first 
 given ; and therefore all nations of the world, in all times of the 
 world, did in some form or other retain the observation of sacrifice, 
 for the putting away of sin.” — Lectures on the Hebrews. 
 
 For some instructive remarks on the distinction between the fact 
 and the doctrine of the atonement, see the Rev. R. Hall, on the 
 Essential Difference between Christian Baptism and the Baptism of 
 John, p. 40, 41, &c. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 301 
 
 be forgotten, was perfectly voluntary. His own lan- 
 g-uage, even according to the Socinian translation of it, 
 was. ‘‘ For this my Father loveth me, because I lay 
 down my life, that I may take it again. None takeih 
 it from me ; hut I lay it down OF myself. I have autho- 
 rity to lay it down, and I have authority to receive it 
 again This completely annihilates the force of 
 the objection, since it shows that the sufferings and 
 death of Christ, being voluntary, must necessarily be 
 consistent with the equity and justice of God, although 
 ihe innocent suffered that the guilty might be redeem- 
 ed : that being, indeed, the only way in which the 
 innocent can suffer without infringing upon justice. 
 
 It is of some importance to remark, that many of 
 those who are loudest and most eager in urging this 
 objection admit that Jesus suffered for our benefit ; 
 which is much the same as refuting their own argu- 
 menk: for surely there is just as little reason why an 
 innocent person should suffer for the benefit of a cri- 
 minal, as that he should suffer in his stead. Indeed, 
 as Archbishop Tillotson remarks, If the matter were 
 searched to the bottom, all this perverse contention 
 about our Saviour’s suffering for our benefit, but not 
 in our stead, will signify just nothing. For if Christ 
 died for our benefit, so as some way or other by virtue 
 of his death and sufferings, to save us from the wrath of 
 God, and to procure our escape from eternal death; 
 this, for aught I know, is all that any body means by 
 bis dying in our stead. For he that dies with an inten- 
 tion to do that benefit to another, as to save him from 
 death, doth certainly to all intents and purposes die in 
 his place and stead. And if they will grant this to be 
 their meaning, the controversy is at an end ; and both 
 sides are agreed in the thing, and do only differ in the 
 phrase and manner of expression ; which is, to seek a 
 quarrel and an occasion of difference where there is no 
 real ground for it; a thing which ought to be very far 
 from reasonable and peaceable minds. For many of 
 John, X. 17, 18. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 302 
 
 the Socinians say, that our Saviour’s voluntary obedi- 
 ence and sufferings procured his exaltation at the right 
 hand of* God, and power and authority to forgive sins, 
 and to give eternal life to as many as he pleased; so 
 that they grant that his obedience and sufferings, in 
 the meritorious consequence of them, redound to our 
 benefit and advantage as much as we pretend and say 
 they do ; only they are loth in express terms to acknow- 
 ledge that Christ died in our stead : and this, for no 
 other reason that I can imagine, but because they have 
 denied it so often and so longJ*^ 
 
 The last objection I shall here notice has been stated 
 in the following terms : According to the usual theory 
 of atonement, none less than a Divine person can bear 
 away the sins of the whole world ; yet a Divine person 
 cannot atone for sin, because Deity cannot die.’’ This, 
 it must be acknowledged, presents a difficulty of for- 
 midable aspect; yet it is one which arises rather from 
 our ignorance of the nature of death, than from any 
 inadequate views of the nature of atonement. The 
 following observations will, I trust, greatly diminish 
 the difficulty, if they do not remove it. The death of 
 a being constituted of a material and an immaterial 
 part, does not consist in a perfect extinction of its ex- 
 istence, but in a separation of its constituent parts. 
 What we call the death of an animal is a separation of 
 the spiritual principle of animation and sensation from 
 the organized matter which it animated. The death 
 of a man is, in a similar manner, the separation of the 
 spiritual source of sensation, volition, and action, from 
 the material organization which forms the human body. 
 “ The body without the spirit is dead ;” it is no longer 
 an active, thinking, sensitive, determining being, but 
 an insensible, inactive lump of clay. After death the 
 man no longer exists in his compound nature ; his con- 
 stituent parts are separated ; his body to be still farther 
 decomposed and divided, but his soul to remain entire, 
 a single, indivisible, indestructible soul as before. It 
 James, ii. 1^0. 
 
ATONEMEIST OF CHRIST. 303 
 
 does not follow, therefore, that the soul is dead: in- 
 deed, strictly speaking, a soul cannot die. None but a 
 compound being can undergo that separation which 
 constitutes death. But a soul is simple and indivi- 
 sible ; for if it were divisible into two or more parts, 
 those parts, each partaking of the same spiritual essence, 
 would each possess distinct consciousness, and would 
 each, therefore, become a distinct soul ; which is repug- 
 nant to reason. Hence it appears that a soul, though 
 it may be annihilated by the power of Him who created 
 it, cannot die. What is dead exists, however its mode 
 of subsistence be changed ; but what is annihilated has 
 no existence. Admitting this, the objection must be 
 relinquished ; for, allowing Christ to have a soul (which 
 all the Humanitarians do allow), it might as perti- 
 nently be objected, that since his soul cannot die, he 
 cannot atone for sin : and therefore, since nothing 
 Divine, nor any thing human, can atone for sin, and 
 nothing else can (see Hebrew x. 4), it would result that 
 sin cannot be atoned for at all, which is contrary to the 
 uniform tenour of Scripture. 
 
 From this view of the subject it follows that, when 
 the Divine and human spirit of the Redeemer ceased 
 to animate his body, the person of Jesus Christ as pro- 
 perly died as did that of Moses, David, or any other, 
 when such individual yielded up his spirit. It follows 
 also, that the death of Jesus Christ neither caused any 
 mutation in his Divine nature, nor in the powers and 
 properties of his soul. As to the value or efficacy of 
 his death, that manifestly depends upon the value of 
 his person in the scale of being. Among animated 
 beings relative importance is estimated by the propor- 
 tionate extent to which the spirits which animate them 
 carry their actions or their influence. Thus we place 
 a sparrow, a pigeon, and an eagle, successively higher 
 in the scale : in like manner, a sheep, an ox, an ele- 
 phant, would have assigned to them successively in- 
 creased values. A rational and accountable being is 
 naturally placed above all these : of rational beings, a 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 804 
 
 man is reckoned superior to a child ; a philosopher, to 
 a peasant; a monarch, to one of his subjects : and the 
 effects resulting’ from their deaths are proportionally 
 felt. Hence, since Jesus Christ is, according to the 
 system I am now explaining, infinitely wiser than the 
 profoundest philosopher, infinitely more powerful than 
 the greatest monarch, his death must be sufficiently 
 efficacious to cancel all the guilt which rendered that 
 awful event necessary. Possessing (as Dr. Abbadie 
 remarks) the glory of the Deity in the midst of infir- 
 mities and miseries incident to a nature like our own, 
 he need undergo but one death of an infinite value; 
 and God who gave him to " suffer for us,’ made us a 
 present without limit.” The sum of all, to adopt the 
 condensed emphatic phraseology of Bishop Beveridge, 
 is this : — Man can suffer, but he cannot satisfy ; God 
 can satisfy, but he cannot suffer: but Christ, being 
 both God and man, can both suffer and satisfy; and so 
 is perfectly fit, both to suffer for man, and to make 
 satisfaction unto God, to reconcile God to man, and 
 man to God.” 
 
 Thus have I endeavoured to state, establish, and de- 
 fend from the principal objections, that great and fun- 
 damental doctrine of the new or Christian dispensation, 
 whence it derived the name Y,vayye\iov, Gos~ 
 
 pel, good or joyful news. It remains that I solicit your 
 earnest attention to some striking and useful reflections 
 upon the sufterings and cross of Christ, from authors 
 who have already furnished me with quotations in this 
 letter. 
 
 To the exterior view and carnal sense of men, our 
 Lord was then (on the cross) indeed exposed to scorn 
 and shame ; but, to spiritual and sincere discerning, 
 all his and our enemies did there hang up as objects of 
 contempt, utterly overthrown and undone. 
 
 There the devil, that strong and sturdy one, did 
 hang up bound in chains, disarmed and rifled, quite 
 baffled and confounded, mankind being rescued from 
 his tyrannic power. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 305 
 
 There the world, with its vain pomps, its counter, 
 feit beauties, its bewitching pleasures, its fondly ad- 
 mired excellencies, did hang up all defaced and dis- 
 paraged ; as it appeared to St. Paul: for God forbid 
 (saith he) that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ, 
 by which the world is crucified to me and I unto the ivorld. 
 
 There, in a most lively representation, and most 
 admirable pattern, was exhibited the mortification of 
 our flesh, with its affections and lusts ; and our old man 
 was crucified that the body of sin 7night be destroyed. 
 
 There our sins, being (as St. Peter telleth us) car- 
 ried up by him unto the gibbet, did hang as marks of his 
 victorious prowess, as malefactors, by him condemned 
 in the flesh, as objects of our horror and hatred. 
 
 There death itself hung gasping, with its sting 
 pulled out, and all its terrors quelled ; his death having 
 prevented ours, and induced immortality. 
 
 There all w'rath, enmity, strife (the banes of com- 
 fortable life), did hang abolished in his flesh and slain 
 upon the cross, by the blood whereof he made peace, and 
 reconciled all things in heaven and earth. 
 
 This consideration is, farther, most useful to ren- 
 der us very humble and sensible of our weakness, our 
 vileness, our wretchedness. For how low was that our 
 fall, from which we could not be raised without such a 
 depression of God^s only Son? How great is that im- 
 potency, which needed such a succour to relieve it? 
 How abominable must be that iniquity, which might 
 not be expiated without so costly a sacrifice? How de- 
 plorable is that misery, which could not be removed 
 without commutation of so strange a suffering? Would 
 the Son of God have so emptied {'Eiavrov iKevcoae, Phil, 
 ii. 7) and debased himself for nothing? Would he have 
 endured such pains and ignominies for a trifle? No, 
 surely; if our guilt had been slight, if our case had 
 been tolerable, the Divine wisdom would have chosen 
 a more cheap and easy remedy for us. 
 
 Is it not madness for us to be conceited of any 
 worth in ourselves, to confide in any merit of our 
 
 X 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 
 
 306 
 
 works, to glory in any thing belonging to ns, to fancy 
 ourselves brave, fine, happy persons, worthy of great 
 respect and esteem ; whereas our unworthiness, our 
 demerit, our forlorn estate, did extort from the most 
 gracious God a displeasure needing such a reconcilia- 
 tion, did impose upon the most glorious Son of God a 
 necessity to undergo such a punishment in our behalfp 
 Yet, while this contemplation doth breed sober 
 humility, it also should preserve us from base abject- 
 ness of mind ; for it doth evidently demonstrate that, 
 according to God’s infallible judgment, we are very 
 considerable; that our souls are capable of high re- 
 gard : that it is a great pity we should be lost and aban- 
 doned to ruin. For surely, had not God much esteemed 
 and respected us, he would not for our sakes have so 
 debased himself, or deigned to endure so much for our 
 recovery ; Divine justice would not have exacted or ac- 
 cepted such a ransom for our souls, had they been of 
 little worth. We should not therefore slight ourselves, 
 nor demean ourselves like sorry contemptible wretches, 
 as if we deserved no consideration, no pity from our- 
 selves; as if we thought our souls not worth saving, 
 which yet our Lord thought good to purchase at so 
 dear a rate'*®.” 
 
 To this language of the eloquent and philosophic 
 Dr. Barrow, allow me to add' the following powerful 
 expostulation of our Reformers. Canst thou think 
 of this, O sinful man, and not tremble within thyself P 
 Canst thou hear it quietly, without remorse of consci- 
 ence and sorrow of heart? Did Christ suffer his passion 
 for thee, and wilt thou show no compassion towards 
 him? While Christ was yet hanging on the cross, and 
 yielding up the ghost, the Scripture witnesseth that the 
 veil of the temple did rent in twain, and the earth did 
 quake, that the stones clave asunder, that the graves did 
 open, and the dead bodies rise; and shall the heart of 
 man be nothing moved to remember how grievously 
 and cruelly he was handled of the Jews for our sins? 
 
 Barrow’s Sermon on the Passion. 
 
ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. 307 
 
 Shall man show himself to be more hard -hearted than 
 stones, to have less compassion than dead bodies? Call 
 to mind, O sinful creature, and set before thine eyes 
 Christ crucified: think thou seefet his body stretched 
 out in length upon the cross, his head crowned with 
 sharp thorns, and his hands and his feet pierced with 
 nails, his heart opened with a long spear, his flesh rent 
 and torn with whips, his brows sweating water and 
 blood : think thou hearest him now crying in an into- 
 lerable agony to his Father, and saying. My God, My 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me? Couldst thou behold 
 this woeful sight, or hear this mournful voice, without 
 tears, considering that he suffered all this not for any 
 desert of his own, but only for the grievousness of thy 
 sins? O that mankind should put the everlasting Son 
 of God to such pains ! O that we should be the occa- 
 sion of his death, and the only cause of his condemna- 
 tion! May we not justly cry. Woe worth the time that 
 ever we sinned? O, my brethren, let this image of 
 Christ crucified be always printed in our hearts; let it 
 stir us up to the hatred of sin, and provoke our minds 
 to the earnest love of Almighty God, For why? is 
 not sin, think you, a grievous thing in his sight, seeing 
 for the transgressing of GocPs precept he condemned 
 all the world unto perpetual death, and would not be 
 pacified, but only with the blood of his own Son^^?^^ 
 
 Second Homily on the Passion, p. 359, Oxford edit. 1810. I 
 beg leave to remark here, once for all, that the frequency of my 
 quoting from the Homilies, and other discourses of great men amongst 
 the Episcopalians, does not arise from my supposing they are of supe- 
 rior authority, or that they have clearer views of Scriptural truth, 
 than Baxter, Howe, Watts, Doddridge, and some other eminent Dis- 
 senting authors ; but from the circumstance that these Letters were 
 originally written for the benefit of a professed member of the Church 
 of England ; and because a large portion of those who are adverse 
 to the doctrines I am here defending, and which are so forcibly stated 
 in the “Articles” and “ Homilies,” fancy themselves to be very 
 “ sound Churchmen” notwithstanding. 
 
308 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 On the Divinity of Jesiis Christ, 
 
 ^^Four things/^ said the great and judicious Hooker, 
 “ concur to make complete the whole state of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ: his Deity, his manhood, the conjunction 
 of both, and the distinction of the one from the other, 
 being joined in one. Four principal heresies there are 
 which have in those things withstood the truth. Arlans, 
 by bending themselves against the Deity of Christ; Apol- 
 linarians, by maiming and misinterpreting that which 
 belongeth to his human nature; iN'estorians, by rending 
 Christ asunder, and dividing him into two persons : the 
 followers of Eutiches, by confounding in his person 
 those natures which they should distinguish. Against 
 these there have been four ancient general councils: 
 the council of Nice, to define against Arians, A. D. 325 ; 
 the council of Constantinople, against Apollinarians, 
 A. D. 381 ; that of Ephesus, against Nestorians, A. D. 
 431 ; against Eutichians, that of Chalcedon, A.D. 451 : 
 the decisions of which may be comprised in four words: 
 aXfjQcoc truly, tvXbok perfectly, ahaiperoyg indivisihly, and 
 arrvy^vTcog distinctly. The first applied to his being 
 God ; and the second to his being Man ; the third to his 
 being of both oyie ; and the fourth to his still continu- 
 in that one both. We may fully, by way of abridgment, 
 comprise whatsoever antiquity hath at large handled, 
 either in declaration of Christian belief, or in refutation 
 of the aforesaid heresies, within the compass of these 
 four heads 
 
 This view of the Messiah’s person agrees with the 
 opinion that has most universally prevailed, among 
 Christians, from the first introduction of Christianity 
 into the world down to the present period. Nor does 
 the mere existence of other opinions by any means 
 militate against the truth of this: for, since evidence, 
 though it be clear, forcible, and satisfactory, does not 
 ^ Hooker’s Ecclesinstical Polity, book v. sect. 54. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 309 
 
 fiBcessarily convince, the human mind being free either 
 to receive evidence with its due weight, or to reject it 
 as defective ; it follows that a doctrine, as well as a fact, 
 may be disbelieved by minds of a peculiar structure, 
 however preponderating and decisive may be the evi- 
 dence in its favour. This is undoubted, and an apostle 
 referring to matters of faith, accounts for it in language 
 which I tremble while I quote: — If our Gospel he 
 veiled, it is veiled to those that destroy themselves, whose 
 minds the god of this world hath blinded.^^ 
 
 Many learned and ingenious men disbelieve the 
 Divinity of Christ; but neither the process by which 
 they have arrived at their disbelief, nor that by which 
 they endeavoiu- to prove that we are in error, seems 
 calculated to operate strongly upon the minds of those 
 who have been previously persuaded that the Scrip- 
 ture is the production of inspired writers, who were so 
 inspired that they might teach doctrines infallibly true 
 (many of which could be known no other way), and 
 whose instructions, therefore, are to be implicitly re- 
 ceived. Having ascertained that the Bible is the Word 
 of God, — that none of the discrepances between the 
 various existing copies in the original languages affect 
 any doctrine, or any important precept, — and that the 
 translation we adopt is correct, — we have nothing to do 
 but to determine its plain and obvious meaning, and 
 receive it as true'^ But this is not the plan pursued 
 
 2 It hath been the custom of late to lay too much stress upon 
 Jewish idioms, in the exposition of the didactic parts of the New 
 Testament. The Gospel is a general revelation. If it is delivered in 
 a style which is not perspicuous to the illiterate of any nation except 
 the Jewish, it is as much locked up from general apprehension, as if 
 the sacred books had been written in the vernacular gibberish of the 
 Jews of that age. The Holy Spirit, which directed the apostles and 
 the evangelists to the use of the tongue, which in their day was the 
 most generally understood — the Greek — would, for the same reason, 
 it may be presumed, suggest to them a style which might be gene- 
 rally perspicuous. It is therefore a principle with me, that the true 
 sense of any phrase in the New Testament is, for the most part, what 
 may be called a standing sense : that which will be the first to occur 
 to common people of every country, and in every age ; and I am apt 
 
310 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 by those who deny the Divinity of the Messiah. They 
 constantly examine the Scriptures rather as critics, than 
 as humble inquirers after truth: the natural conse- 
 quence of which is, that they are critical beyond mea- 
 sure, and adopt those "" refinements in criticism which 
 make men nauseate what is obvious, and pursue 
 through the mazes of etymology what was never ima- 
 gined before.’^ This, indeed, is the necessary result of 
 adopting a defective hypothesis. If both the Divine 
 and human nature meet in the person of the Messiah, 
 and if they are essentially distinct though they are 
 inseparably united, then is it to be expected that some 
 passages should clearly announce his Divinity, others 
 as clearly his humanity, while others .may (perhaps 
 indistinctly) indicate both. But if Jesus Christ be 
 merely a man, then all those texts wdiich declare his 
 Divine nature, or indicate his compound nature, must 
 be either rejected as spurious, or explained away by the 
 arts of criticism. Hence Socinians argue, that when 
 Jesus is called ‘‘ the Son of man,^^ the words must not 
 only be construed in the most literal, but in the most 
 restricted, sense, so that the word man shall be under- 
 to mean one particular man : but when he is called 
 the Son of GodJ^ they must be explained to mean 
 knowledge, commission, affection, office (though the 
 office of son is a strange vagary, that would enter the 
 mind of none but a Socinian critic), any thing or no- 
 thing, provided it be not taken literally. If one phrase 
 of St. John be in favour of the Deity of Christ, it is 
 either a solecism, or it is Hebraical-Greek ; if another 
 phrase of the same writer have the same tendency, it is 
 an oratorical flourish, or it is an Atticism, or it is an 
 hyperbole: as if it were not contrary to the entire 
 
 to think, that the difference between this standing sense and the 
 Jewish sense will, in all cases, be far less than is imagined, or none 
 at all ; because, though different languages differ widely? in their 
 refined and elevated idioms, common speech is in all languages pretty 
 much the same.” Horsley’s Letters in Controversy with Dr. Priest- 
 ley, p. 122, Ed. 3. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 311 
 
 scope and practice of the sacred writers to employ hy- 
 perboles in order to do prejudice to the glory of God; 
 which, nevertheless, is done repeatedly not only by 
 John, but by all the apostles, if the Socinian hypothe- 
 sis be true ; if in a third place he says, w-hen speaking 
 of Jesus, We beheld his glory, the glory as of the 
 only Son of the Father^;” we are told it means his 
 miracles,’^ which it should seem are used to express 
 merely a higher degree o{ affection If Jesus Christ 
 call himself the Son of God f it is a strong expres- 
 sion, conformable to the Eastern phraseology, signify- 
 ing that he was sent by God; though the inhabitants 
 of Jerusalem, who were at least as well acquainted with 
 Eastern phraseology as we are, understood the lan- 
 guage literally, and said that Jesus was guilty of blas- 
 phemy, because he made himself equal with God 
 If, as Jerome and Eusebius state, John wrote his Gos- 
 pel principally in vindication of our liord’s Divinity, 
 against Cerinthus and the Ebionites^ still a critic with 
 
 ^ See the Socinian version of John, i. 15, and the notes upon that 
 text, p. 201, 202. John, v. 18; x. 33. 
 
 ® It is highly probable, however, that John had other heretics in 
 his eye than those above-named, both when writing his Gospel and 
 his First Epistle. Thus the names and titles applied to our Lord at 
 the very commencement of John's Gospel would certainly puzzle, if 
 not silence, those in the first century who were inclined to contend, 
 either that he was a mere man, or a Divine appearance merely with- 
 out flesh. Even in the first chapter, he is denominated: — 1. The 
 Word. 2. God. 3. The Life. 4. The Light. 5. The True Light. 
 6. The Only Begotten of the Father. 7. Jesus Christ. 8. The Only 
 Begotten Son. 9. The Christ, or Anointed. 10. That Prophet. 
 11. The Lord. 12. The Lamb of God. 13. A Man. 14. The Son 
 of God. 15. The Messiah. 16. Jesus of Nazareth. 17. The Son 
 of Joseph. 18. The King of Israel. 19. The Son of Man. Whence 
 this extraordinary diversity of terms, but to designate an extraordi- 
 nary character, and to excite the utmost attention to the history of 
 the nature, words, actions, and offices of Him in whom, by a glori- 
 ous unity of design, the diversity centred to constitute at once “ The 
 Messenger of the Covenant” and “The Sun of Righteousness?” 
 
 So again, when, in his First Epistle, John taught that Jesus Christ 
 “ is the Son of God,” and that “ he came in the flesh,” he meant to 
 0 ])pose those who denied his divinity, as well as those who affirmed. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 :n2 
 
 a certain turn of mind ma}^ manage to elude its force; 
 as does Leclerc, who thus ridiculously renders the first 
 sentence of John’s Gospel : — In the beginning was 
 reason, and reason was in God, and reason was God.” 
 But as a complete specimen of critical ingenuity at- 
 tenuated into absurdity, I beg to present you with the 
 late Mr. Theophilus Lindsey’s translation of part of 
 the first chapter of this Gospel. Leclerc’s version is not 
 sufficiently unreasonable; w^e are, therefore, now pre- 
 sented with it after this fashion: 
 
 In the beginning was Wisdom, and Wisdom was 
 with God, and God was Wisdom. The same was in 
 the beginning with God. All things were made by it, 
 and without it was nothing made. In it was life, and 
 the life was the light of men. And the light shineth 
 in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. 
 
 It (Divine Wisdom) was in the world, and the 
 world was made by it, and the world knew it not. It 
 came to its own land, and its own people received it 
 not. But as many as received it, to them it gave 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them who 
 believe on its name. 
 
 ‘‘And Wisdom became man, and dwelt among us; 
 and we beheld its glory, the glory as of the well-beloved 
 of the Father, full of grace and truth.” 
 
 that his bod}? was only a body in appearance. And hence, as Mac- 
 knight and others have remarked, the opinions of the Docetae or 
 PhantasiastsB, on the one hand, and of the Cerinthians and Ebionites, 
 on the other, render it probable, if not certain, that the apostles 
 taught, and the first Christians helieved, Christ to be both God and 
 man. For, if the Docetae had not been taught the divinity of Christ, 
 they had no temptation to call in question his humanity. And if the 
 Cerinthians had not been taught the humanity of Christ, they would, 
 in like manner, have felt no temptation to deny his divinity. But 
 regarding it as impossible that both parts of the apostolic doctrine 
 concerning the Messiah could be true ; one class of these heretics 
 conceived themselves compelled to reject his humanity, that they 
 might more purely maintain his divinity; while the other, to main- 
 tain his divinity, thought it equally necessary to reject his humanity. 
 Thus it is that men make shipwreck of faith when they are prepared 
 only to receive the truth by halves. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 313 
 
 Now, in all this quotation, although as we are in- 
 formed® its sense is approved by Dr. Lardner, Dr. 
 Priestley, Mr. Wakefield, and others,"^ there appears 
 to be only one sentence accurately translated, the light 
 shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it 
 not:^^ of the truth of which, considering it as a predic- 
 tion, the translation itself, and the approbation of such 
 truly learned men as Lardner, Priestley, and Wake- 
 field, is a most lamentable proof. What a deplorable 
 system of theology must that be, which requires such 
 egregious trifling to support it! 
 
 But even this is not the whole of the ridiculous in- 
 cumbrance that impedes the progress of the theological 
 hypothesis, to which I now advert. It takes for granted, 
 that uninspired men may, at the distance of eighteen 
 hundred years, know more of “ the mind of Christ,^’ 
 and of the nature of his religion, than those who saw 
 and conversed with him in the days of his flesh,” and 
 were chosen and inspired to communicate his doc- 
 trines, by their preaching and writings, to “ the end of 
 the world.” It, therefore, cherishes a sentiment which 
 is diametrically opposite to that humility and lowli- 
 ness of mind which is essential to Christianity, and 
 which is possessed by those to whom God has pro- 
 mised to give grace. But, more than all, it makes it 
 the duty of teachers of the Gospel to be ever active in 
 sinking the value, utility, and importance of the Gos- 
 pel; and diminishing the riches of Divine mercy.” 
 Ambassadors and ministers in general are proud to 
 exalt the power, honour, and dignity of the monarch 
 whom they represent and serve ; but, according to the 
 Socinian theory and practice, the chief employment of 
 ministers and ambassadors of Christ” is to depreciate 
 as far as possible the character of their Lord and King, 
 and to show that he is not entitled to the honour, dig- 
 nity, majesty, and power, which others usually ascribe 
 to him. One of this class of Gospel ministers, Mr. Bel- 
 sham, seems by no means persuaded of the purity of 
 ® Notes to the New Socinian Version, p. 203. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 314 
 
 the life of Jesus. ‘‘Whether (says he) the perfection 
 of Christ’s character in public life (as recorded by the 
 evang*elists) combined with the general declarations of 
 his freedom from sin, establish, or were intended to 
 establish, the fact, that Jesus through the whole course of 
 his PRIVATE life, was completely exempt from all the errors 
 and failings of human nature, is a question of no great 
 intrinsic moment, and concerning which we have no 
 sufficient data to lead to a satisfactory answer! !” In 
 another work the same writer affirms that we are totally 
 ignorant of the place where Christ resides, and of the 
 occupations in wffiich he is engaged^ 1 These are notions 
 which Thomas Paine, with all his hatred to Christianity, 
 would probably have been ashamed to promulgate. 
 
 The scheme of theology which includes the divinity 
 of Jesus Christ as an essential and fundamental part, 
 is free from these puerilities, absurdities, anomalies, 
 and, I could almost say, blasphemies. According to 
 this scheme we believe that Jesus Christ is a man; that 
 he is also God ; yet we do not believe that the man 
 Jesus is deified. We do not worship the man Jesus; 
 but we believe his own declaration relative to the union 
 of the Divine and human nature in his person, when 
 conversing with Nicodemus, and therefore we do wor- 
 ship the God who dwells in the man; for “ in him 
 dwslleth all the fulness of the Deity, bodily and “ through 
 him we have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father We 
 do not deny that there is something mysterious in this, 
 for in our present state we do not expect to arrive at 
 the full “ knowledge of the mystery of God, in which are 
 hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge®:” 
 nor do we forget that the Scriptures are intended rather 
 to reveal what God is in relation to us^®, than what he 
 
 Belsham on the Divinity of Christ, p. 190. Belsham’s Review 
 of Mr. Wilberforce’s Treatise, p. 85. 
 
 ® See the original of John, iii. 13, where the 6 (ov ev r<p 
 is peculiarly forcible. See also Col. ii. 9. Eph. ii. 18. 
 
 9 Col. ii. 2, 3. 
 
 See Letter IV. p. 61. Let it be remarked, too, that in 
 
DIVIINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 315 
 
 is in bimself. In our system the difficulty is so trans- 
 ferred, that it lies in the object, not in the terms ; and 
 this is natural, because the object of worship is spiritual 
 and infinite. In metaphysics we have many equal dif- 
 ficulties: and even in the spiritual part of our own 
 nature. Thus, our soul has the three different faculties 
 of understanding, memory, and will, proceeding in 
 succession from each other ; yet they are co-existent, 
 and constitute not three souls, but one soul. Indeed, 
 in the usual transactions of life we frequently, nay, 
 commonly, know the use of objects, while we continue 
 ignorant of their nature; and, in like manner, it will be 
 to our benefit, if we immediately endeavour to expe- 
 rience the use of religious truths, and not wait until we 
 can perfectly comprehend them. According to our 
 system, I say, the objects are sublime, the language and 
 expression easy; while in the sense of those who deny 
 the Divinity of the Messiah, the objects are quite within 
 the grasp of our comprehension, but the expression is 
 obscure : and it is an obscurity which has none of the 
 causes that occasion the obscurity of really difficult 
 passages of Scripture: a circumstance which is very 
 surprising and unaccountable, and sufficient of itself 
 to produce long hesitation in reflecting men before they 
 wander in the labyrinths of Socinianism. 
 
 Having premised thus much respecting the different 
 modes of procedure of those who embrace, and those 
 who reject the doctrine of the Divinity of Jesus Christ, 
 I shall now direct your attention to a few of the argu- 
 ments upon which I think this great truth has been 
 irrefragably established. 
 
 I. The Divine nature of Jesus Christ was foretold by 
 some of the prophets, either explicitly, when speaking 
 of the Messiah, or by describing works and character- 
 istics of God, which the apostles have declared were 
 referable to Jesus Christ. 
 
 point of simplicity of explanation, the doctrine of the Divine unity 
 has no advantage over that of the trinity. “ That unity, which must 
 be the foundation of all being, is itself of all things the most myste- 
 rious and incomprehensible.” Read Horsley, p. 287, &c. 
 
316 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 Thus, the prophet Isaiah, in a passage where he 
 clearly predicts the coming of the Messiah, describes 
 his person and character in the following terms : 
 
 “ Unto us a Child is born ; unto us a Son is given ; 
 
 And the government shall be upon his shoulder : 
 
 And his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, 
 
 The mighty God, the Father of the everlasting age, 
 
 The Prince of Peace, 
 
 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end 
 
 In another portion of his prophecy Isaiah says, 
 
 ‘‘ Jehovah God of hosts shall be 
 
 - A stone of stumbling, and rock of offence. 
 
 To the two houses of Israel.” 
 
 The apostle Peter says, Jesus Christ is that stone 
 of stumbling, and rock of offence 
 
 The same prophet predicts the coming of one who 
 should be the harbinger of God, and cry, 
 
 “ In the wilderness prepare ye the way of Jehovah. 
 
 Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” 
 
 St. Matthew applies this prediction expressly to John 
 the BaptisC^, who was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. 
 But unless Jesus be Jehovah, this prophecy cannot 
 apply to John the Baptist. 
 
 Isaiah again, in another place, says, in the name of 
 
 Jehovah 
 
 Look upon me, and be ye saved, O all ye remote people of the 
 earth. 
 
 For I am God, and there is none else. 
 
 To ME shall every knee bow, shall every longue swear; 
 
 In Jehovah shall be justified, and make their boast, all the seed 
 of Israel 
 
 Paul applies this prophecy to Christ, the judge of 
 ail : As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow 
 
 to me, and every tongue shall confess to God^^.^^ 
 
 Lowth’s Isaiah, ix. 5, 6. Is. viii. 14. 1 Pet. ii. 8. 
 
 Is. xl. 8. Matt. iii. 1 — 3. Is. xlv. 22, 23, 25. 
 
 Rom. xiv. 11. I may just add that Jer. xxiii. 6, compared with 
 John, xii, 41 ; Joel, .ii. 32, with Rom. x. 13 ; and Malachi, iii. 1, 2, 
 with the character and office of John the Baptist, furnish irresistible 
 arguments to the same purpose. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 317 
 
 The prophet Zechariah, speaking in the name of 
 God, says, “ They shall look upon me whom they have 
 pierced.’" An evangelist relates, that ‘‘ one of the 
 
 soldiers pierced Jesus’s side with a spear 
 
 so that the Scripture was fulfilled they 
 
 shall look on him whom they pierced^®.” Here the 
 prophet foretells that they would pierce God; the evan- 
 gelist says, they pierced Jesus; and refers to this cir- 
 cumstance as a completion of the prophecy. 
 
 The Royal Psalmist has many distinct predictions 
 respecting the Messiah, which prove his divinity : I 
 shall only select those which were quoted or evidently 
 referred to, by Paul, in the first chapter of his Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. In the second psalm, universally allowed 
 to be prophetic of the Messiah, he is declared to be of 
 the same nature with the Father by the language. 
 
 Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee."" 
 Paul quotes this passage to show that Christ is supe- 
 rior to angels: “ for,"" says he, ‘‘ to which of the angels 
 said he at any time. Thou art my So7i, this day have I 
 begotten thee^^?"" 
 
 In another passage the Psalmist says, “ Confounded 
 be all they that serve graven images, that boast them- 
 
 Zecb. xii. 10. John, xix. 34 — 37. 
 
 Ps.ii.7. Heb. i.5. — It is worthy of remark, that the Socinians, 
 in their New Version, evade the force of this passage in a very disin- 
 genuous manner, by putting ^ false translation in the text, and the true 
 one in a note. In the text they give — “ This day 1 have adopted 
 thee,” while in a small note, which not one reader in ten will look at, 
 they say, “ begotten thee. Gr. and N.” To be sure, it would require 
 a front of brass, to deny that the original eyu) (TYjlJ^pov yeykvvfjKd (ts, 
 is properly translated in the authorised version. Why, then, should 
 adopted be thrust into the text, and begotten be obscured in a note? 
 Are adoption and begetting synonymous? Or, in such a case as that 
 before us, can one, with any degree of fairness, be substituted for the 
 other? In another passage (John, i. 15) these critics get quit of an 
 equal incumbrance upon their system, by an amazing piece of deli- 
 cacy : “ Only begotten” (say they, quoting from Mr. Lindsey’s List 
 of ^Wong Translations) “ is most gross and improper language to be 
 used in English, especially with respect to Deity.” I would be glad 
 to ask these admirable detectors of icrong translations,” by what 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 318 
 
 selves of idols: worship Him (i. e. Jehovah) all ye 
 gods or angels.^^ Here David describes the Supreme 
 God, and commands the angels to worship him. St. Paul 
 quotes the psalm*®, applies it to Jesus, and commands 
 the angels to worship him. In PauPs estimation, there- 
 fore, Jesus is God supreme. 
 
 Again, in the hundred and second psalm, "" the 
 afflicted, who poureth out his complaint before the 
 Lord,^^ says, “ O my God, take me not away in the 
 midst of my days: thy years are throughout all gene- 
 rations. Of old hast THOU laid the foundation of the 
 earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They 
 shall perish, &c. — But thou art the same, and thy 
 years shall have no end.^^ St. Paul applies this also to 
 Jesus Christ to prove that he was really God, because 
 he made the world. 
 
 Once more, in the forty-fifth Psalm, an avowed and 
 very expressive prophecy of the majesty and grace of 
 the Messiah, we have this language Thy throne, O 
 God, is for ever and ever,^^ &c. And this also is cited 
 by Paul, to show that the title of the everlasting God 
 belonged to Christ. But unto the Son he saith. Thy 
 
 other English term they will express the true meaning of ^ovoyeveg, 
 with equal correctness and equal conciseness? , 
 
 Mr. Belsham, who seems to rely alike upon the ignorance of his 
 admirers and the supineness of those who oppose his dangerous spe- 
 culations, affirms positively (p. 259 of his book on the Divinity of 
 Christ) that the word ayaTrrjroQ does not occur in St. John,’’ and 
 that therefore that writer used [Aovoyeveg to denote well-beloved. How 
 will the astonishment and horror of the unlearned reader be excited 
 when I assure him, notwithstanding this bold assertion, that John em- 
 ploys ayairnrog, in his Gospel and Epistles, at least eight times I 
 Indeed both these words occur in one and the* same chapter : see 
 1 John, iv. 1, 7, 9, 11. Such misrepresentation and evasion, as are 
 glanced at in this note, would be very contemptible even in reasoning 
 upon minor topics ; but it is difficult to reconcile them with common 
 integrity or common humanity when they are employed to seduce men 
 into a system in the adoption or rejection of which, for aught these 
 writers can show to the contrary, the salvation of the soul may be 
 deeply implicated. Psalm xcvii. 7. Heb. i. 
 
 Psalm cii. 24—27. Heb. i. 10—12. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 319 
 
 throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of 
 righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom 
 
 The quotations here made, are not from authors 
 \vho are careless in the employment and selection of 
 their language, nor from those who were deficient in 
 jealousy for the honour of God. On the contrary, 
 they would not suffer the character of God to be de- 
 preciated, nor would they permit that of man to be 
 unduly exalted, or in any way to usurp the place of 
 God. Surely,^’ says one of them, men of low 
 degree are vanity^ and men of high degree are a lie. 
 Po?<;^rbelongelh unto God. Trust in Him at all times 
 Another says, Cease ye from 7nan ; wherein is he to 
 be accounted of^^?^^ Another has this strong denunci- 
 ation, — Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and 
 
 20 Psalm xlv. 6. Heb. i. 8. Here again the Socinians have been 
 evincing their ingenuity in a remarkable manner. Their translation 
 is, “ God is thy throne for ever and ever.” This appears to approxi- 
 mate more nearly to nonsense than either to pure theology or genuine 
 philosophy; but it serves to exemplify the natural progress of erro- 
 neous sentiment. Jesus Christ is not the Son of God really, but by 
 adoption (and adopted not in the opinion of the apostle Paul, but of 
 modern theologians, who mistranslate his language to favour their 
 notions) : he discharges his “ office of Son” so well, that he is to be 
 rewarded by having his Almighty Father transformed into a chair of 
 state, on which he is to sit “ for ever and ever.” Such is the way in 
 which these writers preserve the awful and sublime character of God 
 from degradation. Truly this is a tissue of absurdity very adroitly- 
 woven, considering that it is done by those who pride themselves upon 
 their rationality, and who are presumptuous enough to accuse the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews of indulging in “ far-fetched 
 analogies, and inaccurate reasonings.” It ought to be added, to the 
 honour of Dr. Carpenter, that after he had selected “ God is thy 
 throne” as one of the most important improved renderings, he admit- 
 ted in his “ Letters to Mr. Veysie,” that the idiom of the Greek /or- 
 hids our so rendering it. 
 
 . The modern Socinians are not the first w'ho have misinterpreted the 
 language of the forty-fifth Psalm to suit an erroneous hypothesis. The 
 Jews in the earlier times of Christianity did the same ; and Origea 
 (Cont. Celsus, lib. i. cap. 45) shows how he baffled a Jewish doctor, 
 and exposed the evasions by which he aimed to escape the only true 
 deduction, in reference to the essential Deity of the Messiah, which 
 could be made from that graphic prediction. 
 
 Ps. Ixii. 8, 9, 11. 22 Is. ii. 22. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 320 
 
 maketh flesh his Yet, when speaking of 
 
 Jesus Christ, their language is — Embrace the Son 
 lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when 
 his wrath is kindled but a little : blessed are all they that 
 imt their trust in If any words can communi- 
 
 cate definite ideas, the grand truth, conveyed by the 
 preceding passages, is, that in the estimation of the 
 apostles, the Messiah possesses the Divine nature and 
 attributes, and is therefore entitled to confidence and 
 worship as God. 
 
 Men, therefore, who dislike the great peculiarities of 
 the Christian system, may exercise their ingenuity to 
 the utmost, may labour to render some books of Holy 
 YV^rit suspected, and may speculate on the extent of 
 apostolic inspiration, as much and as long as they 
 please ; yet they cannot shake the certainty of these 
 two truths: 1st, That the apostles have applied to 
 Jesus Christ certain passages from the prophets which 
 characterise the supreme God. And 2dly, That if 
 Jesus Christ does not partake of the glories of the 
 Divine essence, and is but a mere creature (to whom 
 consequently those characters do not belong), we must 
 look upon the apostles, not as teachers of truth, but as 
 men who betray others into idolatry by most impious 
 and blasphemous applications of the prophetical books. 
 Nay, we may add farther, that if the notions of the 
 modern Socinians as to the nature of Christ be correct, 
 it follows, inevitably, that neither the prophets exactly 
 predicted things to come, nor the apostles understood 
 the prophets; a consequence which would sap the 
 foundation of both the Jewish and Christian religions, 
 and leave no manner of harmony between the Old and 
 the New Testament. This is a powerful considera- 
 tion ; to which, however, others may be added equally, 
 pressing. 
 
 II. The prophecies, miracles, language, and con- 
 duct of Jesus Christ, furnish indubitable proofs of his 
 Divinity. 
 
 The Jewish prophets, when about to announce future 
 23 Jer. xvii. 5. 2 i p., n 12 . 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 321 
 
 things, waited till something extraneous roused within 
 them the prophetic spirit, and then plainly indicated 
 that they were animated by a foreign impulse. Not 
 so the Messiah. He prophesied with the same ease, 
 calmness, and composure, as he spoke: the future 
 mysteries and events which he predicted were not sud- 
 denly infused into his mind ; they were familiar objects 
 to him, always present to his view,4heir images always 
 (ifl may so say) existing within himself; all ages to 
 come were prefigured clearly in his capacious intellect. 
 So that, whether he foretold his own sufferings and 
 death, the destruction of the temple, the resurrection 
 of the dead, or the awful solemnities of the day of 
 judgment, he manifested the same undisturbed tran- 
 quillity. 
 
 Thus again, with regard to his miracles, such was 
 his mighty power,^^ that they bore no marks of de- 
 pendance. He stilled the raging of the sea, without any 
 effort. He raised the dead with as great ease as he 
 performed the most common actions. A simple and 
 gentle command caused tempests to cease, and the dead 
 to come forth from their graves : and instead of guard- 
 ing the bystanders against forming too high concep- 
 tions of him on these accounts, he informed them, that 
 whatever wonder was effected by his Father on earth, 
 he likewise performed ; and that his Father’s works 
 were his. He attributed to himself all the grand things 
 he performed. Was this the conduct of a true prophet, 
 if he had been only a prophet ? 
 
 Under the old dispensation, it sometimes pleased 
 God to permit his glory and his power to shine forth 
 in his servants. Thus Enoch was translated to heaven, 
 Elijah was conveyed thither in a fiery chariot, John 
 the Baptist was foretold as the harbinger of God. Yet 
 these were individual circumstances. But in Jesus 
 Christ we have an assemblage of wonders. In him all 
 the different characteristics of a Divine mission, dis- 
 persed amongst the extraordinary men who had formerly 
 been messengers of the Most High, are collected ; and 
 
 Y 
 
322 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 in a manner infinitely more glorious and Divine. He 
 prophesies, but with far more minuteness and subli- 
 mity than John the Baptist nay, he penetrates into 
 the future with more accuracy and clearness than any 
 of the prophets; he appears transfigured on Mount 
 Tabor, and surrounded with more glory than Moses : 
 he ascends to heaven, but with more marks of power 
 and majesty than Elijah : he reproves “ wickedness in 
 high places,^^ and purifies the temple with an unresist- 
 ed energy, assuming the authority of ‘‘ the Lord of that 
 temple.^’ And on all occasions his language comports 
 with his dignity. 
 
 Jesus Christ, we find, is continually representing 
 himself as equal to his father. I and my FatheiV^ 
 says he, are one.^^ He acquaints us that he hath 
 come down from heaven, and that he hath quitted the 
 bosom of God ; that he was before Abraham ; that he 
 was before all things ; that eternal life consists in the 
 knowledge of the Son as well as in the knowledge of 
 the Father; that it is not a servant, but a Son, that 
 abideth ever^®; that if the Son make his people free, 
 then shall they be free indeed. Did any prophets as- 
 sume such strange and authoritative language, and in- 
 stead of rendering glory to God as the author of every 
 good and perfect gift, attribute to their own efficiency 
 the great things which God performed through their 
 instrumentality ? On one occasion, indeed, and but 
 one, I believe Jesus says, that the Father is greater 
 than he. But what a singular acknowledgment is that, 
 if he be not God manifested in the flesh P” Should we 
 not consider as idiotic, or insane, any mere man who 
 should tell us seriously, that the Supreme Being is 
 greater than he ? 
 
 The texts, also, in which our Lord asserts his pre- 
 
 •25 por a summary of the distinct particulars, exceeding twenty* 
 in our Lord’s prophecies, see Talbot’s Analysis of the Holy Bible, 
 book ii. ch. 4. And for a history of the verification of several of 
 them, see Horne’s Introduction, Sup. 1st. edit. pp. 182 — 204. 
 
 John, viii. 35, 42, 58, &c. ; x, 30. John, xvi. 28. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 323 
 
 existence, connected with those in which he affirms his 
 equality with his Father, furnish cogent evidence in 
 favour of his true Divinity. This consequence is at- 
 tempted to be weakened by a perfectly gratuitous hy- 
 pothesis, namely, that he was taken up to heaven for a 
 short time to receive his instruction. Now here it is 
 obvious to remark, that if it be true that Jesus Christ 
 went up into heaven, and came down from heaven a 
 little afterwards, it was incomparably more necessary 
 (to prevent our adoption of erroneous opinions) to 
 mention his ascent than his descent ; yet the Scripture 
 speaks frequently of the latter, never of the former. 
 On this point allow me to lay before you Dr. Abbadie^s 
 plain and unforced illustration. Suppose we met with 
 a stranger who should talk to us after this manner ;~ 
 I came from China; I go to China. Ye shall soon 
 see me return where I was before. I departed from 
 China and landed in this country ; not to do my own 
 business, but that of the Emperor of China. I came to 
 do the will of my Father, even the Emperor of China: 
 He is my own Father^^ ; and no man (here) knoweth my 
 Father but the Son, and they to whom the Son hath 
 revealed him. Lo, I leave this country and go to the 
 Emperor of China, for he sent me. Now that I am to 
 return thither, what is it but that I was sent into this 
 country? He that is of this country speaketh as the 
 men of this country ; but he that has come from China 
 speaketh as one that came from China. In a little 
 while longer ye shall not see me, because I return to 
 my Father.^^ Now what is the natural impression 
 which such language is calculated to make ? Is it, that 
 this man was a mere European, who had spent a few 
 weeks in China, and had caught a glimpse of the Em- 
 peror? Or that he was really a native of China, who 
 expected soon to return thither ; and had peculiar rea- 
 sons for wishing to return, that he might receive the 
 honour due to him as the son of the Emperor ? It would 
 
 Vide John, v. 18. Uarepa idiov, his ovm ox proper father, and 
 Kom. viii. '6'Z, diov viov, his own or proper son. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 324 
 
 be an insult to your understanding to make the appli- 
 cation, to the uniform conduct and repeated declara- 
 tions of our Lord. 
 
 Such conduct and such declarations, were calculated 
 to excite homage and worship ; and how did Jesus 
 Christ receive it? Paul and Barnabas, you will recol- 
 lect, rent their garments when they were taken for 
 gods, and restrained the people who wished to worship 
 them. Peter, also, when the devout Cornelius “ fell 
 down at his feet and worshiped him,’’ forbade him, 
 saying, Stand up ; I myself also am a In 
 
 the same spirit the angel in the Apocalypse, when 
 St. John prostrated himself to worship him, rejected 
 the homage with horror, saying, See thou do it not ; 
 I am a fellow-servant with thee, and with thy brethren 
 who bear testimony to Jesus : worship God But 
 Jesus Christ tranquilly suffered Divine honours to be 
 rendered to him ; commended the faith of the disciples 
 who worshiped him, and who with Thomas called him 
 their Lord and their God upbraided this Thomas 
 with his unbelief, yet suffered his idolatry to pass un re- 
 proved : and even confuted those enemies who contested 
 his own Deity and celestial origin. Was this the way 
 to prove that he was nothing more than man ? 
 
 IJbiquity belongs to none but God ; yet Jesus Christ 
 made promises which it was impossible to fulfil without 
 this perfection. Where two or three are gathered 
 together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” 
 
 .. If 
 
 a man love me, he will keep my words, and my 
 Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and 
 
 29 Acts, xiv. II — 18; x. 25, 26. From this example it is plain 
 that the distinction between supreme and subordinate worship, upon 
 which so much stress has been recently laid, was unknown to the 
 apostles of our Lord. For, it is evident from the story, that Cornelius 
 did not worship Peter, as God, but as the messenger of God : and it 
 is farther evident that Peter thought all external worship, even such 
 as could in no sense be conceived to tend towards a Supreme Object, 
 when paid to a creature, a man, however dignified by ojfice, did infi- 
 nitely prejudice the glory of the CrerUor. 
 
 29 Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 9. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 325 
 
 make our abode with him.^^ I am with you always, 
 even unto the end of the world When Nathanael 
 went to him to ascertain if any good thing could 
 come out of Nazareth/^ Jesus at once described his 
 character; the language of the astonished Jew was, 
 Whence knowest thou me?^^ The reply of Jesus, 
 “ Before Philip called thee when thou wast under the 
 fig-tree, I saw thee,^^ convinced Nathanael that he was 
 ‘‘ the Son of Gob, because it evinced his omnipresence. 
 The Messiah, instead of correcting the mistake (which 
 he would naturally have done, had it been one), said. 
 Because I said unto thee, ^ I saw thee under the fig- 
 tree,^ believest thou ? Thou shalt see greater things than 
 these^’^ and doubtless he did : he might witness many 
 more circumstances that showed how Jesus knew 
 even the thoughts of man^^;’^ and might hear him 
 authoritatively pronounce the forgiveness of sins, though 
 none can forgive sins, but God only^^.^’ 
 
 Indeed, the single circumstance of his never unde- 
 ceiving the Jews, who thought that by calling him- 
 self the Son of God he made himself equal with God,^^ 
 
 Compare Matt, xviii. 20. John, xiv. 23. Matt, xxviii. 20, with 
 Exod. iii. 12; xx. 24. Josh. i. 5, and Jer. i. 6 — 8. The Socinian 
 translators saj the promises in the Gospel “ are to be understood as 
 limited to the apostolic age, and perhaps to the apostles themselves."’ 
 How did the Messiah acquire this temporary omnipresence (say for 
 seventy years), to whom did he resign it, and what notices have we 
 in Scripture of any such resignation? That is, what passages are to 
 be found in Holy Writ which contradict the express declaration in 
 Hebrews, xiii. 8, that “ Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, to-day, 
 and for ever?” Besides, let it be considered that omnipresence is an 
 infinite attribute, and then two things will follow : First, it can never 
 be communicated to a creature, because in that case it would be both 
 finite and not finite ', which is a palpable contradiction. Secondly, 
 Since there can be no intermission of an infinite attribute, if our Lord 
 possessed this omnipresence in the apostolic age (which these gen- 
 tlemen do not deny), he must he omnipresent in all ages. The reason- 
 ings which would set aside the declarations of omnipresence in 
 Matthew would just as effectually invalidate that in Exodus, xx. 24. 
 
 John, i. 48 — 51. 
 
 Malt. xii. 25. Luke, vi. 8. John, ii. 24, 25 ; vi. 64. 
 
 Mark, ii. 7—11. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 326 
 
 is sufficient with inquirers of unbiassed minds, to set 
 the question at rest. This was the cause, at least the 
 ostensive cause, of all the maltreatment he experienced. 
 It was for this he was apprehended, and tried as a 
 blasphemer. The high priest adjured him most solemnly 
 “ by the living God, that he would tell them whether 
 he was the Christ, the Son of God^ clearly showing, 
 on the one hand, that in the expectation of the Jews 
 the Messiah was to possess Divine attributes ; and, on 
 the other, that none but a Divine Messiah could with- 
 out blasphemy assume the title of the Son of God.’^ 
 If these were mistakes, why did not Jesus seize this 
 opportunity of correcting them, especially when by so 
 doing he would probably have avoided crucifixion ? but, 
 instead of this, he persisted in what the high priest, 
 as well as the other Jews, deemed blasphemy^®; was 
 therefore thought deserving of death, and suffered in 
 consequence. It is admitted by all Christians (and as 
 far as I know by all unbelievers), that he suffered 
 unjustly: yet how could this be, if he were not what 
 he professed himself to be, the Son of God,^^ equal to 
 his Father, and possessing glory with him before the 
 world existed If he were a mere man, his life was 
 a life of imposture ; during his whole ministry he 
 usurped honours to which he was not entitled ; he died 
 as an impostor, and kept up the delusion to the last by 
 even deceiving a fellow-malefactor, who called him 
 
 Lord,^^ and heaven his kingdom,^’ with vain pro- 
 mises of future happiness^®, which he had no power to 
 confer. 
 
 In opposition to this induction of particulars there 
 cannot, as I conceive, be more than one argument set 
 up, with any semblance of reason. It may be said, if 
 Jesus Christ were really Divine, why did he not give 
 such palpable evidences of it as could be neither 
 doubted nor disputed? The answer is obvious. Had 
 he furnished convincing proofs of his Godhead, they 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 63. Matt. xxvi. 65. 
 
 _ John, xvii. 5, Luke, xxii. 43. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 327 
 
 would not have been verbal declarations, but real ex- 
 hibitions of his majesty and unlimited power ; these 
 would of course have restrained the Jews from putting 
 him to death, agreeably to the assertion of Paul, “Had 
 the princes of this world known, they would not have 
 crucified the Lord of Glory^ and in that case the prin- 
 cipal object for which he visited this world, that of 
 “ taking away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” would 
 have been defeated. 
 
 I have just said there cannot be more than one oppos- 
 ing argument set up with any semblance of reason, 
 because an argument of which Socinians are very fond, 
 namely, that because a doctrine is “ not revealed in the 
 Gospels it is not true,” is not only inapplicable to the 
 present question, but is as trifling and childish as can 
 well be conceived. For what does it amount to? Just 
 this : If a proposition is not to be found in a certain 
 assigned portion of Scripture, it is not divinely revealed 
 in any other part of Scripture ! How logically conclu- 
 sive! Must every proposition of revealed truth be 
 condensed into every portion of Holy Writ? Jesus 
 Christ is no where, I think, in the four Gospels, called 
 a High priest: will these gentlemen therefore affirm, 
 that he is not “ a High priest for ever, after the order 
 of Melchizedec?” Nor, as far as I recollect, is he any 
 where in those Gospels denominated a mediator : will 
 they, therefore, deny that “ there is one mediator be- 
 tween God and man, the man Christ Jesus?” Most of 
 them admit his mediation ; though for one allusion to 
 that, in the New Testament, there will be found at 
 least twenty to his Divinity. 
 
 III. The testimony of the apostles is decidedly in 
 favour of the Divinity of our Lord. 
 
 Stephen, an apostle, and the first martyr, when 
 dying, invokes the “ Lord Jesus to receive his spirit.” 
 The apostles in general perform their miracles not in the 
 name of Jehovah, but in that of “ Jesus of Nazareth 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 7, 8. See also, to this effect, the striking language of 
 our Lord in Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 328 
 
 and they uniformly ascribe to him the epithets, the 
 attributes, and the works which are peculiar to Deity. 
 They tell us that, conformable to prophecy, ‘‘ his name 
 is Emmanuel, God ivith Moreover John turned 
 
 many to the Lord their “ Christ is Lord of 
 
 ^^^42 shall all stand before the judgment seat 
 
 of Christ; and every one give an account of himself to 
 God^^.^^ The second maD is the Lord from heaven"^, 
 In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity bodily ; 
 and he is the head of all principality and power 
 J^sus Christ is Lord of Glory. ‘‘ For by him. all 
 THINGS WERE CREATED, that are in heaven and that are 
 on earth, visible and invisible ; whether they be thrones 
 or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all things 
 u^ere created by him, and for him ; and he is before all 
 things, and by him all things subsist'*®.’^ He is the 
 first and the last, and he that lived and became dead, 
 and lives for ever and ever, and has the keys of death and 
 hades^'^.^^ The Lamb is Lord of lords, and King of 
 kings, a peculiar title of Jehovah searcheth 
 
 the rems and the hearts, and will give to every one 
 according to his works He knows the works'^ and 
 conduct of all churches^^. “ He promises to bestow 
 upon his people eternal life^^ while he will '^con- 
 sume the unrighteous with the breath of his moutK’^.^^ 
 
 40 Matt. i. 23. 4i L^^e, i. 16, T6. 42 ^cts, x. 36. 
 
 43 Rom. xiv. 10, 12. 44 i Cor. xv. 47. 
 
 4s Col. ii. 9, 10. See also the initial salutation in Paul’s Epistle 
 to the Galatians, “ Paul, an apostle (or one sent) not from man, nor 
 by man, but by Jesus Christ.” And let it be farther recollected that 
 the apostles usually mention Jesus Christ by the title of K nptoc “ the 
 Lord,” the very word which in the Septuagint (from which they 
 quoted) is employed as equivalent to Jehovah. This title Zanchie 
 assures us is, “ in the writings of the apostles, simply and absolutely 
 ascribed to Christ, at least a thousand times,” and generally so as to 
 import necessary existence, 
 
 4® 1 Cor. ii. 8. James, ii. 1. Col. i. 16, 17. 
 
 47 Rev. i. 17, 18. 
 
 43 Rev. xvii, 14, Deut. x. 17. 1 Tim. vi. 15,. 
 
 4^> Rev, ii, 2. ^ Rev. ii. 2, 9, 13, 19; iii. 8, 15, 
 
 John, X 28, 2 Thes. ii. 8. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 329 
 
 And he was the Logos or word of God, who was made 
 ‘‘ flesh, and dwelt among us,’^ and of whom John says, 
 “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
 with God, and the Word was God; all things were 
 made by Him, and without him was not a single thing 
 made that was made^^.^^ 
 
 Quotations tending to establish the same point might 
 be extended almost indefinitely ; but if the real object 
 of inquiry be to arrive at truth, the preceding will be 
 quite sufficient. Here again, indeed, the merits of the 
 question might be very safely made to turn upon the 
 text last cited. For, taking Aoyo^* (a word not borrowed 
 from the writings of Plato or of Philo, as some pretend, 
 but from the Jewish Scriptures to signify, as it 
 doubtless does in this passage, the divine and substan- 
 tial Word of God, the Messiah, we are hence assured, 
 1st, That he was in the beginning; that is, that he 
 
 John, i. 1, 3, 14. Consult also Eph. v. 5. 1 Thes. iv. 14, 
 
 2 Thes. i. 12. 1 Tim. v. 21. Tit. ii. 13. 2 Pet. i. 1 ; and Jude ; 
 applying to most of them in the original the established doctrine of 
 the Greek article. To diminish the force of these proofs from the 
 language of the apostles, I have been reminded that in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, if not in their Epistles, they usually call Jesus Christ a 
 man; and farther, that they usually in argumentation speak of him as 
 a man ; whence it is inferred that they knew not that he was Divine, 
 but acknowledged that he was a man. Here, it is obvious to reply, 
 as Dr. Horsley has long ago done, that “ according to the faith which 
 I defend, Christ is truly a man as well as God. It is no wonder, 
 therefore, that he should be mentioned as a man, when nothing in the 
 narrative, or in the argument, requires that his Divinity should be 
 particularly brought to view. To the first argument in particular, it 
 is a farther answer, that it was the style of all the sacred writers, and 
 it is the style of all writers, to name things rather after their appear- 
 ances than their internal forms. The tempter, you know, in tire 
 Mosaic history of the fall, is called the serpent; and is not once 
 mentioned by any other name. The three angels, who appeared to 
 Abraham in the form of men, are called men, throughout the story. 
 To the second argument in particular, it is a farther answer, that, as 
 the scheme of man’s redemption required the incarnation of the Son 
 of God, the apostles would often find it necessary, in reasoning upon 
 that scheme, and in argumentation in defence of it, to insist on his 
 humanity.” See also Abbadie on the Divinity, sect. vi. chap. 3, 6co. 
 
 Paikhurst’s Greek Lexicon. Aoyog, xvi. 
 
330 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 already was and did exist when things began to be 
 created. 2dly, That in that state of his existence, 
 before the creation of the world, he was partaker of the 
 Divine glory and happiness. 3dly, That he was God 
 by participation of the Divine nature with the Father. 
 4thly, That not a single heing {ov^e ev) was made with- 
 out him : he made all creatures without exception ; and 
 consequently he is not a creature 
 
 In estimating the force of these texts, let it be con- 
 sidered that they are selected from the writings of men 
 whose great business was to destroy idolatry, and im- 
 plant the true worship of God upon its ruins; and that 
 it w^as foretold their description of the way, the truth, 
 and the life^V’ should be so obvious that the way- 
 faring men, though fools, should not err therein 
 If Jesus Christ were a mere man, the predictions of 
 the prophets are in this respect, again, not accom- 
 plished, and we are yet left to wander without any 
 infallible guide ; for on that supposition, the Bible, 
 instead of being so plain and perspicuous that he 
 
 The followers of Socinus are frequently introducing new trans- 
 lations and new interpretations of this passage : but if we allow them 
 to be received, we must also admit two very extraordinary and almost 
 incredible things, namely, that Ignatius and others who lived very 
 near John’s time, and were therefore most likely to know his mean- 
 ing, should so widely mistake it ; and that all Christians (or at least 
 the great body) should err so extremely in an important article of 
 faith for almost one thousand six hundred years, that no man under- 
 stood this text rightly before Socinus. This latter consideration 
 would be enough of itself to startle any modest man : but Socinus 
 seems more inclined to boast of it ; for, when speaking of this very 
 verse, he says, “ Quorum verus, sensus omnes prorsus, qui quidem 
 extarent, explanatores latuisse videtur.” 
 
 Another text equally decisive with the above, and which also the 
 rejectors of the Divinity of Christ have endeavoured to weaken by a 
 most extraordinary construction, is Phil. ii. 5 — 10. For a very 
 masterly refutation of their strained interpretation, see ‘‘ Ahbadieon 
 the Divinity of Jesus Christ f sect. iii. chap. 7. This book, w'hich I 
 never saw till just as my third edition was passing through the press, 
 I beg to recommend most cordially, as, on the whole, the most valu- 
 able and invulnerable work on the subject I have read. 
 
 John, xiv. 0. Is. xxxv.8. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 331 
 
 who runs may read and understand it, if he read with 
 singleness of heart, is the most obscure and delusive 
 book in the world : and the Christian dispensation, in- 
 stead of having eradicated idolatry, has given birth to 
 an idolatry, more refined, it is true, but at the same time 
 more prevalent, more formed for universality and perma- 
 nence, than any idolatry that ever before existed 
 There is another class of texts which become divested 
 of all their propriety and importance, and sink into 
 mere trifling, if the Divinity of Jesus Christ be denied : 
 I mean those which represent to us in such glowing 
 terms the love and condescension of the Redeemer. 
 If Christ were in the form of God, equal with God, 
 and very God then it was an act of infinite love 
 and condescension in him to become man and die for 
 us. But if he were no more than a creature, surely it 
 was no such amazing condescension to undertake so 
 noble and sublime a work as being the Saviour of 
 mankind : a work which would advance him to be 
 Lord and Judge of the world ; — cause him to be for ever 
 admired, reverenced, and adored by men and angels, 
 — and highly exalted and glorified by God himself. 
 If either the work of redemption was too stupendous 
 for a creature to undertake, or the honours of it were 
 too high for a creature to aspire after ; then, certainly, 
 the very notion of condescension is merged and lost, 
 upon every hypothesis which does not make Christ 
 truly and properly God, God eternal. In fact, to 
 
 Being' obliged to regard brevity, I have omitted all those reason- 
 ings in favour of the Divinity of our Lord, which are deduced from 
 his miraculous conception. To such as wish to consider this branch 
 of the argument, I would beg to recommend the striking passage from 
 Cassian, quoted by Hooker in § 32 of his Discourse on Justification, 
 Archbishop Tillotson’s 45th and 46th Sermons, a very able pamphlet 
 entitled “ Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God,” by Mr. R. Alliot of 
 Nottingham, and Bishop Horsley’s Sermon on the Incarnation,” 
 published in his most interesting and decisive volume of ‘‘ Tracts in 
 controversy with Dr. Priestley.” The doctrine of the miraculous 
 conception was asserted and defended by Justin Martyr. See his 
 2d Apol. $ 28,30, 41,43. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 332 
 
 become man, to suffer and die for the redemption of 
 the world, and to be made the Lord and Judge both of 
 the quick and of the dead, can be an act of condescend- 
 ing love and goodness only in God. So that to deny 
 the Divinity o f Christ alters the very foundation of Chris- 
 tianity, and destroys all the powerful arguments of the 
 love, humility, and condescension of oui* Lord, which 
 are the peculiar motives of the GospeP®.’’ 
 
 IV. The prevailing opinion among Christians dur- 
 ing the first three centuries was, that Jesus Christ was 
 really a Divine Person, and not a mere man. 
 
 I assume it here as a position which cannot with any 
 justice be disputed, that the opinions held by the ma- 
 jority of real and pious Christians in the early ages, 
 when, as Jerome finely observes, “ the blood of Christ 
 was yet warm in the breasts of Christians, and the faith 
 and spirit of religion were Brisk and vigorous,’’ were 
 those that were taught by the apostles, and constituted 
 the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. 
 The observable harmony and unanimity of the several 
 churches in their most public acts is a circumstance 
 which irresistibly confirms this position. It is scarcely 
 probable that any large church of those early ages 
 should vary, in things of moment, from the apostolical 
 doctrines : and it is quite absurd to imagine that all 
 the churches should combine in the same error, and 
 conspire together to corrupt the doctrine of Christ. 
 This argument is much and justly insisted upon both 
 by Irenaeus and Tertullian against the heretics of their 
 respective times®®. They both affirm that the true dis- 
 ciple (that is, according to their own interpretation, 
 one who believes that He who wrought their salvation 
 upon earth was God) ‘Gs a follower of the 'public doc- 
 trine of the church.” 
 
 Now, they are well known facts, that soon after the 
 middle of the first century (that is, about A. D. 60 and 
 72), Cerinthus and Ebion impugned the doctrine of 
 
 Sherlock’s Vindication of the Defence of Stillingfleet, p. 268. 
 
 Jren. 1. iii. c. 3 ; 1. iv. c. ^3 — 59. Tqitul. Praescripi. c. 20, 28» 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 333 
 
 the Divinity of Christ ; that John wrote his Gospel 
 with a view to refute their errors; and that both were 
 condemned for openly impugning- this doctrine, by 
 the whole church at that time, and frequently after- 
 wards, before the establishment of Christianity by Con- 
 stantine ; this doctrine being then reckoned a funda- 
 mental and essential part of the Gospel faith. It is 
 also equally notorious, that Theodotus, Artemon, Be- 
 rillus, Paul of Samosata, and Arins, did in succession, 
 before the year 320, deny the proper Divmity of Jesus 
 Christ in a greater or less degree, making him a crea- 
 ture ; that they were all in their turns censured by the 
 church : the sentiments of the latter, for example, being 
 strongly censured at the council of Nice, by three hun- 
 dred and fifteen out of three hundred and eighteen 
 bishops, the wisest, worthiest, and every way most 
 excellent, which the Clq^slian world could then fur- 
 nish called together out of Europe, Asia, and Africa; 
 constituting a free council under no secular influence, 
 or awe of superior human control. Reverting to the 
 first of these deniers of Christ’s Divinity, the substance 
 of his opinion was, that Jesus and Christ were two 
 persons : Jesus a mere man, conceived, in the natural 
 way, of Joseph and Mary; Christ a celestial spirit, 
 which descended from above, and resided in the man 
 Jesus, not constantly, but occasionally. Here the 
 proper Divinity of our Lord was denied ; and this was 
 condemned, as error and heresy, by the bishops of 
 Asia, and others of Cerinthus’s contemporaries, who 
 went in a body to St. John, and importuned him to 
 bear his testimony against these sentiments^^ Now the 
 only question for consideration relative to Cerinthus is 
 this. Was he the first who truly understood that 
 doctrine of the new religion which respected the person 
 of its founder; or had the great body of the churches 
 which were converted by the apostles received from 
 them the true doctrines, and was Cerinthus the first 
 
 Euseb. de Vit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 7, 9. 
 
 Victorin in Assoc. Bibl. PP. tom. i. p. 576, Hieronjra. Prolog, 
 in Matt. p. 3. Opp. tom. iv. Ed. Bened. 
 
334 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 who had sufficient boldness to promulgate erroneous 
 sentiments? This question admits but of one rational 
 answer ; and that will accord with the decision of the 
 primitive Christians against Cerinthus. Similar obser- 
 vations will apply, mutatis mutandis, to Ebion, and the 
 other heresiarchs down to Arius: I beg to confirm 
 them by a remarkable concession of Mr. Bayle^s. He 
 allows that, ‘‘ in the days of the apostles or their dis- 
 ciples, it had been easy to detect those who gave the 
 Scriptures a wrong interpretation, because the infalli- 
 bility of the apostles (who might have been consulted 
 by word or by letter), and the fresh remembrance of 
 the verbal instructions they had given their disciples 
 and pastors, whom themselves had consecrated, fur- 
 nished ready means for clearing any doubt, or disputed 
 point®^.^^ 
 
 It would be easy to cite pi^ofs that the sentiment of 
 whole churches in the primitive times agreed, on the 
 subject of Christ’s Divinity, with what is now denomi- 
 nated the orthodox doctrine. But I shall select only 
 two. And first let me direct your attention to the 
 epistle written by the church of Smyrna to other 
 churches, in which they describe the sufferings and 
 martyrdom of Polycarp ; for there is related this re- 
 markable circumstance: viz. That as soon as Polycarp 
 was dead the Jews suggested to the heathen judge the 
 expediency of not permitting the Christians to take the 
 martyr’s body, ‘‘ lest they should forsake their crucified 
 master, and begin to worship Polycarp,” not consi- 
 dering (add those early Christians taught by a bishop 
 who was the disciple of St. John) that we can never 
 either forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of 
 all such as shall be saved throughout the whole world, 
 the righteous for the ungodly, or worship any other. 
 For him as the Son of God, ive worship ; but the mar- 
 tvrs we only love, as the disciples and followers of our 
 Lord^^” 
 
 Bajle’s Sup. to Phil. Comment, p. 692. 
 
 Sm^'in, Eccles. Epist, ap. Euseb. lib. iv. cap. 15. Wake’a 
 Fathers, p. X50. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 335 
 
 To this remarkable testimony allow me to add that 
 of Cains, who, in his book called The Labyrinth,^^ 
 written against Artemon, in refutation of the assertion 
 that Artemon^s doctrine was coeval with Christianity, 
 points first to the then well-known sentiments of Justin, 
 Miltiades, Tatian, Clemens, Irenceiis, Melito, in favour of 
 Chrises Divinity, and then asks, “ How many Psalms, 
 Hymns, and Canticles were written from the beginning 
 by the brethren, and transcribed by the faithful, in 
 which Christ the Word of God is celebrated for no 
 other than God indeed? And these being adopted in 
 the churches, how is it possible that our ancestors until 
 the time of Victor should have so preached, when the 
 true ecclesiastical sentiment for so many years is cer- 
 tainly known unto all the world ? How can they thus 
 shamelessly report of Victor, when they know/br cer- 
 tainty that Victor excommunicated Theodotus the Tan- 
 ner, who denied the Divinity of Christ, because he w^as 
 the first who affirmed that Christ was a mere man? If 
 Victor, as they report, had been of their blasphemous 
 opinion, how is it likely that he would have excommu- 
 nicated Theodotus®^ ?^^ 
 
 Having thus shown that in the early ages the denial 
 of Chrises Divinity was condemned as heretical and 
 dangerous, while whole churches avowed the great 
 truth, and formed their prayer and praise accordingly ; 
 I shall proceed to inform you what were the senti- 
 ments of the chief antenicene Fathers with respect to 
 
 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 28. In farther describing 
 these early heretics, Caius shows that there was an awful similarity 
 between their practices, and those of many modern rejectors of 
 Christ’s Divinity. “ They corrupted the Holy Scriptures without 
 any reverence ; they rejected the canon of the ancient faith ; they 
 remain ignorant of Christ, not searching simply what the Holy Scrip- 
 ture affirms, but exercising themselves and sifting it syllogistically 
 to impugn the Divinity of Christ. So, if any reasoned with them 
 out of Holy Writ, forthwith they demanded whether it were a con- 
 junct or a simple kind of syllogism They abuse the art of infi- 
 
 dels to the establishing their heretical opinion, and corrupt the sim- 
 plicity of the Scriptures. To prove that I do not affirm this untruly, 
 examine their copies; compare them one with another, and note their 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 336 
 
 this important doctrine ; that you may know how they, 
 w ho were doubtless better acquainted with the original 
 language of the New Testament than we are, inter- 
 preted it; and may see how completely their senti- 
 ments accord with those now maintained by a very 
 great proportion of pious men. 
 
 I quote first from Ignatius, who wrote, at latest, 
 about the year 107. Be not led aside (says he) by 
 strange doctrines, nor by antiquated tales, which are 
 unprofitable. For, if w^e yet live according to Judaism, 
 it is equivalent to declaring that we have not accepted 
 grace; for the most holy prophets lived according to 
 Christ Jesus. And for that cause were they perse- 
 cuted, being inspired by the grace of Christ that the un- 
 believers might be convinced that there is one God who 
 hath manifested himself by his Son Jesus Christ, who 
 is his Eternal Word^.” 
 
 Justin Martyr has the following passage, pre- 
 served by Dr. Grabe: When man’s nature had con- 
 tracted corruption, it w'as necessary that he who would 
 save it should do away the principle of corruption. 
 But this could not be done without uniting essential life 
 with the nature so corrupted, to do away the corrup- 
 tion, and ever after to immortalize the corrupt nature. 
 Wherefore it was meet that the Word should become 
 incarnate to deliver us from the death of natural cor- 
 ruption 
 
 The same writer, in one of his Apologies,” says, 
 
 The pagans tax us with atheism ; and we frankly 
 
 contrariety. The books of Asclepiades agree not with those of Theo- 
 dotus; nor those of Hermophilus with either: nor are the copies of 
 
 Apollonius at concord among themselves Either these persons 
 
 persuade themselves that the Scriptures were not indited by the 
 Holy Spirit, and in that case they are infidels; or else they think 
 themselves loiser than the Holy Spirit, thus showing themselves pos- 
 sessed of a devil. Such things they cannot deny, because we possess 
 them in their writings : nor can they show us who instructed them, 
 who delivered them suvh Scriptures, or whence they translated their 
 copies.” 
 
 Ignat, ad Magnes. s. viii. 
 
 Grab. Spicileg. vol. ii. p. 17. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 337 
 
 confess the charge, that with respect to the gods in 
 worship among you we are atheists. But we are far 
 otherwise in respect of the most true God, the Father 
 of righteousness, purity, and every virtue, a God 
 infinitely removed from the least mixture or spot of 
 evil : n, and his only begotten Son, together with 
 
 the Spirit, who spake by the prophets, we worship and 
 adore : and our way of worshiping is in spirit and in 
 truth 
 
 iRENiEus treats very forcibly and fully respecting the 
 Deity of Christ; but I shall only extract two passages. 
 After remarking that the Son of God, and Word of the 
 Father, became man that he might “give salvation to 
 his own creature, he proceeds thus : “ Therefore, as I 
 said before, he united man to God, For if it were not 
 man that should overcome the adversary of man, the 
 enemy would not have been rightly vanquished : and, 
 on the other hand, if it were not God to give the sal- 
 vation, we could not be firmly possessed of it. Besides, 
 if man had not been united to God, he could never 
 have been partaker of incorruption. So it was neces- 
 sary that a mediator between God and man should 
 bring both together into amity and concord by his own 
 proximity to both, that so he might present man to 
 God, and notify God to man^.^^ The same Father, 
 when speaking of the miracles which were wrought in 
 his time, assures us they were effected “not by enchant- 
 ments, or by invocation of angels, but by calling on the 
 name of Jesus Christ.^^ This, by the way, is farther 
 manifest from the prayer for the Energumens, in the 
 eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions, which is 
 
 Just. Apol. ii. § 6. See also Dial, cum Trjp. § 17, and 28, 
 where Justin illustrates the generation of the Son of God, bj a refe- 
 rence “ to fire, which, without diminution of its substance, kindles 
 another.” “ God of God, as fire of fire.” 
 
 Irenaeus, iii. c. 18; 1. ii. c. 55. It may not be amiss to add that 
 Irenaeus contends, in lib. iv. cap. 52, ** that they who make Christ 
 the Son of Joseph attain neither remission of sins, nor the adoption 
 of the sons of God, nor so much as the right of a blessed resurrec- 
 tion.” This is also testified by Feuardentius. 
 
 Z 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 338 
 
 directed personally to Christ under the title of the 
 only begotten God.^^ 
 
 Athenagoras, who flourished in the second century, 
 speaks of Christians as men that made small account 
 of the present life, but were intent only upon contem- 
 plating- God, and knowing his Word, who is from him ; 
 what union the Son has with the Father, what commu* 
 nion the Father has with the Son; what the Spirit is, 
 and what the union and distinction are of such so 
 united, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father^^.^^ 
 
 Tertullian understood the phrase Son of God as 
 applied to Christ to mean the same as God of God; as 
 is obvious from many parts of his writings'^k There 
 is still extant a creed of his, which runs thus: ‘‘We 
 believe in one God ; but under this dispensation, which 
 we call the economy, that the one God hath a So7i, ivhich is 
 h is Word, who proceeded from him, and by ivhom all things 
 tvere made. He was sent from the Father to the Virgin, 
 and was born of her both God and man. Son of ynan 
 and Son of God — who afterwards, according to his pro- 
 mise, sent from the Father the Holy Ghost, the Com- 
 forter, the Sanctifier of the faith of those who believe 
 in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This 
 is the rule which has come doiim to us from the beginning 
 of the GospeP^. And again, “What is it that the Gospel 
 has done, what is the substance of the New Testament, 
 extending the Law and the Prophets as far as John, if, 
 from thenceforwards. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 three persons, are not believed to make one God’^.f^^^ 
 
 Athenag. Legat. 1. xi. p. 46. Ed. Ox. 
 
 See especially Tertul. Apol. c. 21. 
 
 Tert. adv. Prax. c. 2, p. 5, 6. Welchman Ed, 
 
 Tert. adv. Prax. c. 31, p. 102. The Collection of Creeds and 
 Doxologies given by Bingham, and indeed many of those that are 
 drawn together by Whiston, furnish ample proof of the early preva- 
 lence of this momentous truth. So, again, many of the early hymns. 
 One of these, composed in the second century, has been transferred 
 into the Liturgy of the Church of England. It begins with — “ Glory 
 be to God on High !” and occurs just before the benediction in the 
 Communion service. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 339 
 
 Origen, also, in his writings against Celsus, fur- 
 nishes many assertions which are unequivocal and de- 
 cisive. Thus, he affirms: first, that Christ was the 
 uncreated Son of God : secondly, that the Maker of the 
 world is to be worshiped : thirdly, that Christ is the 
 Maker of the world. He maintains a precise distinc- 
 tion between creatures and their Creator; and he brings 
 them together into comparison as to the respect that is 
 due to them. He next says that we ought not to wor- 
 ship any creatures, but only the Creator : that we can 
 only lift up our eyes to the Creator of all the magni- 
 ficence of nature to see whom we ought to admire, 
 serve, and adore. Then he proclaims Jesus Christ as 
 the Creator of the Universe; that God working with 
 him said, at the Creation, Let there be light; let us 
 make man.^’ Nay, he is yet more distinct in the state- 
 ment of his opinions. He distinguishes between the 
 Divine and human natures of Jesus Christ, and refers 
 the necessity of their union to the required efficacy of 
 the sacrifice or atonement. He says that the Father is 
 indeed eminently God ; but that the worship of the 
 Son is not an inferior but a Divine worship : he applies 
 the same expression to the adoration of Jesus Christ 
 by the Magi, that he does to the worship of God ; he 
 speaks of the Father and the Son being jointly wor- 
 shiped as one God ; he admits the worship of the Son 
 in nis distinct individual character; attributing to him 
 immutability, omnipresence, and other qualities which 
 are characteristic only of the Most High ; and calling 
 him the Eternal Word, the Son and Power of the Eter- 
 nal God'^'^. 
 
 Cyprian, when arguing against the invalidity of 
 heretical baptisms, inquires how the subject of such 
 baptism can become the temple of God, saying, If 
 
 See Mr. F. Cunningham’s Hulsean Prize Essay on the Books 
 of Origen against Celsus, p. 40, 41. See also for some striking pas- 
 sages, Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sec. ii. cap. 9 ; to which I may also 
 add here, that even Celsus concedes that the true Messiah was to be 
 the Son of God* 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 340 
 
 he be thereby made the temple of God, I would ask of 
 what Divine person is it ? Is it of God the Creator ? 
 He could not be so, if he believed not in him. Is it of 
 Christ? Neither can he be his temple, while he denies 
 Christ to he God! Is it then of the Holy Spirit? But 
 since the three are one, how can the Holy Spirit have 
 friendship with him that is at enmity with either Father 
 or Son’^?’^ This Father abounds with passages in 
 which the Divinity of Christ is asserted. 
 
 Novatian expresses himself as follows: If God 
 the Father save none but through God, then no one 
 can be saved by God the father, who does not confess 
 that Christ is God ; in whom, and by whom, the Father 
 promises to give salvation. Wherefore very justly, 
 whosoever acknowledges him to be God is in the way 
 to be saved by Christ who is God ; and whosoever does 
 not acknowledge him to be God forfeits salvation, be- 
 cause he cannot otherwise have it than in Christ as 
 
 Dionysius, bishop of Rome, after censuring Mar- 
 cion^s iritheistic doctrine as diabolical, says, Nor are 
 they less to blame, who think the Son a creature, and 
 who suppose the Lord to have come into being, as if he 
 were one of the things that were really made’k’^ 
 
 His cotemporary, Dionysius of Alexandria (both 
 flourishing about A. D. 259), expressed himself thus: 
 
 The Father being eternal, the Son must be eternal 
 too. Light of Light. — The names mentioned by me are 
 undivided and inseparable: when I named the Father 
 before I mentioned the Son, I signified the Son in the 
 Father. If any of my false accusers suspect that be- 
 cause I called God creator and former of all things, I 
 made him creator of Christ, let him consider that I 
 before styled him Father, and so the Son was included 
 in hini'^A 
 
 The case of this Dionysius of Alexandria evinces 
 very plainly of what great moment the belief of Christas 
 
 Cyprian, Ep. 73 ad Jubaian. Novat. c. 12, p. 36. 
 
 ■^7 Apud Athanas. vol. i. p. 231. 
 
 7® Dionys. Alex, apud Athanas. de Sententia Dionysii, p. 254. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 341 
 
 Divinity was reckoned in the middle of the third cen- 
 tury. In controversy with the Sabellians, he expressed 
 himself rather unwarily^ and thence became suspected 
 of leaning too far towards the opposite extreme, and of 
 holding inadequate notions of the Deity of Christ. 
 Such was the jealousy with which this doctrine was 
 guarded, that the whole Christian world were thrown 
 into alarm on account of the supposed heresy of so 
 eminent a man as this Dionysius. Complaint was 
 brought from Egypt as far as Italy : and though the 
 Bishop of Rome had not at that time any authority 
 over the Bishop of Alexandria, the aged prelate of the 
 latter place made knowm to' the whole world through 
 the medium of the Bishop of Rome, that he never in- 
 tended the least injury to the Divinity of Christ, or 
 to his consubstantiality ; but himself believed them, as 
 sincerely and fully as any other man coukF®.’^ 
 
 That these were not the sentiments of a few indivi- 
 duals, but of the great body of the Christian church in 
 the primitive ages, is evident both from the remarks 
 which precede these quotations, and from the testi- 
 mony of cotemporary heathen authors®^ In a former 
 letter I laid before you two frequently cited passages 
 from Lucian and Pliny from which it appears that 
 the grand crime of the first Christians consisted in 
 singing hymns to Christ as unto a God” It was for 
 
 See Waterland on the Trinity, p. 352, Ed. 1800. Consult also 
 (since I have been obliged to omit many quotations from Barnabas, 
 Polycarp, Theophilus, Clemens Alexandrinus, &c.) for a more full 
 account of the opinions of the Christians of the first three centuries 
 respecting the Divinity of Christ, Abp. Wake’s “ Apostolical Fa- 
 thers Mr. Bingham’s Origiues Ecclesiasticae, book x. ch. 4, and 
 book xiii. ch. 2 ; Bishop Horsley’s “ Tracts in Controversy with 
 Dr. Priestley, upon the Historical Question of the Belief of the First 
 Ages in our Lord’s Divinity,” and Mr. Badcock’s deservedly cele- 
 brated articles in confutation of Dr. Priestley, in the Monthly Review 
 for 1783. 
 
 I might adduce the authority of Socinus himself, who assured his 
 disciples that to worship Christ was the ancient and universal practice 
 of saints and martyrs. Ad Matt. Radec. Epist. 3, p. 391. 
 
 See Letter IX. 
 
342 DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 their obstinate adherence to this idolatrous worship, as 
 the heathens deemed it, that they were persecuted and 
 brought to martyrdom. Now if this were a calumny, 
 which, if they had not rendered Divine honours to 
 Jesus Christ, it must have been, they would not have 
 rested quietly under it, especially when its consequences 
 were so dreadful. They would have reiterated again 
 and again, We do not ivorship Jesus Christ, as you 
 suppose : we celebrate his memory and his virtues, it 
 is true ; but we consider him as merely a creature, and 
 therefore never transfer to him the worship due to God 
 alone/^ The admirable apologists of Christianity, in 
 the early ages, eagerly seized and refuted every the 
 slightest calumny : yet upon this momentous point, in 
 which, if Jesus Christ had not been God, their conduct 
 would have been most odious and censurable, they 
 attempted no defence. They, who could not be per- 
 suaded to bend to the statue of the Caesars, justified by 
 their silence the accusation of adoring a crucified male- 
 factor. They would not offer incense to idols, but 
 affirmed that whatever was exalted above the stand- 
 ard of civil worship (or respect) in imitation of the 
 Divine excellency was directly made an idol®-; yet 
 they worshiped one who had died ignominiously ; and, 
 confiding in strength which he would impart to them, 
 despised the malice of their enemies, and the wrath of 
 emperors, and cheerfully submitted to the most agoniz- 
 ing sufferings, terminated only by death, rather than 
 attempt to wipe off the reproach of adoring the male- 
 factor Jesus. Admit that Jesus is the Christ the 
 son of God,^’ that though dead he is alive for ever- 
 more,^’ and that he is still head over all things to the 
 church,” dwelling in all hearts by faith,” and ena- 
 bling his faithful disciples in all things to be more 
 than conquerors through him that loved them®®,” and 
 the conduct of the martyrs of the primitive times is in- 
 telligible and defensible: deny it, and you reduce them 
 
 Vide Tert. de Idol. c. 15. Greg. Naz. Or. in Nat. Chris. 
 
 83 Rom. viii. 35, 37. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 343 
 
 to a level with idiots ; and have moreover to account 
 for the remarkable phenomenon of a church whose 
 foundations were laid in error, which was supported 
 by enthusiasm and folly, but opposed by learning, 
 philosophy, and the strongest secular power, being 
 built up^’ notwithstanding, and becoming the joy 
 and rejoicing of the whole earth.” 
 
 Here, then, I beg to close the evidence, not because 
 there is not more to produce, but because I regard the 
 producing of more as totally unnecessary. The Jewish 
 prophets foretold that the Messiah would be the 
 Mighty God,” God with us,” — John the precursor 
 of Jesus was the harbinger of the Most High,” — 
 Jesus Christ himself asserted his equality with the 
 Father, — his apostles ascribed to him the works and 
 attributes of Deity, — the great body of professing Chris- 
 tians in the first three centuries lived and died in the 
 persuasion that he was ‘‘ one with God,” — the primi- 
 tive martyrs resigned their lives in attestation of this 
 great truth, and w hile they suffered rejoiced in God 
 their Sainour and they derived their conviction from 
 the personal instruction of the apostles, or from the 
 perusal of the word of God. On these grounds we 
 affirm that the doctrine is true. If it were not, it would 
 follow that the most diligent perusers of that book 
 which is given to be a lamp unto our feet, and a light 
 unto our paths^^” have lost the truth, while Mahome- 
 tans, who do not read the Bible, have found it: for if 
 Jesus Christ be not God, Mahomet has described his 
 character more correctly than the apostles. This is his 
 language : They are infidels who declare that God is 
 Christ: Christ the son of Mary is no more than God^s 
 envoy. Christians say Christ is the son of God ; how 
 are they infatuated : far be it from God that he should 
 have a Son. Jesus is no other than a servant. O Jesus, 
 son of Mary, dost thou persuade mankind to put thee 
 in the place of God®^?” And truly, if he have so done, 
 and be not essentially God, it must follow (though it is 
 
 Ps. cxix. 105. Sale’s Koran, passim. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 344 
 
 a horrid inference) that Mahomet, even Mahomet the 
 impostor, was more faithful, more wise, and more zeal- 
 ous for God^s glory than was Jesus Christ himself! 1 
 
 I cannot, however, pass from the subject before us 
 without entreating you to bear in mind that it is, 
 strictly fundamental. Different religions are 
 
 (as was suggested in a preceding letter) distinguished 
 one from another by their having different objects of 
 worship, and proposing different grounds of hope. 
 Considered in this light, the religion of him who 
 admits and him who rejects the Deity of Christ, are as 
 essentially different as the religions of the Jew and 
 the Christian. This is no uncandid remark; but one 
 founded in the nature of things, and justified by the 
 conduct of both parties. If Jesus Christ be a mere 
 man, those who worship him are guilty of idolatry : in 
 that case the Socinians rightly call them idolaters, and, 
 for aught I can see to the contrary, were justifiable 
 upon their own principles in proposing (as they did in 
 the reign of Charles the Second®^) to reduce the two 
 
 I have been called upon to furnish proofs of this singular fact, 
 and feel no hesitation in complying with the requisition. 
 
 A negotiation was opened on the part of our English Unitarians, 
 with his Excellency Ameth Ben Ainetli, Ambassador of the Emperor 
 of Morocco at the English Court, in order to form an alliance with 
 the Mahometan Prince, for the more effectual propagation of the 
 Unitarian principles. 
 
 The two Unitarian divines, who undertook this singular treaty, 
 address the Ambassador, and the Mussulmen of his suite, as “ votaries 
 and fellow- worshippers of the sole Supreme Deity.” They return 
 thanks to God that he hath preserved the Emperor of Morocco, and 
 his subjects, in the excellent knowledge of one only Sovereign God, who 
 hath no distinction, nor plurality of persons: and in many other whole- 
 some doctrines. 
 
 They say, that they with their pens defend the faith of one Supreme 
 God : and that God raised up Mahomet to do the same with the sword, 
 as a scourge on idolizing Christians. They therefore style themselves 
 the fellow champions with the Mahometans for these truths. They offer 
 their assistance to purge the Koran of certain corruptions and inter- 
 polations, which after the death of Mahomet had crept into his papers, 
 of which the Koran was composed. For of Mahomet they think too 
 highly, to suppose that he could be guilty of the many repugnances. 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 345 
 
 schemes of Socinianism and Mahometanism into one 
 consistent ap^gregate. If, on the other hand, Jesus 
 Christ be God incarnate, then every spirit that con- 
 fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God ; 
 and every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is not 
 come in the flesh, is not of God whosoever denieth 
 the Son, hath not the Father,^^ while he "" that acknow- 
 ledgeth the Son hath the Father alsoi*^ he that hath 
 the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hoAh 
 
 which are to be found in the writings that go under his name. This 
 work they declare themselves willing to undertake, /or the vindication 
 of Mahomet' s ylory. They intimate that the corrections which they 
 would propose would render the Koran more consistent; not with 
 itself only, but with the Gospel of Christ, of which they say Mahomet 
 pretended to be but a preacher. They tell the Ambassador, that the 
 Unitarian Christians form a great and considerable people. To give 
 weight to the assertion, they enumerate the heresiarchs of all ages 
 tvho have opposed the Trinity^ from Paulus Saraosatenis, down to Faus- 
 tus Socinus, and the leaders of the Polonian fraternity. They cele- 
 brate the modern tribes of Arians, as asserters of the proper unity of 
 God ; and they close the honourable list with the Mahometans them- 
 selves, Ail these, they say, maintain the faith of one God: and “ why 
 should we forget to add you, Mahometans, who also consent with 
 us in the belief of one only Supreme Deity?” 
 
 Such is the substance of a letter which they presented to the Am- 
 bassador with some Latin manuscripts respecting the differences be- 
 tween Christianity and the Mahometan religion, and containing an 
 ample detail of the Unitarian tenets. They apply to the Mussulman, 
 as to a person of known discernment in spiritual and sublime matters : 
 and they entreat him to communicate the import of their manuscripts 
 to the consideration of the fittest persons among his countrymen. 
 
 This singular epistle may be seen entire in Leslie’s Socinian Con- 
 troversy discussed. 
 
 Dr. Horsley, in whose controversial writings with Dr. Priestley 
 this is inserted (Letter 16, page 307, ed. 3), by way of stamping its 
 authenticity, has added a note, in which he says, that in consequence 
 of Dr. Priestley’s questioning the veracity of it, he examined the Arch- 
 bishop’s library at Lambeth, from whence the copy was originally 
 taken, where he found it in a thin folio, under the mark 673, among 
 the Codices MSS. Tenisoniani; and entered in the catalogue, under 
 the article Socinians, by the title of Systema Theologice Sociniance, 
 
 On the preceding leaf are these remarks : — “ These are the original 
 papers which a cabal of Socinians in London offered to present to the 
 Ambassador of the King of Fez and Morocco, when he was taking 
 leave of England, August 1682. — The said Ambassador refused to 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 346 
 
 not life^ they are as opposite in their nature as the 
 dead and the living, and it is as impossible for them to 
 unite cordially together in religious worship. The one 
 party contends, and contends naturally, that by wor- 
 shiping a creature he should dishonour God, to whom 
 alone worship is due : the other affirms as naturally, 
 and (as I trust you will now allow) more consistently 
 with the uniform tenour of the Gospel, that, by with- 
 holding worship from the Saviour, he should deny his 
 Divine perfections, dishonour and degrade Him, and 
 thus lose his title to eternal glory. 
 
 The character the Redeemer now sustains renders 
 this a matter of infinite moment. Jesus has ascended 
 into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of his Father,’^ 
 
 far above all principalities and powers.^’ Here he 
 was our 'prophet and teacher, and died as our atoning 
 sacrifice; there he is incessantly pleading for his peo- 
 ple; nay, there he both intercedes as our High Priest, 
 and sits and reigns as King ; reigns with inexpressible 
 dignity and glory, rich in power and grandeur, rich in 
 compassion and tenderness, rich in adorable perfec- 
 
 receive them, after having understood that they concerned religion. 
 — The agent of the Socinians was Monsieur Virz^. — Sir Charles Cot- 
 trell, Knt. Master of the Ceremonies, then present, desired he might 
 have them, which was granted ; and he brought them, and gave them 
 to me, Thomas Tenison, then Vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields, 
 Middlesex.” 
 
 Dr. Horsley adds, by way of farther confirmation, ** I do most so- 
 lemnly aver, that I have this day (Jan. 15, 1789), compared the letter 
 to Ameth Ben Ameth, as published by Dr. Leslie, in his Socinian 
 Controversy discussed, with the MS. in the Archbishop’s library, and 
 find that the printed copy, with the exception of some trivial typogra- 
 phical errors, which in no way affect the sense, and are such as any 
 reader will discover and correct for himself, is exactly conformable 
 to the MS., without the omission or addition of a single word.” 
 
 1 John, iv. 2, 3 ; ii. 23 ; v. 12. In the first of these passages, 
 the phrase in the flesh either clearly indicates a possibility or capa- 
 bility of other ways of coming, or it is nugatory. If it be not merely 
 expletive, which is not easily to be admitted, it is, therefore, deci- 
 sively in favour of the orthodox doctrine respecting the person of 
 Christ. The Socinian interpretation of the passage is refuted by Bishop 
 Horsley, Letters, p. 120, and by Abbadie, sect. iii. cap. 2, 10, 
 
DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST. 347 
 
 tions, as the Son of God, the Saviour to the utter- 
 most, the Prince of Life. He governs all things in 
 heaven and on earth, that he may defend his Church, 
 adorn her with his Spirit, and procure and accomplish 
 her eternal salvation. But ‘‘ from thence he shall come 
 to judge the quick and the dead for the Father 
 judgeth no man; but hath given all judgment to his 
 Son, that all may honour the Son as they honour the 
 Father May the contemplation of this great event 
 stimulate us, my friend, sedulously to seek, and hear- 
 tily to embrace, the truth. For, behold he cometh 
 with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they 
 also which pierced him®^.^’ Then will they say to 
 the mountains and rocks. Fall on us, and hide us from 
 the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, even from 
 the ivrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath 
 is come, and who shall be able to stand while the 
 meek and humble and upright followers of Jesus, re- 
 joicing that at length they are indeed becoming like 
 him, for they see him as he is, will exclaim in grateful 
 triumph, Lo, this is our GOD ; we have waited for 
 him, and he will save us : this is the Lord, we have 
 waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his 
 salvation 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 On the Nature of Conversion, and its Necessity. 
 
 The subject which I have selected for discussion in the 
 present letter is one of the highest moment, and yet, 
 unfortunately, is one, respecting which the greatest and 
 most lamentable mistakes have prevailed. Some have 
 imagined that religious conversion, or regeneration, is 
 elFected by baptism ; so that whoever is baptized is, of 
 necessity, regenerated. This, however, is neither con- 
 sistent with Scripture nor with fact, except in those 
 
 John, V. 22, 23. Rev. i. 7. 
 
 Rev. vi. 16, 17. 1 John, iii. 2. Is. xxv. 9. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 348 
 
 very rare instances in which the baptism with water/^ 
 and that with the Holy Spirit/^ occur at the same 
 moment. Gibbon and Hume were baptized in their 
 infancy, but lived and died infidels: Simon Magus 
 was baptized, but certainly not regenerated, for he was 
 subsequently declared by an apostle to be in the 
 gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity and you and 
 I have known some who, though they were baptized 
 when adults, on a profession of faith, afterwards re- 
 lapsed into an open denial of the truth, and a daily 
 neglect of the duties, of Christianity: from which it is 
 evident, that baptism and regeneration are not neces- 
 sarily connected. Others have considered repentance 
 to be regeneration ; but neither is this correct. True 
 repentance often terminates in regeneration, and, in- 
 deed, is commonly connected with it ; but it is not the 
 thing itself. Others, again, regard reformation and 
 regeneration as synonymous; but this notion is as 
 incorrect as either of the former. Regeneration may 
 accompany baptism, repentance, or reformation ; but 
 it is yrtore than either of them. Saul became ‘^another 
 man,^^ without becoming a new man : Ahab “ humbled 
 himself,^' yet became not truly humble: many repent 
 of some great iniquity, but relapse again into evil 
 courses: and some reform their conduct, because the 
 state of their health, or perhaps the monitions of con- 
 science, lead them so to reform; though they still re- 
 main ignorant of ‘^the one thing needful,^’ and have 
 hearts as unimpressed as the “ unwedgeable and gnarled 
 oak.^’ 
 
 To guard you against these and other erroneous views 
 of conversion, to which your attention may sometimes 
 be called, I shall endeavour to describe it concisely as 
 it is portrayed in Scripture, our only unerring guide 
 with respect to this and every other Christian doctrine. 
 
 And here you cannot fail to remark, for it must be 
 evident to every impartial reader of the word of God, 
 that the mutation, which we are now to contemplate, 
 cun neither be slight, nor transient, nor, in general. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 349 
 
 slow. In the principal texts, where it is delineated, it 
 seems either named or characterised in reference to one 
 or other of two modes or circumstances of change, both 
 of which are important and usually rapid, compared 
 with the corresponding duration of existence: these 
 are conversion and regeneration ; the ane indicating fre- 
 quently a turning from one thing towards another, and 
 in theology, according to Dr. Johnson’s definition, a 
 change from a state of reprobation to a state of grace 
 and the other, a new creation, or a new birth ; or, ac- 
 cording to the same lexicographer, birth by grace to 
 a Christian life.” The selection and classification of a 
 very few texts will show that the two general terms I 
 have just mentioned are not artificially forced into the 
 technology of theologians, but are those which most 
 naturally convey the idea of the change they are chosen 
 to describe. 
 
 The prophet Jeremiah had manifestly something 
 more in view than a mere nominal passage from one 
 religion to another, when he fancied Ephraim, after 
 bemoaning himself, to pray — Turn thou me, and I 
 shall be turned ; for thou art the Lord my God h” And 
 again, in his faithful exhortation to the Jews — “Turn 
 ye again now every one from his evil vmy, and from the 
 evil of your doings^.” More expressive still is the 
 language of Joel — “ Rend your hearts, and not your 
 garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is 
 gracious and mercifuP.” 
 
 The language of our Lord to his disciples was, “ Ex- 
 cept ye be converted, and become as little children, ye 
 shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.^^ “ He that 
 heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, 
 hath passed from death unto life 
 
 The apostles speak of this change as equally mo- 
 mentous: their divine Master taught them to preach 
 to the Gentiles, that they might “ turn them from 
 darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
 
 . ^ Jer. xxxi. 18. See also Lam. v. 21. ^ Jer. xxv. 5. 
 
 3 Joel, ii. 13. ^ Matt, xviii. 3. John, v. 24. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 350 
 
 God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins by 
 faith. How great must be the transformation from the 
 darkness of ignorance and vice to the light of know- 
 ledge and holiness; how delightful the emancipation 
 from the thraldom of the devil to be placed under the 
 merciful government of God ! They therefore acted 
 under the persuasion that if any one erred from the 
 truth, and one converted him, that he, which converted 
 the sinner from the error of his way, saved a soid from 
 death; and considered this conversion as a deliverance 
 from the power of darkness, and a translation into the 
 kingdom ofGod^s dear Son^.^^ 
 
 Among the numerous texts which evince this great 
 change to be no less than an entire renovation of cha- 
 racter, the following deserve notice. Create in me a 
 clean heart, O God ; and renew a right spirit within me®.^^ 
 ‘‘ I will put a new spirit within them ; and I will take 
 the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart 
 of flesh ; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep 
 mine ordinances, and do them^^^ ‘^Unless a man be 
 born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God Born, 
 
 not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
 of man, but of God^J^ Though they are dead,^’ they 
 shall ‘‘ hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that 
 hear shall live^^.^^ In Jesus Christ neither circum- 
 cision is any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a a near 
 creation^^.^^ Love one another with a pure heart fer- 
 vently, having been horn again not from corruptible 
 seed, but from incorruptible, by that word of God which 
 liveth and remaineth Every one that doeth righ- 
 teousness (habitually) is born of ‘‘ Whosoever 
 
 is born of God doth not commit sin^^ habitually ‘‘ and 
 loveth and helieveth that Jesus is the Christ, and over- 
 cometh the world "" Christ saved us, according to his 
 mercy, by the washing of regeneration, and the renova- 
 
 ^ Acts, xxvi. 18. Jam. v. 19. Col. i. 13. ® Ps. li. 10. 
 
 Ezek. xi. 19, 20. ® John, iii. 3. ^ John, i. 13. 
 
 io John, V. 25. Gal. vi. 15. I Pet. i. 23. 
 
 1 John, ii. 29, 1 Jolin, iii. 9 ^ iv. 7 ; v. 1. 4, 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 351 
 
 tion of the Holy Spirit ‘"We are his workmanship, 
 having been created through Christ Jesus to his good 
 works^^.^^ “Ye have been instructed to put off the old 
 man, who was corrupt according to deceitful desires, 
 and to be renewed in the Spirit of your mind; and to 
 put on the new man, who is created according to God 
 in righteousness and true holiness “Wherefore, 
 if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation: the 
 old things are passed away, behold all things are become 
 new^^.'^ “ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 
 that which is horn of the Spirit is spirit. Wonder not 
 that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again. The 
 wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest its sound, 
 but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : 
 so is every one that is horn of the SpiriO^.^^ 
 
 From these passages it must appear, that the grand 
 transformation we are now contemplating is not ideal: 
 nor does it consist merely in enlightening and con- 
 vincing the understanding, in a change of sentiments, 
 or a change of outward conduct; though it often in- 
 cludes all these. A man may change his religious 
 opinions, or his outward conduct, without experiencing 
 a change of heart : and, on the other hand, a person 
 may experience a genuine and complete change of 
 heart (and the heart it must never be forgotten is the 
 seat of true religion), without being able to trace the 
 slightest difference in any one article of his creed. 
 Every one knows, that in a certain sense the world is 
 vanity, that he must die, that in the hour of death 
 riches will not profit him, that time is precious, that 
 the portion of it allowed us to prepare for eternity is 
 uncertain and often short, that a death-bed repentance 
 is not an infallible passport to heaven ; and many know 
 that they are sinners, that “ Christ Jesus came to save 
 sinners,’^ that there is one and only one, way of salva- 
 tion. Yet though these are known and received as 
 truths, they are noi felt as such: they want the Pro- 
 Tit. iii. 5. 16 Eph. ii. 10. Epli. iv. 22—24. 
 
 16 2 Cor, V. 17. 1^ John, iii. 6 — 8. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 3o2 
 
 methean fire to give them life and animation; or, to 
 drop so profane an allusion on so solemn an occasion, 
 they are but as the new-formed body of Adam, before 
 God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,^^ and 
 need a touch from Him who alone can effectually (whe- 
 ther immediately, or by his own appointed instruments) 
 reach the soul, to render them living, operative, effica- 
 cious sentiments. 
 
 In regeneration, so much of the light of heaven is 
 let into the soul as enables us to know (or at least to 
 begin to know) ourselves aright, to know God in his 
 most awful and lovely manifestations, to see the enor- 
 mity of sin, the beauty of holiness,^^ the worth of 
 the Gospel, the riches of divine grace.’^ It is a light 
 accompanied with warmth and vigour, that produces 
 an internal and permanent change ; a change that is 
 universal, reaching to the heart, and evinced in the 
 life: that renovates the powers of the spirit, dissipates 
 folly, guilt, darkness, and despair, introduces holiness, 
 joy, and hope, and creates in the soul an ardent, un- 
 cjuenchable desire to enjoy the life-supporting rays of the 
 Sun of Righteousness, to be altogether holy, altogether 
 heavenly, altogether full of affection towards God. 
 
 This change is rightly called conversion: not (as you 
 have often known it represented) because it converts 
 the subject of it from vivacity to lifelessness, from 
 cheerfulness to gloom, from kindness and affability to 
 churlishness and reserve; but because it converts him 
 from the error of his way,^’ from the abuse to the 
 proper use of the blessings with which he is surrounded, 
 from a false to a true hope, from indifference to zeal, 
 from the power of Satan unto God.^’ It is also as rightly 
 denominated regeneration ; for it brings the person who 
 experiences it, not under the influence of the mecha- 
 nical transports of animal nature, or the blind impulses 
 of a heated imagination, or into the delusive paths of 
 enthusiasm ; but into a new state, through the operation 
 of the Spirit of God upon the spiritual part of man. 
 Surely there can be nothing essentially chimerical, no- 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 353 
 
 thing contrary to reason/ nothing that is not highly 
 ornamental and infinitely beneficiul to our natures, in 
 having the powers of our mind thus changed by energy 
 imparted from God, and having our pursuits directed 
 after such objects as are most worthy the attention and 
 regard of intelligent, accountable, immortal creatures ! 
 
 To have our apprehensions of Divine and spiritual 
 things enlarged, and to have right conceptions of the 
 most important matters ; to have the stream of our af- 
 fections turned from empty vanities to objects that are 
 proper to excite and fix them ; to have our resolutions 
 set against all sin, and a full purpose formed within 
 us of an immediate reformation and return to God, 
 with a dependence on his grace to help us both to will 
 and to do; — to have our labours steadfastly applied to 
 conquer sin, and to promote religion in ourselves and 
 others; — to have our entertainments founded in a reli- 
 gious life, and flowing in upon us from the sweet inter- 
 course we have with God in his word and ordinances, 
 and the delightful conversation that we sometimes 
 have with Christian friends : and, finally, to have our 
 hopes drawn off from earthly things, and fixed upon 
 eternity ! — Where is there any thing can be more hon- 
 ourable to us, than thus to be renewed after the image of 
 him that created us, and to put on the new man, ivhich 
 after God is created in righteousness and true holiness? 
 And where is any thing that can be more desirable 
 than thus to have the darkness of our understandings 
 cured, and the disorders rectified, that sin had brought 
 upon our nature? Who is there that is so insensible 
 of his depravity, as that he would not long for such a 
 happy change? Or who is there that knows how ex- 
 cellent a work it is to be transformed bg the renewing of 
 the mind, that would not with the greatest thankfulness 
 adore the riches of Divine grace, if it appear that he is 
 thus become a new creature, that old things are passed 
 away, and all things are become new"^^ 
 
 That such improvements of character often have 
 Doddridge’s Sermons on Regeneration. 
 
 A A 
 
ON CONVERSION* 
 
 354 
 
 occurred, and are often taking place now, cannot be 
 denied by any philosophic observer of human nature r 
 to disregard them, or to neglect an investigation of 
 their cause, is to neglect one of the most interesting 
 and remarkable classes of facts observable amongst 
 mankind. Who has not either heard of, or witnessed 
 the most extraordinary changes of conduct, produced 
 through the apparent influence (to say the least) of 
 religious motives ; I say nothing here of the three thou- 
 sand converted in one day at the feast of Pentecost, — 
 of the conversion of St. Paul and others, mentioned 
 in the Acts of the Apostles, — because those are usually 
 ascribed to the miraculous and extraordinary influences 
 of the Holy Spirit in the apostolic times. But I may 
 call your attention to matters of more recent occurrence. 
 You have witnessed instances of men running eagerly 
 the career of folly and dissipation, who have been 
 suddenly arrested, and changed from lovers of plea- 
 sure to lovers of God.^^ You have known others who 
 have devoted themselves early to the military profession, 
 who literally knew 7io fear, who have spent their lives 
 in the pursuit of glory, who have approached the verge 
 of life full of scars and full of honours, still panting 
 after glory, honour, and immortality,^^ but thinking 
 nothing of ‘^eternal life;^’ till touched by an irresisti- 
 ble hand, they have been transformed from good sol- 
 diers to good soldiers of Jesus Christ,^^ have buckled 
 on the armour of God,^^ “ fought the good fight of 
 faith,'’^ and, following ‘"‘the Captain of their salvation,^^ 
 have obtained “ the victory,^’ and been rewarded with 
 tinfading laurels. Others again, you have known, who 
 have been strong and high-minded, professing never to 
 be subdued but by the force of argument, and dexter- 
 ously evading an argument when it loas forcible, if it 
 were calculated to expose the sophistry of “ free think- 
 ings^ (as it is called), or to exhibit the reasonableness 
 and advantages of being pious : you have seen them 
 increase in the dexterity of unbelief, and in callousness 
 to moral impressson, year after year. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 355 
 
 “ Gleaning the blunted shafts that have recoil’d, 
 
 Aiming them at the shield of truth again:” 
 
 and when a band of them has gone to church for the 
 laudable purpose of quizzing, or of staring out of 
 countenance, some preacher of rather more than usual 
 energy and zeal, — have known one of this band pierced 
 by a dart from the archer,^’ convinced that religion 
 is the one thing needful,^^ and, though he came to 
 scoff, remaining to pray.^' 
 
 Recollect too, the recorded conversion of Cecilius (so 
 finely described in the Octavius of Minutius Felix) in 
 the early ages of the church : and those of Lord Roches- 
 ter, of Colonel Gardiner, of Mr. Newton, and Mr. Scott, 
 in later times; and contemplate them as mailers of fact. 
 Recollect, again, the memorable advice given by the 
 late Dr. Price to Lord Shelburne, the father the present 
 Marquis of Lansdowne. That nobleman inquired of 
 the philosophic doctor what would be the best means 
 of reforming some profligate, idle, worthless fellows, 
 who were employed on one of his estates ; and was 
 recommended to ‘‘ introduce a zealous methodist 
 preacher among them.^^ Here the reasoning was from 
 a fact^ and that no other than the preaching of Whit- 
 field and Wesley among the Kingswood Colliers. 
 
 These were men who required not only to be Chris- 
 tianized, but humanized. It was a mighty mass of de- 
 formity, without shape or order : and it was moulded 
 into the human form ; nay, more, it received the im- 
 press of the Divine image, by the agency of the Holy 
 Spirit, through the preaching of these laborious minis- 
 ters. The world will not easily forget the transformation : 
 when men, who scarcely had any thing about them 
 human but their external configuration, changed their 
 very nature; when the ferocious became softened, and 
 the profane exemplary for the simplicity of holiness : 
 and when the tears chased each other down their dark 
 cheeks as they listened to the declarations of a Savi- 
 ours love, while the total alteration of their life and 
 manners bore no resemblance to ^ the morning cloud 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 356 
 
 and the early dew which passeth away’^h^^’ Now either 
 this is real regeneration, the genuine operation of the 
 Spirit of God, or it is an effect without a cause,, or at 
 least without any cause even speciously assignable ; 
 we affirm, on the authority of Scripture, that it is the 
 former, — and thus assign an adequate cause of this 
 grand and durable effect: our opponents take the con- 
 trary alternative, and yet have the modesty to accuse 
 11 of enthusiasm. But if enthusiasm be a disease 
 which is indicated by overlooking the relation which 
 subsists between ends and means, — by counting upon 
 casualties instead of contemplating the stated order of 
 events, — and by hoping to realize the most momentous 
 projects without any means at all, or by means totally 
 inadec[uate to the effect,^’ it will not be difficult for any 
 one to ascertain whether we or our adversaries are most 
 deeply tainted by it. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be uninstructive for us to fix our 
 attention upon the leading particulars of some remark- 
 able and well authenticated instance of conversion ; and 
 to this end allow me to select that of the Earl of Ro- 
 chester, to which I adverted in my Letter on Prophecy 
 In one respect it is doubtless defective, being void of 
 evidence of the permanency of the change ; and in that 
 respect the examples of Colonel Gardiner, Mr. Newton, 
 and Mr. Scott, have a decided advantage; but in these 
 last-mentioned cases, the historians may by some be 
 deemed suspicious witnesses, on account of the theo- 
 logical sentiments they supported ; I therefore have 
 chosen the instance which was thought worthy the at- 
 tention of Bishop Burnet, a writer whom no candid 
 reader will accuse of any the least proneness to fana- 
 ticism. 
 
 Lord Rochester was distinguished through the active 
 part of his life as a great wit, and a great profligate, an 
 open and unwearied advocate of atheism. He had, 
 however, especially during the last year of his life, 
 strong convictions of the folly of his conduct ; and once. 
 Colly er’s Appeal to the Legislature. See page 127. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 357 
 
 after he had been arguing vehemently against the ex- 
 istence of a Supreme Being, he exclaimed, on retiring 
 from the company, Good God, that a man who walks 
 upright, who sees the wonderful works of God, and has 
 the use of his reason, — that such a one should bid de- 
 fiance to his Creator But impressions like these soon 
 wore off: so that it was not till his last illness, which 
 continued about nine weeks, that he appears to have 
 undergone the change which we denominate conver- 
 sion. Then it was, according to his own account, that 
 he first saw the enormity of sin, and learned the value 
 of the atonement on which his hopes of pardon were 
 founded. • Shall the joys of heaven, exclaimed he, 
 "'be conferred on me? O mighty Saviour, never, but 
 through thy infinite love and satisfaction ! O never, 
 but by the-purchase of thy blood!’’ 
 
 The Scriptures, which had so often been the subject 
 of his merriment, now secured his esteem, and impressed 
 delight; for they had spoken to his heart: the seeming 
 absurdities and contradictions vanished ; and he thence- 
 forward not only received the truth, but adhered to it. 
 It appears to have been the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, 
 which was repeatedly read to him by Mr. Parsons, his 
 chaplain, that was principally instrumental in the 
 change. Comparing it with the history of our Saviour’s 
 passion, he saw the fulfilment of a prophecy, written 
 several ages before, and which the Jews, who blas- 
 phemed .iesus, still kept in their hand, as an inspired 
 book. He confessed to Bishop Burnet, that, as he 
 heard it read, " he felt an inward force upon him, which 
 did so enlighten his mind and convince him, that he 
 could resist it no longer: for the words had an autho- 
 rity which did shoot like rays or beams in his mind, so 
 that he was not only convinced by the reasonings he 
 had about it, which satisfied his understanding, but by 
 a power which did so effectually constrain him, that he 
 did ever after as firmly believe in his Saviour, as if he 
 had seen him in the clouds.” 
 
 He had this chapter read so often to him, that he 
 
358 ON CONVERSION. 
 
 got it by heart, and went through a great part of it,’’ 
 says the Bishop, in discourse with me, with a sort of 
 heavenly pleasure, giving me his reflections on it: 
 some of which I remember.” — Who hath believed our 
 report P Here,” he said, was foretold the opposi- 
 tion the Gospel was to meet with from such wretches 
 as he was.” He hath no form or comeliness ; and ivhen 
 we shall see hiniy there is no beauty that we should desire 
 him. On this he said, ‘‘The meanness of his appear- 
 ance and person has made vain and foolish people dis- 
 parage him, because he came not in such a fool’s-coat 
 as they delighted in.” Many other observations he 
 made which were not noted down ; enlarging on many 
 passages with a degree of heavenly pleasure, and ap- 
 plying various parts of it to his own humiliation and 
 comfort. “O, my God,” he w^ould say, “can such a 
 creature as I, who have denied thy being, and con- 
 temned thy power, be accepted by thee? Can there be 
 mercy and pardon for me? Will God own such a 
 w retch as I am ?” 
 
 His faith now rested on Christ alone for salvation, 
 and often would he entreat God to strengthen it; cry- 
 ing out, “Lord, I believe: help thou my unbelief.” 
 He gave numerous proofs of the depth of his repent- 
 ance : amongst which his earnest desire to check and 
 diminish the evil effects of his former writings, and too 
 uniform example, deserve particular recollection. His 
 abhorrence of sin was now as extraordinary as his for- 
 mer indulgence in it: he said more than once, “he 
 would not commit a known crime to gain a kingdom.” 
 
 “ He told me (says the Bishop) he had overcome all 
 his resentments to all the world ; so that he bore ill- 
 will to no person, nor hated any upon personal ac- 
 counts. He had given a true state of his debts, and 
 had ordered to pay them all, as far as his estate that 
 was not settled could go ; and was confident that, if all 
 that was owing to him were paid to his executors, his 
 creditors would be all satisfied. He said he found his 
 mind now^ possessed with another sense of things, than 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 359 
 
 ever he had formerly. He did not repine under all his 
 pain, and in one of the sharpest fits he was under while 
 I was with him, he said he did loillingly submit; and 
 looking up to heaven, said, ' God’s holy will he done, I 
 bless him for all he does to me,’ He said he was con- 
 tented either to die or live, as should please God : and 
 though it was a foolish thing for a man to pretend to 
 choose whether he would die or live, yet he rather 
 wished to die. He knew he could never be so well 
 that life should be comfortable to him. He was confi- 
 dent he should be happy if he died, but he feared if he 
 lived he might relapse : and then said he to me, ^ In 
 what a condition shall I be, if I relayse after all this? 
 But (he said) he trusted in the grace and goodness of 
 God, and was resolved to avoid all those temptations, 
 that course of life and company that was likely to en- 
 snare him : and he desired to live on no other account, 
 but that he might by the change of his manners in some 
 way take off the high scandal his former behaviour had 
 given’ All these things at several times I had from 
 him ; besides some messages which very well became 
 a dying penitent to some of his former friends, and a 
 charge to publish any thing concerning him that might 
 be a mean to reclaim others. Praying God, that as his 
 life had done much hurt, so his death might do some good. 
 
 Having understood all these things from him, and 
 being pressed to give him my opinion plainly about his 
 eternal state, I told him, that though the promises of 
 the Gospel did all depend upon a real change of heart 
 and life, as the indispensable condition upon which 
 they were made, and that it was scarce possible to 
 know certainly whether our hearts are changed, unless 
 it appeared in our lives; and the repentance of most 
 dying men being like the bowlings of condemned pri- 
 soners for pardon, which flow^ed from no sense of their 
 crimes, but from the horror of approaching death ; there 
 was little reason to encourage any to hope from such 
 sorrowing : yet certainly if the mind of a sinner, even 
 on a death-bed, be truly renewed amd turned to God, so 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 360 
 
 great is bis mercy that he will receive him, even in that 
 extremity. He said, ‘ he was sure his mind was en- 
 tirely turned ; and though horror had given him his 
 first awakening, yet that was now grown up into a set~ 
 tied faith and conversion^'^.' 
 
 This narration naturally suggests several reflections : 
 but these I must leave to be tlie result of your own 
 meditations ; and proceed to answer a few questions 
 which arise out of the subject now before us. 
 
 1. Is conversion absolutely necessary? 
 
 If this question is to be decided by the uniform 
 tenour of Scripture, it must be answ^ered in the affirma- 
 tive. Some persons, I am aware, will tell you, that, 
 however necessary this great change may be among 
 heathens, it is not universally requisite in a Christian 
 country. But this notion is founded upon a very ina- 
 dequate view of the subject. By nature all are Gen- 
 tiles. We are by nature the children of wrath, even 
 as others Whether men bow down to idols of wood 
 and stone, or are immersed in the cares, or idolizing 
 the amusements of this world, they may be equally 
 distant from God, and equally need an entire change 
 of heart to bring them to his spiritual presence, and 
 restore them to his favour. “ Those (says Bishop Tom- 
 line) who call themselves Christians, but attend neither 
 to the doctrines nor to the duties of the Gospel, seem 
 to differ but little, with respect to the point now under 
 consideration, from those to whom the Gospel was first 
 preached. The 'process in both must be nearly the sarne^^J^ 
 Both classes are descended from the corrupt stock of 
 Adam, both are influenced by improper motives, both 
 are strangers to ^'Christ the hope of glory both are 
 in the bond of iniquity,^^ whether they are conscious 
 
 See Bishop Burnet’s work entitled “ Some Passages in the Life 
 and Death of John, Earl of Rochester,” a work which cannot be 
 recommended in more appropriate terms than those of Dr. Johnson, 
 who said “ the critic ought to read it for its elegance, the philosopher 
 for its arguments, and the saint for its pietj?.” 
 
 Eph. ii. 3. 25 Refutation of Calvinism, p. 59. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 361 
 
 of it or not; and therefore, must be born a^ain/^ The 
 necessity for this change is doubtless as extensive as 
 tliat great moral declension, from which it is the object 
 of the Christian dispensation to restore mankind : so 
 that since all have sinned,^’ all are “ shapen in ini- 
 quity and conceived in sin,’^ all must undergo a total 
 change, or they “ cannot see the kingdom of God^^” In- 
 deed nothing in religion can be more evident than that 
 ^^if we be bound on earth, we shall be bound in hea- 
 ven f ^Mf we be absolved here, we shall be loosed 
 there for, in this sense, “where the tree falleth there 
 it shall lie^^.^^ Hence the prophets who preceded our 
 Lord, Jesus Christ himself, and the apostles who were 
 commissioned to succeed him, all agreed in declaring 
 that no unregenerate person shall enter the kingdom 
 of God. The reason of this is obvious, both from the 
 nature of God, and from that of man. “No unclean 
 thing can be admitted into the presence of God (who 
 “cannot behold iniquity but with abhorrence), nor 
 into the regions of universal holiness and purity. And 
 on the other hand, if an unregenerate soul could be ad- 
 mitted, heaven would yield it no delight. Such a spirit 
 would be incapable of relishing the happiness of a 
 future w'orld ; for the knowledge there communicated, 
 the enjoyments there experienced, are of a kind it never 
 aspired after. The holiness of heaven, the sight and 
 service of God, and of a glorified Redeemer, the society 
 of angels and of saints made perfect, the “ singing the 
 song of Moses ^nd the Lamb,^^ would all be tasteless 
 and insipid, if not disgusting, to one who had been a 
 stranger to the employments and gratifications of reli- 
 gion while on earth. To believe otherwise would be to 
 believe that a man could be regenerate and unregene- 
 rate at the same time. “The happiness of heaven (said 
 good old Richard Baxter) is holiness; and to talk of 
 being happy without it, is as palpable nonsense, as to 
 talk of being well without health, or of being saved 
 without salvation.’’ 
 
 Rom. V. 12, 14. Ps. li. 5. John, iii. 3. 
 
 Eccles. xi. 3. 
 
362 ON CONVERSION. 
 
 2dly. Is the exact era of this great renovation of 
 character always assignable ? 
 
 Certainly not ; though in many cases it is. In the 
 most momentous business of regeneration there are 
 diversities of operations, but it is the same God which 
 worketh all in all^®.^^ Through the blessing of God 
 upon early instruction, the seeds of grace have been 
 sown in the hearts of many during infancy. God or- 
 dains ‘‘ strength out of the mouths of babes and suck- 
 lings^V^ and enables them to give evidence at six or 
 seven years of age that their hearts are principally fixed 
 on Christ and things divine.’^ These, of course, cannot 
 assign the period of their conversion. Others again, 
 and perhaps the greater number of thosq who have 
 had the benefit of a religious education, are led on by 
 the suasive influence of Divine grace through such 
 insensible gradations that they are unable to specify 
 any remarkable circumstances attending their conver- 
 sion, or to point out the particular time when it occur- 
 red. But others, and especially those who have passed 
 their lives without any internal religion, or those who 
 have allowed themselves in the course and habit of 
 some particular sin, who must undergo in maturity a 
 complete revolution of principle, or a total change of 
 conduct, are commonly roused by some alarming or 
 some afflictive dispensation of Providence, to flee 
 from the wrath to come,^^ and eagerly inquire what 
 they must do to be saved To such persons, says 
 Dr. Paley, Conversion is too momentous an event 
 ever to be forgot. A man might as easily forget his 
 escape from a shipwreck.^^ And though, says good 
 Bishop Taylor, after the manner of this life our re- 
 collection is imperfect, yet the greatest changes of our 
 state of grace or sin are always presenty like capital 
 letters to an aged and dim eye.^’ ‘‘ It may not be 
 necessary (says Paley again) for a man to speak of his 
 conversion, but he will always ihink of it with un- 
 
 1 Cor. xii. 6. 
 
 29 Ps. viii.2. 
 
 29 Acts, xvi. 30. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 363 
 
 bounded thankfulness to the Giver of all grace, the 
 Author of all mercies, spiritual as well as temporaPh^^ 
 
 3dly. Is this important change ever sudden? 
 
 Most, if not all, of the instances of conversion re- 
 corded in the New Testament were sudden. This 
 operation of God on the souls of men was then fre- 
 quently instantaneous, and they were transformed from 
 unbelievers to believers at once : the Spirit fell on them 
 while they heard the woitP^:’^ and in consequence of 
 this miraculous effusion, they who had just before 
 professed Judaism or Polytheism, and neither knew 
 nor loved Jesus Christ, at once confessed his name and 
 felt the power of his religion. But many moderns 
 contend that sudden conversions, such as those to 
 which we now advert, were confined to the apostolic 
 times; as if the common operations of the Spirit were 
 not sufficient to produce any rapid change. Yet I 
 conceive it requires but slight reflection, to see that 
 this their opinion comports neither with the declara- 
 tions of Scripture, nor with the usual phenomena of 
 intellect or rules of action. Does not God work in 
 us both to will and to do’’ now as well as in the primi- 
 tive times? Cannot the eyes of our understanding be 
 as effectually and as speedily enlightened by the 
 Spirit of wisdom” now as then? Was the promise of 
 “ bestowing a new Spirit, and taking away the stony 
 heart,” confined to the early ages; or is God’s arm 
 shortened,” or weakened, that he cannot reach and at 
 once turn our spirits now, as he has done with others 
 before us? And, with regard to operations upon the 
 mind, do men yield to them while the impressions are 
 strong, or do they wait till they become weaker, and 
 then give way? When a man is thoroughly persuaded 
 that the course in which he is persevering is immi- 
 nently dangerous, does he not immediately quit it? 
 When he is convinced that the road in which he travels 
 is conducting him from the place he wishes to reach, 
 
 Paley’s Posthumous Sermons, pp. 123, 124. Taylor’s Holy 
 Living, ch. i. § 3. Acts, x. 44. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 364 
 
 and is besides infested with robbers or beset with diffi- 
 culties, does he not immediately come to a stand ? And 
 if a path be pointed out which is both direct and safe, 
 will he not with cheerfulness and alacrity pursue his 
 journey in that newly-discovered path, and press for- 
 ward to regain the time lost in the wrong road? Apply 
 this reasoning to religion, and you will perceive that 
 conversion not only may be, but in many cases is neces- 
 sarily, sudden. 
 
 Some men (says Tillotson), by an extraordinary 
 power of God’s grace upon their hearts, are suddenly 
 changed, and strangely reclaimed from a very wicked 
 and vicious, to a very religious and virtuous, course of 
 life ; and that which others attain by slower degrees, 
 and great conflicts with themselves, before they can 
 gain the upper hand of their lusts, these arrive at 'all 
 of a sudden,^ by a mighty revolution wrought in them 
 by the power of God’s grace, and, as it were, by a new 
 bias and inclination put upon their souls 
 
 The inclination to deny this seems to have arisen 
 
 Tillotson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 341, fol. ed. While the fourth 
 edition of these Letters was going through the press, I met with the 
 following in Richard Baxter’s Directions for Spiritual Peace, 
 
 ‘‘ When jou are weighing things in the balance, you may add 
 grain to grain, and it makes no turning or motion at all, till you come 
 to the very last grain j and then suddenly that end which was down- 
 ward is turned upward. When you stand at a loss between two 
 highways, not knowing which way to go, as long as you are delibe- 
 rate, you stand still ; all the reasons that come into your mind do 
 not stir you; but the last reason which resolves you, setteth you in 
 motion. So is it in the change of a sinner’s heart and life. He is 
 not changed (but preparing towards it) while he is but deliberating, 
 whether he should choose Christ or the world ? But the last reason 
 that coraeth in and determineth his will to Christ, and makes him 
 resolve and enter a firm covenant with Christ, and say, I will have 
 Christ for better or ivorse^ this maketh the greatest change that ever 
 is made by any work in this world.” “ For how can there be greater 
 than the turning of a soul from the creature to the Creator? So dis- 
 tant are the terms of this change. After this one turning act Christ 
 hath that heart, and the main bent and endeavours of the life, which 
 the world had before. The man hath a new end, a new rule, a new 
 guide, a new master.” 
 
 V 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 365 
 
 from the confounding of two very distinct things, rege- 
 neration and sanctification. The former of these is the 
 commencement of spiritual lifcy the other is spiritual 
 or religious growth: the former is a passing from 
 death unto life/’ the latter a "" changing from glory to 
 glory/’ and both by the Spirit of the living God.” 
 If this distinction were duly attended to, I think the 
 question would be set at rest. 
 
 4thly. May a person always know when he is in a 
 converted state ^ 
 
 Probably not : but he may always with perfect ease 
 ascertain the contrary. If he cherish worldly-minded- 
 ness or an unholy disposition, if he allow himself in 
 the practice of any known sin, if he habitually neglect 
 public worship or private communion with God, if 
 allusions to conversion by others either excite his ridi- 
 cule or provoke his wrath, he need no more waste time 
 to inquire whether his religious state be safe, than to 
 ask whether heavy bodies fall downwards when left to 
 themselves, whether opium is soporific, or ardent spirits 
 productive of intoxication. On the other hand, if, as 
 Paley remarks, he allow himself in no sin whatever, 
 but, cost what it may, contends against and combats 
 all sin if he sedulously cultivate a holy disposition, 
 and “ grow in grace, in the knowledge and love of 
 Jesus Christ,” and in the steady practice of all the 
 relative duties, he may hope that his spiritual life is 
 commenced. Still, as we live in times of much reli- 
 gious delusion and infatuation, let him not be satisfied, 
 let him cherish nothing like assurance, unless he uni- 
 formly feel tenderness of conscience, and a desire to 
 increase his religious attainments. Let him then ex- 
 amine himself whether he be in the faith.” Let him 
 seriously endeavour to ascertain whether he has ^‘eter- 
 nal life wrought in his heart;” whether he has ever 
 felt a penitent sense and hatred of sin, a sincere and 
 anxious desire to be delivered from it, an ardent love 
 of the Saviour and his salvation, an unreserved deter- 
 mination to obey his commands from the heart ; whe- 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 366 
 
 ther he finds any satisfaction of soul in drawing near 
 to God through a Mediator ; whether he has an increas- 
 ing love to God ; whether he has a rooted aversion to 
 all neglect of duty; whether he has in any measure 
 overcome the world^’ as they who believe that Jesus 
 is the Son of God and have put their trust in him ; 
 whether his desires to escape from the miseries of hell, 
 however strong, are weaker than his desires after holi- 
 ness and heaven; whether he is zealous in God’s ser- 
 vice, aims at his glory, delights in his presence, and in 
 doing his will on earth as it is done in heaven 
 whether he can forgive enemies, can sincerely return 
 blessing for cursing ; whether he is anxious not simply 
 to stand but to ‘‘ run in the way of God’s command- 
 ments.” In religion there is no standing still ; if we 
 are actuated by true religious principles, they will 
 continually impel us forward, and cause us, with Paul, 
 to press towards the mark for the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus 
 
 Be it remembered, then, that true repentance and 
 conversion reduce all holy resolutions to actions, and 
 either thus create religion, or transfer it from the head 
 to the heart, there to reside permanently as an actuating 
 principle. He that resolves to live well when danger 
 is upon him, or a violent fear, or when the appetites of 
 lust are newly satisfied, or newly served, yet when the 
 temptation comes again, sins again, and then is sor- 
 rowful, and resolves once more against it, and yet falls 
 when the temptation returns, is a vain man, but no 
 true peyiitent, nor in the state of grace ; and if he chance 
 to die in one of those good modes is very far from sal- 
 vation : for, if it be necessary that we resolve to live 
 well, it is necessary we should do so. For resolution 
 is an imperfect act, a term of relation, and signifies 
 nothing but in order to the actions. It is as a faculty is 
 to the act, as spring to the harvest, as eggs are to birds, 
 as a relative to its correspondent, nothing without it. 
 No man therefore can be in a state of grace and actual 
 3^ Phil. iii. 14. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 367 
 
 favour by resolutions and holy purposes; these are but 
 the gate portal towards pardon : a holy life is the 
 only perfection of repentance, and the firm ground upon 
 which we can cast the anchor of hope in the mercies of 
 God through Jesus Christ 
 
 Know, however, for your encouragement, that “ in 
 Christ’s temple it is not as in ordinary material build- 
 ings. In these, though the whole frame stand upon 
 the foundation, yet it stands together by the strength 
 of the parts amongst themselves, and therefore their 
 mutual weakness and failings do prejudice the stability 
 of the whole. But in the Church, the strength of 
 Christ the foundation, is not an immanent, personal, 
 fixed thing ; but a derivative and an effused strength, 
 which runs through the whole building. Because the 
 foundation^ being a vital foundation, is able to shed forth 
 and transfuse Us stability into the ivhole structure. What- 
 ever the materials are of themselves, though never so 
 frail, yet being once incorporated in the building, they 
 are presently transformed into the nature and firmness 
 of their foundation. To whom coming as unto a living 
 stone, saith St. Peter, ye also as lively stones are built 
 up a spiritual house: thus noting unto us the transfor- 
 mation and uniformity of the saints with Christ, both 
 in their spiritual nature, and in the firmness and sta- 
 bility of the same.” 
 
 When converted to God we stand not, like Adam, 
 upon our own bottom, but are branches of such a vine 
 as never withers, members of such a head as never 
 dies ; sharers in such a spirit as cleanseth, healeth, and 
 purifieth the heart; partakers of such promises as are 
 sealed with the oath of God. Since, then, we live not 
 by our own life, but by the life of Christ; are not led 
 or sealed by our own spirit, but by the spirit of Christ ; 
 do not obtain mercy by our own prayers, but by the 
 intercession of Christ ; stand not reconciled in virtue 
 of our endeavours, but by the propitiation wrought by 
 Christ, who " loved us when we were enemies who is 
 Bishop Taj-lor’s Holy Living, cL. iii. § 9. 
 
ON CONVERSION. 
 
 368 
 
 both willing and able to save us to the uttermost, and 
 to preserve his own mercies in us ; to whose office it 
 belongs to take order that none who are given unto 
 him be lost ; undoubtedly that life of Christ in us 
 which is thus underpropped, though it be not privi- 
 leged from temptations, nor from backslidings, yet is 
 an abiding life.^^ ‘"Infinitely, therefore, doth it con- 
 cern the soul of every man to be restless and unsatisfied 
 with any other good thing, till he find himself entitled 
 unto this happy communion with the Life of Christ, 
 which will never fail him 
 
 LETTER XVIL 
 On the Influences of the Spirit, 
 
 Among the several momentous doctrines that are deve- 
 loped in the system of- revelation, none seems to have 
 experienced a reception less consistent with the natural 
 order of things, than that of the influence of the Spirit 
 of God upon the mind and conduct of man. This 
 doctrine is so compatible with the dictates of unassisted 
 reason, that several of the heathen philosophers firmly 
 believed it, and unambiguously asserted it. Yet, not- 
 withstanding this, it is doubted by some philosophers 
 residing in Christian countries; and although it is 
 plainly declared in various portions of Scripture, still 
 the only persons, as far as I know, by whom it is posi- 
 tively and unhesitatingly denied and despised, are 
 professing Christians^. This singular anomaly in the 
 progress of opinion is often ascribed to the gradual 
 expansion of the mental faculties, occasioned by the 
 constant accumulation of the store of scientific, literary, 
 
 Reynolds’s Three Treatises, p. 454. 
 
 * Persons who thus despise and reject, one by one, the constituents 
 of vital Christianity, may be addressed in the quaint languago o£ an 
 old theologian, “ I beseech you, sirs, as you regard the reputation of 
 your reason, tell us, why you will profess a religion which you abhor ? 
 Or, why will you abhor a religion which you profess?” 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 369 
 
 and Biblical knowledge; — especially since the era of 
 the reformation, when a new impulse was given to 
 every species of human inquiry. The reason thus 
 assigned, however, though plausible, is not satisfactory. 
 Old sciences have, it is true, been much improved and 
 extended ; and new sciences have often grown with 
 rapidity out of the old stock ; so that truths which in 
 one age have stood almost at the summit of knowledge, 
 have in the next sunk into the mere elements ; or 
 propositions which in one age have , been received as 
 irrefragable, have in a succeeding age been exploded 
 as untenable and fallacious. But nothing of this kind 
 can be traced with regard to religious truth. The in- 
 cessant and successful labours of Biblical critics have 
 purged away impurities in existing copies, especially 
 of the New Testament; and, by a careful collation of 
 different manuscripts, have expunged errors and re- 
 moved difficulties ; but they have not added one propo- 
 sition to the repository of revealed knowledge, as it w as 
 left by the apostles : nor have they taken one proposition 
 away. The Bible gave the same view of human nature 
 to the Primitive Christians in the early ages, and to the 
 Reformers in the sixteenth century, as it exhibits to 
 us : it pointed out the same method of salvation, and 
 promised like aids of ‘‘ the same Spirit,^^ to pious 
 persons in all times, and in all places^. This, indeed, 
 is essential to its perfection, and fits it for universality: 
 while the unceasing modifications in human sciences, 
 notwithstanding their gradual augmentation, at once 
 
 2 Whatever then (sajs Vincentius Lirinensis) was faithfully 
 sown by the Fathers in the church, which is ‘ the husbandry of God,’ 
 ought to be diligently observed and cultivated by the sons : this must 
 flourish and fructify, this must increase and multiply, and be con- 
 tinually growing on (retaining its original proportions) to its proper 
 perfection. Succeeding ages may set off, file, and polish, the ancient 
 Doctrines of this Divine Philosophy ; but they must never change, 
 never retrench, or mutilate any thing: the doctrines may admit of 
 more evidence, clearness, and distinction, but they must be inviolably 
 preserved in their full, entire, primitive perfection^ Commonitory, 
 cap. 29. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 370 
 
 prove their imperfection, and suggest the strong proba- 
 bility that such imperfection will never be completely 
 removed in the present state of existence. 
 
 But, without pursuing farther this train of reflection, 
 permit me now to lay before you the opinions of 
 philosophic heathens relative to the subject of Divine 
 influences. That they thought the Deity the Inspirer 
 of pure thoughts and holy conduct, as well as the 
 Author of animal life, will, I conceive, be sufficiently 
 obvious from the few quotations I shall here select. 
 Xenophon represents Cyrus, with his dying breath, 
 as humbly ascribing it to a Divine influence on his 
 mind, that he had been taught to acknowledge the 
 care of Providence, and to bear his prosperity with a 
 becoming moderation Plato describes Socrates as 
 declaring that wheresoever virtue comes, it is appa- 
 rently the fruit of a Divine dispensation^.’^ And 
 Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Plutarch tes- 
 tify, that Socrates publicly declared before his judges, 
 that he was accompanied by an invisible conductor, or 
 attendant spirit, whose frequent interposition stopped 
 him in the commission of evil. Plato also himself 
 observes, that virtue is not to he taught but by Divine 
 assistance And in his sixth book, De Republica, he 
 affirms that, if any man escape the temptations of 
 life, and behave himself as becomes a worthy member 
 of society, he has reason to own that it is God ivho saves 
 him^J^ Simplicius has a prayer to God, as the Father 
 and Guide of reason, so to co-operate with us, as to 
 purge us from all carnal and brutish affections, that 
 we may be enabled to act according to the dictates of 
 reason, and to attain to the true knowledge of himselF.” 
 Maximus Tyrius argues that if skill in the professions 
 and .sciences is insinuated into men’s minds by a Divine 
 influence, we can much less imagine that a thing so 
 
 ^ Xen. Cjropaed. lib. viii. cap. 7, § i. 
 
 Plat. Men. ad. fin. p. 428. ^ Epinoni. p. 1014. 
 
 ^ De Repub. lib. vi. p. 677, Ed. Francof. 1602. 
 
 Siinplic. in Epictet. ad fin. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 371 
 
 much more excellent as virtue is, can be the work of 
 any mortal art ; for the notion must be very strange 
 to think that God is liberal and free in matters of less 
 moment, and sparing in the greatest/^ And in the 
 same discourse he remarks that "" even the best disposed 
 minds, as they are seated in the midst between the 
 highest virtue and extreme wickedness, need the assist- 
 ance of' God to incline and lead them to the better side^.^^ 
 Tully, in a passage quoted in the third letter of this 
 series, declares that ‘‘No man was ever truly great 
 without some divine influence^. And Seneca, when 
 he is speaking of a resemblance to the Deity in charac- 
 ter, ascribes it to his influence upon the mind : “ Are 
 you surprised (says he) that man should approach to 
 the Gods ? It is God that comes to men : nay, which 
 is yet more, he enters into them : for no mind becomes 
 virtuous, but by his assistances^ ” 
 
 ® Max. Tjr. Dissert, xxii, ° See p. 40. 
 
 Senec. Epistol. Ixxiii.^ — Among modern nations destitute of the 
 light of Christianity, the doctrine that wisdom of various kinds is 
 imparted by spiritual teaching, is frequently avowed. Thus one of 
 the answers of a Chicasaw to Wesley indicates clearly that the tra- 
 dition of Divine influence had reached that people : — There are but 
 a few (says he) whom the Beloved one chooses from a child, and is 
 in them, and takes care of them, and teaches them. They know these 
 things [religious matters], and our old men practise, therefore they 
 knowj but I do not practise, therefore I know but little.” 
 
 So again, the following translation of a letter “ sent with a present 
 from the Chief of the live Indian Nations to Dr. Jenner,” furnishes 
 pleasing evidence to the same effect : — 
 
 “ Our Father has delivered unto us the book you sent us how to 
 use the discovery which the Great Spirit made to you, whereby the 
 small-pox, that fatal enemy of our tribes, maybe driven from the earth. 
 We have deposited your book in the hands of the man of skill, whom 
 our Great Father employs to attend us when sick or wounded. 
 
 “ We shall not fail to teach our children to speak the name of 
 Jennei'y and to thank the Great Spirit for bestowing upon him so much 
 wisdom and so much benevolence. 
 
 “ We send with this a belt and string of Wampum, in token of our 
 acceptance of your precious gift; and we beseech the Great Spirit to 
 take care of you in this world and in the land of spirits. 
 
 “ Signed by the Chiefs of the Mohawk, Onandaga, Senega, Oneida, 
 and Cayauga nations.” 
 
372 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Numerous passages might easily be extracted from 
 the Christian apologists and other writers in the first 
 four centuries, to elucidate and confirm the same great 
 truth But, as I wish to reduce this branch of our 
 inquiry into as narrow compass as possible, you will 
 prefer my laying before you the sentiments of the 
 venerable English Reformers, as they are represented 
 in the Homilies ; that their notions on this point were 
 sufficiently clear and decisive will appear from a quo- 
 tation or two. The charity wherewith we love our 
 brethren (say they) is verily God^s work in us. If 
 after our fall we repent, it is by him that we repent, 
 which reached forth his merciful hand to raise us up. 
 If we have any will to rise, it is he that preventeth our 
 will, and disposeth us thereto. If after contrition we 
 feel our consciences at peace with God through remis- 
 sion of our sin, and so be reconciled again to his favour, 
 and hope to be his children and inheritors of everlast- 
 ing life; who worketh these great miracles in us? Our 
 worthiness, our deservings, our wits, our virtue? Nay, 
 verily, St. Paul will not suffer flesh and clay to presume 
 to such arrogancy, and therefore saith. All is of God” 
 Without his lively and secret inspiration can we not 
 once so much as speak the name of our Mediator, as 
 St. Paul plainly testifieth ; no man can once name our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, but in the Holy Ghost, Much less 
 should we able to believe and know those great myste- 
 ries that be opened to us by Christ.^^ Very liberal 
 and gentle is the Spirit of Wisdom. In his power 
 shall we have sufficient ability to know our duty to 
 God, in him shall we be comforted and encouraged to 
 walk in our duty, in him shall we be meet vessels to 
 receive the grace of Almighty God ; for it is he that 
 purgeth and purifieth the mind by his secret working. 
 
 For a brief but judicious sumniarj of the sentiments of those 
 individuals in every age from the Fathers down to the Reformation, 
 who were either famous for piety, or instruments of the several 
 minuter changes which led to the Reformation itself, see the Edin- 
 burgh Christian Instructor, vol. v. pp. 325 — 328. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 373 
 
 He lightenetb the heart to conceive worthy thoughts of 
 Almighty God, he sitteth in the tongue of man to stir 
 him to speak his honour : no language is hid from him, 
 for he hath the knowledge of all speech, he only minis- 
 tereth spiritual strength to the powers of our soul and 
 body. To hold the way which God hath prepared for 
 us to walk rightly in our journey, we must acknow- 
 ledge that it is the power of his Spirit which helpeth 
 our infirmity. That we may boldly come in prayer, 
 and call upon Almighty God as our Father, it is by 
 this Holy Spirit, which maketh intercession for us with 
 continual sighs. If any gift we have wherewith we 
 may work to the glory of God, and profit of our neigh- 
 bour, all is wrought by his own and self-same Spirit, 
 which maketh his distributions peculiar to every man 
 as he will 
 
 Fix your thoughts for a moment upon the mass of 
 opposition and aversion which must be removed before 
 Christian principles get possession of the heart, and 
 you will soon perceive that nothing short of Divine 
 energy can effectually subdue it. Within us, there are 
 the opposition of darkness, and blindness, and igno- 
 rance, only to be dispelled by heavenly light ; the 
 aversion of error and prejudice, and of overweening 
 self-esteem ; a love of sin, to be transformed into 
 hatred ; a prevailing sensuality, to be mortified and 
 subdued : all these engrafted upon the trunk of custom, 
 a baneful tree, so deeply rooted in the corruptions of 
 our nature that nothing short of supernatural efforts 
 can remove it from the soil in which it has thriven 
 ever since the fall of man. Without us, there are to 
 be overcome, the allurements and fascinations of the 
 world, the scoffs and taunts of men given up to the 
 world, and, where no other persecution prevails, there 
 may still be experienced the persecution of the tongue, 
 and, that which is peculiarly trying to an upright man, 
 the misinterpretation of motives and principles of 
 
 Homily for Rogation Week, 3d part, pp. 412 — 414. Oxf. ed. 
 1810. 
 
374 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 action ; and all this, be it not forgotten, aided by the 
 suggestions of the most intellectual of fallen beings, 
 the great enemy of souls, the Prince of the Power of 
 theAir.^^ What besides the Spirit of God can neutralize 
 such malignant agency, can subdue such powerful 
 internal and external opposition? 
 
 These are no new notions engendered, as you may 
 be told, in the hot-bed of enthusiasm; but are con- 
 sistent with the sentiments of a very great majority of 
 religious writers from the Reformation down to the 
 present time. Even Bishop Tomline, though his lan- 
 guage on several religious topics indicates a strange 
 aversion to the notions current amongst the majority 
 of pious men, yields his testimony in favour of the 
 doctrine now in contemplation. In explaining the 
 w ords of the Liturgy, O God, because through the 
 weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good 
 thing, without thou grant us the help of thy grace, 
 &c. his Lordship says, “ I have only to observe that 
 the ‘ good thing* here mentioned must mean good in 
 the sight of God: such an action our weak and unassisted 
 nature will unquestionably not allow us to perform.” 
 To the same purpose he observes in another place. 
 
 The human mind is so weakened and vitiated by the 
 sin of our first parents, that we cannot by our own 
 natural strength prepare ity or put it into a proper state 
 for the reception of a saving faith, or for the performance 
 of the spiritual worship required in the Gospel ; this 
 mental purification cannot he effected without divine 
 assistance. Once more : The grace of God prevents 
 us Christians, that is^ it goes before, it gives the first 
 spring and rise to our endeavours, that we may have a 
 good will : and when this good will is thus excited, the 
 grace of God does not desert us, but it works vjith us 
 when ive have that good luill.^^ And again : — It is 
 acknowledged that man has not the disposition, and con- 
 sequently not the ahility, to do what in the sight of God 
 is good, till he is influenced by the Spirit of God^^.^^ 
 Tomline’s Refutation of Calvinism, pp. 54, 60, 61, 67, 68. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 375 
 
 Christians then ascribe, or ought to ascribe, every 
 intellectual, moral, and spiritual attainment to God. 
 And when we speak of the ordinary influences of the 
 Spirit of God, we mean to impute to the operation of 
 that Spirit our turning from vanity, folly, or thought- 
 lessness unto God, — our sanctification, — ail the actions 
 of our Christian course, our constancy and perseverance, 
 — all particular graces and virtues which we seek at 
 his hands, — our adoption, — our access to God and 
 assistance in prayer, — our joy and peace in believ- 
 ing,” — our support in trials and afflictions, and deli- 
 verance from temptations, — our continual progress in 
 holiness ; and we affirm that these gifts are not offered 
 to here and there a favoured individual, but to all sin- 
 cere Christians in every age of the church; for, when 
 speaking of the promise of the Spirit, the declaration 
 of Peter was as universal as language could make it 
 — the promise is to you and to your children; and to 
 all that are afar (either in point of space or of time), 
 to as many as the Lord our God shall call*^.^^ That 
 this opinion is compatible with the uniform tenour of 
 Scripture will be made evident by a few quotations set 
 down promiscuously, as they occur to my mind. 
 
 No man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith 
 ‘Jesus is accursed” and no man can say ‘ Jesus is the 
 LoitP but by the Holy Spirit. There are differences 
 of gifts, but it is the same Spirit “We have not 
 received the spirit of the world, but that which is from 
 God, that we may know the things which have been 
 freely given to us of God “ Such were some of you ; 
 
 but ye have been w^ashed, ye have been sanctified, ye 
 have been justified, by the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
 by the Spirit of our God “Ye are not in the flesh, 
 but in the Spirit ; since the Spirit of God dwelleth in 
 you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is 
 none of his.^^ “ If through the Spirit ye mortify the 
 deeds of the body, ye shall live. For, as many as are 
 
 Acts, ii. 39. 1 Cor. xii. 3, 4. See also ver. 6. 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 12. 17 1 Cor. vi. 11. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 376 
 
 led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons God.^^ The 
 Spirit also helpeth our weaknesses; for we know not 
 what we should pray for as we ou^ht ; but the Spirit 
 itself intercedeth for us in groans which cannot be ex- 
 pressed*® or, as Doddridge renders the latter clause, 
 the Spirit itself manages affairs for us with unuttera- 
 ble groanings/^ “ The God of hope fill you with all joy 
 and peace, in believing; that ye may abound in hope 
 through the power of the Holy Spirit” ‘‘ That the Gen- 
 tiles might be made an acceptable offering, being sanc- 
 tified by the Spirit He who hath begun a good work 
 in you, will fnish it until the day of Jesus Christ 
 They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their 
 strength My gracious assistance is sufficient for 
 
 thee ; for my power is made perfect in weakness 
 He saved us, not by works of justification which 
 we did, but according to his mercy, by the washing of 
 regeneration, even the renovation of the Holy Spirit, 
 which he shed on us richly, through Jesus Christ our 
 Saviour^®.’^ ‘^That good doctrine which is committed 
 to thy trust, keep, through the Holy Spirit which dwell- 
 eth in us^^.^^ “ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there 
 
 is liberty “ The love of God is shed abroad in our 
 hearts by the Holy Spirit which hath been given us^^^^ 
 That ye may be strengthened with might by his Spirit 
 in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts 
 by faith ; that being rooted and grounded in love, ye 
 may know the surpassing love of the knowledge of 
 Christ.^^ For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
 peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, 
 meekness, temperance Unless a man be born of 
 water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God.^^ “ He that abideth in me and I in him, he 
 beareth much fruit ; but, severed from me, ye can do 
 nothing” Nevertheless, it is expedient for you that 
 
 Rom. viii. 9, 14, 26. Dodd, in loc. Rom. xv. 13, 16. 
 
 20 Phi], i. 6. 21 Is. xl. 31. 22 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
 23 Tit. iii. 5. 24 2 Tim. i. 14. 25 2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 
 26 Rom. V. 5. 27 Eph. iii. 16, 18, 19. Gal. y. 22. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 377 
 
 I go away ; for, if I go not away, the Advocate (Com- 
 forter, Monitor, or Instructor, UapaKXrjrog,) will not 
 come unto you ; but if I go I will send him unto you. 
 And when he is come he will convince the world of 
 sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. When he 
 cometh, evert the Spirit of truths he will guide you into 
 all the truth We are witnesses of these things, 
 and so is the Holy Spirit also, which God hath given 
 to those that obey him^^.^^ Ye have received the 
 Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. 
 The Spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit, that 
 we are the children of God^®.’^ In whom ye, having 
 believed, have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of pro- 
 mise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, unto the 
 redemption of the purchased possession.^’ ^"Through 
 him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father 
 can do alt things through him who strengtheneth 
 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God ; and that 
 the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any man corrupt 
 the temple of God, God will corrupt him ; for the tem- 
 ple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” "^Know ye 
 not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit 
 which is in you, which ye have from God^^?” There- 
 fore, ‘‘ offend (or grieve) not the Holy Spirit of God, 
 whereby ye have been sealed to the day of redemption.” 
 But, Work out your own salvation with fear and 
 trembling : for it is God that ivorketh in you, both to 
 will and to do (i. e. influences your desires and endea- 
 vours), of his benevolence 
 
 Such is the language of Scripture; from which it is 
 manifest that it is not a mark of ignorant enthusiasm, 
 but of pious reliance upon the Divine promise, to ex- 
 pect the assistances of the Spirit of God, when they are 
 humbly sought in the way of his appointment. The 
 mode in which these influences are communicated 
 
 John, iii. 5 ; xv. 5 ; xvi. 7, 8, 13. Acts, v. 32. 
 
 30 Rom. viii. 15, 16. 3i Eph. i. 13, 14 ; ii. 18. 
 
 32 Phil. iv. 13. 33 I Pqj., iii 10 . yi^ 19^ 
 
 34 Eph. iv. 30. Phil. ii. 12, 13. 
 
378 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 may be indefinitely diversified, but the effect will uni- 
 formly be the improvement of the religious character, 
 a more complete emancipation from the domination 
 of passions, from the slavery of sin; or, to express the 
 continued effect in Scripture phraseology, it will be 
 growth in grace.^^ In accomplishing this, the whole 
 circle of means and instruments, animate and inani- 
 mate, by which we are circumscribed, is within the 
 reach of God, and at his command. Sometimes he has 
 recourse to alarming dispensations of his Providence, 
 which awaken a sense of the fluctuating nature of all 
 terrestrial sources of enjoyment, teach us our depend- 
 ance upon Him, and lead us to repose our entire con- 
 fidence on Him alone. At other times he employs 
 the conversations, the arguments, perhaps the faithful 
 remonstrances, of Christian friends, to stimulate us in 
 the path of duty, and point us to the fountain of 
 living waters. At others, and this most frequently, 
 he makes use of the word of truth either read or 
 preached : this he has assured us he will render 
 lively and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, 
 piercing, even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
 spirt, and to be a discerner of the thoughts and inten- 
 tions of the heart^^;” and thus, by putting life into it, 
 cause it by an irresistible energy to communicate spi- 
 ritual life to our souls. Sometimes he operates upon 
 us by the recollection of past occurrences, and while 
 we are thus musing, the fire of divine love burns 
 within us^®. On such occasions He can awaken a 
 dormant idea which long lay neglected in the memory, 
 can secretly attract the attention of the mind to it, can 
 enable, nay compel, us to trace its various relations, 
 can throw a lustre upon things which were obscure, 
 place those which seemed remote immediately before 
 our mental eye, suspend the operation of secular ob- 
 jects, dispel the clouds of prejudice, impart an unusual 
 power to what was before considered as trifling or 
 unworthy present regard, convince us fully and practi- 
 Heb. iv. 12. Ps. xxxix. 3. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 379 
 
 cally of the vanity of all enjoyments except those 
 which are consecrated by religion, and thus effectually 
 lead us to fix our affections on things above/’ In 
 these, and numerous other ways, there may be a posi- 
 tive operation of the Spirit of God upon men’s minds, 
 though they may be utterly unconscious of it. His 
 energy is not the less real, because it is silent, secret, 
 and unperceived ; for here, as well as in the manage- 
 ment of the natural world, 
 
 “ Alone He works in all, jet He alone 
 
 Seems not to work.” — Thomson. 
 
 To ridicule, disbelieve, and deny all this, has of late 
 been reckoned an indication of a powerful and philo- 
 sophic mind ; yet it requires but a cursory examina- 
 tion to perceive that such is a spurious criterion of true 
 elevation either of sentiment or character ; and to affirm, 
 on the contrary, that, with only our present knowledge 
 of human intellect and of Divine power, the denial of 
 spiritual influences is as unphilosophical as it is im- 
 pious. 
 
 No person can look into the world with the eyes of 
 a philosopher, and not soon ascertain that the grand 
 theatre of phenomena which lies before him is natu- 
 rally subdivided into two great classes of scenery, the 
 one exhibiting constrained, the other voluntary, mo- 
 tion ; the former characteristic of matter, the latter as 
 clearly indicating something perfectly distinct from 
 matter, and possessing totally different qualities. Pul- 
 verize matter (says Saurin), give it all the different 
 forms of which it is susceptible, elevate it to its highest 
 degree of attainment, make it vast and immense, mo- 
 derate or small, luminous or obscure, opaque or trans- 
 parent, there will never result any thing but figures; 
 and never will you be able by all these combinations 
 or divisions to produce one single sentiment, one sin- 
 gle thought.” The reason is obvious : a substance 
 compounded of innumerable parts, which every one 
 acknowledges matter to be, cannot be the subject of an 
 
380 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT, 
 
 individual consciousness, the seat of which must be a 
 simple and undivided substance; as the great Dr. Clarke 
 has long ago irrefragably shown. Intellect and voli- 
 tion are of a quite different nature from corporeal figure 
 or motion, and must reside in, or emanate from, a dif- 
 ferent kind of being, a kind which, to distinguish it 
 from matter, is called spirit or mind. Of these, the 
 one is necessarily inert, the other essentially active. 
 The one is characterised by want of animation, life, 
 and even motion, except as it is urged by something 
 ab extra; the other is living, energetic, self-moving, 
 and possessed of power to move other things. We 
 often fancy, it is true, that matter moves matter ; but 
 this, strictly speaking, is not correct. When one wheel 
 or lever in a sy.stem of machinery communicates mo- 
 tion to another, it can at most only communicate what 
 it has received, and if you trace the connexion of the 
 mechanism, you will at length arrive at a first mover, 
 which first mover is, in fact, spiritual. If, for example, 
 it be an animal, it is evidently the spiritual part of that 
 animal from whence the motion originally springs. 
 If, otherwise, it be the descent of a weight, or the fall 
 of water, or the force of a current of air, or the expan- 
 sive force of steam, the action must ultimately be 
 referred to what are termed powers of nature, that is, 
 to gravitation or elasticity ; and these, it is now well 
 known, cannot be explained by any allusion to mate- 
 rial principles, but to the indesinent operation of the 
 Great Spirit, in whom we live, and move, and have 
 our being — the finger of God touching and urging the 
 various subordinate springs, which in their turn move 
 the several parts of the universe. Thus God acts in 
 all places, in all times, and upon all persons. The 
 whole material world, were it not for his Spirit, would 
 be inanimate and inactive : all motion is derived 
 
 ^ See Baxter on the Soul, § 2, in which that acute metaphysician 
 proves the necessity of an immaterial mover in all spontaneous mo- 
 tions ; and Professor Vince s Essay on the Cause of Gravitation, in 
 which he assigns many cogent reasons for believing that the Deity 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 381 
 
 either from his energy, or from that of spirits which he 
 animates ; and it is next to certain that the only primary 
 action is that of spirit, and the most direct and imme- 
 diate that of spirit upon spirit. 
 
 All consistent Theists allow that God is every where 
 present by his essence, and as Bishop Taylor has most 
 exquisitely expressed it, God is every where present 
 by his power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with his 
 hand, he fixes the earth in its place with his foot, he 
 guides all the creatures with his eye, and refreshes 
 them with his influence : he makes the powers of hell 
 to shake with his terrors, and binds the devils with his 
 word, and throws them out with his command, and 
 sends the angels on embassies with his decrees; he 
 hardens the joints of infants, and confirms the bones 
 when they are secretly fashioned. He it is that assists 
 at the numerous productions of fishes; and there is 
 not one hollowness at the bottom of the sea, but he 
 shows himself to be Lord of it, by sustaining there the 
 creatures that come to dwell in it ; and in the wilder- 
 ness the bittern and the stork, the dragon and the 
 satyr, the unicorn and the elk, live upon his provi- 
 sions, and revere his power, and feel the force of his 
 Almightiness.’^ 
 
 If, then, the moral well-being of the universe be of 
 greater importance than its mere existence; and that 
 it is so is evident from the fact, that the continuance 
 of the earth is solely rendered subservient to the 
 gathering in of the saints,’^ after which the heavens 
 will pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
 will be greatly heated and dissolved^® if it be irrecon- 
 cileable with the idea of a wise governor to imagine 
 that he will incessantly attend to minor matters, and 
 as habitually disregard concerns of greater moment, 
 then may we adopt the succeeding language of the 
 
 “ in bis government does not act by material instruments, but that 
 tbe whole is conducted by his more immediate agency, without the 
 intervention of material causes.” 
 
 Is. Ixv. 8. Matt. V. 13 j xxiv. 22, 31. 2 Pet. iii. 10. 
 
382 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 same admirable writer, and say, that God is especially 
 present in the hearts of his people by his Holy Spirit : 
 and indeed the hearts of holy men are temples in the 
 truth of things, and in type and shadow they are heaven 
 itself. For God reigns in the hearts of his servants : 
 there is his kingdom. The energy of grace hath sub- 
 dued all his enemies: there is his power. They serve 
 him night and day, and give him thanks and praise: 
 that is his glory. This is the religion and worship of 
 God in the temple. The temple itself is the heart of 
 man ; Christ is the High Priest, who from thence 
 sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to 
 his own intercession, and presents all together to his 
 Father; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling there, 
 hath also consecrated it into a temple ; and God dwells 
 in our hearts by faith, and Christ by his Spirit, and 
 the Spirit by his purities: so that we are also cabinets 
 of the mysterious Trinity : and what is this short of 
 heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and 
 letters of words^®?” 
 
 Many, I am aware, ascribe all notions of communion 
 with God, and the operations of the Spirit, to some 
 strange ferment of the animal spirits.^^ But this is to 
 give mere words in current payment, and leave the 
 phenomenon unexplained. For, if you inquire, what 
 are the animal spirits? how do they ferment? how 
 does this temporary fermentation produce a permanent 
 change of character, enduring through life, with no 
 other modification than the constant approximations 
 to still greater perfection ? you immediately reduce the 
 assertors to silence, and leave them to enjoy the conso- 
 lation of seeing their much vaunted proposition shrink- 
 ing into its pristine vacuity and inanity. And where 
 indeed is the necessity of recurring to any other theory 
 to explain this momentous class of facts, than that 
 which the Scriptures present? Why should the Deity, 
 whose moral excellencies if possible outshine his ma- 
 jesty and his power, be excluded from interference 
 Bishop Taylor’s Holy Living, ch. 1,^3. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 383 
 
 in the moral department of his creation? Where is the 
 philosophy of imagining (when it is acknowledged that 
 God created us, sustains us by his power, cherishes us 
 by his providential care, and sheds upon us temporal 
 blessings) that he wdll never pour his influences into 
 the soul, the only avenue through which Religion can 
 enter, or from which it can proceed? We are taught 
 by the great Author of Christian knowledge that God 
 is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship 
 him in spirit and in truth/^ He therefore searches 
 the heart and the only religion he approves is a 
 spiritual religion, manifested, it is true, by external 
 deportment, by uprightness of conduct, and purity of 
 life, but still having its seat in the soul : and yet we 
 are to be told that he has it not in his power, or it 
 comports not with his purposes, to reach the spiritual 
 part of man. The writers of the New Testament ex- 
 hort us to fervency and frequency in prayer; but our 
 modern promulgators of Christianity improved (for 
 such they esteem it by their innovations), remove the 
 very basis of prayer : for what is prayer but aspiration 
 of soul, ‘‘ spiritual breathing?^’ what can a religious 
 creature, as such, pray for, but to be rendered better? 
 and how can he possibly be rendered better but by 
 experiencing Divine energy, by having strength and 
 goodness imparted to him from the Fountain of strengt ii 
 and excellence, that is, by being made a recipient of 
 the influences of the Spirit? 
 
 Farther, I believe it will be found that the deniers 
 of this consolatory and cheering doctrine, by so doing, 
 exclude the greater while they admit the less : and 
 that, whether they believe in spiritual existences, or 
 are completely materialists in theory. Whether the 
 mind be purely spiritual (that is, in this sense, im- 
 material), or some ethereal conformation of refined 
 matter, it is an incontrovertible fact that mind can act 
 upon mind, either mediately or immediately. For 
 example: A correspondent at a distance communicates 
 his sentiments to me by written symbols: on the perusal 
 
384 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 of these my mind is as completely operated upon, and 
 more powerfully than the wheels of a watch by its 
 mainspring, or of a clock by its pendulum and de- 
 scending weight: joy or sorrow, pain or pleasure, 
 malevolent or benevolent sympathies, shall thence be 
 excited: and this is the entire operation of human 
 intellect upon human intellect, through the medium 
 of the various instruments w'e have in our power. Simi- 
 lar effects result from the perusal of poetry, or from 
 witnessing dramatic representations. I repeat that 
 they are the genuine influence of mind upon mind: 
 and you will at once perceive the truth of the assertion, 
 if you simply recollect that by excluding the thinking, 
 inventive, sentient, percipient part (whatever it be) 
 from writers, readers, performers, and spectators, you 
 in consequence annihilate the whole of this interesting 
 class of phenomena. This, then, being the case, there 
 remains no other alternative than either to admit that 
 the mind of God can act upon the mind of man, or to 
 concede to the human intellect greater power than be- 
 longs to the Most Powerful; a conclusion from which 
 it must be a singularly strong mind indeed that does 
 not recoil with horror and dismay. 
 
 Having thus shown that the doctrine of Divine influ- 
 ences is revealed in Scripture, and is consistent with 
 the purest philosophy, it remains that I fortify it against 
 one or two prevailing abuses. And first, it is by some 
 affirmed that the gift of the Spirit is arbitrary, that is, 
 entirely independent of human conduct or human qua- 
 lifications; but that this is invariably the case, is not, T 
 apprehend, a fair inference from the New Testament, 
 contemplated in the aggregate, however it may have 
 been deduced from some insulated passages. There 
 is, I conceive (though on this delicate subject I \yould 
 speak with diffidence, and with the deepest conviction 
 of the omnipotent energy with which the Spirit often 
 prepares its own way) an established connexion be- 
 tween the condition of those who are, or will be, believ- 
 ers, and the communication of spiritual life and growth ; 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 385 
 
 and that connexion may be doubtless founded upon 
 sufficient reasons in the nature of things, though they 
 may not have the least dependance upon antecedent 
 merit, and are, and must be, unknown to us in our pre- 
 sent state. God sees us as we are, and imparts to us 
 according to our necessities, and his own wise and be- 
 neficent (not capricious) intentions, efficacious grace 
 being given to some, while sufficient grace is offered to 
 all. Divine assistance thus bestowed does not take 
 away our liberty, but frees us from bondage,^^ and, as 
 David expresses it, '' enlargeth our hearts to run the 
 w'ay of God^s commandments.’^ And though it is 
 conferred gratuitously, and not because we deserved it, 
 yet we must not assert that it is usually in its origin 
 imparted arbitrarily ; for it is communicated in answer 
 lo prayer, and we are exhorted to pray for it, ‘‘If ye 
 (says the Lord), being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts unto your children ; how much more wdll your 
 Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 hirnp^^ And conformably with this the first great effu- 
 sion of the Spirit was given in answer to prayer, when 
 the disciples were for that purpose “ with one accord 
 in one place;” and, on another occasion, “when they 
 had prayed, the place was shaken wffiere they had as- 
 sembled together; and they were all filled with the 
 Holy Spirit, and spake the word of God with free- 
 dom 
 
 Nor, again, is the operation of the Spirit arbitrary in 
 degree. Its rule and measure is, “ Whosoever hath 
 much, to him shall be given, and he shall abound : but 
 whosoever hath little, from him shall be taken even 
 that which he hath'‘h” Hence result the exhortations 
 of the apostles to the Gentiles, which would otherwise 
 be remarkable enough : “ Be strong in the grace which 
 is by Jesus Christ.” “ Strengthen yourselves in the Lord 
 and in the power of his might.” ''Be filed with the 
 
 Luke, xi. 13. Acts, ii. 1 ; iv. 31. See also James, i. 3. 
 
 Matt. xiii. 12. Luke, viii. 18. 
 
 C C 
 
386 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns, 
 and spiritual songs 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, is the withholding or the 
 withdrawing spiritual influences merely an arbitrary 
 act. It is the just punishment of men^s wickedness, 
 perverseness, and folly, in trifling with the means of 
 grace, ‘‘ doing despite unto the Spirit,^' and thus griev- 
 ing that Spirit, till it is compelled to withdraw 
 Hence, by the way, results the necessity of a constant 
 self-denial: because it is evident that so far as we in- 
 dulge any vanity of mind, or corruption of heart, so 
 far we resist the graces of the Spirit, and render our- 
 selves indisposed to relish and improve its inspiration: 
 we should, therefore, sedulously avoid all those tem- 
 pers and employments, all those enjoyments and in- 
 dulgences which may cause us to be ‘"less able, and 
 less disposed, to improve those degrees of Divine grace 
 that are communicated to us.^^ 
 
 Lastly, I may remark, that the doctrine under con- 
 sideration is most dreadfully abused by every one who 
 says, I can do nothing without Divine assistance, 
 therefore I will sit still and use no effort for my reco- 
 very till God irresistibly impel me to it.^^ Here, as in 
 numerous other instances, the state of torpid inactivity 
 persevered in is completely different from that which 
 is recommended and adopted in all analogous circum- 
 stances where religion is not concerned. For, although, 
 as it is forcibly expressed in the Liturgy, we have no 
 power of ourselves, to help ourselves,^^ yet it does not 
 follow that we can do nothing : we can put ourselves in 
 the way to obtain the aid offered to us. The depend- 
 ance of the creature on God is not confined to religious 
 matters, but runs through all our concerns. We can 
 no more stretch out our hands, or walk, than we can 
 raise our hearts to God, without his aid ; yet stretching 
 out the hands, or walking, is perfectly voluntary. Our 
 
 42 2 Tim. ii. 1. Eph. vi.. 10 ; v. 18, 19. 
 
 43 Heb. X. 29. Eph. iv. 30. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 387 
 
 gardens and our fields will be totally unproductive, un- 
 less God further our endeavours by his agency and his 
 blessing: yet who but a madman or an idiot would 
 think this a sufficient excuse for neglecting the culture 
 of his garden, or the business of ploughing and sowing 
 in his fields? Spiritual influences neither destroy our 
 moral liberty, nor remove our moral responsibility; 
 but bring with them a corresponding class of duties. 
 We are not to be careless in our conduct, because we 
 are assured of the suggestions, reproofs, and expostu- 
 lations of our faithful friends; nor are we to be supine 
 in our religious concerns because we know not how 
 soon or how long it may be before the suggestions and 
 monitions of the Holy Spirit are prevailingly influen- 
 tial. The apostle Paul does not refer to the promised 
 aids of the Spirit, as an argument for sloth, but for ex- 
 ertion; his language (already quoted in this letter) is 
 — Work out your own salvation with fear and trem- 
 bling; for it is God that influences your desires and 
 endeavours of his benevolence.^^ 
 
 As this topic, and especially exhortation to obey the 
 solicitations of the Spirit, falls peculiarly within the 
 province of ministers of the Gospel, allow me to termi- 
 nate this letter by a quotation from an excellent modern 
 author, whose eloquence and piety on this as on all 
 occasions mutually adorn and exalt each other. 
 
 Though a general attention to the duties of piety 
 and virtue, and a careful avoidance of the sins opposed 
 to these, are certainly included in a becoming deport- 
 ment to the Holy Spirit, perhaps it is not cdl that is 
 included. The children of God are characterised in 
 Scripture by their being Med by the Spirit:^ led, evi- 
 dently not impelled, not driven forward in a headlong 
 course, without choice. or design; but, being, by the 
 constitution of their nature, rational and intelligent, 
 and by the influence of grace, rendered spiritual, they 
 are disposed to obey at a touch, and to comply with 
 the gentle insinuations of Divine grace ; they are ready 
 to take that precise impression which corresponds with 
 
388 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 the mind and purpose of the Spirit. You are aware 
 of what consequence it is in worldly concerns to em- 
 brace opportunities, and to improve critical seasons ; 
 and thus, in the things of the Spirit, there are times 
 peculiarly favourable, moments of happy visitation, 
 where much more may be done towards the advance- 
 ment of our spiritual interest than usual. There are 
 gales of the Spirit, unexpected influences of light and 
 of power, which no assiduity in the means of grace 
 can command, but which it is a great mark of wisdom 
 to improve. If the husbandman is attentive to the 
 vicissitudes of weather, and the face of the sky, that 
 he may be prepared to take the full benefit of every 
 gleam of sunshine, and every falling shower, how 
 much more alert and attentive should we be, in watch- 
 ing for those influences from above,* which are necessary 
 to ripen and mature a far more precious crop ! 
 
 Permit me to suggest two or three heads of inquiry. 
 You have sometimes felt a peculiar seriousness of mind, 
 the delusive glare of worldly objects has faded away, 
 or become dim before your eyes, and death and eter- 
 nity, appearing at the door, have filled the whole field 
 of vision. Have you improved such seasons for fixing 
 those maxims aha establishing those practical conclu- 
 sions which may produce an habitual sobriety of mind, 
 when things appear under a different aspect? You 
 have sometimes found, instead of a reluctance to pray, 
 a powerful impulse to that exercise, so that you felt as 
 if you could do nothing else. Have you alw^ays com- 
 plied with these motions, and suffered nothing but the 
 claims of absolute necessity to divert you from pouring 
 out your hearts at a throne of grace? The Spirit is 
 said to make intercession for saints, with groanings 
 which cannot be uttered ; wdien you have felt those 
 ineffable longings after God, have you indulged them 
 to the utmost? Have you spread every sail, launched 
 forth into the deep of the divine perfections and pro- 
 mises, and possessed yourselves as much as possible 
 of the fulness of God ? There are moments when the 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 389 
 
 conscience of a good man is more tender, has a nicer 
 and more discriminating touch than usual ; the evil of 
 sin in general, and of his own in particular, appears 
 in a more pure and piercing light. Have you availed 
 yourselves of such seasons as these for searching into 
 ‘ the chambers of imagery,’ and while you detected 
 greater and greater abominations, been at the pains to 
 bring them out and slay them before the Lord? Have 
 such visitations effectecl something towards the morti- 
 fication of sin ? Or have they been suffered to expire in 
 mere ineffectual resolutions? The fruits which godly 
 sorrow produced in the Corinthians, are thus beauti- 
 fully portrayed : ^ What carefulness it wrought in you, 
 yea what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, 
 yea what fear, yea ^bat vehement desire, yea what re- 
 venge?’ There are moments in the experience of a good 
 man, when he feels a more than ordinary softness of 
 mind ; the frost of selfishness dissolves, and his heart 
 flows forth in love to God and his fellow-creatures. 
 How careful should we be to cherish such a frame, 
 and to embrace the opportunity of subduing resent- 
 ments, and of healing those scars and wounds which 
 it is scarcely possible to avoid in passing through this 
 unquiet world ! 
 
 “ Remember, we as Christians profess a peculiar 
 relation to God as his children, his witnesses, his peo- 
 ple, his temple; the character of that glorious Being 
 and of his religion will be contemplated by the world, 
 chiefly through the medium of our spirit and conduct, 
 which ought to display, as in a mirror, the virtues of 
 him who hath called you out of darkness into his mar- 
 vellous light. It is strictly appropriate to the subject 
 of our present meditations, to remind you that you are 
 ' temples.’ ‘ For ye, says the apostle, are the temple 
 of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in 
 them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and 
 they shall be my people/ What purity, sanctity, and 
 dignity may be expected in persons who bear such a 
 character! A Christian should look upon himself as 
 
390 INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 something sacred and devoted, so that what involves 
 but an ordinary degree of criminality in others, in him 
 partakes of the nature of sacrilege ; what is a breach of 
 trust in others, is in him the profanation of a temple. 
 Let us watch and pray that nothing may be allowed a 
 place in our hearts that is not suitable to the residence 
 of the holy and blessed God. Finally, having such 
 great and precious promises, dearly beloved, let us 
 cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, 
 perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord'*'*.^’ 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 On Justijication by Faith. 
 
 Here again, my dear friend, we* enter coutroverted 
 ground : and on such ground, indeed, you must ex- 
 pect to find me, nearly till we terminate our corres- 
 pondence. This, however, does not arise from any 
 obscurity in the subjects themselves, or from the vague- 
 ness of the terms in which they are revealed ; but 
 rather from the natural aversion of the unenlightened 
 human mind to receive religious truth in the way God 
 has been pleased to communicate it, and from that 
 peculiarity of the Christian system which requires that 
 the lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the 
 haughtiness of men bowed down,^^ in order that the 
 Lord alone may be exalted 
 
 It is the humiliating fact, that all have sinned and 
 come short of the glory of GodV^ that renders the 
 Christian Religion necessary. Or, in other words, it 
 is because “ by the works of the law no flesh living can 
 be justified,’^ that the new dispensation was requisite. 
 If obedience be at all times our duty, in what way can 
 present repentance release us, as some would argue, 
 from the punishment of former transgressions ? Can 
 repentance annihilate what is past? Or can we do 
 
 Letter on the Work of the Spirit, by R. Hall, A. M. 
 
 * Is. ii. II. 2 See pp. 245, 276—280. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 391 
 
 more, by present obedience, than acquit ourselves of 
 present obligation? Or does the contrition we expe- 
 rience, added to the positive duties we discharge, con- 
 stitute a surplusage of merit, which may be transferred 
 to the reduction of our former demerit? We may as 
 well affirm,^^ says a learned divine, “ that our former 
 obedience atones for our present sins, as that our pre- 
 sent obedience makes amends for antecedent trans- 
 gressions No man can discharge an old debt merely 
 by taking care to incur no fresh ones : and, in like 
 manner, since sin is a debt to Divine justice (which de- 
 mands undeviating rectitude and holiness), when once 
 incurred it would not be cancelled merely by abstain- 
 ing from sin in future ; — supposing it were possible 
 (which I am not in9lined to admit) that sin could be 
 entirely avoided without the aid of that restraining and 
 invigorating principle which is implanted in the heart 
 of a sincere believer on his conversion ^ The question, 
 then, to which not merely every philosophical inquirer, 
 but every man who is interested about his eternal wel- 
 fare, must be solicitous to receive a satisfactory answer 
 is, How shall God be just, and yet the justifier of the 
 ungodly?” To this question the New Testament hap- 
 pily furnishes a most explicit reply. For when we 
 were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for 
 the ungodly '^. And how were the ungodly to avail 
 themselves of the benefit resulting from the death of 
 Christ? The scriptural reply is, hy faith.^* ^^By 
 him (Jesus) all who believe are justified from all things, 
 from which they could not be justified by the law of 
 Moses.” Being justified freely by his grace through 
 
 ® As the due consideration of that branch of the argument which 
 fixes the guilt of sin upon every individual, however he may have 
 escaped all the grosser vices, would draw me too far from my pre- 
 sent purpose, I beg to refer to ch. 5 of that valuable work. Dr. Dod- 
 dridge’s “ Rise and Progress of Religion,” and to section 7 of the 
 excellent Hooker’s Discourse on Justification : and, for a striking 
 proof of the practical necessity of the entire doctrine of the Trinity, 
 to the first part of Bishop Beveridge^s ** Private Thoughts.” 
 
 ^ Rom. V. 6. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 392 
 
 the redemption that is in Christ Jesns.^^ Man is 
 justified hy faith y without the works of the law.^^ ^‘He 
 saved us not by works of justification, but according to 
 his mercy By grace are ye saved through faith, 
 not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, 
 lest any man should glory “Wherefore, being 
 tified by faith, we have peace with God through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ^.^^ 
 
 Such being the main tenour of the declarations in 
 the New Testament, it is no wonder that the doctrine 
 
 justification by faith should in all ages have obtained 
 a very general reception, or that infidels and others 
 should in all ages have disputed it. “You tell sinners 
 (says Celsus), not to examine, but to believe; and 
 their faith will save them;^’ which is just the language 
 that it might be expected an uncandid opponent would 
 adopt®. Our Reformers, whose views of most doctrinal 
 points were remarkably clear and extensive, furnish 
 us with abundant evidence, not of their opinions alone, 
 but of those of much earlier writers, as to the subject 
 before us. 
 
 “After this wise (say they) to be justified only by 
 this true and lively faith in Christ, speak all the old 
 and ancient authors, both Greeks and Latins; of whom 
 we will specially rehearse three, Hilary, Basil, and 
 Ambrose. St. Hilary saith these words plainly in the 
 ninth canon upon Matthew; ‘Faith only justifieth.^ 
 And St. Basil, a Greek author, writeth thus : ‘ This is 
 a perfect and whole rejoicing in God, when a man 
 advanceth not himself for his own righteousness, but 
 acknowledgeth himself to lack true justice and righte- 
 ousness, and to be justified by the only faith in Christ.^ 
 
 “ These be the very words of St. Basil ; and St. Am- 
 brose, a Latin author, hath these words : ‘ This is the 
 ordinance of God, that they which believe in Christ 
 shall be saved without works, by faith only, freely re- 
 
 ® Acts, xiii. 39. Rom. iii. 24, 28. Tit. iii. 5. Eph. ii. 8, 9. 
 Gal. ii. 16. Rom. v. 1. 
 
 ® Orig. con. Cels. p. 8. Ed. 1658. Bellamy’s ed. p. 67. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 393 
 
 ceiving the remission of their sins.^ Consider diligently 
 these words, ^ without works, by faith only, freely we 
 receive the remission of our sins.^ What can be spoken 
 more plainly than to say, that freely without works, 
 by faith only we obtain remission of our sins ? These, 
 and other like sentences, that we be justified by faith 
 only, freely, and without works, we read oft-times in 
 the best and most ancient writers : as, beside Hilary, 
 Basil, and Ambrose, before rehearsed, we read the 
 same in Origeri, St. Chrysostom, St. Cyprian, St. Au- 
 gustine, Prosper, Oecumenius, Proclus, Bernard us, 
 Anselm, and many other authors, Greek and Latin. 
 Nevertheless, this sentence, that we be justified by faith 
 only, is not so meant of them that the same justifying 
 faith is alone in man, without true repentance, hope, 
 charity, dread, and the fear of God, at any time and 
 season. Nor when they say that we should be justi- 
 fied freely, do they mean that we should or might 
 afterwards be idle, and that nothing should be required 
 on our parts afterward: neither do they mean so to be 
 justified without good works, that we should do no 
 good works at all, like as shall be more expressed at 
 large hereafter. But this saying, that we be justified 
 by faith only, freely, and without works, is spoken to 
 take away clearly all merit of our works, as being 
 unable to deserve our justification at God’s hands, and 
 thereby most plainly to express the weakness of man 
 and the goodness of God ; the great infirmity of our- 
 selves, and the might and power of God ; the imper- 
 fection of our own works, and the most abundant grace 
 of our Saviour Christ; and therefore wholly to ascribe 
 the merit and deserving of our justification unto Christ 
 only, and his most precious blood-shedding. This faith 
 the holy Scripture teacheth us; this doctrine all ancient 
 authors of Christ’s church do approve; this doctrine 
 advanceth and setteth forth the true glory of Christ, and 
 beateth down the vain-glory of man; this, whosoever de- 
 nieth, is not to he accounted for a Christian man, nor for 
 a setter forth of Christ’s glory ; but for an adversary to 
 
394 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 Christ and his Gospel, and for a setter forth of men^s 
 vain-glory. 
 
 It hath been manifestly declared unto you, that 
 no man can fulfil the law of God ; and therefore by 
 the law all men are condemned : whereupon it fol- 
 loweth necessarily, that some other things should be 
 required for our salvation than the law ; and that is, 
 a true and lively faith in Christ, bringing forth good 
 works, and a life according to God^s commandments. 
 You heard also the ancient authors’ minds of this say- 
 ing, "Faith in Christ only justifieth man,’ so plainly 
 declared, that you see that the very true meaning of 
 this proposition or saying, "We be justified by faith 
 in Christ only,’ is this: We put our faith in Christ, 
 that we be justified by him only, that we be justihed 
 by God’s free mercy, and the merits of our Saviour 
 Christ only, and by no virtue or good works of our 
 own that is in us, or that we can be able to have, or to 
 do, for to deserve the same; Christ himself only being 
 the cause meritorious thereof. Here you perceive many 
 words to be used to avoid contention in words with 
 them that delight to brawl about words, and also to 
 show the true meaning to avoid evil-taking and mis- 
 understanding ; and yet perad venture all will not 
 serve with them that be contentious; but contenders 
 will ever forge matters of contention, even when they 
 have no occasion thereto’’'.” 
 
 And thus, as it should seem, it happens that the ad- 
 versaries of the doctrine of justification by faith, some 
 from pure ignorance, others from a love of calumny, 
 affirm that it is a doctrine which leads to licentiousness. 
 "" But it is a childish cavil,” says good old Hooker®, 
 "" wherewith in the matter of justification our adver- 
 saries do so greatly please themselves, exclaiming that 
 we tread all Christian virtues under our feet, and re- 
 quire nothing but faith, because we teach that faith 
 alone justifieth ; whereas, by this speech we never 
 
 Homilj on Salvation, pp. 20, 21, 23. Oxford ed. 1810. 
 
 ® Discourse on Justification. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 3C5 
 
 meant to exclude either hope or charity, from being 
 always joined as inseparable handmates, with faith in 
 the man that is justified ; or works from being added, 
 as necessary duties, required at the hands of every jus- 
 tified man: — but to show that faith is the only hand 
 which putteth on Christ unto justification, and Christ 
 the only garment which being so put on covereth the 
 shame of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfection 
 of our works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of 
 God: before whom otherwise the weakness of our faith 
 were cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut 
 us from the kingdom of heaven.^^ 
 
 Thus again, as Reynolds remarks, “Faith hath two 
 properties (as a hand) to work and to receive. When 
 faith purifies the heart, supports the drooping spirits, 
 worketh by love, carries a man through afflictions and 
 the like, these are the works of faith : when faith ac- 
 cepts of righteousness in Christ, and receives him as 
 the gift of his Father^s love, when it embraceth the 
 promises afar off (Heb. ii. 13), and lays hold on eternal 
 life (1 Tim. vi. 12), this is the receiving act of faith. 
 Now faith justifies not by working (lest the effect 
 should not be wholly of grace, ancl partly of work, 
 Ephesians, ii. 8, 9): but by bare receiving and accept- 
 ing, or yielding consent to that righteousness, which 
 in regard of working was the righteousness of Christ 
 (Rom. V. 18), and in regard of disposing, imputing, 
 appropriating unto us, was the righteousness of God 
 (Rom. iii. 21. 1 Cor. i. 30. Phil. iii. 9). To make the 
 point of justification by the receiving, and not the 
 working of faith, plain, let us consider it by a familiar 
 similitude. 
 
 “ Suppose a chirurgeon should perfectly cure the 
 hand of a poor man from some desperate wound which 
 utterly disabled him from any work; when he hath so 
 done, should at one time freely bestow some good alms 
 upon the man, to the receiving whereof he was enabled 
 by the former cure; and at another time should set the 
 man about some work, unto the whicli likewise the for- 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 396 
 
 mer cure had enabled him ; and the work being done, 
 should give him a reward proportionable to his labour: 
 I demand which of these two gifts are arguments of 
 greater grace in the man, either the recompensing of 
 that labour which was wrought by the strength he re- 
 stored, or the free bestowing of an equal gift, unto the 
 receiving whereof likewise he himself gave ability ? 
 Any man will easily answer, that the gift was a work 
 of more free grace than the reward, though unto both 
 way was made, by his own merciful cure ; for all the 
 mercy which was shown in the cure was not able to 
 nullify the intrinsical proportion, which afterwards did 
 arise between the work and the reward. Now, this is 
 the plain difference between our doctrine and the doctrine 
 of our adversaries, in the point of justif cation. They say, 
 we are justified by grace, and yet by works, because 
 grace enables us to work : we say we are justif ed freely, 
 not by the works of grace, but % the grace which bestows 
 our justif cation, and therefore our strength of working 
 unto us. For surely God’s free grace is more magni- 
 fied in giving us undeservedly both righteousness and 
 works; than in giving us works to deserve our righte- 
 ousness V’ 
 
 To decide, however, in this important inquiry, from 
 the nature of things as revealed in Scripture, and not 
 from any appeal to inferior authority, let us attend to 
 three questions : What is meant by justification P What 
 by faith P What is the genuine import of the term 
 j ustif cation by faith 7 
 
 I. With regard io justif cation; it manifestly in its 
 primary sense has relation to accusation. Those who 
 have committed no crime, or omitted no binding duty, 
 are free from guilt, or reasonable charge of guilt ; but 
 may still require justification. If there be no accusa- 
 tion or charge brought against a person, he does not 
 stand in need of being justified : but when he is accused 
 of a crime of which he is entirely innocent, he thence 
 has an opportunity of justifying himself by making his 
 
 ^ Bishop Reynolds’s Three Treatises, p. 483. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 397 
 
 innocence appear; and judge has thence an oppor- 
 tunity of justifying him by pronouncing or declaring 
 publicly that he is innocent of the crime laid to his 
 charge. This is justification according to its original 
 meaning : but in this sense none can, strictly speaking, 
 be justified, since all are sinners, and all are accused : 
 for the law accuses, Satan accuses, and conscience 
 accuses. The law accuses : for all are made under 
 “ the law,’^ and we know (says Paul) that what 
 things soever the law saith it saith to those that are 
 under the law; so that every mouth is stopped, and 
 all the world becometh subject to the judgment of 
 God So again Satan accuses. He is the Prince 
 of this world,’^ the adversary, the false accuser,^^ 
 
 the accuser of the brethren, that accuses them before 
 God day and night And farther, conscience, that 
 mighty troubler of the human breast, is a frequent 
 accuser. Paul, speaking of the Gentiles, says, their 
 conscience beareth witness, and their thoughts accuse 
 or excuse one another And truly none but those 
 who have learnt by experience can tell fully what the 
 pangs inflicted by a guilty and awakened conscience 
 are. A man may flee from’ many calamities, and 
 bear up with dignity and patience under others ; but 
 he can no more flee from an accusing conscience than 
 he can flee from himself. The spirit of a man may 
 sustain his infirmity : but a wounded spirit who can 
 bear^^ 
 
 Against such accusers, retaining the primary inter- 
 pretation of the word, no flesh living can be justi- 
 fied so that some more appropriate acceptation of 
 the term must be adopted. And we find that by the 
 phrase to justify is often meant so to do a man right, as 
 to pronounce sentence in his favour, to acquit him 
 from guilt, to excuse him from burden, to liberate him 
 from punishment, and to repute or deem him just. 
 Thus in one of these senses wisdom^’ is said to be 
 
 Rom. iii. 19. John, xii. 31. 1 Pet. v. 8. Rev. xii, 10. 
 
 Rom. ii. 15. Prov. xviii. 14. 
 
398 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 justified of her children and thus justification, in a 
 still more extended sense, is not opposed to accusation 
 merely, but to condemnation. As in the observation of 
 Solomon, — He justijieth the wicked, and he that 
 condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination 
 to the Lord and in the declaration of Jesus Christ, 
 “ By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words 
 thou shalt be condemned^* 
 
 In the evangelical acceptation of the term, as it is 
 applied by the apostle Paul, justification is of God,’^ 
 and imports his acquitting us from guilt, condemna- 
 tion, and punishment, by free and full remission of our 
 sins, reputing and declaring us just persons, and dealing 
 with us as though we were upright and innocent in 
 his esteem. For this apostle treats of justification as 
 an act of judgment performed by God, by which he 
 declares his own righteousness and justice, and at the 
 same time our liberation from the punishment due to 
 transgression : his justice consisting in accepting a 
 competent satisfaction offered in lieu of the debt due 
 to him, and in reparation of the injury done to him, by 
 reason of which the debtor is acquitted and the offence 
 remitted. “ For now a Divine justification (saith this 
 apostle in his Epistle to the Romans), independently 
 of the law, is discovered, being testified by the law and 
 the prophets; that Divine justification is extended to 
 all that believe ; for there is no distinction ; for all 
 having sinned, all have forfeited the praise of God : 
 being justified of free gift by his grace through the 
 redemption that is by Jesus Christ : whom God hath 
 ordained to be a propitiatory through faith in his blood, 
 for the manifestation of his rectitude, in passing over 
 and remitting their past transgressions through Divine 
 forbearance : to manifest, also, his rectitude at this 
 time : that he may appear to be just, and the justifier 
 of him who trusts in Jesus Hence, we see, that 
 
 Prov. xvii. 15. Matt. xii. 37. 
 
 Rom. iii. 21 — 26. The above will, I believe, be found a correct 
 rendering of the passage. That it is not much distorted to accord 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 399 
 
 justification is a result of Christas redemption ; that 
 remission of sins is so likewise ; and that they may be 
 considered as synonymous expressions; God demon- 
 strating by either or both of them his justice and good- 
 ness. Justification, in fine, including, in St. Paul’s view 
 at least, an acquittal from guilt and condemnation, and a 
 being regarded as righteous, with God who justifeth.^^ 
 
 II. I propose, in the next place, to ascertain what is 
 the evangelical interpretation of the word faith, as it 
 relates to justification. I make the inquiry with this 
 restriction, because it is evident, as was indeed re- 
 marked by Chrysostom*®, that the word Tnorrig, usually 
 ^rendered faith, is variously employed in Scripture. I 
 also confine myself entirely here to the kind of faith 
 required of those who possess the Gospel; not wishing 
 to embarrass the question with any thing relative to 
 such as have never had it proposed to them. 
 
 1. This faith is something more than simple belief, 
 or that assent of the understanding, which neither 
 affects the heart nor the conduct. For, Paul speaks 
 of ‘‘ believing in the hearV^ as essential to salvation, 
 because with the heart man believeth to righteousness 
 or justification 
 
 2. This faith is something different from believing 
 that the Scriptures are the word of God, and that all 
 things contained in them are true. For this, as Dr. 
 Doddridge remarks, is liable to a double objection ; as, 
 on the one hand, it supposes it absolutely necessary 
 
 with a particular hypothesis will be evident on comparing it with the 
 Socinian version, which is this : “ Without a law, God’s method of 
 justification is manifested; being attested by the law and the pro- 
 phets; even to all [and upon all] who believe; for there is no dif- 
 ference ; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ; being 
 justified of free bounty, even by his favour, through the redemption 
 which is by Christ Jesus : Whom God hath set forth as a mercy-seat 
 in his own blood; to show his method of justification concerning the 
 remission of past sins, through the forbearance of God ; to show, I 
 say, his method of justification at this present time : that he might be 
 just and the justifier of him who hath faith in Jesus.” 
 
 Homil. xxvi. in Epist. ad Hebraeos. xi. Rom. x. 9, 10. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 400 
 
 that every man should believe both the plenary inspira- 
 tion, and the extent of it to all the books of Scripture ; 
 which, though it may admit of strong proof, can never 
 be shown to be a thing the belief of which is absolutely 
 requisite to salvation : and, on the other hand, an impli- 
 cit and entire belief in this may be yielded by a mind 
 which is grossly ignorant of, or sadly misapplies, some 
 of the most important doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 3. This faith presupposes a conviction of the corrup- 
 tion of our nature, a lively and painful sense of the 
 guilt of sin, a solicitude to be delivered from it ; and 
 implies a persuasion that through the mystery of re- 
 demption there is forgiveness with God, that he may • 
 be feared but it does not necessarily imply a persua- 
 sion that God hath remitted our sins : for it relates to 
 propositions revealed by God ; and God has no where 
 declared that he has remitted our sins individually. He 
 has, indeed, declared that he will pardon our transgres- 
 sions, and blot out our iniquities,^’ if we cordially 
 and sincerely comply with certain requisitions; but 
 the ascertaining that we have so complied is matter of 
 experience, and not of faith. When we distrust God, we 
 want true faith ; but it is possible we may possess faith, 
 although we distrust ourselves. The observation of the 
 wisest of men was, Blessed is he ihdii feareth always 
 
 so feareth as to excite solicitude and watchfulness over 
 his heart and conduct: and to render him diligent to 
 make his calling and election sure.” The great danger 
 is on the side of presumption, arrogance, and self-con- 
 fidence, and not where lies humility, diffidence, and 
 poverty of spirit, which God has assured us he loves. 
 
 4. Much less is that a correct notion of faith which 
 defines it to be a Jirm and certain knowledge of God’s 
 eternal good will towards us particularly, and that we 
 shall be saved.” For according to this a man may be 
 tempted, as Mr. Cecil remarked, to believe that he is 
 among the elect, because he thus holds the doctrine of 
 election ; and he must possess a certain knowledge 
 both of his present sincerity and sanctity, and of his 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 401 
 
 perseverance : and farther, if he be not sure he has 
 repented and is converted, it would follow from this 
 definition that he- must be sure he is not converted, 
 which would be truly perplexing and discouraging to 
 most persons of genuine humility and lowliness of 
 mind. Let us beware (says Hooker) that we make 
 not too many ways of denying Christ, or denying the 
 faith, lest we scarcely leave any way for ourselves truly 
 and soundly to confess him.’’ On this thorny position 
 I beg to confirm my own sentiments by the authority 
 and the arguments of Dr. Barrow. We may con- 
 sider,” he says, 1. That this doctrine inverts and 
 confounds the order of things declared in Scripture, 
 wherein faith is set before obtaining God’s good will, as 
 a prerequisite condition thereto, and is made a means 
 of salvation (‘ without faith it is impossible to please 
 God.’ ^ By grace are ye saved through faith.^ ) And if 
 we must believe, before God loves us (with such a love 
 as we speak of), and before we can be saved ; then 
 must we know that we believe, before we can know that 
 God loves us, or that we shall be saved, and conse- 
 quently we must indeed believe before we can know 
 that God loves us, or that we shall be saved. But this 
 doctrine makes the knowledge of God’s love and of 
 salvation in nature antecedent to faith, as being an 
 essential ingredient in it ; which is preposterous. Con- 
 sider this circle of discourse : a man cannot know that 
 be believes unless he does believe, this is certain ; a 
 man cannot know that he shall be saved, without know- 
 ing he doth believe ; this is also certain : for upon what 
 ground, from what evidence, can he know his salvation, 
 but by knowing his faith ? But again, backward : a 
 man, say they, cannot believe (and consequently not 
 know that he believes) without being assured of his 
 salvation. What an inextricable maze and confusion 
 is her^ ! This doctrine, indeed, doth make the knowledge 
 of a future event to be the cause of its being future; it 
 supposes God to become our friend (as he was of Abra- 
 ham by his faith), by our knowing that he is our friend ; 
 
 D D 
 
402 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 it makes us to obtain a reward, by knowing that we 
 shall obtain it ; it supposes the assurance of our coming 
 to a journey’s end, to be the way of getting thither; 
 which who can conceive intelligible or true? Our Sa- 
 viour doth indeed tell us, that it is the ivay to life ever- 
 lasting (or conducible to the attaining it) to know the 
 true God, and Jesus Christ lohom he hath sent: but he 
 doth not say it is life everlasting (or conducible to the 
 obtaining it) to know that we shall have life everlast- 
 ing: that were somewhat strange to say. St. Peter 
 exhorts us to use diligence to make our calling and elec- 
 tion sure, or firm and stable : but he doth not bid us to 
 know it to be sure. If we did know it to be so, what 
 need should we have to make it so? yea, how could we 
 make it so? He doth not enjoin us to be sure of it in 
 our opinion, but to secure it in the event by sincere 
 obedience and a holy life ; and by so impressing this 
 persuasion upon our minds, so rooting the love of God 
 and his truth in our hearts, that no temptation may be 
 able to subvert our faith, or to pluck out our charity. 
 
 2. This notion plainly supposes the truth of that 
 doctrine, that no man, being once in God’s favour, can 
 ever quite lose it, yet is thereby everted : for it follows 
 thence that no man, who doth not assent to that doc- 
 trine, is, or can be, a believer ; for he that is not as- 
 sured of the truth of that opinion (although we suppose 
 him assured of his own sincerity, and being in a state 
 of grace), cannot know that he shall be saved ; so that 
 only such as agree with them in that opinion can be 
 believers, which is somewhat hard, or rather very ab- 
 surd. And, to aggravate this inconvenience, I adjoin, 
 3. That, according to their notion, scarce any man 
 (except some have had an especial revelation concern- 
 ing their salvation), before the late alterations in Chris- 
 tendom, was a believer ; for before that time it hardly 
 appears that any man did believe, as they do, that a 
 man cannot fall from grace ; and therefore scarce any 
 man could be always assured that he should be saved ; 
 and therefore scarce any man could be a believer in 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 403 
 
 tlieir sense To these observations I have only to 
 add, that faith, according to this interpretation of it, 
 leaves no room for the exercise of hope; and since, as 
 we have seen, it necessarily classes the humble Chris- 
 tian, who is conscious that ‘‘ the heart is deceitful above 
 all things,^’ and is therefore working out his own sal- 
 vation with fear and trembling f among unbelievers, 
 it stifles charity; and thus banishes two out of the three 
 associate Christian graces. 
 
 3. True faith, which is Christianity in Consent,^’ 
 implies acts of mind, acts of will, and subjection of 
 conduct. It is called '‘faith in Christ,^ and includes 
 not merely belief in Christianity, belief in Jesus as the 
 Messiah ; but a practical assent to all that the Gospel 
 reveals concerning him, an inward conviction and a 
 full persuasion of his all-sufficiency, in his complex 
 character, to suffer and die, to rise and save, to fulfil 
 every thing that was necessary for a Mediator, in order 
 to reconcile guilty creatures to an offended God; and 
 consequently an entire resigning of our souls to him for 
 salvation in his appointed way. It is also termed ‘‘ faith 
 in the name of Christ,’^ faith in his blood,"^ faith in 
 
 his righteous7iess^^,^^ implying an acknowledgment of 
 worthlessness and insufficiency in ourselves, and a de- 
 pending on what the Saviour has done and suffered for 
 our pardon and acceptance. It farther includes com- 
 ing to Christ’^ in the way of his commandments, and a 
 firm and prevailing resolution of sincere obedience, 
 such as, though it may unhappily be sometimes preci- 
 pitated by temptation into sinful actions, does not, dare 
 not, fall into a sinful course; but manifests itself in a 
 purified heart, a sanctified conduct, and exalted 
 attainments in righteousness, even the righteousness 
 which is of faith 
 
 With regard to this true faith it has justly been 
 observed, that the words and irt^evco, which 
 
 Barrow’s first Sermon on Justifying Faith. 
 
 John, i. 12. Rom. iii. 25. Co), i. 20. 2 Pet. i. 1. 
 
 Rojiji. ix. 30. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 404 
 
 continually return upon us in reading the Greek Testa- 
 ment, should be frequently translated by trust and trust- 
 ing in God, or Christ, especially where the preposition 
 £v or uq is added to it : and it should not be so often 
 called belief or believing; for it is not such a mere 
 assent to the Gospel of Christ as excites hope or trust 
 in mercy, and so draws forth the soul to love God, 
 repent of sin, and fulfil the duties of holiness. 
 
 The Hebrew words, which, in the Old Testament, 
 imply trust and dependance, are represented often by 
 TTi^Bvcj in the New Testament, as well as those which 
 signify belief or assent. And therefore David, in the 
 Psalms, where he expresses the inward actings of his 
 soul towards God, is ever using the words trust and 
 hope; and the translators of the New Testament should 
 have much oftener used them to express the true mean- 
 ing of the words and Tri^evco in the sacred writers. 
 As John, xiv. 1, ‘Ye tritst in God, trust also in me.^ 
 Acts, xvi. 31, ‘ Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved Mark, vi. 22, " Have trust in GodJ 
 Acts, XX. 21, ‘ Repentance towards God, and trust in 
 our Lord Jesus Christ and many other places. This is 
 the constant sentiment of our Protestant divines in their 
 opposition to the Papists, that Jides e^i fiducia^^T 
 Fully accordant with this is the language of the 
 principal divines who adorned the purest ages of British 
 theology, as the authors of the Homilies, of the West- 
 minster Confession, &c. The latter, for example, say, 
 “ By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true, what- 
 soever is revealed in the word, for the authority of God 
 himself speaking therein, and acteth differently upon 
 that which each particular passage thereof containeth ; 
 yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the 
 threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for 
 this life and that which is to come. But the principal 
 acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting 
 upon Christ alone, for justification, sanctification, and 
 eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.” 
 
 Watts’s Harmony of all Religions, ch. \iii. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 405 
 
 In the same spirit, Manton treats the subject, in his 
 Commentary. “ Thou believest, that is, assentest to 
 this truth ; the lowest act of faith is invested with the 
 name of believing. Bare assent to the articles of reli- 
 gion doth not infer true faith. True faith uniteth to 
 Christ, ’tis conversant about his person; ^tis not only 
 assensus axiomati, an assent to a gospel maxim, or pro- 
 position ; you are not justified by that, but being one 
 with Christ. ^Twas the mistake of the former age to 
 make the promise rather than the person of Christy to be 
 the formal object of faith ; the promise is the warrant, 
 Christ the object: therefore the work of faith is termi- 
 nated on him in the expressions of Scripture. We 
 read of coming to him, receiving him, &c. We cannot 
 close with Christ without a promise ; and we must 
 not close with a promise without Christ. In short, 
 there is not only an assent in faith, but consent; not 
 only an assent to the truth of the laord, but a consent to 
 take Christ, Well, then, do not mistake a naked illu- 
 mination or some general acknowledgment of the arti- 
 cles of religion for faith ; a man may be right in 
 opinion and judgment, but of vile affections ; and a 
 carnal Christian is in as great danger as a pagan, or 
 idolator, or heretic ; for though his judgment be sound, 
 yet his manners are heterodox and heretical. True 
 believing is not an act of the understanding, but a work of 
 all the hearts 
 
 Lastly, with respect to true faith, it may be remarked 
 that, lehoLigh good w^orks are distinct from it, so distinct, 
 indeed, that they are frequently opposed : though they 
 do not give value to it, but it renders them acceptable ; 
 yet they always accompany it as its peculiar fruit and 
 genuine effect; proceeding as naturally from it as 
 water flows from a fountain, or light emanates from 
 the sun^'^. They are also the touchstone of faith, its 
 
 “ The fruits of faith (says Bishop Hall) are good works ; 
 whether inward, within the roof of the heart, as love, awe, sorrow, 
 piety, zeal, joy, and the rest; or outward towards God, or our 
 brethren; obedience and service to the one; to the other, relief and 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 406 
 
 evidence and measure. Faith itself is unseen, being 
 seated in the heart ; but holiness and good works, 
 W'here life is continued, bring it forth to public view, 
 and make it tend to public benefit. Where there is 
 much faith, much will be produced ; where there is but 
 little faith, there will be proportionally little holiness; 
 and where there is no faith, no fruit^^ is to be ex- 
 pected. Hence, hypocrites and men of spurious faith 
 are described as “ clouds without water, carried aside 
 by winds : trees whose fruit withereth, barren, twice 
 dead, plucked up by the roots^^.’^ 
 
 III. Let us now proceed to inquire what is the 
 evangelical interpretation of Justiji cation by faith 
 How, according to the scheme developed in the Chris- 
 tian dispensation, is a man to obtain the blessing of 
 justification, when he seeks it at first, or when, through 
 his frailty or unfaithfulness, he needs a renewal of it? 
 The correct answer, I apprehend is, that he is to seek 
 it with sole recourse to God in Christ through the 
 medium of faith, and to look entirely ofip himself to the 
 fountain of grace for mercy. This is not the merito- 
 rious but the appointed condition, by reason of which, 
 through the riches of Divine mercy, a mutual transfer 
 is made of the sins of men to Christ, and of Chrisfs 
 rio-hteousness to men^V^ Butman needs a righteous- 
 ness imparted as well as a righteousness imputed; lie 
 therefore goes to God that he may possess a meetness’ - 
 as well as a title for heaven ; he goes that he may be 
 
 quickened,^^ and when so quickened he will be another 
 man in God’s reckoning (who cannot be supposed not 
 duly to estimate his creatures according to what he has 
 made them to be), and generally, though not always, 
 in his own conscious feeling. God, as I have seen it 
 somewhere admirably expressed, will admit him into 
 
 beneficence; these he bears in bis time ; sometimes all, but always 
 some.” See also Baxter’s Paraphrase on Luke, xxiii. 43. 
 
 23 Jude, 12. 
 
 2'^ This is the language of Dr. Tomline. In reference to which, 
 however, the distinction in note 39, p.295, must be cautiously applied. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 407 
 
 spiritual life wholly for Christ’s .sake ; — but he will 
 esteem him spiritually alive only in consequence of his 
 own gift of living faith. And he makes this living faith 
 the exclusive test, because this alone is the vitalizing 
 tie; every thing else lives by this, — but this lives 
 through God alone.’^ 
 
 The inspired writers of the New Testament consider 
 man as he really is, that is, both as guilty and depraved; 
 and they make us acquainted with the remedies God 
 has graciously provided both for our guilt and our 
 depravity. They assure us that on the exercise of a 
 lively faith we are justified from former sins, and 
 brought into a state of acceptance with God, by virtue 
 of the atonement : “ the blood of Christ cleanseth from 
 all sin and to meet our wants in the second case, 
 or, as theological writers frequently designate it, to 
 preserve us in a state of justification,” we are promised 
 the aids of the Spirit to renew the heart, and effectually 
 lead us on to the performance of duty ; this also being 
 promised as a consequence of true faith. Being 
 justified by faith we have peace with God ; because the 
 love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
 Ghost, which is given unto us'^^.” 
 
 Now, he must have eagle-eyes that, in all this, can 
 detect any thing like a tendency to licentiousness. For, 
 while faith is inculcated as a medium of justification, 
 good works are equally enforced as the necessary con- 
 comitants, and only genuine evidence (to men) of true 
 faith. Besides, it must not be forgotten, that though 
 by justification we are freed from punishment, and 
 brought into a state of acceptance, yet, as the justifica- 
 tion described by Paul is a state without degrees, it 
 does not, nor ever was intended to, furnish the measure 
 of the degrees of future happiness. Though we are 
 brought into a state of justification, independently of 
 good works; yet the degrees of future happiness will 
 be graciously apportioned to our works of faith and 
 labours of love,” performed subsequently to the 
 ^ Rom. V. 1, 5. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 408 
 
 renewal of oiir minds^’ by Divine influences: while 
 even in the present life, the more faith a man hath, the 
 more true enjoyment of surrounding blessings, the more 
 patience to sustain evils, the more certain and numerous 
 his victories over spiritual enemies, the more commu- 
 nion with Christ and insight into his mysteries, the 
 more tranquillity under occasional spiritual desertions, 
 the more hope and joy and peace, in our daily course. 
 Hence it is that we are exhorted to grow in grace,^^ 
 to ‘‘ press forward^’ to more exalted attainments, to be 
 more and more transformed into the image of God 
 that we may here live fully under the privileges and 
 immunities of men truly free; and in due time obtain 
 a larger portion of that blessing of the dead who die 
 in the Lord, who rest from their labours, and their 
 'Works do follow them^®. 
 
 I cannot close this letter without adverting to the 
 supposed collision of sentiments between the apostles 
 Paul and James, as to the matter of justification. Yet 
 it is simply necessary to remark, that these two writers 
 were treating of different topics, and for the benefit of 
 persons of different characters and views. ‘‘ The errors 
 of the unbelieving Jews consisting much in denying 
 justification to be by Christ and faith in him, and in 
 placing it in their own works of circumcising, sacri- 
 ficing, and other Mosaical observations. And St. Paul, 
 designing, in some of his epistles, to antidote the Chris- 
 tians against the infection of them, and to establish 
 them in the saving doctrine of the Gospel, w’as led of 
 course to bend his discourse in great part against 
 justification by works of the law ; and, on the contrary, 
 to assert it to be by faith in Christ, in his death, and in 
 his doctrine, without those works. Whereas St. James, 
 having to do in his epistle with such as professed the 
 Christian faith, and justification by it ; but erring dan- 
 gerously about the nature of faith, as justifying, thinking 
 that opiniative faith would save them, though destitute 
 of a real change in the moral frame and constitution of 
 Rev, xiv. 13. 
 
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. 
 
 409 
 
 their souls, and of a holy life : Hereupon it became in 
 a manner as necessary for him to plead the renovation 
 of man’s nature and evangelical obedience, as it was 
 for St. Paul to contend for justification by faith without 
 the deeds of the law. And therefore, though their 
 doctrines did in this respect diifer, yet they did not 
 differ as truth differs from error, nor as opposites, but 
 as one truth differs from another 
 
 On the whole, you will now, I trust, perceive in 
 what way it is that faith establishes the law,” and that 
 those who reject the mode of justification by faith do 
 in reality “ make void the law.” You will see, too, that 
 there is no erecting a system of justification through 
 the conjoined efficacy of faith and works. Your sub- 
 mission to the way of God’s appointment must be 
 complete without reservation, or self-dependance. “By 
 grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of your- 
 selves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man 
 should boast :” yet, on the other hand, it is not without 
 holiness; for “ without holiness no man shall see the 
 Lord^^.^^ Be careful, then, my friend, that your faith 
 be genuine and efficacious, that it “ work by love,” that 
 it “ purify the heart,” that it “ preserve from tempta- 
 tion,” that it “ overcome the world,” that it cherish 
 humility, watchfulness, and self-examination. “ For 
 if a man think himself to be something when he is 
 nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man try 
 his own work; and then he will have glorying in him- 
 self alone, and not in another.” “ Be not deceived, 
 God is not deluded ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
 he will reap also. For he who soweth to his flesh, 
 from the flesh will reap destruction ; but he who soweth 
 to the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap everlasting life. 
 And let us not be weary in well doing ; for in due time 
 we shall reap, if we faint not^^.” 
 
 27 Discourse on the two Covenants, 1673, p. 140. See also 
 Hooker on Justification, ^ 6, 20, 21. 
 
 28 Heb. xii. 14. 29 Gal. vi. 3—9. 
 
410 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 On Providence, 
 
 Although great confusion and uncertainty were 
 evinced in the notions both of the vulgar and the phi- 
 losophic ancient Pagans, with regard to the unceasing 
 superintending providence of one or more superior 
 beings ; yet there were but few among them that posi- 
 tively and constantly denied that doctrine in every 
 sense. Several of them doubted it in some of their 
 speculations; others fancied that the Deity, by inter- 
 meddling with human concerns would degrade and 
 pollute himself ; but scarcely any of them ridiculed the 
 notion, while some reasoned forcibly in favour of it, 
 and derived from it consolation and delight. Thus 
 Thales of Miletus taught that the world was the work 
 of God, and that God sees and directs the most secret 
 thoughts in the heart of man. Simplicius, the cele- 
 brated commentator on Aristotle, argued that if God do 
 not look to the affairs of the world, it is either because 
 he cannot, or will not : the first (said he) is absurd, 
 since to govern cannot be difficult, where to create was 
 easy; and the latter is most absurd and blasphemous. 
 Theon, of Alexandria, taught that a full persuasion of 
 God’s seeing every thing we do is the strongest incen- 
 tive to virtue ; and represented this belief concerning 
 the Deity as productive of the greatest pleasure imagin- 
 able, especially to the virtuous, who might depend with 
 the greater confidence on the favour and protection of 
 Providence : he recommended nothing so much as 
 meditation on the presence of God ; and he advised 
 the civil magistrate, by way of restraint on such as were 
 profane and wicked, to place in large characters at 
 the corner of every street, this inscription — God sees 
 THEE, O SINNER ! That great heathen emperor and 
 philosopher, Marcus Antoninus, fully persuaded of the 
 existence and government of God, maintained that the 
 best thing for a man is that which God sends him, and 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 411 
 
 the best time that when he sends it : and so far was he 
 from adopting the comfortless system now propagated 
 by many professing Christians, as well as inhdels, that 
 notwithstanding he governed the greatest of all empires 
 in the deepest calm, and commanded all the enjoy- 
 ments that splendour, wealth, and regal dignity could 
 furnish, even to a well-ordered mind, he still exclaimed, 
 
 What would it concern me to live in a world void of God 
 and without Providence 
 
 How lamentable is the contrast between the senti- 
 ments of these heathens, immersed as they were in the 
 grossest ignorance as to the fundamentals of religious 
 truth, and those of the many who, though enjoying 
 the full blaze of scientific and religious knowledge in 
 a Christian country, ridicule this consoling doctrine. 
 How strange, that while, conformably with the wise 
 observation of Lord Bacon, it is heaven upon earth 
 to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in 'provi- 
 dence, and turn upon the poles of truth*,” there should 
 be found men of ingenuity and literature, who dazzle 
 by their talents and delude by their wit, yet will boldly 
 affirm ‘^that the doctrine of the immediate and perpe- 
 tual interference of Divine Providence, is not true ,^^ — 
 and insinuate that it is ‘^ridiculous, degrading,” and 
 dangerous^. 
 
 In opposition to the assertion just quoted, I will 
 venture to declare, and hope I shall be able to prove, 
 that the doctrine of the particular, as well as that of 
 the universal. Providence of God, is revealed clearly in 
 Scripture, is confirmed by history, and is compatible 
 with the established principles of philosophy. 
 
 Now, that the persuasion that the Providence of 
 God extended to all times and places, and to every 
 individual, was prevalent among the primitive Chris- 
 tians, is evident from the language of CiECiLius, a 
 Roman lawyer, and then one of the most skilful op- 
 posers, though he became a convert to the truth, by 
 
 ^ Lord Bacon’s Essay on Truth. 
 
 2 Edinburgh Review, vol. xi. pp. 356, 357. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 412 
 
 reason of his controversy with Octavius. He objected 
 against them that they asserted a Providence as ex- 
 tending to the affairs and actions of men, and even to 
 their most secret thoughts.^^ He represented it as very 
 absurd in them to believe that their God, whom they 
 can neither see nor show, inspects diligently into the 
 manners of all men, into their actions, and even their 
 words and hidden thoughts; and that he is every where 
 present, troublesome, and impertinently busy and cu- 
 rious ; since he interests himself in all things that are 
 done, and thrusts himself into all places ; whereas he 
 can neither attend to every particular whilst he is em- 
 ployed about the whole ; nor be able to take care of 
 the whole, being occupied about particulars^.’^ 
 
 Let me next select two or three passages to show 
 that this notion of the early Christians was derived 
 from the Bible. From the Old Testament I first quote 
 part of the language of God to Job, in which he asserts 
 not only his power, but his providence. ‘‘Who hath 
 divided a watercourse for the overflow ing of w aters? or 
 a way for the lightning of thunder, to cause it to rain 
 on the earth ? to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, 
 and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth. 
 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops 
 of the dew? Who provideth for the raven his food V’ 
 David abounds with references to the providence of 
 God. “The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and thou 
 givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest 
 thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living 
 thing. The Lord preserveth all them that love him ; 
 but all the wdcked will he destroy.” “The Lord open- 
 eth the eyes of the blind : the Lord raiseth them that 
 are bowed down : the Lord loveth the righteous. The 
 Lord preserveth the strangers ; He relieveth the father- 
 less and the widow ; but the way of the wicked he 
 turneth upside down.” “ He prepareth rain for the 
 earth, he maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. 
 
 ^ Min. Fel. [). 15. Edit. var. 1762. 
 
 4 Job, xxxviii. 25— 27, 41. 
 
PROVIDENCE. 413 
 
 He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens 
 which cry^.^^ 
 
 Again, the prophet Ezekiel, in one of his delightful 
 parables, where he describes the security, prosperity, 
 and universality of the Messiah^s kingdom, under the 
 metaphor of a flourishing branch,’^ concludes by a 
 forcible declaration of the minuteness as well as the 
 extent of God\s providence, still keeping up his allu- 
 sion : — And all the trees of the field shall know that 
 I, THE Lord, have brought down the high tree, have 
 exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and 
 have made the dry tree to flourish : I, the Lord have 
 spoken, and have done it^.'^ 
 
 Since, then, the Divine Being is the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and for ever,’^ without variableness or 
 shadow of turningV’ Riid since his Providence was 
 constantly and universally manifested in the times of 
 Moses, Job, David, Daniel, and Ezekiel ; it would be 
 absurd to imagine that it should now, or at any time, 
 become dormant or partially evinced. But we need 
 not stop here. The proofs from the New Testament 
 might be extracted from almost every page. A feiv of 
 them only I shall request you to consult on the pre- 
 sent occasion. For declarations of the extent and 
 universality of Providence read Matt. vi. 19 — 34; x. 
 29 — 31. Luke, xii. 6, 7, 22 — 31. That all things are 
 fixed under its conduct, is declared in Acts, xvii. 26. 
 Our entire dependence upon Providence is taught in 
 James, iv. 13 — 17. And that it is most remarkably 
 manifested in the care of good men, may be learnt 
 from Acts, xxiii. 17 — 52; xxv. 4, 21 — 27; xxvi. 21, 
 22, 32. That w'e owe every thing which is conducive 
 to life and piety to God^s Providence, is taught by 
 Peter, 2 Epis. i. 3; and by Paul in numerous places. 
 
 Indeed, the connexion established between piety and 
 prayer, on which its growth depends, and the acknow- 
 
 ^ Ps. cxlv. 15, 16, 20 ; cxlvi. 8, 9 ; cxlvii. 8, 9. 
 
 ® Ezek. xvii. 24. See also Prov. xvi. 33, Dan, v. 29. Deut. 
 xxxii. 39; and 1 Sam. ii. 6 — 9. 
 
 Heb. xiii. 8. James, i. 17. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 414 
 
 ledgment of a particular Providence included in the 
 performance of prayer, must with all considerate per- 
 sons be decisive on this point. We are exhorted to 
 
 pray with the spirit, and the understanding also,^^ 
 to pray without ceasing, to ask that we may re- 
 ceive,’^ to seek that we may find,^^ to knock that it 
 may be opened to us we are told that men ought 
 always to pray, and not to faint that God hears and 
 ansivers prayer,’’ that all things whatsoever we ask in 
 prayer, believing, we shall receive &c. But unless 
 the Supreme Being holds constant intercourse with his 
 creatures; unless, as the Psalmist expresses it, his 
 ear is always open to their cry,” and his hand” ready 
 to be stretched out” to assist those who trust in him, 
 prayer is an absurdity : and Jesus and his apostles, in 
 exhorting us to frequency and fervency in prayer, tri- 
 fled with our wants and distresses, and urged us to 
 render ourselves ridiculous by an indulgence in solemn 
 mummery. Prayer obviously implies God’s universal 
 agency; that he is able to attend to the separate wants 
 of each individual among the millions of his creatures, 
 and ready to furnish his providential supplies as they 
 are needed, and where they are solicited with a proper 
 spirit. 
 
 James, after assuring us that the fervent prayer of 
 a righteous man availeth much,” informs us Xh-eX Elias 
 w^as a man, subject to like passions as we are, and he 
 prayed earnestly that it might not rain ; and it rained 
 not on the earth for three years and six months ; and 
 he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the 
 earth brought forth her fruit.” We also learn from 
 the Pentateuch that, when God in his anger sent fire 
 among the Israelites which consumed even in the 
 uttermost part of the camp,’^ the people cried unto 
 Moses : and when Moses “ prayed unto the Lord, the 
 fire was quenched ^ Now on both these occasions the 
 interposition of Providence was vouchsafed in answer 
 
 ® 1 Cor. xiv. 15. Rom. V. 17. Matt. vii. 7. Luke, xviii. 1. 
 Mott. xxi. 22, &c. 
 
 ® James, v. 16 — 18. 1 Kings, xvii, 1 ; xviii. 42--45. Nura. xi. 2. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 415 
 
 to prayer. We have here nothinp^ to do with the rea- 
 son of the connexion subsisting between prayer and 
 providential supply of blessings or removal of cala- 
 mity : but with the fact that such connexion does sub- 
 sist, and with the promise that such connexion always 
 will subsist : for this fact and this promise being incon- 
 trovertible, it is equally incontrovertible, that the pro- 
 vidence of God reaches to all persons and things ; their 
 comparative insignificance or grandeur in our estima- 
 tion forming no scale for him ; but all and each being 
 dealt with according to the rules of matchless wisdom, 
 righteousness, and mercy. 
 
 The doctrine of a particular or special providence 
 is, therefore, a doctrine of Scripture : and that it is 
 confirmed by history is strikingly manifest. Thus the 
 history of revealed religion is in truth, the history of 
 Providence. Trace, for example, the stories of Joseph 
 of David, or of Jeroboam. Men usually assign no 
 cause for the conveyance of Joseph into Egypt, but 
 the envy of his brethren ; for Shimei^s reviling David, 
 but his base malignity ; for David’s success against 
 Goliath, but his skill in using the sling ; for his num- 
 bering the people, but his ridiculous pride; for Jero- 
 boam’s revolt, but his unruly ambition. Yet, if you 
 look beyond the surface, you will find that these were 
 foreseen, and, if I may so say, projected into their re- 
 
 The case of Joseph seems too interesting, considering how the 
 existence of the family of Jacob was involved in it, to be passed over 
 with a mere allusion. If we endeavour to trace the independent 
 particulars, which concurred, and served as steps in Providence to 
 ensure the advancement of Joseph to his dignity in Egypt, we shall 
 find that they amount to at least thirteen or fourteen. There were, 
 1. His father’s partiality. 2. The hatred of his brethren. 3. His 
 being sent to them by his father. 4. The relentings of Reuben and 
 Judah. 5. The opportune passing by of the Midianite merchantmen. 
 (3. His being sold to Potiphar. 7 . The wickedness of Potiphar’s 
 wife. 8. Joseph’s virtuous resistance. 9. The favour of the keeper 
 of the prison into which Joseph was thrown. 10. The circumstance 
 of the simultaneous imprisonment, in the same prison, of Pharaoh’s 
 butler and baker. 11. Their dreams, and Joseph’s correct interpre- 
 tation of them. 12. Pharaoh’s extraordinary dreams. 13. The 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 416 
 
 spective places, for the most important purposes. Fix 
 your attention for a moment upon the case of David. 
 It was the intention of Providence to place him upon 
 the throne of the Hebrews. The country is invaded 
 by a foreign enemy : the hostile armies meet, and lie 
 encamped upon opposite mountains. A man comes 
 forth from the army of the invaders, as was extremely 
 common in those times, and defies the Hebrew host to 
 send forth a champion to meet him in single combat. 
 Terrified by the gigantic bulk and mighty force of 
 Goliath, no man would risk the unequal conflict. David, 
 w ho was too young to carry arms, had been sent to the 
 camp with provisions for his brothers, and heard the 
 challenge. In defence of his flock he had killed some 
 beasts of prey in the wilderness, and he was an excel- 
 lent marksman with the sling. He thought it might 
 probably be as easy to kill a man as a wild beast ; at 
 all events he knew that a stone well directed would 
 prove no less fatal to a giant than to a dwarf : he there- 
 fore resolved to try his skill, and he tried it with suc- 
 cess. Here no man’s free-will was interrupted, and no 
 miracle was accomplished ; yet by this train of circum- 
 stances thus brought together, a foundation was laid for 
 the future fortunes of the son of Jesse, for the great- 
 ness of his country, and for accomplishing the pur- 
 poses of Providence. 
 
 Observe again, the chain of events which led to the 
 birth of Christ, and to the place where he was born. 
 
 failure of the Egyptian wise men in their attempts to interpret them. 
 14. Joseph’s successful interpretation of both. The failure of any 
 one link in this chain involves, evidently, the failure of the ultimate 
 result. And thus we see, as the excellent Flavell has remarked, 
 “ that there certainly are strong combinations of persons and things, 
 to bring about some issue and design for the benefit of the church, 
 which themselves never thought of; they hold no intelligence, com- 
 municate not their counsels to each other, yet meet together and 
 work together as if they did ; which is, as if ten men should all meet 
 together at one place and in one hour, about one and the same busi- 
 ness, and that without any fore-appointment betwixt themselves; can 
 any question but such a meeting of means and instruments are cer- 
 tainly, though secretly, overruled by some wise invisible agent?” 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 417 
 
 They related to individuals who, in human reckoning-, 
 were amongst the most mean and ignoble ; and yet 
 upon these persons, their concerns, their journeyings, 
 their tarryings, hung the destinies of thousands and 
 tens of thousands in every age. In truth, whether we 
 are able to trace the connexion, or not, the history of 
 the church and of the world are interwoven throughout; 
 and He who superintends and adjusts the whole, causes 
 what we should, perhaps, regard as the minutest inci- 
 dents, to occur precisely in the time and place where 
 they shall be most subservient to His noblest purposes 
 as Creator, Ruler, Benefactor, and Father. 
 
 Hence we sometimes trace in civil history the de- 
 pendence of momentous concerns upon mere trifles. 
 The bare sight of a hg, shown in the senate-house at 
 Rome, occasioned the destruction of Carthage A 
 few boughs of trees, carried by soldiers from Birnam 
 Wood to Dunsinane^^ produced the terror and dis- 
 comfiture of Macbeth, by which even-handed justice^^ 
 commended 
 
 “ The ingredients of his poison’d chalice 
 To his own lips.” 
 
 The accidental finding of a dropped letter led to the 
 detection and prevention of the Gunpowder-plot.” 
 These and other apparent accidents are not the off- 
 spring of chance, but result from the silent operation 
 of God’s providence, which "" doth not hurry along like 
 an impetuous rumbling torrent; but glideth on as a 
 smooth and still current, with an irresistible but im- 
 perceptible force, carrying things down therewith : with- 
 out much ado, without any clatter, by a nod of his head, 
 by a whisper of his mouth, by a turn of his hand, he 
 doth effect his purposes : winding up a close spring, he 
 setteth the greatest wheels in motion ; and thrusting in 
 an insensible spoke, he stoppeth the greatest wheels in 
 
 Quod non Trebia, aut Trasjmenns, non Canna© busto insignes 
 Romani norninis perficere potuere ; non Castra Punica ad tertium la- 
 pidem vallata, portaeque ; Collinae adequitans ipse Hannibal. Plin. 
 
 Hejlin’s Cosmography, p. 272. 
 
 E E 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 418 
 
 their career; injecting a thought, exciting a humour, 
 presenting an occasion, insinuating a petty accident, 
 he bringeth about the most notable events 
 
 Nor is all this in any respect incompatible with the 
 received principles of natural philosophy, but, as I 
 conceive, perfectly consistent with them. From the 
 train of argument suggested near the commencement 
 of my first letter, you would see that it is a necessary 
 consequence of the creation of the world, that both it, 
 and every creature in it, only continues in existence 
 through the constant energy of the power which cre- 
 ated ; that is, supposing the world to be created from 
 nothing, — the hypothesis usually entertained. If, in- 
 deed, we assume the hypothesis most favourable to the 
 -sentiments of those who deny the incessant operation 
 of Providence, and say that matter always existed, we 
 shall not thence supersede the necessity of providential 
 superintendence and control. For, from many experi- 
 ments made in the course of the last century, it is 
 highly probable, nay, it is certain, that the particles 
 which constitute even the most solid bodies, are not all 
 in contact ; yet that a very considerable force is required 
 to separate farther from each other the parts of a mass 
 of wood, iron, or stone. It also appears that great force 
 is requisite to bring bodies, however small, or highly 
 polished, into apparent contact; whence they must be 
 kept asunder by some extraneous power. So that the 
 cohesive force by which the moleculae of matter are re- 
 tained together, as well as the repulsive force by which 
 they are kept at certain distances, demonstrate, with 
 regard to every body in the universe, animated or inan- 
 imate, that the immediate and perpetual agency of 
 something that is not matter, is necessary to preserve 
 them in the state in which they now appear. So again 
 it has been shown that from all action of body upon 
 body motion is impaired, and the quantity of it con- 
 stantly decaying in the universe. Hence, since matter 
 
 Barrow on the Uusearcliableness of God’s Judgments. 
 
 Newton’s Optics, pp. 373, 375. 4th ed. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 419 
 
 cannot re-excite the motion in itself, it follows that as 
 an immaterial power first impressed motion on matter, 
 so it still reproduces the motion lost, and makes up the 
 decays sustained. Also, since the forms and motions 
 of bodies are sustained, and in all of them an end is 
 thus pursued, a law obeyed, wise purposes evinced and 
 accomplished, the power which is constantly operating 
 to eftect all this, must be combined with intelligence ; 
 and what can be every where and at all times thus 
 exhibiting power and intelligence but God, either 
 immediately or by his subordinate instruments? 
 
 But it may still be asked, and indeed has been asked, 
 can there be a particular providence, a providence that 
 suits the several cases and prayers of individuals, wdth- 
 out a continual repetition of miracles, or without fre- 
 quent infringements upon the laws of nature, and the 
 freedom of intelligent agents? This question may safely 
 be answered in the affirmative ; and I cannot do better 
 than lay before you some of the reasons for so answ^er- 
 ing it, as they have been stated by the ingenious author 
 of The Religion of Nature delineated.’^ 
 
 ‘M. It seems to me not impossible y that God should 
 know what is to come: on the contrary, it is highly 
 reasonable to think that He does and must know things 
 fidwre. Whatever happens in the w^orld, which does 
 not come immediately from Him, must either be the 
 effect of mechanical causes, or of the motions of living 
 beings and free agents. For chance, we have seen 
 already, is no cause. Now as to the former, it cannot 
 be impossible for Him, upon w hom the being and nature 
 of every thing depends, and who therefore must inti- 
 mately know all their powers, and what effects they will 
 have, to see through the whole train of causes and 
 effects, and whatever will come to pass in that laay: 
 nay, it is impossible that He should not do it. We our- 
 selves, if we are satisfied of the goodness of the mate- 
 rials of which a machine is made, and understand the 
 force and determination of those powders by which it is 
 moved, can tell what it will do, or what will be the 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 420 
 
 effect of it. And as to those thing’s which depend upon 
 the voluntary motions of free agents, it is well known, 
 that men (by whom learn how to judge of the rest) can 
 only be free with respect to such things as are within 
 their sphere; not great, God knows: and their freedom 
 with respect to these can only consist in a liberty 
 either to act, without any incumbent necessity, as their 
 own reason and judgment shall determine them ; or to 
 neglect their rational faculties, and not use them at all, 
 but suffer themselves to be carried away by the ten- 
 dencies and inclinations of the body, which left thus to 
 itself acts in a manner mechanically. Now He, who 
 know^s what is in men’s power, what not, knows the 
 make of their bodies, and all the mechanism and pro- 
 pensions of them ; knows the nature and extent of their 
 understandings, and what will determine them this or 
 that way; knows all the process of natural (or second) 
 causes, and consequently how these may work upon 
 them : He, I say, who knows all this, may know what 
 men will do, if he can but know this one thing more, 
 viz. whether they will use their rational faculties ov 7iot. 
 And since even we ourselves, mean and defective as we 
 are, can in some measure conceive, how so much as this 
 may be done, and seem to want but one step to finish 
 the account, can we with any show of reason deny to a 
 Perfect Being this one article more, or think that He can- 
 not do that too ; especially if we call to mind, that this 
 very power of using our own faculties is held of Him? 
 
 Future^ or what to us is future, may as truly be the 
 object of Divine knowledge as present is of ours : nor 
 can we tell, what respect past, present, to come, have to 
 the Divine mind, or wherein they differ. To deaf men 
 there is no such thing as sound, to blind no such thing 
 as light or colour : nor, when these things are defined 
 and explained to them in the best manner which their 
 circumstances admit, are they capable of knowing how 
 they are apprehended. So here, we cannot tell how 
 future things are known perhaps, any more than deaf 
 or blind people what sounds and colours are, and how 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 421 
 
 they are perceived ; but yet there may be a way of 
 knowing thosey as well as there is of perceiving these. 
 As they want di fifth sense to perceive sounds or colours, 
 of which they have no notion : so perhaps we may want 
 a sixth sense, or some faculty, of which future events 
 may be the proper objects. Nor have we any more 
 reason to deny, that there is in nature such a sense or 
 faculty, than the deaf or blind have to deny there is 
 such a sense as that hearing or seeing. 
 
 In the last place, this knowledge is not only not 
 impossible, but that which has been already proved con- 
 cerning the Deity and His perfection doth necessarily 
 infer that nothing can be hid from Him. For ignor- 
 ance be an imperfection, the ignorance of future acts 
 and events must be so: and then if all imperfections 
 are to be denied of Him, this must. 
 
 There is indeed a common prejudice against the 
 prescience (as it is usually called) of God ; which sug- 
 gests, that if God foreknows things. He foreknows them 
 infallibly or certainly: and if so, then they are certain', 
 and if certain, then they are no longer matter oi' free- 
 dom. And thus prescience and freedom are incon- 
 sistent. But sure the nature of a thing is not changed 
 by being known, or known beforehand. For if it is 
 known truly, it is known to be what it is ; and there- 
 fore is not altered by this. The truth is, God foresees, 
 or rather sees the actions of free agents, because they 
 ivill he ; not that they will be, because He foresees them. 
 
 “ In a word, it involves no contradiction to assert, 
 that God certainly knows what any man will choose ; 
 and therefore that he should do this cannot be said to 
 be impossible, 
 
 “ It is not impossible, that such laivs of nature, and 
 such a series of causes and effects may be originally de- 
 signed, that not only general provisions may be made 
 for the several species of beings; but even particular 
 cases, at least many of them, may also be provided for 
 without innovations or alterations in the course of na- 
 ture. It is true this amounts to a prodigious scheme. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 422 
 
 in which all things to come are as it were compre- 
 hended under one view, estimated, and laid together; 
 but when I consider what a mass of wonders the uni- 
 verse is in other regards ; what a Being God is, incom- 
 prehensibly great and perfect ; that he cannot he igno- 
 rant of any thing, no, not of the future wants and 
 deportments of particular men ; and that all things, 
 which derive from Him as the First cause, must do 
 this so as to be consistent one with another, and in such 
 a manner, as to make one compact system, befitting so 
 great an Author : I say, when I consider this, I cannot 
 deny such an adjustment of things to be within his 
 power. The order of events proceeding from the set- 
 tlement of nature, may be as compatible with the due 
 and reasonable success of my endeavours and prayers 
 (as inconsiderable a part of the world as I am) as with 
 any thing or plmiomenon how great soever. 
 
 “ Perhaps my meaning may be made more intelligible 
 thus. Suppose M (some man) certainly to foreknow 
 some way or other that when he should come to be 
 upon his death-bed, L would petition for some particu- 
 lar legacy, in a manner so earnest and humble, and 
 with such a good disposition, as w^ould render it proper 
 to grant his request: and upon this M makes his last 
 tvill, by which he devises to L that which was to be 
 asked, and then locks up the will; and all this many 
 years before the death of M, and whilst L had yet no 
 expectation or thought of any such thing. When the 
 time comes, the petition is made, and granted; not by 
 making any new will, but by the old one already made, 
 and without alteration: which legacy had, notwith- 
 standing that, never been left had the petition never 
 been preferred. The grant may be called an effect of a 
 future act, and depends as much upon it, as if it had 
 been made after the act. So if it had been foreseen, 
 that L would not so much as ask, and had therefore 
 been left out of the will, this preterition would have 
 been caused by his carriage, though much later than 
 the date of the will. In all this is nothing hard to be 
 
ON PROVIDENCE, 
 
 423 
 
 admitted, if M be allowed to foreknow the case. And 
 thus the prayersy which good men offer to the All-know- 
 ing God, and the neglects of others, may find fitting 
 effects already forecasted in the course of nature. 
 Which possibility may be extended to the labours of 
 men, and their behaviour in general. 
 
 3. It is not impossibley that men, whose natures and 
 actions are foreknown, may be introduced into the 
 world in such timeSy placeSy and other circumstances y as 
 that their acts and behaviour may not only coincide 
 with the general plan of things, but also answer many 
 private cases too. The planets and bigger parts of the 
 world we cannot but see are disposed into such places 
 and ordery that they together make a noble systemy 
 without having their natural powers of attraction (or 
 the force of that which is equivalent to attraction) or 
 any of the laws of motion, restrained or altered. On the 
 contrar}^ being rightly placedy they by the observation 
 of these become subservient to the main design. Now 
 why may there not be in the Divine mind something 
 like a projection of the future history of mankind, as 
 well as of the order, and motions, and various aspects 
 of the greater bodies of the world? And then why 
 should it not be thought possible for meny as well as 
 for themy by some secret law, though of another kind, 
 or rather by the presidence and guidance of an unseen 
 governing power, to be brought into their places in 
 such a manner as that by ihe free use of their faculties, 
 the conjunctions and oppositions of their interests 
 and inclinations, the natural influence and weight of 
 their several magnitudes and degrees of parts, power, 
 wealth, &c. they may conspire to make out the scheme ? 
 And then again, since generals consist of particulars, 
 and in this scheme are comprehended the actions and 
 cases of particular men, they cannot be so situated 
 respectively among the rest of their species as to be 
 serviceable to the principal intention, and fall properly 
 into \\\Q general diagram of affairs, unless they and their 
 several actings and cases do in the main correspond 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 424 
 
 one to another, and fit among themselves, or at least 
 are not inconsistent. 
 
 4. It is not impossible (for this is all that I contend 
 for here), that many things, suitable to several cases, 
 may be brought to pass by means of secret and some- 
 times sudden influences on our minds, or the minds of 
 other men, whose acts may affect us. For instance, if 
 the case should require, that N should be delivered 
 from some threatening ruin, or from some misfortune, 
 which should certainly befall him, if he should go such 
 a way at such a time, as he intended : upon this occa- 
 sion some new reasons may be presented to his mind, 
 why he should not go at all, or not then, or not by that 
 road; or he may forget to go. Or, if he is to be deli- 
 vered from some dangerous enemy, either some new 
 turn given to his thoughts may divert him from going’ 
 where the enemy will be, or the enemy may be after the 
 same manner diverted from coming where he shall be, 
 or his (the enemy^s) resentment may be qualified, or 
 some proper method of defence may be suggested, or 
 degree of resolution and vigour excited. After the 
 same manner not only deliverances from dangers and 
 troubles, but advantages and successes may be con- 
 ferred : or, on the other side, men may, by way of 
 punishment for crimes committed, incur mischiefs and 
 calamities. I say, these things and such like may be. 
 For the operations of the mind following in great mea- 
 sure the present disposition of the some thoughts 
 and designs, or absences of mind, may proceed from 
 corporeal causes, acting according to the common laws 
 of matter and motion themselves ; and so the case may 
 Ml in with n. 2 : or they may be occasioned by some- 
 thing said or done by other men ; and then the case may 
 be brought under n. 3 : or they may be caused by the 
 suggestion, and impulse, or other silent communica- 
 tions of some spiritual being ; perhaps the Deity him- 
 self. For that such imperceptible influences and still 
 whispers may be, none of us all can positively deny: 
 that is, we cannot know certainly, that there are no 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 425 
 
 such things. On the contrary, I believe there are but 
 few who have made observations upon themselves and 
 their affairs, but must, when they reflect on life past, 
 and the various adventures and events in it, find many 
 instances, in which their usual judgment and sense of 
 things cannot but seem to themselves to have been 
 overruled they know not by what, nor how, nor ivhy (i. e. 
 they have done things, which afterwards they wonder 
 how they came to do); and that these actions have had 
 consequences very remarkable in their history : I speak 
 not here of men dementated with wine, or enchanted 
 with some temptation : the thing holds true of men 
 even in their sober and more considering seasons. 
 
 That there may be possibly such inspirations of 
 new thoughts and counsels may perhaps farther ap- 
 pear from this ; that we so frequently find thoughts 
 rising in our beads, into which we are led by uo dis- 
 course, nothing we read, no clue of reasoning ; but they 
 surprise and come upon us from we knoiv not what 
 quarter. If they proceeded from the mobility of spirits, 
 straggling out of order, and fortuitous affections of the 
 brain, or were of the nature of dreams, why are they 
 not as wild, incoherent, and extravagant as they are? 
 Not to add, that the world has generally acknowledged, 
 and therefore seems to have experienced some assistance 
 and directions given to good men by the Deity ; that 
 men have been many times infatuated, and lost to 
 themselves, &c. If any one should object, that if men 
 are thus overruled in their actings, then they are de- 
 prived of their liberty, &c. ; the answ er is, that though 
 man is a free agent, he may not be free as to every thing. 
 His freedom may be restrained, and he only account- 
 able for those acts in respect of which he is free. 
 
 5. There possibly may be, and most probably are, 
 beings invisible, and superior in nature to us, wdio may 
 by other means be in many respects ministers of God’s 
 providence, and authors under Him of many events to 
 particular men, without altering the laws of nature. 
 For it implies no contradiction or absurdity to say there 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 426 
 
 are such beings: on the contrary, we have the greatest 
 reason to think, what has been intimated already, that 
 such imperfect beings as we are, are far below the top 
 of the scale. Though pictures of spiritual beings can- 
 not be drawn in our imagination, as of corporeal ; yet 
 to the upper and reasoning part of the mind the idea 
 of spiritual substance may perhaps be as clear as that 
 of corporeity. For what penetrability is, must be known 
 just as well as what impenetrability : and so on. 
 
 ‘"And since it has been proved that all corporeal 
 motions proceed originally from something incorporeal, 
 it must be as certain, that there are incorporeal sub- 
 stances, as that there is motion. Beside, how can we 
 tell but that there may be above us beings of greater 
 powers and more perfect intellects, and capable of 
 mighty things, which yet may have corporeal vehicles 
 as we have, hut finer and invisible P Nay, who knows 
 but that there may be even of these, many orders, 
 rising in dignity of nature, and amplitude of power, 
 one above another? It is no way below the philosophy 
 of these times, which seems to delight in enlarging the 
 capacities of matter, to assert the possibility of this. 
 But, however, my own defects sufficiently convince 
 me, that I have no pretension to be one of the Jli'st rank, 
 or that which is next under the All-perfect. 
 
 “ Now then, as rve ourselves by the use of our powers 
 do many times interpose and alter the course of things 
 within our sphere, from what it would be if they were 
 left entirely to the laws of motion and gravitation, with- 
 out being said to alter those laws ; so may these supe- 
 rior beings likewise, in respect of things within their 
 spheres, much larger be sure, the least of them all, 
 than ours is : only with this difference, that, as their 
 knowledge is more extensive, their intellects purer, 
 their reason better, they may be much properer instru- 
 ments of Divine providence with respect to us, than we 
 can be with respect one to another, or to the animals be- 
 low us. I cannot think indeed, that the power of these 
 beings is so large, as to alter or suspend the general 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 427 
 
 laws of the world ; or that the world is like a bungling 
 piece of clock-work, which requires to be oft set back- 
 ward or forward by them : or that they can at pleasure 
 change their condition to ape us, or inferior beings ; 
 and consequently am not apt hastily to credit stories of 
 porients, &c. such as cannot be true, unless the nature 
 of things and their manner of being be quite ren versed : 
 yet (I will repeat it again) as men may be so placed 
 as to become, even by the free exercise of their own 
 powers, instruments of God’s particular providence to 
 other men (or animals) ; so may we well suppose, that 
 these higher beings may be so distributed through the 
 universe and subject to such an economy (though I 
 pretend not to tell what that is), as may render them 
 also instruments of the same providence : and that they 
 may, in proportion to their greater abilities, be capa- 
 ble, consistently with the laws of nature, some way or 
 other, though not in our way, of influencing human 
 affairs in proper places. 
 
 Lastly, what I have ventured to lay before you I 
 would not have to be so understood, as if I perempto- 
 rily asserted things to be just in this manner, or pre- 
 tended to impose my thoughts upon any body else : my 
 design is only to show, how I endeavour to help my 
 own narrow conceptions. There must be other ways 
 above my understanding, by which such a Being as 
 God is may take care of private cases without interrupt- 
 ing the order of the universe, or putting any of the 
 parts of it out of their channels. We may be sure he 
 regards every thing as being what it is ; and that there- 
 fore his laws must be accommodated to the true ge- 
 niuses and capacities of those things which are affected 
 by them. The purely material part of the world is go- 
 verned by such, as are suited to the state of a being, 
 which is insensible, passive only, and every where and 
 always the same: and these seem to be simple and 
 few, and to carry natural agents into one constant 
 road. But intelligent, active, free beings must be under 
 a government of another form. They must, truth 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 428 
 
 requiring it, be considered as hemgs, who may behave 
 themselves as they ought or not; as beings susceptive 
 of pleasure and pain ; as beings who not only owe to 
 God all that they are to have, but are (or may be) 
 sensible of this, and to whom therefore it must be 
 natural upon many occasions to supplicate Him for 
 mercy, defence, direction, assistance ; lastly, as beings, 
 whose cases admit great variety : and therefore that in- 
 fluence, by which he is present to them, must be differ- 
 ent from that, by which gravitation and common phe- 
 nomena are produced in matter. This seems to be as 
 it were a public influence, the other private, answering 
 private cases and prayers ; this to operate directly upon 
 the body, the other more especially upon the mind, 
 and upon the body by it, &c. But I forbear, lest I 
 should go too far out of my depth : only adding in 
 general, that God cannot put things so far out of his 
 own power ; as that he should wot for ever govern trans- 
 actions and events in his own world ; nor can perfect 
 knowledge and power ever want proper means to achieve 
 what is fit to be done. So that, though what I have 
 advanced should stand for nothing, there may still be 
 a particular providence, notwithstanding the foremen- 
 tioned difficulty. And then, if there may be one, it 
 will unavoidably follow, that there is one ; because in 
 the description of providence nothing is supposed with 
 respect to particular cases, but that they should be pro- 
 vided for in such a manner as will at last agree best with 
 reason; and to allow that this may be done, and yet 
 say that it is not done, implies a blasphemy that 
 creates horror : it is to charge the Perfect Being with 
 one of the greatest imperfections, and to make Him not 
 so much as a reasonable being. 
 
 I conclude, then, that it is as certain that there is 
 a particular providence, as that God is a Being of per- 
 fect reason. For if men are treated according to reason, 
 they must be treated according to what they are: the 
 virtuous, the just, the compassionate, &c. as such, and 
 the vicious, unjust, cruel, &c. according to what they 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 429 
 
 are: and their several cases must be taken and con- 
 sidered as they are: which cannot be done without such 
 a providence.^^ 
 
 I make no apology for the length of this quotation. 
 The subject is so important, and has notwithstanding 
 been so much misunderstood and misrepresented, that 
 every ingenious attempt to illustrate it deserves atten- 
 tion ; and the view of it taken by Mr. Wollaston is so 
 clear, philosophical, and satisfactory, that no man who 
 is free from prejudice can read it without benefit, nor, 
 I conceive, without complete conviction. 
 
 Before I entirely quit this subject, allow me to 
 remind you, that we have not been contemplating a 
 mere speculation, but have been pursuing a train of 
 reasoning which is practical and highly moral in its 
 tendency. Let the notion once fully occupy the mind 
 of a vicious man, that God is too exalted or too 
 remote from us to watch the progress of individual 
 guilt, to notice and record its propensities, to counter- 
 act its designs, — and with what ardour will he run the 
 career of iniquity? While, on the other hand, the 
 conviction that all things are naked and open^^ to 
 the piercing eye of God, — that when transgressors say, 
 
 surely the darkness shall cover us,’^ behold ‘‘ even 
 the night shall be light about them,^^ the darkness 
 and the light being both alike to God^^,’’ — that no 
 being is too insignificant or too obscure to escape the 
 notice of God, — that none can hide himself in gloom so 
 thick as to be impenetrable to the glance of omniscience, 
 — tends to appal the guilty, and check the luxuriant 
 growth of crimes. And in a world of trial, sin, and 
 difficulty, what can be so consoling to the good as the 
 firm persuasion that God is the God of individuals, 
 and the Father of the faithful,’^ the refuge and 
 strength^^ of all who trust in him; that He hears the 
 cry of the suppliant, yes, of every sincere suppliant, 
 and, wherever it is needed and duly estimated, ‘"giveth 
 power to the faint — that He, who when he promises 
 Psalm cxxxix. 11, 12. 
 
ON PROVIDENCE. 
 
 430 
 
 will perform, has declared that they who wait upon 
 the Lord shall renew their strength : they shall mount 
 up with wings as eagles: they shall run and not be 
 weary, shall walk and not faint 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 On the Resurrection of the Body. 
 
 If a being, which was constituted by the union of two 
 substances essentially different, were appointed to con- 
 tinue, it must continue a mixed being, or it would be 
 no longer the same being ; so that if man is to exist in 
 a future state, the doctrine of the resurrection of the 
 body is a necessary consequence of his nature: those 
 
 Is. xl. 29, 31. An objecting correspondent has called upon me 
 to reconcile the doctrine of Providence with the existence of moral 
 evil. I entreat his attention to the following often quoted passage 
 from Simplicius, a pagan writer before mentioned in this letter. 
 Simplicius asks, \\Miether God may be called the author of sin, 
 because he permits the soul to use her liberty ?” and answers the 
 question thus : 
 
 “ He who says that God should not permit the exercise of its 
 freedom to the soul, must affirm one of these two things ; either that 
 the soul, though by nature capable of indifferently choosing good or 
 evil, should yet be constantly prevented from choosing evil ; or else 
 that it should have been made of such a nature as to have no power 
 of choosing evil. 
 
 The former assertion (continues he) is irrational and absurd ; 
 for what kind of liberty would that be, in which there should be no 
 freedom of choice? and what choice could there be, if the mind were 
 constantly restrained to one side of every alternative? With respect 
 to the second assertion, it is to be observed (says he) that no evil is 
 in itself desirable, or can be chosen as evil. But if this power of 
 determining itself either way in any given case must be taken from 
 the soul, it must either be as something not good, or as some great 
 evil . But whoever saith so, does not consider how many things there 
 are which, though accounted good and desirable, are yet never put in 
 competition with this freedom of will : for without it we should be on 
 a level with the brutes ; and there is no person who would rather be 
 a brute than a man. If God then shows his goodness in giving to 
 inferior beings such perfections as are far below this, is it incongruous 
 to the Divine nature and goodness to give man a self-determining 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 43 ] 
 
 who admit ihe immortality of the soul, and deny the 
 resurrection of the body, therefore, forget the many and, 
 in effect, deprive him of existence beyond the grave. 
 Still, it has been thought, by many persons in all 
 ages, a thing incredible that God should raise the 
 dead^;’^ and the contrary is no where positively as- 
 serted, but in the Scriptures received by Christians, or 
 in writings founded upon them. There are many 
 passages in the Old Testament which either obscurely 
 hint at the resurrection, or immediately refer to it^: 
 yet they are by no means such as produced a firm 
 belief in the doctrine among the Jews. The Sadducees, 
 for example, say that there is no resurrection, neither 
 angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees allow both And 
 even among our Lord’s disciples, though some of them, 
 
 power over his actions, and to permit him the free exercise of that 
 power? Had God, to prevent man’s sin, taken awaj the liberty of 
 his will, he would likewise have destroyed the foundation of all virtue, 
 and the very nature of man ; for there could be no virtue were there 
 not a possibility of vice ; and man’s nature, had it continued rational, 
 would have been Divine, because impeccable. Therefore (continues 
 he), though we attribute to God, as its author, this self-determining 
 power, which is so necessary in the order of the universe; we have 
 no reason to attribute to him that evil which comes by the abuse of 
 liberty : for God doth not cause that aversion from good which is 
 in the soul when it sins; he only gave to the soul such a power as 
 might turn itself to evil, out of which he produces much good, which, 
 without such a power, could not have been produced by Omnipotence 
 itself.” 
 
 Those who wish to go farther into this inquiry than the above 
 observations of Simplicius will lead them, may turn to a very mas- 
 terly “ Essay on the Permission of Evil,” in the second volume of 
 the “ Works” of Dr. Hamilton, late Bishop of Ossory ; or to part 
 the third of Mr. Samuel Drew’s valuable “ Essay on the Being, 
 Attributes, and Providence of Deity.” In the latter of these works 
 most of the objections to what is denominated the doctrine of parti- 
 cular providence, have received a very decisive refutation. 
 
 ^ Acts, xxvi. 8. 
 
 2 Such as Job, xix. 23 — 27. Dan. xii. 2, 3. Is. xxv. 8 ; xxvi. 
 19. Hos. vi.2; xiii. 14. Ezek. xxxvii. 1 — 14. See also Ps. xlix, 
 14, 15, and Boothroyd’s note, in loc, vol. ii. p. 124 of his Improved 
 Version. 
 
 ^ Malt. xxii. 23. Acts, xxiii. 8. 
 
432 RESCJURECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 like Lazarus^s sister Martha, believed that the dead 
 would '' rise again in the resurrection at the last day'*,^^ 
 others doubted and wondered what rising from the 
 dead could mean^.^^ When Paul preached to the phi- 
 losophers at Athens, and declared to them the resur- 
 rection of Jesus, they were astonished at the novelty 
 and singularity of his doctrine, and said, he seemeth 
 to be a setter forth of strange gods, because he preached 
 nnto them Jesus and the Resurrection^ these philoso- 
 phers were so deplorably ignorant as, when the Apostle 
 used the words Irjaovq and Kvaaraaiq, to fancy that he 
 was labouring to introduce a new god and goddess 
 amongst them ! When he urged the matter still farther, 
 ‘‘ they scoffed and on another occasion, when he 
 was pleading before Agrippa and Festus, the latter 
 interru[)ted him the moment he adverted to the resur- 
 rection of Jesus, exclaiming, Paul, thou art mad, 
 much learning driveth thee to madness^.^^ Conform- 
 ably with the conduct of most other heathens, Pliny 
 classes it amongst impossible things which God cannot 
 accomplish , — revocare defunctos, to call back the 
 dead to life.^^ And Celsus calls the hope of the resur- 
 rection, ‘‘ t he hope of worms, a very filthy and abomi- 
 nable as well as impossible thing : it is that which 
 God neither can nor will do, being base and contrary 
 to nature®.^’ 
 
 This doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead is, 
 however, as I have already intimated, one of the great 
 articles of the Christian faith. We believe that Jesus 
 died and rose again we also believe, for so we are 
 taught in the New Testament, that them which sleep 
 in Jesus will God bring with him,^^ that Christ by his 
 rising became the first fruits of them that slepV^ that 
 John, xi. 24. ^ Mark, ix. 10. 
 
 ® Acts, xvii. 18. 7 Acts, xxvi. 24. 
 
 ® Orig. cont. Cels. lib. v. This, of course, is refuted by Origen ; 
 and others of the Ante-nicene fathers, especially Justin Martyr and 
 Tertullian, in their Apologies, most ingeniously defend the doctrine of 
 the church as to this point. See also Clemens Romanus’s 1st epistle. 
 
 9 See Letter VIII. 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 433 
 
 the dead shall be raised incorruptible/’ that the 
 grave and the sea shall give up their dead/’ that, at 
 this resurrection, ‘^the dead in Christ shall rise first,” 
 that the Lord Jesus Christ will change our vile body, 
 and fashion it like unto his glorious body, according 
 to the working of that mighty power whereby he is 
 able to subdue all things to himself^®.” 
 
 Clearly as this doctrine is revealed, in the above 
 quoted and several other places of Scripture, it is not- 
 withstanding doubted by many professing Christians. 
 And it has been usually denied by infidels, and selected 
 by them as one of the most vulnerable points in the 
 system of Christianity. Yet, taking Deists upon their 
 own ground, I conceive the reasonableness, if not the 
 necessity, of the resurrection may be established : while, 
 to those who allow the authenticity and correctness of 
 the New Testament history, the matter will be placed 
 beyond the reach of dispute. 
 
 In the estimation of Deists, God is a wise and just 
 governor of the world : such a governor must reward 
 the good and punish the wicked : but, in the present 
 state, we often see good men under suffering, bad men 
 following and enjoying pleasure, through the greater 
 part of life : the character of the governor, therefore, 
 requires that there should be a future state in which 
 this great anomaly shall be adjusted ; and, of course, 
 a state of existence not for the body alone, nor for the 
 soul alone, but for the yuan in his mixed nature, con- 
 stituted of soul and body. It is the man, and not a 
 fart of him merely, which this simple train of reasoning 
 requires us to expect shall be rewarded or punished 
 
 1 Thes. iv. 14, 16. 1 Cor. xv. 20, 52. Rev. xx. 13. Phil, 
 
 iii. 21. 
 
 11 I am aware it may be said, and indeed it has often been said, 
 that since consciousness and feeling exist in the soul, the future ex- 
 istence of the soul is all that can fairly be inferred from this argument. 
 But we have at least as good reasons for affirming as any can have for 
 denying that in all probability the capacity of the soul for feeling the 
 highest degrees of pleasure or pain depends upon its union with an 
 organized body. 
 
434 RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 Nor can the conclusion be fairly resisted, unless it can 
 be shown that the resurrection of the body is impossible; 
 and that it is not impossible may be safely inferred 
 from history, and the analogy of nature, in the follow- 
 ing manner. 
 
 From history we learn not merely that the body of 
 Lazarus was reanimated after he had been interred four 
 days, and that of Jesus Christ after it had lain in the 
 grave part of three days ; but farther, that “ after His 
 resurrection many bodies of the saints which slept arose 
 from their graves,’^ which had been thrown open by the 
 earthquake at his crucifixion, “ and ivent unto the holy 
 city, and appeared unto many^^ ; thus attesting the 
 truth of his resurrectio: , and declaring their own rescue 
 from the grave (in which some of them had long lain), 
 by virtue of his power o’ cr death and corruption. So 
 that to deny the possibility of the resurrection is to 
 deny the truth of several matters of fact, all at least as 
 well attested as any other facts in history ; and that in 
 contradiction to some very obvious modes of reasoning, 
 and some striking analogies. 
 
 For, in the first place, the restoring to life a body 
 deprived of motion, animation, and sensation, is not 
 beyond the power of God : since the communication of 
 any qualities to an organized body, or body capable of 
 organization, which it had lost, cannot be imagined to 
 require a greater exertion of power than the original 
 creation of such body with certain appropriate attri- 
 butes. Indeed, cases occur almost daily in which 
 human efforts lead to a change to all appearance (and 
 it should be remembered that we know little of death, 
 except in regard to its mere appearances) as great as 
 the deliverance of a dead man from the silence and 
 inactivity of the grave. I allude to fainting-fits, and 
 instances of suspended animation by drowning. In 
 these the subject is often for a considerable time so 
 completely void of motion, feeling, and, as it would 
 seem, of life, that no one, who had never previously 
 *2 Matt, xxvii. 52, 53. 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 435 
 
 witnessed or heard of a similar suspension, could avoid 
 concluding that it would be final and eternal. There 
 is, it is true, a difference in the durations of lifelessness 
 in the cases of swooning and apparent drowning, and 
 of real death ; but that is more than compensated in the 
 difference of power and skill in the respective agents 
 of restoration. 
 
 Nearly allied to these are the examples of peculiar 
 transformations undergone by various insects, and the 
 state of rest and insensibility which precede those 
 transformations: such as the chrysalis or aurelia state 
 of butterflies, moths, and silk-worms. The Myrmeleon 
 formicaleo, of whose larva and its extraordinary history 
 Reaumur and Roesel have given accurate descriptions, 
 continues in its insensible or chrysalis state about four 
 weeks. The Lihelliila or Dragon-fly continues still 
 longer in its state of inaction. Naturalists tell us that 
 the worm repairs to the margin of its pond in quest of 
 a convenient place of abode during its insensible state. 
 It attaches itself to a plant or a piece of dry wood : 
 and the skin, which gradually becomes parched and 
 brittle, at last splits opposite to the upper part of the 
 thorax. Through this aperture the insect, now become 
 winged, quickly pushes its way, and being thus extri- 
 cated from confinement begins to expand its wings, to 
 flutter, and finally to launch into the air with that 
 gracefulness and ease which are peculiar to this ma- 
 jestic tribe. Now who, that saw^ for the first time the 
 little pendant coffin in which the inanimate insect lay 
 entombed, and was ignorant of the transformations of 
 which we are now speaking, would ever predict that 
 in a few weeks, perhaps a few days or hours, it would 
 become one of the most elegant and active of winged 
 insects? And who, that contemplates with the mind of 
 a philosopher this curious transformation, and who 
 knows that two years before the insect mounts into air, 
 even while it is living in water, it has the rudiments of 
 vjings, can deny that the body of a dead man may at 
 some future period be again invested with vigour and 
 
436 RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 activity, and soar to regions for which some latent 
 organization pay peculiarly fit it ? 
 
 But I may be reminded, that the analogy, to which 
 I have been calling your attention, is not complete, in- 
 somuch as dead bodies sink from their organized state 
 into corruption, while chrysales are merely inactive or 
 at most insensible. Let us then advance this step, and 
 we shall find a parallel case in the process of vegeta- 
 tion. ‘‘ That which thou so west (says the apostle to 
 the Corinthians) is not quickened except it die^^” Seed 
 may be sown, but unless it lose its external configura- 
 tion, and appear corrupted, no future vegetable will 
 spring from it. The little infinitesimal or germen, 
 which is to spring forth into new life, is fed by the 
 death and corruption of the rest: a fact well known 
 not only to scientific botanists, but to almost every 
 gardener and husbandman you can consult. So that 
 those who deny the propriety and correctness of the 
 analogy traced by the apostle, are as little supported 
 by truth and nature as the Corinthian free-thinkers, 
 whose objection he thus philosophically refuted. The 
 apparent corruption which a grain, when deposited in 
 the earth, undergoes, may be considered as the casting 
 of exuviae, whose removal and decay are necessary to 
 the dawnings of latent life : and thus, in like manner, 
 may the future body be ripening through the mysteri- 
 ous process of dissolution, till the day of the general 
 resurrection, when it shall come forth a glorious body, 
 fitted for new union with the soul from which it had 
 been separated, and so formed as thenceforward to en- 
 dure for ever. The principal difference in the two cases 
 relates to frequency of occurrence : the process of vege- 
 tation from a corrupted grain is observed annually ; 
 while the deliverance of a body from corruption in the 
 grave will occur but once. Yet this ought rather to 
 stimulate our hopes than to generate scepticism: the 
 contrast between the sterility and death-like appearance 
 of the vegetable world in winter, and the gladsome 
 I Cor. XV. 37, 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 437 
 
 verdure, vigour, and variety of spring, when God re- 
 news the face of the earth and enlivens us with 
 balmy air and cheerful skies; is admirably fitted to 
 teach us what the Creator and Governor of the universe 
 can effect ; to convince us that he can ‘‘ loosen the 
 bands of death as easily as he can educe vegetation 
 from corruption; and, in conjunction with the pro- 
 mises of the Gospel, to excite a lively and rapturous 
 anticipation of that delightful period, when one un- 
 hounded spy'ing^^ shall encircle 
 
 Objectors, however, have advanced still farther, and 
 urge that after death the body may not merely become 
 insensible, inactive, and undergo corruption ; but may 
 experience dispersion of particles, and union with other 
 bodies. Thus the body of a dead man may be burned 
 (as were those of some primitive martyrs by their ene- 
 mies in derision of the resurrection), its ashes be scat- 
 tered in the air, blown about by the wind, or exhaled 
 into the atmosphere : or, after it is resolved into earthy 
 or humid matter, it may be taken up by the vessels 
 which supply plants with nutriment, and at length 
 become constituent parts of the substance of those 
 plants. How can particles thus dispersed half over 
 the earth, or thus intimately combined with other 
 bodies, be recalled from their state of dispersion, or 
 separated from the bodies of which they have subse- 
 quently formed constituent parts, and reunited so as to 
 form one body ? Here again, we may deprive the ob- 
 jection of all force, by contemplating processes of daily 
 occurrence. Chemists can intermix several liquids, of 
 essentially different kinds, in such manner, that the 
 smallest sensible particle of the resulting liquids shall 
 partake of all the constituent liquids; and then they 
 can by analysis separate this compound substance into 
 all the simple liquids of which it was composed. They 
 can detect, separate, and measure, the several simple 
 substances, of which a certain compound natural mass 
 shall be formed. They can, for example, detect and 
 Psalm civ. 30. 
 
438 RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 measure the chromic acid, oxide of iron, alumina, and 
 silica, in a given mass of that natural substance chro- 
 mium ferri ; the respective quantities of acidulous wa- 
 ter, thick brown oil, thin empyreumatic oil, charcoal, 
 and gases, in any proposed portion of guaiaciim; or 
 the relative masses and relative weights of the azotic 
 gas, oxygenous gas, aqueous vapour, and carbonic acid 
 gas, in any given volume of atmospheric air: and all 
 this, be it recollected, by means within the compass of 
 human agents. Does the collecting together of the scat- 
 tered particles of dead bodies, or the separation of 
 them from other bodies with which they may have 
 become combined, require skill or energy so much 
 greater than the operations of art to which I have just 
 been adverting, that we must pronounce them too diffi- 
 cult for the Creator of the world to perform? Is his 
 knowledge so circumscribed that he cannot tell what 
 becomes of every particle of every body He has cre- 
 ated? Or cannot matchless knowledge, and unlimited 
 power, know and accomplish all things, required by 
 infinite wisdom or promised by boundless love, as easily 
 and successfully as a chemist can ascertain or separate 
 the various substances in a compound mass? 
 
 There still remains one other objection, to which we 
 must reply before we get to the height of this great 
 argument and that may be stated in the following 
 terms: Of men drowned in the sea, the bodies may 
 
 be eaten by fishes, and they again by other men ; or, 
 among cannibals, men feast upon the flesh of men : in 
 such cases, where one man^s body may be converted 
 into part of the substance of another man^s body, and 
 so on, how shall each at the resurrection recover his 
 own peculiar body ?^’ To this I beg to quote the answer 
 of Archbishop Tillotson, who first premises these two 
 observations. 
 
 "" 1. That the body of man is not a constant and 
 permanent thing, always continuing in the same state, 
 and consisting of the same matter; but a successive 
 thing, which is continually spending, and continually 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 439 
 
 renewing itself, every day losing something of the mat- 
 ter which it had before, and gaining new, so that most 
 men have new bodies as they have new clothes ; only 
 with this difference, that we change our clothes com- 
 monly at once, but our bodies by degrees. 
 
 And this is undeniably certain from experience. 
 For so much as our bodies grow, so much new matter 
 is added to them, over and besides the repairing of 
 what is continually spent; and after a man be come to 
 his full growth, so much of his food as every day turns 
 into nourishment, so much of his yesterday’s body is 
 usually wasted, and carried off by insensible perspira- 
 tion, that is, breathed out of the pores of his body, 
 which, according to the static experiment of Sanctorius, 
 a learned physician, who for several years together 
 weighed himself exactly every day, is (as I remember) 
 according to the proportion of five to eight of all that 
 a man eats and drinks. Now, according to this propor- 
 tion, a man must change his body several times in 
 a year. 
 
 It is true, indeed, the more solid parts of the body, 
 as the bones, do not change so often as the fluid and 
 fleshy ; but that they also do change is certain, because 
 they grow; and whatever grows is nourished and spends, 
 because otherwise it would not need to be repaired. 
 
 2. The body which a man hath at any time of his 
 life is as much his own body, as that which he hath at 
 his death ; so that if the very matter of his body, which 
 a man had at any time of his life, be raised, it is as 
 much his own and the same body, as that which he 
 had at his death, and commonly much more perfect ; 
 because they who die of lingering sickness, or old age, 
 
 Later physiologists have shown that Sanctorius ascribed to the 
 excretory function of the skin somewhat too great an influence. In 
 temperate climates, however, the weight of matter taken daily from a 
 human body by insensible perspiration is usually between two and 
 four pounds, instead of five, as Sanctorius supposed ; so that a man 
 will change his body several times in the course of his life, though 
 not several times in a year, as the archbishop, assuming the accuracy 
 of Sanctorius’s observations, inferred. 
 
440 RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 are usually mere skeletons when they die ; so that there 
 is no reason to suppose (or, at least, not to insist) that 
 the very matter of which our bodies consist at the time 
 of our death, shall be that which shall be raised, that 
 bein^ commonly the worst and most imperfect body of 
 all the rest. 
 
 These two things being premised, the answer to 
 this objection cannot be difficult. For as to the more 
 solid and firm parts of the body, as the skull and bones, 
 it is not, I think, pretended that the cannibals eat them ; 
 and if they did, so much of the matter, even of these 
 solid parts, wastes away in a few years, as, being col- 
 lected together, would supply them many times over. 
 And as for the fleshy and fluid parts, these are so very 
 often changed and renewed, that we can allow the can- 
 nibals to eat them all up, and to turn them all into 
 nourishment ; and yet no man need contend for want 
 of a body of his own at the resurrection, viz. any of 
 those bodies which he had ten or twenty years before, 
 which are every whit as good, and as much his own, as 
 that which was eaten 
 
 Thus far I have been led by a desire to convince you 
 that the resurrection of the body is not impossible, and 
 therefore that it ought not to be ridiculed or denied, 
 even though the belief of it had not been authorita- 
 tively proposed to us in Scripture. You will expect 
 me to offer you a few thoughts relative to the kind of 
 body that will be raised ; but on this topic I shall be 
 brief, as I have no wish to carry you far into the regions 
 of conjecture. 
 
 We are assured by the great Head of the church, 
 that the hour is coming in wdiieh all that are in their 
 
 Tillotson’s 194th Sermon. The Archbishop is here of an opinion 
 diametrically opposite to that of Bishop Stillingfleet, as to the resur- 
 rection of every particle of the body buried. He has Mr. Locke, how- 
 ever, on his side. For a summary view of the controversy between 
 Stillingfleet and Locke, and an attempt at compromising their dispute, 
 you may consult the eighth of Dr. Watts’s Philosophical Essays. 
 
 See also Dr. Clarke’s remarks on this interesting inquiry, as quoted 
 in Bishop Watson’s Theological Tracts, vol. iv. p. 235 — 23T* 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 441 
 
 graves shall hear his voice and come forth ; they that 
 have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that 
 have done evil unto the resurrection of damnalion,^^ At 
 that great and solemn event, when we shall all be 
 changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
 the last trump,^’ the dead shall be raised incorrupti- 
 ble and it is probable that the bodies of the righteous 
 and the wicked, though each shall in some respects he 
 the same as before, will each be in some res})ects not the 
 same, each undergoing some change conformable to the 
 character of the individual, and suited to his future 
 state of existence ; but both, as the passage just quoted 
 clearly teaches, are then rendered indestructible. Re- 
 specting the good, it is said, When Christ, who is our 
 life, shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory 
 we shall be like him, our body shall be fashioned like 
 his glorious body*’;^^ yet, notwithstanding this, ‘Mt 
 doth not yet fully appear what we shall be f and that 
 for a very obvious reason. Our present manner of 
 knowing depends upon our present constitution, and 
 we know not the exact relation which subsists between 
 this constitution and the manner of being in a future 
 world ; we derive our ideas through the medium of the 
 senses ; the senses are necessarily conversant with ter- 
 restrial objects only: our language is suited to the 
 communication of present ideas ; and thus it follows 
 that the objects of the future world may in soyne respects 
 (whether few or many we cannot say) differ so extremely 
 from terrestrial objects, that language cannot commu- 
 nicate to us any such ideas as would render those mat- 
 ters comprehensible. But language may suggest strik- 
 ing and pleasing analogies; and with such we are 
 presented by the philosophic apostle. All flesh (says 
 he) is not the same flesh : but there is one flesh of men, 
 another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of 
 birds f and yet all these are fashioned out of the same 
 kind of substance, mere inert matter, till God gives it 
 life and activity. ‘‘There are also celestial bodies, and 
 Col. iv. 4. 1 John, iii. 2. Phil. iii. 21. 
 
442 RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial is one, 
 and that of the terrestrial is another. There is one 
 glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and 
 another glory of the stars : for one star differeth from 
 another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the 
 dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorrup- 
 tion : it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory : it is 
 sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown an 
 animal body {(rofia "^vyiKov), it is raised a spiritual 
 body^®.^^ — It is sown an animal body; a body which 
 previously existed with all the organs, faculties, and 
 propensities, requisite to procure, receive, and appro- 
 priate nutriment, as well as to perpetuate the species : 
 but it shall be raised a spiritual body, refined from the 
 dregs of matter, utterly impermeable by every thing 
 which communicates pain*V^ freed from the organs 
 and senses required only in its former state, and pro- 
 bably possessing the remaining senses in greater per- 
 fection, together with new and more exquisite faculties, 
 fitted for the exalted state of existence and enjoyment 
 to which it is now rising. In the present state the 
 organs and senses appointed to transmit the impres- 
 sions of objects to the mind have a manifest relation to 
 the respective objects : the eye and seeing, for example, 
 to light ; the ear and hearing, to sound. In the refined 
 and glorious state of existence to which good men are 
 tending, where the objects which solicit attention will 
 be infinitely more numerous, interesting, and delight- 
 ful, may not the new organs, faculties, and senses, be 
 proportionably refined, acute, susceptible or penetrat- 
 ing? Human industry and invention have placed us, 
 in a manner, in new worlds; what, then, may not a 
 spiritual body, with sharpened faculties, and the grand- 
 est possible objects of contemplation, effect in the celes- 
 tial regions to which Christians are invited ? What 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 39 — 44. 
 
 19 << Neither shall there he any more painj^ Rev. xxi. 4. The 
 Greek word, ttovoc, here translated pain, comprehends toil, fatigue, 
 and excessive labour of body, as well as vexation and anguish of spirit. 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 443 
 
 delight would Archimedes have experienced, could he 
 by the aid of a microscope have seen the fluids moving 
 through the vessels of some of our minutest insects; — 
 or viewed with a telescope the belts of Jupiter, or the 
 ring of Saturn ? And how would that sink into insi- 
 pidity when compared with the rapture with which a 
 being, possessing a spiritual body, having its former 
 senses perfected, and new ones communicated, shall 
 explore all the glories and wonders which will be exhi- 
 bited to it when it shall be admitted into heaven, and 
 enabled to see God ? 
 
 Here, clogged with animal bodies, and borne down 
 to the earth by gravity as well as our propensities, we 
 are soon tired of bodily exertion, our mental attention 
 flags, and our affections, cleaving to the dusV^ Hiay 
 impede the operation of both body and mind : but 
 there, — where the body will be liberated from the 
 influence of gravitation (the causes of gravity being 
 removed), motion may be free and without fatigue, 
 the body may obey with astonishing facility the voli- 
 tions of the soul, and transmit itself from place to 
 place with the utmost celerity, — there the senses will 
 no longer degrade the affections, the imagination no 
 longer corrupt the heart, — the magnificent scenery 
 thrown open to view will animate the attention, give a 
 glow and vigour to the sentiments ; that roused atten- 
 tion will never tire, those glowing sentiments will 
 never cloy : but the man now constituted of an inde- 
 structible body as well as of an immortal soul, may 
 visit in eternal succession the streets of the celestial 
 city,^^ may drink of the pure river of water of life, 
 clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, 
 and of the Lamb;” and dwell for ever in those abodes 
 of harmony and peace, which, though eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the imagi- 
 nation of man to conceive,” we are assured God hath 
 'prepared for them that love 
 
 But I leave you to pursue and improve this train of 
 delectable reflection ; and am Truly yours. 
 
 20 1 Cor. ii. 9. 
 
444 
 
 ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 On Eternal Existeiice after Death, 
 
 It is one of the ^rand peculiarities, and (as I doubt 
 not you will find it, on consideration) one of the great 
 excellencies of the New Testament, that it exhibits 
 both promises and threatenings of eternal existence 
 after natural death. These are presented to the con- 
 templation of mankind under the character of reward 
 and punishments which are correlatives : the existence 
 of one implies the existence of the other: the belief of 
 the latter is as necessary as the belief of the former : 
 for, without it, the belief of a future state will have 
 little if any influence on the bulk of mankind. 
 
 This is not a narrow notion confined to the minds 
 of theologians of a rigid stamp: it is the sentiment of 
 several acute philosophers, and wise politicians ; of 
 some indeed who have neither been condemned nor 
 contemned for an undue attachment to what are 
 fashionably termed religious dogmas. Montesquieu, for 
 instance, affirms, ‘^that the idea of a place of future 
 rewards necessarily imports that of a place or state of 
 future punishments ; and that when the people hope 
 for the one without fearing the other, civil laws have 
 no force Lord Bolinghroke also observes, that the 
 doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state 
 has so great a tendency to enforce the civil laws, and 
 to restrain the vices of men, that reason, which (as he 
 pretends) cannot decide for it on principles of natural 
 theology, will not decide against it on principles of 
 good policy And even Mr. Hume, when speaking 
 of the notions that the Deity will inflict punishments 
 on vice, and confer infinite rewards on virtue,^^ says, 
 those who attempt to disabuse persons of such pre- 
 judices, may, for aught he knows, be good reasoners; 
 but that he cannot allow them to be good citizens and 
 
 ^ Spirit of Laws, vol. ii. book xxiv. cli. 14. 
 
 2 Bolingbroke’s Works, 4to edit. vol. v. p. 322. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 445 
 
 politicians, since they free men from one restraint upon 
 their passions, and make the infringement of the laws 
 of equity and society in one respect, more easy and 
 secureV’ 
 
 The ancient philosophers had'some feeble glimmer- 
 ings of a future state; but, as you have long ago 
 learned^, they were sadly clouded by error and al3- 
 surdity ; and the awful idea of accountability w as in 
 great measure, if not entirely, excluded. This is not 
 to be wondered at, considering how defective and erro- 
 neous their notions of the Supreme Being were. The 
 belief of a God, and that of a future state, are indis- 
 soluble : no consistent Theist can believe that human 
 existence ceases at death ; nor, on the other hand, can 
 any one who believes in a future world be an Atheist. 
 Our ideas on these subjects, however, must have been 
 very vague independent of Revelation : but God hath 
 brought life and immortality to light, through the 
 GospelJ^ Christians are taught that man has two states 
 of existence, the one temporal, the other eternal: inef- 
 fable, interminable bliss, is promised to those who are 
 
 faithful unto death while “ indignation and wrath, 
 tribulation and anguish,^^ are represented as the eternal 
 doom of every soul of man that doeth evil/^ and 
 repenteth not. The Scriptures also suggest to us a 
 remarkable and essential distinction, not only in regard 
 to the duration, but to the nature, of the states before 
 and after death. Here the capacity of enjoyment and 
 that of suffering appear to have nearly an invariable 
 ratio: those who have the richest sources of delight 
 seem to have most avenues of pain ; every new road to 
 knowledge gives them a fresh insight into their igno- 
 rance; and every refinement upon pleasure renders 
 them more alive to distress : w^hile those w ho are 
 blunted against the finer feelings seem in an equal 
 degree hardened against the pressure of evil ; so that 
 though they may enjoy less, they likewise suffer less : 
 and the happiness of this life is, probably, much more 
 ® Hume’s Philosophical Essays, 1st ed. p. 231. ^ Letter iii. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 446 
 
 uniformly diffused (the stints of conscience not consi- 
 dered) than cursory observers might suppose. But 
 this balancing of bliss and woe will not be found 
 beyond the grave. In the future world the capability 
 of enjoyment will, to the blessed, be perpetually ex- 
 panding, while that of suffering will be entirely de- 
 stroyed : and, on the other hand, with those who are 
 consigned to endless punishment, the capacity of suf- 
 fering will, there is reason to fear, continually increase, 
 while that of enjoyment will be blunted and annihi- 
 lated ; — for ^^the wrath of God ahideth on them/’ They 
 are considerations like these, that give such unbounded 
 importance to the concerns of the soul, and make us 
 exclaim to those who regard ll'em with supineness, — 
 
 “ O ! be wise ! 
 
 Nor make a curse of immortality. 
 
 Know’st thou the importance of a soul immortal ? 
 
 Behold this midnight glory ; worlds on worlds ! 
 
 Amazing pomp ! redouble this amaze ; 
 
 Ten thousand add ; add twice ten thousand more \ 
 
 Then weigh the whole ; ONK soul outweighs them all ; 
 
 And calls the’ astonishing magnificence 
 
 unintelligent creation poor.” YOUNG, 
 
 Allow me to place before you a few of the passages 
 of Scripture, in which the nature and duration of the 
 future state of existence are expressly declared. And 
 first I shall quote part of the language of our Lord in 
 his awful description of the solemnities of the judg- 
 ment day. Then the King will say to them on his 
 right hand. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world.” Then shall he say also to them on his left 
 hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, 
 prepared for the devil and his angels.” "‘And these 
 shall go avmy into everlasting punishment; hut the righte- 
 ous into life eternal^.^^ In one of his prayers to his 
 heavenly Father, the language of the Messiah was, 
 “ Father, I desire that those whom thou hast given me 
 ^ Matt. XXV. 34, 41, 46. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 447 
 
 may be with me where I am, to behold my glory In 
 his celebrated sermon on the mount, his language was, 
 ‘"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see 
 God"^.^^ And in the Revelation we have the promise, 
 “To him that overcometh I will grant to sit upon my 
 throne, even as I also overcame and sit with my Father 
 on his throne Hence, in other parts of the same 
 inspired book, it is said, “They are before the throne 
 of God, and serve him day and night in his temple ; 
 and he that sitteth on the throne will dwell among 
 them. They will hunger no more, nor will they thirst 
 any more ; nor will the sun strike on them, nor any 
 heat. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne 
 will feed them, and will lead them to living fountains 
 of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes.’^ “ And there shall be no more death, nei- 
 ther sorrow nor lamentation, neither shall there be any 
 more pain: for the former things are passed away^.^^ 
 Well may language labour to describe felicity such as 
 this : even hyperbole upon hyjjerbole would here be 
 defective, as is indicated by the apostle Paul when he 
 calls it “ an exceedingly exceeding and eternal iveight of 
 
 Let us now contemplate the other side of the pic- 
 ture. “ If thine hand cause thee to offend, cut it off : 
 it is better for thee to enter maimed into life, than, 
 having two hands, to go into hell, into the unquench- 
 able fire; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
 quenched. And if thy foot cause thee to offend, cut it 
 off: it is better for thee to enter into life lame, than, 
 having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the unquench- 
 able fire ; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
 quenched. And if thine eye cause thee to offend, pluck 
 it out; it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of 
 God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast 
 
 ® John, xvii. 24. ^ Matt, v. 8. 
 
 ® Rev. iii. 21. ^ Rev. vii. 15 — 17 ; xxi. 4. 
 
 2 Cor. iv. 17, where the Ka& VTTspfSoXijv tig v7rep^o\7]V is 
 infinitely emphatical, as Blackwall justly remarks. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 448 
 
 into bell fire; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is 
 not quenched. For every one shall be salted with 
 FiRE^b’^ ^'Between us and you (who are in bell tor- 
 ment) there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which 
 would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they 
 pass to us that woiild come from thence^^.^^ “The Lord 
 Jesus shall be manifested from heaven, with his mighty 
 angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that 
 know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ : and these shall suffer punishment, 
 even everlasting destruction from the presence of the 
 Lord and from the glory of his power To these is 
 reserved “ the blackness of darkness for ever^^.^^ “The 
 smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever; and 
 they have no rest day nor night “And the devil 
 that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and 
 brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, 
 and shall be tormented day and night for ever and 
 ever 
 
 Such, on the one hand, are the delightful, and on the 
 other, the tremendous declarations of Scripture. They 
 are so plain and forcible, that it is scarcely credible 
 that any other sentiments than those they inculcate 
 should be cherished by persons who profess to be 
 believers in Christianity. Yet there are some who 
 contend that the soul sleeps, utterly void of sense, con- 
 sciousness, and activity, from the time of death till the 
 day of judgment; the admission into any degree of 
 happiness being suspended till that event: and others, 
 who dream of temporal punishments after the time of 
 life is past, who fancy that there is a state of prepara- 
 tion and improvement beyond the term of life, through 
 which bad men will pass, and come out fitted for “the 
 beatific vision of God.’^ Both these appear to me to 
 be very great mistakes; though the latter is incon- 
 ceivably the most dreadful. I shall, therefore, devote 
 
 Mark, ix. 43 — 49. Luke, xvi. 26. 
 
 13 2Thes. i. T— 9. I'l Jude, 13. 
 
 13 Rev. xiv. 11. 1® Rev. xx. 10. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 449 
 
 a few pa^es to each of them ; beginning with that of 
 the sleep of the soul. 
 
 Thought is as essential to mind, as figure is to mat- 
 ter. So that if we can suppose matter to exist without 
 figure, we may suppose mind to exist without thought. 
 
 A real suspension of thought, then, is the destruction 
 of the mind ; and what might be termed a restoration 
 of thought, would, in fact, be the formation of a new 
 mind. If, therefore, at death, the thinking principle 
 should rest, should cease to act, it would at the same 
 instant cease to be. Its very existence and character 
 depend on its action. And if, at the resurrection, the 
 inspiration of the Almighty should again make man a 
 living soul, capable of thought, such an act of omnipo- 
 tence, with respect to mind, would be a new creation. 
 The mind, formed for inhabiting the glorified body, 
 would thus be another mind than that which formerly 
 possessed the body when in a state of mortality ; the 
 identity of the soul would be destroyed : a reward and 
 punishment would be useless ; and a day of retribution 
 unavailing.^’ For why should you and I be any way 
 concerned for the happiness or misery of the men who 
 should ages hence be raised from our ashes, when the 
 future beings could be in no respect the same in reference 
 to us than as they were arbitrarily to be denominated 
 the same, because their bodies w ere to be constituted of 
 the same matter which now constitutes ours? Why 
 should we regard any promised rewards or threatened 
 punishments in another life, when they can only be 
 enjoyments and sufferings of a new race of beings 
 made out of the old materials which we dropped at 
 our dissolution ? 
 
 The notion, then, of soul sleeping is not without 
 danger, since it deprives religion of its most cogent 
 motives, or at least weakens them excessively. How, 
 you may ask, do any persons contrive to deduce it from 
 Scripture? Entirely, ! believe, from the circumstance 
 that death is frequently in Scripture depicted under 
 the image of sleep. Dead persons are there often said 
 
 G G 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 450 
 
 to be fallen asleep and in the First Epistle to 
 the Thessalonians, we are told that they which sleep 
 in Jesus will God bring with him/^ But in such pas- 
 sages the word sleep is used in reference to the body ; 
 and I know not one in which the same metaphor is 
 employed in allusion to the saul. In Daniel, Many 
 of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake 
 applies manifestly to the body. More expressly still 
 we learn in Matthew, '' that the graves were opened, and 
 many bodies of saints which slept, arose And again, 
 
 David, after he had served his own generation, by 
 the will of God, fell asleep, and was gathered to his 
 fathers, and saw corruption: but he whom God raised 
 again saw no corruption Here that which is de- 
 scribed as falling asleep is evidently the body, that 
 which undergoes corruption. Many other passages 
 might be adduced to the same purpose. 
 
 It is also easy to quote or refer to various portions of 
 the word of God which run directly counter to this 
 opinion of the sleep of the soul. In the parable of 
 Dives and Lazarus, for example, we have a description 
 of the state in wdiich good and bad men are placed 
 immediately after death, in which there is no allusion 
 to a suspension of happiness or misery ; but, on the 
 contrary, it appears that directly after the termination 
 of mortal existence, the poor man was comforted, the 
 rich tormented. Whether the delight and the anguish 
 are equal to what they will be after the day of judg- 
 ment, when the soul and body will be inseparably 
 united, or whether they are principally the pleasurable 
 and the dreadful anticipation of future bliss and woe, 
 we are not there taught; those points are, however, 
 amply decided from other Scriptures ; and we, at least, 
 learn from this that the soul does not, at death, pass 
 into a state where it is unconscious of pleasure or pain. 
 So again, when our Lord promised the penitent male- 
 factor, on the cross, that he should that day be with 
 him in Paradise,^’ he could not mean that he should 
 Dan. xii. 2. Matt, xxvii. 52. Acts, xiii. 36, 37. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 451 
 
 be conveyed thither to sleep. Nor can we imagine that 
 he meant to say, as has been sometimes asserted, 
 
 verily I say unto you this day, thou shalt be with me 
 in Paradise.^’ Either of these would be sadly trifling 
 with the trembling penitent’s feelings ; and would be, 
 besides, perfectly incompatible both with the character 
 of the Saviour, and with the solemn and important 
 purposes for which he was then suffering. Once more, 
 the doctrine of the sleep of the soul is irreconcilable 
 with the language of the apostle Paul : I am in a 
 strait between two, having a desire to depart, and to he 
 with Christ, which is far better : nevertheless, to abide 
 in the flesh is more needful for you'^^” If, after 
 death, the soul sleep till the day of judgment, and that 
 be all that is meant by being with Christ, not only is 
 the phraseology very strange, but the apostle fancies 
 himself in a difficult dilemma, when a sensible man 
 would decide without hesitation. On the one hand, 
 he might be useful to the Church, and might invite 
 many more to “ the Shepherd and Bishop of souls;” 
 on the other, though he would die earlier, he would not 
 earlier enter into glory, but would be rendered per- 
 fectly useless to those whom he loved as himself, and 
 deemed his joy, and crown of rejoicing.” Lastly, in 
 another passage of the same apostle, he says, ‘‘ There- 
 fore, we are always confident, knowing that while we 
 sojourn in the body, we are absent from the Lord ; 
 we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent 
 from the body, and present with the Lord'^^.” Here 
 
 20 Phil. i. 23, 24. Be it remarked, more for a practical purpose 
 than to strengthen the argument above, that the apostle’s “ strait” 
 was not whether it was good to live, or good to depart, because both 
 were good ; but he doubted which of the two^was more desirable; 
 that is, to do the work and promote the interest of Christ, or to die 
 and serve his own interest by passing immediately to his reward. 
 And hence, with regard to private Christians, although heaven must 
 have our highest esteem, and be the object of our habitual best de- 
 sire ; yet earth must have its share, its appropriate share, of oui: 
 daily thoughts, otherwise present duty will be neglected,. 
 
 2 Cor. V. 6, 8, 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 452 
 
 the expression, present with the Lord,^^ as a necessary 
 consequence of the reasoning, implies happiness im- 
 mediately subsequent to death ; whereas sleep is not 
 happiness, but insensibility. These passages, which 
 have been quoted again and again to refute the doctrine 
 of soul-sleeping, will, I doubt not, fully suffice to con- 
 vince you that that doctrine is directly contradictory to 
 many of the most stimulating and cheering promises 
 in the New Testament. 
 
 I must now guard you against the adoption of the 
 still more dangerous error, respecting the duration of 
 future punishment ; and I shall call your attention the 
 more seriously and earnestly to this subject, because 
 it is far from a matter merely speculative, but one of 
 the highest moment with regard to its practical tend- 
 ency. The notion of punishment for a limited period 
 has been espoused by many, in the earlier as well as 
 the present times ; but it was strongly opposed by the 
 primitive Christians : “ We say (observed Justin Martyr) 
 that the souls of the wicked being reunited to the same 
 bodies shall be consigned over to eternal torments ; and 
 as Plato will have it, to the period of a thousand 
 years only : but if you will affirm this to be incredible 
 or impossible, there is no help but you must fall from 
 error to error till the day of judgment convinces you 
 we are in the right^^.’^ They who oppose the doctrine 
 
 22 Just. Mart. Apol. ii. § 8. The same sentiment is reiterated, and 
 its tendency to stimulate to holy conduct most forcibly exhibited, in 
 various parts of this admirable Apology. The contrary opinions, 
 says the Apologist, are due to the suggestions of “ evil spirits, who 
 do all they can to smother the notion of hell-fire.’^ “ But since all 
 departed souls continue in sensation, and everlasting fire is treasured 
 up for the unrighteous, let me exhort you to lay these things seriously 
 to heart.’’ Yet Dr. Estlin, p. 18 of his ‘‘ Discourses on Universal 
 Restitution,” adduces Justin Martyr as an evidence in favour of his 
 opinions! I request the serious attention of this gentleman, and of 
 those who have repeated his erroneous assertion, to the following ob- 
 servations of Dr. Waterland: — “ It should be considered that the 
 moral obliquity and turpitude of misquoting or misrepresenting au- 
 thors, consists in this : that it is a means to deceive the simple, to sur- 
 prise the unwary and unlearned (who must or will, receive things upon 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 453 
 
 of the eternal suffering of bad men after death, have 
 recourse to a variety of arguments; but they may be 
 reduced to three, which I shall here consider. 
 
 1. It is said that, since God is a Being whose 
 goodness and mercy are indisputably infinite, he may 
 naturally be expected to overlook inconsiderable errors; 
 and even when he does punish, to observe a proportion 
 between offences and punishments, and not punish 
 temporary sins by inflicting eternal suffering, because 
 that is unjust : he is bound by his nature and attributes 
 to be merciful as well as just; and therefore not to 
 make the greater portion of his intelligent creatures for 
 ever unhappy.'^ 
 
 This argument, though specious, is by no means irre- 
 futable ; as I trust the following observations will show. 
 
 First, To argue from the Divine perfections by mere 
 inference is a very convenient, but not very complete, 
 way of disproving any assertion we please. In such 
 case the arguer and his opponent have only each to 
 lake it for granted that he has an adequate idea of the 
 Divine attributes, and the business is settled. But if 
 this cannot be taken for granted, the major proposition 
 of the syllogism is unfounded, and the whole necessa- 
 rily falls. Now, this exactly occurs in the instance 
 before us: on the one hand, it is affirmed that God is 
 bound to be merciful, and, on the other hand, it is 
 admitted, that he will be merciful to a certain extent, 
 limited by his other attributes: but we have no mea- 
 sure of that extent (for who hath known the mind of 
 the Lord?’') except so far as he has furnished us with 
 it in the Scriptures; and there we are sufficiently cau- 
 tioned against relying upon mere mercy, uncove- 
 nanted mercy,” by being assured that the wrath of 
 God ahideth on” unbelievers, and that he shall have 
 judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy 
 
 trust) ; it is taking advantage of the blind side of human nature, lay- 
 ing a snare for such readers (perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred) as 
 read not with due care and thought. I do not see but this very me- 
 thod of the Doctor is big with all this mischief.” 
 
 John, iii. 30. James, ii. 13. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 454 
 
 2dly, If God is bound by his own nature to be mer^ 
 ciful to bis frail creatures, and to restore them to his 
 favour after they have expiated their sins by intense 
 suffering of limited duration, the work of redemption 
 by Jesus Christ must be unnecessary. So that this 
 argument operates unfavourably two ways at least: it 
 nearly destroys all obligation to Jesus Christ for dying 
 to expiate human guilt ; since the criminal would, ac^ 
 cording to this hypothesis, have suffered the full demerit 
 of his own sins in a limited time: and it imputes to a 
 being of unbounded wisdom, justice, and love, the 
 injustice of bruising’^ his dearly beloved Son, of ‘‘ put- 
 ting him to grieC^ and shame, and leading him to an 
 ignominious death, to cancel the sins of mankind, which 
 he was bound to forgive without any such sacrifice. 
 
 3t//y. As, in human courts of judicature, criminals 
 are naturally inclined to estimate too lightly their own 
 turpitude, and to think the punishment inflicted upon 
 them much too heavy; so, in like manner, may it be 
 with regard to the transgressions against God. None 
 of us estimate duly the exceeding sinfulness of sin 
 for we have all been guilty of it, and are, therefore, all 
 inclined to palliate it: and if to palliate it, then to 
 lessen the punishment which we think it justly de- 
 serves : so that, on this account, as well as because of 
 our ignorance of the attributes of Deity, we are totally 
 unqualified to determine (and much more in opposi- 
 tion to positive declarations) the adequate duration or 
 magnitude of future punishment. 
 
 Athhj. We know not to what extent future misery 
 may result from the nature and duration of the soul, 
 independently of punishment absolutely inflicted. The 
 loss of the chief good, and exclusion from heaven, are 
 the necessary consec|uences of transgression : and a 
 consciousness of this loss, as well as remorse and self- 
 condemnation on account of it, follow naturally from 
 the existence of the soul: these ma]j constitute the 
 venom of the worm that never dies,*^ and the fierce- 
 ness of"' the fire that is not quenched and it is easy 
 to see that it may be perfectly equitable in the Divine 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 455 
 
 Being to suffer these to continue. If the greater part 
 of the punishment be conscious guilt, that does not seem 
 very likely to produce purity, holiness, and love to 
 God, and thus ultimately to issue, as the Universalists 
 imagine, in restoration to the Divine favour. 
 
 6thly. It by no means follows that, because impeni- 
 tent sinners will be eternally punished, God makes 
 the greater portion of his intelligent creatures for ever 
 unhappy.^' Yet this, in the estimation of Dr. Hartley 
 (one of the most able and excellent men that ever de- 
 fended the system of the Universalists), is the grand 
 argument. “ To suppose (says he) future punishments 
 to be absolutely eternal, is to suppose that the Chris- 
 tian dispensation condemns /hr the greater part of man- 
 kind to inf nite misery upon the balance, whilst yet it is 
 every where declared to be a dispensation of mercy, to 
 be glory to God and good, will to men : which is a great 
 apparent inconsistency To remove this apparent 
 inconsistency, then, let it be recollected, that at least 
 half the children which are born, die before they are 
 seven years old, and are doubtless happy in a future 
 world, their faculties being expanded at death so as to 
 prepare them for the full enjoyment of heaven — 
 that such of the heathen as do by nature the things 
 contained in the law,’^ and whose consciences excuse’^ 
 or acquit them, conformably to the true meaning of the 
 apostle^, will be admitted into bliss for the Redeemer’s 
 sake : that though, for ages, true Christians may have 
 been the minority, yet a time will come, and that not 
 of short duration, but probably will continue for many 
 
 Hartley on Man, vol. ii. cb. 5, prop. 95. 
 
 2^ “ Of such is the kingdom of God.” Matt. xix. 14. 
 
 ^ Rom. ii. 14, 15. See also Baxter’s End of Doctrinal Contro- 
 versies, chap. xii. § 3 ; cb. xiii. and xvi. I might likewise refer to 
 Dr. Macknigbt in loc, and in various parts of his Commentary and 
 Notes ; but though I appreciate his learning highly, and think that 
 in many parts'of his valuable work on the Epistles he diffuses consi- 
 derable light over the sacred text, 1 still apprehend that he often 
 carries his speculations much farther than a sound theologian can 
 acconjpany him. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 456 
 
 centuries, when the earth shall be full of the know^ 
 ledge of the Lord, as the ivaters cover the sea'^"' let 
 these, I say, be recollected, and duly considered, and 
 there will not remain the shadow of a suspicion that the 
 greater part of mankind will be eternally miserable^®. 
 stilly. Waving all these considerations, it may be 
 
 Is. xi. 9. 
 
 Richard Baxter, when resolving this, among “ the Intrinsical 
 Difficulties in the Christian Faith,” has some observations, which, 
 considering that thej were published thirty years before Huyghens’s 
 “ Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds,” are as calculated 
 to interest the man of science as the man of piety. 
 
 “ I confess (says he) it greatly quieteth my mind against this great 
 objection of the numbers that are damned and cast off for ever, to 
 consider how small a part this earth is of God’s creation, as well as 
 how sinful and impenitent. Ask any astronomer, that hath considered 
 the innumerable number of the fixed stars and planets, with their 
 distances, and magnitude, and glory, and the uncertainty that we 
 have whether there be not as many more, or a hundred or thousand 
 times as many, unseen to man, as all those which we see (considering 
 the defectiveness of man’s sight, and the planets about Jupiter, with 
 the innumerable stars in the Milky Way, which the tube hath lately 
 discovered, which man’s eyes without it could not see), — I say, ask 
 any man who knoweth these things, whether all this earth be any 
 more in comparison of the whole creation, than one prison is to a 
 kingdom or empire, or than the paring of one nail, or a little mole or 
 wart, or a hair, in comparison of the whole body. And if God should 
 cast off all this earth, and use all the sinners in it as they deserve, it 
 is no more sign of a want of benignity or mercy in him, than it is for 
 a king to cast one subject of a million into a jail, and to hang him 
 for his murder, or treason, or rebellion.” “ I know it is a thing 
 uncertain and unrevealed to us, whether all these globes be inhabited 
 or not : but he that considereth that there is scarce any uninhabitable 
 place on earth, or in the water or air, but men, or beasts, or birds, 
 or fishes, or flies, or worms and moles, do take up almost all, will 
 think it a probability so near a certainty, as not to be much doubted 
 of, that the vaster and more glorious parts of the creation are not 
 uninhabited : but that they have inhabitants answerable to their mag- 
 nitude and glory (as palaces have other inhabitants than cottages): 
 and that there is a connaturality and agreeableness there as well as 
 here, between the region or globe and the inhabitants. Whether they 
 are all to be called Angels or Spirits, or by what other name, is uri- 
 revealed to us ; but, whatever they are called, I make no question 
 but our number to theirs is not one to a million.” Reasons of the 
 Christian Religion, p. 389 : published in 1G67. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 457 
 
 remarked that the measure of penalty will be regulated 
 by the just ends of government, and not necessarily by 
 either the quality of the offence, or the time of its per- 
 formance. If the suffering were proportionate to the 
 time of commission, then it would follow that some of 
 the greatest crimes, such as murder or suicide, which 
 may be committed in a much shorter time than many 
 other less heinous sins, would for that reason be more 
 slightly punished ; which is repugnant to all correct 
 ideas of justice. So that the objection of temporary 
 crimes being punished by indefinitely long sufferings 
 is, plainly, of no force. And as to the ad valorem 
 punishment, if that alone were threatened, the conse- 
 quences would obviously be, that petty sins would 
 abound, that the heart and conscience would become 
 cauterized by an indulgence in them, and thence pro- 
 ceed without a pang to the commission of greater 
 crimes. The grand design of government is to prevent 
 all crime ; and if the apportioning of penalties to trans- 
 gressions be not so properly a consideration of justice, 
 as a matter of prudence and wisdom in the lawgiver, 
 then justice cannot well be said to be concerned in any 
 imagined disproportion b^tw^een sins and sufferings. 
 But justice is concerned in this, that the righteous and 
 the wicked should not be treated alike, as well as that 
 greater sins should have a heavier punishment; all 
 which may evidently be adjusted in the degree and in- 
 tenseness of suffering, without there being any differ- 
 ence in its duration. 
 
 '7thly. However, it must be observed, that the pri- 
 mary end of all threatenings is not punishment, but 
 the prevention of it. For God does not threaten that 
 men may sin, and be punished ; but that they may not 
 sin, and so escape the punishment threatened. And 
 therefore the higher the threatening runs, so much the 
 more mercy and goodness there is in it, because it is 
 so much the more likely to hinder men from incurring 
 the penalty that is threatened^®. 
 
 Tillotson’s 35th Sermon. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 458 
 
 II. Those who reject the doctrine of eternal punish- 
 ment contend that the word which we translate to punish 
 is often used in a mitigated sense ; and they farther 
 bring forward many passages to show either that after a 
 certain portion of suffering the criminal will be restored 
 to favour, or that ‘‘ eternal death’^ means annihilation. 
 
 Thus, in their note on Matt. xxv. 46, the recent Soci- 
 nian translators (so frequently quoted in these letters) 
 say, “ the word here rendered punishment properly 
 signifies correction inflicted for the benefit of the of- 
 fender.^^ To this it may be replied, that the true signi- 
 fication of KoXaaig (the word adverted to) is punishment 
 in general: my authorities are first Hesychius, who 
 explains it by rijiLopia : and, secondly Scapula, who 
 translates it punitio, item castigatio. But farther, in 
 1 John, iv. 18, we find the same word translated by 
 torment even in the Socinian version; and it is not 
 easy to trace there any reference to a torment for the 
 benefit of the person tormented. So again, in Acts, iv. 
 21, where the word is KoXaaoyvrai, we cannot perceive 
 how the punishment, with which the apostles Peter and 
 John were threatened, was calculated for their benefit. 
 And once more, in 2 Peter, ii. 9, where we are told that 
 
 the Lord knoweth how to deliver those that are godly 
 out of trial, and to reserve those that are unrighteous to 
 the day of judgment to he punished {KoXa^o/bLevovg) 
 the phrase surely cannot imply punishment for the 
 benefit of the offender; because, if so, the worst offend- 
 ers are singled out to experience that benefit ; for, ac- 
 cording to those very translators, they are chiefly those 
 who w^alk after the flesh with polhited desires, and de- 
 spise dominion: who are presumptuous, self-willed, and 
 not afraid to blaspheme dignities, &c. that are selected 
 to undergo this beneficial process. 
 
 As to the passages usually adduced to prove that the 
 punishment in a future world will be annihilation, it 
 may be remarked, first, that a state of misery, which is 
 as bad or worse than death, may without impropriety 
 be called by that name, as indeed it often is by the 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 459 
 
 best ancient Eoman and Greek authors ; and thus ‘‘ the 
 lake of firef into which the wicked shall be cast, to be 
 there tormented, is expressly called the second death^^'^ 
 And secondly, if ‘‘eternal death” mean eternal annihi- 
 lation, then all positive punishment and torment is 
 excluded, contrary to the language of our Lord, who 
 says “ there shall be iveeping, and wailing, and gnashing 
 of teeth f'' besides which, upon this hypothesis, the 
 punishment of all sinners must be equal, because anni- 
 hilation is not-being, in which there can be no degrees : 
 but this is contrary to all ideas of justice. 
 
 The other notion, that is, of annihilation after a tem- 
 porary punishment, has not the least foundation in 
 »Scri})ture, and is in itself too absurd to demand any 
 specific reply : and with regard to all these speculations 
 respecting mitigated suffering, it may be remarked, 
 once for all, that if it be true, that not merely a single 
 criminal act, but a single impure or even thoughtless 
 expression, may transfer evil indefinitely to the end of 
 time, by communication from a second to a third, from 
 a third to a fourth, from an older to a younger, from 
 him to one still younger, and so on in all varieties of 
 direction ; and if, moreover, the Divine Being intended 
 his threatenings should have their full effect in deterring 
 from crime, whether diffused deliberately or thought- 
 lessly, it cannot be conceived that in the same Revela- 
 tion he should have given any intimations of his inten- 
 tion to mitigate their severity, or not to execute them at 
 all. If it be wise to excite the strongest dread of future 
 punishment, any other declarations, intended to weaken 
 that impression, would be unwise, 
 
 III. But the grand current of the arguments against 
 the eternal duration of future punishment flows from 
 the affirmed limited meaning of the words atwv, aiwviov. 
 See. which it, therefore, becomes necessary to examine 
 rather particularly. 
 
 “ The word translated everlasting,^^ (say the late So- 
 cinian translators^',) “is often used to express a long 
 Rev. XX. 14. Note on Matt. xxv. 46, p. 62. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 460 
 
 but indefinite duration : Rom. xvi. 26 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; 
 Philemon, ver. 15. This text, therefore, so far from 
 giving countenance to the harsh doctrine of eternal 
 misery, is rather favourable to the more pleasing and 
 more probable hypothesis, of the ultimate restitution 
 of the wicked to virtue and to happiness.^^ 
 
 I certainly can trace no allusion to either ultimate 
 virtue or happiness in the express declaration, these 
 shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the 
 righteous into life eternal f ^ or at least, I must be per- 
 mitted to think that if the wicked may extract a grain 
 of hope from so strong a passage, the righteous have 
 at least equal reason to dread, that, after a similar 
 duration, they may lapse from virtue and happiness 
 into wickedness and misery ; and thus the good and 
 the bad may change places at the termination of that 
 cBonian period, which is here alike placed before each 
 class of persons. It can never, I conceive, be consist- 
 ent with sound criticism, to interpret the same word 
 used twice in the same sentence and connexion, and 
 in both directly applicable to the soul, which is natu- 
 rally immortal, so as to indicate eternity in the one 
 instance, and terminable duration in the other. 
 
 But the word aL 0 )vtOQ, we are told, is sometimes em- 
 ployed to express a limited but very long duration, 
 and is three or four times (perhaps) so used in Scrip- 
 ture : being indeed derived from ulcov, which denotes 
 duration or continuance of time, but with great variety; 
 and therefore it can never mean eternity. I will 
 not here argue from the probable derivation, an mv, 
 always being^- ; but consider what is thus advanced in 
 
 That continued existence is the essential idea comprehended in 
 the word we know upon the authority of Aristotle. Speaking of the 
 celestial intelligences, he says, they are without change or infir- 
 mity, and, possessing a most excellent and satisfactory life, they con- 
 tinue through all eternity” (diareXei rbv airavra AIQ~NA). Then 
 follows this remarkable passage : — “ For this word has been divinely 
 spoken by the ancients: for the consummation containing the time 
 of every life not supernatural is called its age (its period of duration). 
 For the same reason, the consummation of the whole heaven, and the 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 461 
 
 opposition to the more received opinions, as emanating 
 from an established canon of criticism, to which all 
 subordinate considerations must bend. This canon 
 may, I suppose, be fairly enunciated thus : ‘‘ When 
 w^ords have by frequent use deviated from their primi- 
 tive meaning, we must, in all our researches into the 
 real meanings of authors, especially in disputed mat- 
 ters, endeavour to ascertain the original sense of such 
 words, and thereby abide.^’ Unless this be a legitimate 
 canon of criticism, the therefor of the critics just 
 quoted stands for nothing: let us then apply it to a 
 few examples. 
 
 1. To discourse means primarily to run up and down: 
 ‘‘ therefore when a person delivers a moral or religi- 
 ous discourse he runs up and down. 
 
 2. Sarah signifies originally a lady or a princess: 
 therefore every one named Sarah is a lady or a 
 
 princess. 
 
 3. ^Lkapyvpia, according to its primary acceptation, 
 signifies the love of silver: therefore it can never 
 denote avarice, or the love of money generally ; and 
 consequently 1 Tim. vi. 10, is erroneously translated 
 in every version extant. 
 
 4. AyyeKoq originally denotes a mere messenger : 
 ‘therefore it never means any thing else; — therefore 
 Acts, xii. 16, should be rendered ‘^Tt is his mess eng er^^ 
 
 — and Matt. xiii. 39, should be, the harvest is the end 
 of the age^ and the reapers are the messengers and we 
 have thence an irresistible exhortation to hospitality 
 in Heb. xiii. 3, for by this ^^some have unknowingly 
 entertained messengers 
 
 5. ^lapoXog means primarily an accuser, informer, 
 or slanderer: therefore” it cannot properly denote 
 any thing else; — therefore John, viii. 44, should be 
 rendered Ye are of your father the slanderer — Acts, 
 
 consummation containing the unlimited duration, and the immensity 
 of all things, is eternity, deriving its name from always being — immor- 
 tal and divine.’^ Lib. i. Coel. c. 10. 
 
 Socinian Version, p. 298. 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 462 
 
 X. 38, should be Jesus went about doing good, and 
 healing all that w^ere oppressed of the slanderer — 
 Matt, xiik 39, should be “ the enemy that sowed them 
 is the informer — and I Pet. v. 8, might be translated 
 very consistently with these notions, “ Be sober, be vigi- 
 lant, because your adversary the informer, walketh about 
 as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.^^ 
 
 6. Aihioq in its primary use denoted eternal in a re- 
 
 strained sense, and is, in fact, employed in Jude, ver. 6, 
 to signify wilhbut end only, and not without beginning 
 also: therefore’"’ it can never properly indicate ahso^ 
 
 lute eternity, and consequently Rom. i. 20, contains no 
 full and positive declaration of God’s eternal power and 
 Divinity. 
 
 7. WvEvfaa primarily denotes breath or wind ; there- 
 fore” Rom. viii. 26, should commence with ^‘The wind 
 helpeth our infirmities;” — and James, ii. 26, should be 
 translated, ‘‘ the body without the wind is dead.” 
 Hence also the propriety of the exhortation in Gal. v. 
 16, — "'Walk in the wind — and hence again the axio- 
 matic evidence of the proposition in Gal. vi. 8, — " He 
 that soweth to the wind shall of the wind reap age-lasU 
 ing life — as well as of that in John, iv. 24, — " God is 
 a wind.^^ 
 
 8. Oeoc, from Oem, to place, is a name borrowed from 
 the heathen, being that by which they denoted an ima- 
 ginary god, or an idol made with hands : in this sense 
 it is sometimes used in the New Testament, as at Acts, 
 xiv. 11; xxviii. 6. 1 Cor. viii. 5: "therefore” we must 
 not be confident that the word can ever designate any 
 other than false gods. 
 
 All these " therefores,” strange and ridiculous as. 
 they may appear to you, are just as "pleasing and 
 probable,” so far as the genuine meaning of the respec- 
 tive words and passages is determinable by means of 
 this much admired rule of interpretation, as the infer- 
 ence that KoXaaiv auovtov denotes limited suffering for 
 the good of offenders, to terminate in their eternal holi- 
 ness and happiness. 
 
AFTER DFATH. 
 
 463 
 
 Indeed, this curious mode of enucleatinsc difficulties, 
 and rendering Scripture plain and simple, furnislies 
 us with many “pleasing^^ deductions: and among 
 others it has the happy effect of rendering the glori- 
 ous Gospel of the blessed God nearly, if not entirely, 
 nugatory. Thus, as we have seen, it would leave us 
 in doubt as to the existence of any beings invisible to 
 us; for messengers and "‘accusers^’ may be very 
 different beings from angels and devils : and farther, 
 instead of having life and immortality brought to 
 light through the Gospel the Gospel would be 
 stripped of almost every direct declaration relative to 
 immortality (as a^dapma may mean incorruptibility 
 only, and atcovtog terminable existence), and we should 
 have to gather this cheering and consoling truth from 
 remote and circuitous inference. 
 
 Some patronizers of the hypothesis I am now op. 
 posing appear to think this no great objection to their 
 system : but are prepared to expel from the New Tes- 
 tament the forcible English words and phrases, 
 everlasting, for ever, world without end, &c. and to sub- 
 stitute in their place words from a dead language 
 which themselves acknowledge they do not well com- 
 prehend, and which to a plain unlettered Christian can 
 convey no definite idea whatever. Hence, as has been 
 remarked by an ingenious anonymous author on this 
 subject, when men look into this sacred volume for 
 the important information promised, they there read 
 of an (Bonian God, who regards his people with an 
 wmiian love, has made with them in Christ an ceonian 
 covenant, provided for them an ceonian salvation, toge- 
 ther with an ceonian righteousness, through which they 
 shall now experience ceonian consolation, and finally 
 possess ceonian life in an ceonian kingdom ; but that if 
 they reject and despise all this, they will be compelled 
 to suffer ceonian punishment. In this case how great 
 their disappointment and mortification^^ 
 
 3^ 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 
 Free Strictures on “An Address to Candid and Serious Men.'* 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 464 
 
 After these observations it can scarcely be necessary 
 for me to affirm that the Greek word so frequently used 
 in Scripture with regard to a future world, expresses 
 correctly a proper eternity ; or, to support that affirma- 
 tion by examples. I shall, however, refer you to two 
 portions of Scripture which have been often and pro- 
 perly quoted as decisive, namely. Rev. xx. 10, and 
 2 Cor. iv. ult. In the first mentioned of these, the 
 phrase eiq rovq anovag tmv aiayvoiv is so energetic, that if 
 it do not fully signify eternity to come, I know nothing 
 in the Greek language which does. And in the latter 
 specified passage the things which are seen, all things 
 visible or material, the world and every thing in it, 
 are put in complete opposition to the unseen future 
 state ; the things which are seen being said to be for a 
 short time (or temporary) while the things which are 
 not seen are everlasting. 
 
 To bring these arguments to a conclusion, let me 
 remark that the awful picture of the duration and ter- 
 rible nature of future punishment exhibited in the pas- 
 sage from the 9th chapter of Markus Gospel, introduced 
 in an early part of this letter, is calculated to produce 
 the deepest conviction in the minds of all who receive 
 the Scriptures as the word of God. The expression, 
 
 where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, 
 is reiterated with solemn and dreadful energy : and the 
 declaration, every one shall he salted withfire^^ implies, 
 I conceive, if it imply any thing, that as salt preserves 
 from putrefaction flesh to which it is applied, so those 
 unhappy victims of Divine justice shall be salted with 
 fire, and, instead of being consumed by it, shall, in the 
 wretched abodes to which they are consigned, continue 
 immortal in the midst of their flames! This sentiment 
 was decidedly avowed by Tertullian, who, in his Apo- 
 logetic (cap. 48), says, the profane and the hy230crite 
 shall be doomed to a lake of ever flowing fire, and fueled 
 With incorruytihility from the Divine indefectible nature 
 of the flame which torments them ! Iffie mountains 
 burn with perpetual fire, and are mountains still : why. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 465 
 
 then, may not the wicked and the enemies of God bum 
 like these 
 
 How far the misery of the eternal state will be cor- 
 poreal, and how far mental, I pretend not to decide : 
 but I will extract for your perusal a sentence or two 
 from Dr. Hartley, who, you will recollect, was a Uni- 
 versalist, though much too sincere a lover of truth to 
 run the length in support of the restoration^^ hypo- 
 thesis which some later writers have gone. With 
 respect to the punishment of the wicked in a future state 
 (says he) we may observe, that these may be corporeal, 
 though the happiness of the blessed should not be so. 
 For sensuality is one great part of vice, and a principal 
 source of it. It may be necessary, therefore, that ac- 
 tual fire should feed upon the elementary body, and 
 whatever else is added to it after the resurrection, in 
 order to burn out the stains of sin. The elementary 
 body may also, perhaps, bear the action of fire for ages, 
 without being destroyed. Like the caput mortuum, or 
 terra damnataoi the chemists. For this terra damnata 
 remains after the calcination of vegetable and animal 
 substances by intense and long continued fires. The 
 destruction of the world by fire, spoken of both in the 
 Scriptures and in many profane writings, the pheno- 
 mena of comets, and of the sun and fixed stars, those 
 vast bodies of fire which burn for ages, the great quantity 
 of sulphureous matter contained in the bowels of the 
 earth, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire 
 and brimstone, alluded to in the New Testament, the 
 representation of future punishment under the emblem 
 of the fire of Gehenna, and, above all, the express pas- 
 sages of Scripture, in which it is declared that the 
 w'icked shall be punished by fire, even everlasting fire, 
 confirm this position concerning the corporeal nature 
 of future punishment, as well as give light to one 
 another. 
 
 But if the punishments of another world should be 
 corporeal in some measure, there is still the greatest 
 reason to believe, that they will be spiritual also ; and 
 
 H H 
 
ETERNAL EXISTENCE 
 
 466 
 
 that by selfishness, ambition, malevolence, envy, re- 
 ven2:e, cruelty, profaneness, murmuring against God, 
 infidelity, and blasphemy, men will become tormentors 
 to themselves, and to each other; deceive and be de- 
 ceived ; infatuate and be infatuated ; so as not to be 
 able to repent and turn to God, till the appointed time 
 comes, if that should ever he, 
 
 ‘‘ But we are not to suppose that the degree, probably 
 not the duration of future punishment, corporeal or 
 mental, will be the same to all. It may also perhaps 
 be, that there may be some alleviating circumstances, 
 or even some admixture of happiness. Only the Scrip- 
 tures do NOT authorize any such conjectures ; and there- 
 fore we ought to proceed with the utmost caution, lest loe 
 lead ourselves or others into a fatal mistake. And, in- 
 deed, if the happiness of the blessed be pure and 
 unmixed, as the Scriptures seem to declare, and give 
 reason to hope, then may the misery of the wicked be 
 unmixed also^^.^^ 
 
 Such is the language of Dr. Hartley ; from which 
 you will perceive that /m expectations of future punish- 
 ment being any thing short of everlasting unmitigated 
 anguish and despair, were very faint indeed. Happy 
 would it be for the interests of religion and the exter- 
 mination of vice, if all subsequent defenders of similar 
 opinions had proceeded with equal diffidence and can- 
 dour. I regret that the length to which it has been 
 necessary to carry my reasonings, and the number of 
 texts I have been obliged to select in order to show the 
 fallacy and danger of their theory, prevent my expati- 
 ating, as I intended, upon the indefinite and perpetual 
 extension of the intellectual and moral faculties, which 
 will be experienced by the spirits of the just made 
 perfect in the heavenly world ; wdiere, although the 
 happiness of each vvill be so entirely replete that he 
 will have no conception of any felicity greater than his 
 own; yet the understanding will be eternally occupied 
 with such an infinity of truth as it may be exploring. 
 Hartley on Man, vol, ii. prop. 89. 
 
AFTER DEATH. 
 
 467 
 
 and contemplating, and delighting in, for ever, — while 
 the affections will be eternally charmed with such an 
 infinity of goodness and love, as will excite an everlast- 
 ing reciprocation of love to Him who first loved us.^^ 
 That you may not lose any thing, however, but gain 
 considerably by this omission, permit me to close the 
 present letter by referring you to the second of Dr. 
 Watts’s discourses in his work on Death and Heaven 
 a discourse which contains the most fascinating and 
 inspiring description of the employments, the holiness, 
 and the happiness of glorified saints I have ever pe- 
 rused ; and which no one, I conceive, who has any 
 pretensions to taste and sensibility, to say nothing of 
 piety, can read without surprise and delight. 
 
 I remain, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 On Christian Duties. 
 
 Lactantius, an ancient father of the church, in one of 
 his appeals to the adversaries of true religion, drew a 
 bold, but not unfaithful, picture of the genuine effects 
 of the Gospel upon the heart and conduct of sincere 
 Christians : — Give me (says he) a man who is cho- 
 leric, abusive in his language, headstrong, and unruly ; 
 and with a very few words (the words of God) he shall 
 be rendered gentle as a lamb. — Give me a greedy, 
 avaricious, close-fisted man, and I will presently return 
 him to you a generous creature, freely bestowing his 
 money by handsful. — Give me a cruel, blood-thirsty 
 wretch, instantly his ferocity shall be transformed into 
 a truly mild and merciful disposition. — Give me an 
 unjust man, a foolish man, a sinful man ; and on a 
 sudden he shall become honest, wise, and virtuous. 
 In onelaver (the laver of regeneration), all his wicked- 
 ness shall be washed away. So great is the efficacy of 
 the Divine Wisdom, that when once admitted into the 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 4G8 
 
 human heart, it expels folly, the parent of all vice ; and 
 in accomplishing this great end, there is no occasion 
 for any expense, no absolute need of books, or deep 
 and long study or meditation. The benefit is conferred 
 gratuitously, easily, expeditiously ; provided the ears 
 and the heart thirst after wisdom. Did any, or could 
 any of the heathen philosophers accomplish such im- 
 portant purposes as this ^ 
 
 This language of the Christian Cicero (as he was usu- 
 ally denominated) conveys no vain and empty boast ; 
 nor does it, under pretence of exalting Religion, insult 
 and trample upon reason and philosophy. The effects 
 here ascribed to religion have been frequently pro- 
 duced by it, and will always be produced when it is 
 allowed its genuine and complete operation. And 
 with respect to the supposed insult offered to reason, 
 there can be no such thing, unless that be an insult to 
 reason, which renders its real nature palpable, and 
 guards against the abuse of it while it teaches its proper 
 use. Reason has been termed, and not improperly, 
 
 the EYE of the soul:^^ for as the eye cannot see without 
 light, so neither can reason know without instruction. 
 The progress of mankind in learning and science has 
 been made, strictly speaking, by groping, by feeling 
 out one truth after another, and adding it to the general 
 stock; except, indeed, when some grand discoveries 
 have been struck out once in a century, or perhaps 
 less, by the force of genius ; but even these, whatever 
 benefits may have resulted from them, have not been 
 discoveries of such truths or propositions, as are deve- 
 loped in Revealed Religion. Reason can no more 
 instruct itself, because it knows by instruction, than 
 the eye can give light to itself, because it sees by the 
 light. This observation applies peculiarly to religious 
 matters ; and you may safely infer from it, that a 
 man may as well take a view of things upon earth in a 
 dark night, by the light of his own eye, as pretend to 
 ' Lactan. lib. iii. de fals, sapient, c. 26, p. 328, ed, 1660. 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 469 
 
 discover the things of heaven, in the night of nature, 
 by the light of his own reason Upon these points, 
 says a very powerful reasoner. Bishop Horsley, the 
 evidence of Holy Scripture is, indeed, the only thing 
 that amounts to proof. The utmost that reasoning can 
 do, is to lead to the discovery, and by God^s grace, to 
 the humble acknowledgment of the weakness and in- 
 sufficiency of reason ; to resist her encroachments upon 
 the province of faith ; to silence her objections, and cast 
 down imaginations, and prevent the innovations and 
 refinements of philosophy and vain deceit.^’ 
 
 The grand attributes of reason are, its capability of 
 receiving, and, when properly disciplined, of retaining, 
 whatever is communicated to it, and its power of dis- 
 criminating, when it has suitable data, between truth 
 and falsehood, or between fitness and want of fitness 
 to accomplish certain purposes. And these attributes 
 are possessed in the highest perfection, when, as Paul 
 expresses it, the eyes of our understanding (rr;c ^/a- 
 votac, the faculty of separation or discernment) being 
 enlightened, we may know what is the hope of our 
 calling, and what the riches of the glory of our inherit- 
 ance in the saints, and wdiat is the exceeding greatness 
 of his power towards us who believe^.^’ Now, if these 
 faculties of the soul be duly exercised, it will be seen 
 that the religion of Jesus Christ is all it professes to be, 
 and is capable of effecting all that its advocates ascribe 
 to it; that it is conformable to the highest reason, and 
 is, therefore, deserving of the warmest admiration and 
 of the most cordial reception. The religion we are 
 taught in the Gospel leads inevitably to the exaltation 
 and perfection of our noblest faculties: it requires us 
 to use the things of this life as in reason they ought to 
 be used, to cherish such tempers and dispositions as are 
 the glory of intelligent creatures, to avoid such conduct 
 as would degrade and debase our nature, to walk in such 
 wisdom as exalts our character, to practise such piety as 
 will raise us above the world and elevate us to God. 
 
 2 Bishop Horne. ^ Eph. i-. 18, 19. 
 
470 
 
 CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 His hand the good man fastens on the skies, 
 
 And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl/’ — Y oUNG, 
 
 If these be the genuine productions of religion^ it is 
 plain that they can never be too universally known 
 and felt. Hence results the duty of promulgating 
 religious knowledge to the widest extent; as well as 
 that of bringing every action of life under the influence 
 of religious principles : for if it be advantageous for 
 one person to be wise, it is more so for all to be wise; 
 and, if it be productive of profit and delight to an 
 individual to be once wise, it is infinitely more so for 
 him to be wise always. If it be commendable to avoid 
 sin and folly to-day, it will be equally commendable to 
 avoid them to-morrow, and to the end of life : if God 
 ought to be worshiped and loved with all the heart, 
 and mind, and soul, and strength now, he ought to 
 be so worshiped and loved for ever : if the faithful 
 discharge of every personal and relative duty be re- 
 quired of us now, it is equally required of us always : 
 if being pure and holy, and free from guile, if exercis- 
 ing ourselves to promote the happiness of our fellow- 
 creatures and the glory of God, if aspiring after com- 
 munion with the Deity, be productive of joy and 
 peace to-day, they will have a like tendency through 
 life, and will assuredly issue in indescribable, unending 
 lelicity. So that, as he knows not truly what reason 
 is, who does not always wish to live conformably to it; 
 neither does he know the true use or nature of religion, 
 who wishes to confine it to times or seasons, or persons, 
 or places. He who thinks it grievous to live always 
 in the spirit of religion, to have every part of his life 
 full of it, w ould think it much more grievous to be as 
 the angels of God in heaven 
 
 There is a unity of design in the gift of the Christian 
 Religion, and there must, in like manner, be unity of 
 design in the profession of it. Its immediate tendency 
 is at once to promote the glory of God and the happi- 
 ness of man ; and its various doctrines, precepts, and 
 promises, all converge to that grand point. Selfishness, 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 471 
 
 is, therefore, excluded ; while happiness, individual, as 
 well as g'eneral, is necessarily predicated and ensured 
 in the Christian system. Its promises allure the soul 
 to heaven, while they prompt the believer to benevolent 
 and upright conduct : its doctrines expand and delight 
 the intellectual faculties, while they furnish at once 
 the purest and the strongest possible motives to virtue 
 and holiness ^ Thus it happens that the Scriptures, 
 as I have before observed, furnish a consistent and har- 
 monious, though not a connected scheme of morality ; 
 for the scheme is harmonious, in so far as the same 
 great purposes are always kept in view, and as it 
 includes no contradictory or impossible injunctions; 
 though its various precepts are scattered about, and 
 not strictly connected, because one and another were 
 delivered at distinct times to different pereons, accord- 
 ing to their respective circumstances and necessities. 
 
 Faith and practice constitute the whole of our reli- 
 gion ; and none of the saci-ed writers is ever, as I 
 recollect, so exclusively occupied with one of these as 
 to forget or neglect the other. Hence, Christians are 
 not merely exhorted to believe such and such propo- 
 sitions, but they are reminded that such belief,, to be 
 beneficial must be influential ; and they are exhorted to 
 let their conversation or conduct be as becometh the 
 Gospel,’^ that they may be blameless and harmless, 
 the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked 
 and perverse generation,’^ among whom they are to 
 “ shine as lights in the world 
 
 Christianity, then, is decidedly moral in its tenden- 
 cies : and, therefore, since I have taken some pains to 
 explain to you what is proposed for your belief, it is 
 natural that you should expect me, before I close our 
 correspondence, to devote a few pages to the enumera- 
 tion of the chief practical duties which are binding upon 
 
 ^ “ Chose admirable ! La Religion Chretienne, qui ne semble 
 avoir d’objet que la felicite de I’autre vie, fait encore notre bonheur 
 dans celle-ci.” — Montesquieu, 
 
 ^ Phil. i. 27 j ii. 15. 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 472 
 
 Christians. This I shall now attempt with all possible 
 regard to brevity, wishing you to consider it as a bare 
 enumeration, and earnestly referring you to the Bible 
 itself, as to the richest storehouse of moral precepts. 
 In this enumeration, I shall adopt the order of several 
 moral philosophers, and consider, 1st, the duties a man 
 owes to himself ; 2dly, those which he owes to society ; 
 3dly, those which are due to God. 
 
 I. Personal Duties. These will manifestly be 
 such as tend to preserve our health, and to secure our 
 happiness ; for Godliness hath the promise of the life 
 which now is, as well as of that which is to come:^^ 
 they will, therefore, include the government of our 
 affections, appetites, and passions, the regulation and 
 improvement of our temper, the purification of the 
 heart, and an increase of useful knowledge. Thus we 
 are earnestly exhorted to humility, meekness, temper- 
 ance, chastity, and modesty, diligence, contentment, 
 cheerfulness, self-denial, and mortification, and to edifi- 
 cation in general ; all the contrary vices being forbidden 
 in the most forcible terms. To prove this I need quote 
 but a very few precepts and aphorisms ; for the sake of 
 some order, taking the words as I have already placed 
 them before you. 
 
 Humility. Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs 
 is the kingdom of heaven.^^ Whosoever shall humble 
 himself as a little child, the same is the greatest in the 
 kingdom of heaven/^ Let the brother of low degree 
 rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made 
 low.^^ I charge every one among you not to think of 
 himself more highly than he ought to think; but to 
 think soberly, accordingly as God hath dealt to every 
 man the measure of faith.^^ ‘‘ Mind not high things ; 
 but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in 
 your own conceits.^^ Who maketh thee to differ 
 from another? and what hast thou, that thou didst not 
 receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou 
 glory, as if thou hadst not received it?’^ God resist- 
 eth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 
 
PERSONAL DUTIES. 
 
 473 
 
 Humble yourselves therefore in the sight of the Lord, 
 and he shall lift you up/^ In lowliness of mind let 
 each esteem others better than himself^’.^^ 
 
 Meekness. Meekness is a fruit of the Spirit.^^ 
 The meek will God guide in judgment, the meek will 
 he teach his way.^^ He that is soon angry dealeth 
 foolishly : he that is slow to wrath is of great under- 
 standing; but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.^^ 
 Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words, there is 
 more hope of a fool than of him.^^ “ Be not hasty in 
 thy spirit to be angry ; for anger resteth in the bosom 
 of fools.^^ "" Let your moderation be known unto all 
 men.^^ Be angry and sin not ; let not the sun go down 
 upon your wrath ; neither give place to the deviF.’^ 
 Temperance. ‘‘ Take heed to yourselves, lest at any 
 time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and 
 drunkenness.^^ When thou sittest to eat, consider 
 diligently what is before thee ; and put a knife to thy 
 throat if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not 
 desirous of dainties, for they are deceitful meat. Be 
 not amongst wine-bibbers, nor amongst riotous eaters 
 of flesh : for the drunkard and the glutton shall come 
 to poverty They that are drunken are drunken in 
 the night ; but let us who are of the day be sober.’’ 
 “ Let us walk honestly as in the day : not in rioting 
 and drunkenness.” For drunkenness, revellings, and 
 such like, are works of the flesh and they which 
 do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God 
 but temperance is a fruit of the Spirit.” ‘‘ They that 
 count it pleasure to riot in the day time, sporting them- 
 selves with their own deceivings, while they feast, shall 
 receive the reward of unrighteousness ®.” 
 
 Chastity and Modesty. This is the will of God, 
 
 ® Matt V. 3 ; xviii. 4. James, i. 9. Rom. xii. 3, 16. 1 Cor. 
 
 V. 7. James, iv. 6, 7, 10. Phil. ii. 3. 
 
 7 Gal. V. 23. Ps. XXV. 9. Prov. xiv. 17, 29 ; xxix. 20. Eccles. 
 yii. 9. Phil. iv. 5. Eph. iv. 26, 27. 
 
 ® Luke, xxi. 34. Prov. xxiii. 1, 2, 3, 20, 21. 1 Thes. v. 7, 8, 
 
 Rom. xiii. 13. Gal. v. 19, 21, 22, 23, 2 Pet. ii. 13. 
 
PERSONAL DUTIES. 
 
 474 
 
 even our sanctification ; that we should abstain from 
 fornication ; that every one of you should know how 
 to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not 
 in the lusts of concupiscence, as the Gentiles which 
 know not God.^^ God hath not called us to unclean- 
 ness, but unto holiness/^ ‘‘ Abstain from fleshly lusts 
 which war against the soul.^’ Walk not as other 
 Gentiles walk ; who, being past feeling, have given 
 themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all unclean- 
 ness greedily “ Whosoever looketh on a woman to 
 lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already 
 in his heaiV^ Put all filthy communication out of 
 your mouth; indulge neither filthiness, nor foolish 
 talking/’ ‘‘ Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor 
 effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 
 shall enter into the kingdom of God/’ Know ye not 
 that ye are the temple of God ; and that your body is 
 the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you ? If any 
 man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. 
 For the temple of God is holy, which temple are ye.” 
 “ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” 
 
 Let women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with 
 shamefaced ness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, 
 or gold, or pearls, or costly array: but (which be- 
 cometh women professing godliness) with good works.” 
 
 Abstain from all appearance of eviP.” 
 
 Diligence, In the morning sow thy seed, and in 
 the evening withhold not thine hand ; for thou knowest 
 not whether shall prosper, either this or that: or whe- 
 ther they* both shall be alike good.” Go to the ant, 
 thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise ; which, 
 having no guide, overseer, nor ruler, provideth her 
 meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the 
 harvest.” Be not slothful.” Let every man labour, 
 working with his hands the thing which is good, that 
 he may have to give to him that needeth.” There are 
 
 ® 1 Thes. iv. 3, 4, 5, 7. 1 Pet. ii. 11. Eph. iv. 17, 19. Matt, 
 
 ix. 28. Col. iii. 8. Eph. v. 4. 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10, 19; iii. 16. 1 
 
 Tiin. ii. 9, 10. 1 Thes. v. 22. 
 
PERSONAL DUTIES. 
 
 475 
 
 some which walk disorderly, working not at all, but 
 are busy bodies : now them that are such, we com- 
 mand and exhort by our Lord Jesus, that with quiet- 
 ness they work and eat their own bread. If any man 
 will not work, neither should he eat.^^ Seest thou a 
 man diligent in his business? He shall stand before 
 kings, he shall not stand before mean men.^^ “ Not 
 slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the 
 Lord 
 
 Contentment. Give me neither poverty nor riches ; 
 feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, 
 and deny thee, and say, ^ Who is the Lord P’ or lest I 
 be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in 
 vain.^’ A little that a righteous man hath is better 
 than the riches of many wicked.’^ “ Better is a little 
 with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure and 
 trouble therewith He that maketh haste to be rich 
 shall not be innocent.^^ Be not thou afraid when one 
 is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased : 
 for though while he lived he blessed his soul ; yet when 
 he dieth he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall 
 not descend after him.^^ ‘‘ Seekest thou great things 
 for thyself, seek them not.^^ I know both how to be 
 abased and how to abound. I have learnt in whatso- 
 ever state I am, therewith to be content.^-’ Let every 
 man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 
 Art thou called, being a servant (a slave ^oi/Xoc)? care 
 not for it : but if thou mayest be made free, use it 
 rather.^^ “ I would have you without anxiety ; that 
 they which weep may be as though they wept not; and 
 they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and 
 they that buy, as though they possessed not ; and they 
 that use this world, as not abusing it. For the fashion 
 of this world passeth away.^^ Godliness with con- 
 tentment is great gain.^^ Having food and raiment, 
 let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich 
 fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish 
 
 *0 Eccles. xi. 6, Prov. \i. 7, 8. Heb. vi. 12. Eph. iv. 28. 
 2 Thes. iii. 10 — 12. Prov. xxii. 29. Rom. xii. 11, 
 
PERSONAL DUTIES. 
 
 476 
 
 and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and 
 perdition. For avarice is the root of all evils, which, 
 some grasping at, have wandered away from the faith, 
 and pierced themselves all around with many sorrows.^’ 
 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where 
 moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through 
 and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in hea- 
 ven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and 
 where thieves do not break through nor steal : for 
 where your treasure is there will your heart be also.’’ 
 
 Let your conversation be without covetousness, and 
 be content with such things as ye have ; for He hath 
 said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee“.” 
 
 Religious Joy and Cheerf ulness, Rejoice in the Lord, 
 
 O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright.” 
 
 Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the 
 upright in heart.” Rejoice in hope of the glory of 
 God.” “ Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say 
 rejoice.” Believing in Jesus Christ, ye rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory.” ‘‘ Let the brother 
 of low clegree rejoice in that he is exalted ; but the rich 
 in that he is made low.” In every thing give thanks : 
 for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus, concerning 
 you.” Be always cheerful.” {YlavTOTeyciLperE. Sem- 
 per gaudete.) And the ransomed of the Lord shall 
 come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
 heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away.” “ In the world ye shall 
 have tribulation ; but be of good cheer 
 
 Self-Denial, &c. If any man (saith Jesus Christ) 
 will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 
 his cross daily, and follow me.” Put off the old man 
 
 ** Prov. XXX 8, 9, Ps. xxxvii. 16. Prov. xv. 16; xxviii. 20. 
 Ps. xlix. 16—18. Jer. xlv. 5. Phil, iv. 11, 12. 1 Cor. vii. 21, 
 
 30—32. 1 Tim. vi. 6, 8—10. Matt. vi. 19—21. Heb. xiii. 5. It 
 will be perceived, that I have taken the liberty of translating! Tim. 
 vi. 10, so as to preserve the metaphor, which has always appeared to 
 me to be very beautiful and striking. 
 
 Ps. xxxiii.l ; xcvii. 11. Rom. v. 2. Phil. iv. 4. 1 Pet. i. 8. 
 James, i. 9, 10. 1 Thes. v. 16, 18. Is. xxxv. 10. John, xvi. 33. 
 
PERSONAL DUTIES. 
 
 477 
 
 with his deeds ; knowing this that our old man is cruci- 
 fied with Christ, that the body of sin might be de- 
 stroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.^^ If 
 ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if ye through 
 the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall 
 live.’^ They that are Chrisfls have crucified the flesh 
 with the affections and lusts.’^ ^‘Mortify therefore your 
 members which are upon the earth : keep under your 
 bodies, and bring them into subjection. For though 
 we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.-’^ 
 ‘‘ For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal; but 
 mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong 
 holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing 
 that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.^^ 
 “ Be not conformed to this world ; but be ye trans- 
 formed by the renewing of your mind^l’’ 
 
 Edification. '' Flappy is the man that findeth wis- 
 dom, and the man that getteth understanding.’^ For 
 wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that 
 may be desired are not to be compared with it.” He 
 that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul; but 
 he is in the way of life that keepeth instruction.” The 
 works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that 
 have pleasure therein.” Build up yourselves in your 
 most holy faith.” As new born babes desire the sin- 
 cere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” 
 
 Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doc- 
 trine.” ‘‘ If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.” 
 
 Take heed what ye hear.” Believe not every spirit : 
 but try the spirits whether they are of God ; because 
 many false prophets have gone out into the world.” 
 
 Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” ‘^Be 
 not carried about with divers and strange doctrines : 
 for it is a good thing that the heart be established with 
 grace. Take heed unto thyself, and unto thy doctrine ; 
 continue in them ; meditate upon these things ; give 
 thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear 
 
 Luke, ix. 23. Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9. Rom. vi. 5 ] viii. 13. 
 Gal. V. 24, Col. iii 5. 1 Cor. 9, 27. 2 Cor. x. 3. Rom, xii. 2. 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 478 
 
 unto See that ye walk circumspectly, not as 
 
 fools, but as wise; redeeming the time, because the 
 days are eviP^^^ 
 
 Relative or Social Duties. The duties a man 
 owes to society are all comprised under the general 
 terms doing justly and loving mercy,^^ and all 
 emanate from that most comprehensive and admirable 
 precept given by our Lord, — Do ye unto others, as 
 ye would they should do unto you.^^ Thus it is that 
 we are enjoined to abstain from offering the least wrong 
 or injury to others, in their person, their property, or 
 their reputation: we are exhorted to “ render to all 
 their due,^^ to be sincere and upright in all our words 
 and actions, to speak truth invariably, to abide by our 
 promise though it be to our hurt, to provide things 
 honest in the sight of all men.^^ All fraud and false- 
 hood in our professions and dealings, all injustice and 
 violence, all malignity and envy, are expressly and 
 repeatedly forbidden. We are cautioned against being 
 angry at others without cause; we are commanded 
 most forcibly to abstain from slander : being exhorted 
 to speak evil of no man,^^ and neither to raise evil 
 reports ourselves against our neighbours, nor to pro- 
 mulgate them when they have been raised by others. 
 Not only are we forbidden to injure others in any 
 respect whatever; but we are taught that it is our 
 bounden duty to do good to all men^’ as far as we 
 have ability and opportunity, having however a still 
 more forcible command with respect to them who are 
 of the household of faith. We are required to assist 
 others in their necessities and distresses, to sympathize 
 with them in their afflictions, to rejoice in their pro- 
 sperity ; when it is necessary, to distribute to them of 
 our worldly substance for the supply of their wants ; 
 to aim at converting such of them as are unbelievers, 
 either in theory or practice, from the error of their 
 
 Prov. iii. 13 ; viii. 11 ; x. 17 ; xv. 32. Ps. cxi.2. Jude, 20. 
 1 Pet. ii. 2. 1 Tim. iv. 13. Mark, iv. 23, 24. 1 John, iv. K 
 
 I Thes. V. 21. Heb. xiii. 9. 1 Tim. iv. 15, 16. Eph. v. 15, 16* 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 479 
 
 way to reprove them, when it is requisite, in the 
 spirit of meekness, and use every effort, consistent 
 with other duties, to promote their welfare, temporal 
 and spiritual. With regard to enemies, we are com- 
 manded to “ love^^ them. Not only is the rendering 
 evil for eviP^ forbidden, but we are commanded to 
 return good for evil: ‘‘ Love your enemies, bless them 
 that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
 pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute 
 you.’’ If thine enemy hunger, feed him : if he thirst, 
 give him drink : for by so doing thou shalt heap coals 
 of fire on his head*^;” that is, as Parnell correctly 
 explains the metaphor, in his Hermit,” — 
 
 Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead, 
 
 With heaping coals of fire upon its head ; 
 
 In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow, 
 
 And loose from dross the silver runs below.” 
 
 Intercession in worship is also an essential, though 
 much neglected branch of our duty to others. The 
 mutual love of the first Christians seems to have been 
 principally kept alive by prayers for each other: and 
 in all times this duty of intercession, properly exer- 
 cised, raises Christian brotherhood as much above the 
 common class of human friendships, as heaven is above 
 earth. I thank my God (said the apostle Paul to his 
 friend Timothy), that without ceasing I have remem- 
 brance of thee in my prayers night and day.” And 
 thus did all the primitive Christians; drawing down 
 mercies from heaven through the appointed medium, 
 and causing a confluence of spiritual blessings to flow 
 upon each, in answer to the united supplications of all. 
 Christians are, in like manner, exhorted to pray for 
 kings, and all that are in authority;” and indeed, by 
 fair inference, if not by express command, every indi- 
 vidual in each class of society, is required to pray for 
 the w' el fare and happiness of all other persons. And 
 this duty is not only binding, but manifestly beneficial: 
 for sincere and fervent intercession would evidently be 
 Prov. XXV. 21, 22. Rom. xii. 20. 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 480 
 
 one of the best arbitrators of differences, the best cure 
 and preservative against unkind tempers, angry and 
 malignant passions, the best promoter of true friend- 
 ships ; as well as an unfailing test of the state of our own 
 hearts with regard to ourselves and others. All these, 
 and numerous other duties which I cannot here specify, 
 have their foundation laid in the noblest sentiment, 
 love ; whence it follows that Christianity is a Religion 
 of benevolence. “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself'" A new commandment I give unto you, 
 that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye 
 also love one another.’^ Herein is love, not that we 
 loved God, but that beloved us, and sent his Son to be 
 the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved 
 us, we ought also to love one another.^^ And this 
 commandment have we from him, that he who loveth 
 God, love his brother also^^." 
 
 Besides the general precepts to which I have thus 
 adverted in a very cursory manner, prescribing the 
 duties of justice and benevolence towards all mankind, 
 there are also particular injunctions in regard to the 
 duties incumbent upon us in the several stations and 
 relations we occupy in civil and social life ; all of which 
 are of great importance to the welfare of families and 
 nations, as w^ell as of individuals. Of these I here 
 present you with a selection. 
 
 Husbands and Wives. Husbands love your wives, 
 and be not bitter against them.^^ Let every one of 
 you in particular so love his wife even as himself: so 
 ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.^’ 
 
 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
 the church, and gave himself for it ; for we are members 
 of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this 
 cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
 shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one 
 flesh.’’ Ye husbands, dwell with your wives accord- 
 ing to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife as unto 
 
 Matt. V. 44. Rom. xii. 20. 2 Tim. i. 3. Matt. xxii. 39. John, 
 xiii. 34. 1 John, iv. 10, 11, 21. James, ii. 8. Luke, x. 33 — 35, &c. 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 481 
 
 the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the 
 grace of life.^^ Let the wife see that she reverence 
 her husband. Wives, submit yourselves unto your 
 own husbands, as unto the Lord: for the husband is 
 the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the 
 Church. Therefore as the Church is subject unto 
 Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in 
 every thing.^’ ^‘Ye wives, be in subjection to your 
 own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also 
 may without the word be won by the conversation of 
 the wives, while they behold your chaste conversation 
 coupled with fear^V^ ‘"The contentions of a wife are a 
 continual dropping.” “ A prudent wife is from the 
 Lord. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in 
 her; she will do him good and not evil all the days of 
 her life. She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and 
 in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well 
 to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread 
 of idleness. Her children rise up, and call her blessed ; 
 her husband also, and he praiseth her**^.” 
 
 Pai'ents and Children. “ Ye fathers, provoke not 
 your children to wrath ; but bring them up in the nur- 
 ture and admonition of the Lord ; having them in 
 subjection with all gravity.” “Train up a child in the 
 way he should go, and when he is old he will not de- 
 part from it.” “ Chasten thy son betimes, while there 
 is hope ; and let not thy soul spare for his crying. 
 For foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child : 
 but the rod and reproof give wisdom : withhold not 
 correction, and thou shall deliver his soul from hell.” 
 “ The children ought not to lay up for the parents : but 
 the parents for the children.” “If any provide not for 
 those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and 
 is worse than an infidel.” “ Children, obey your pa- 
 
 Prbli quales feminas babent Cbristiani ! said Labanius: — O! 
 wbat excellent wives tbe Christians have ! 
 
 is Col. iii. 19. Epb. V. 25—30, 31. 1 Pet. iii. 7. Eph. v. 33, 
 
 22, 23, 24. 1 Pet. iii. 1, 2. Prov. xix. 13, 14 ; xxxi. 11, 12, 26, 
 
 27, 28. 
 
 I I 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 482 
 
 rents in the Lord ; for this is right. Obey your parents 
 in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.^^ 
 “ Honour thy father and thy mother (which is the first 
 commandment with promise) that it may be well with 
 thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth.^^ 
 
 The eye which mocketh at his father, and despiseth 
 to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick 
 it out, and the young eagles shall eat it^^.’^ 
 
 Masters and Servants. Masters, give unto your 
 servants that which is just and equal, forbearing threat- 
 ening ; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven ; 
 neither is there respect of persons with him.^^ Despise 
 not the cause of thy man-servant, or of thy maid-ser- 
 vant, when they contend with thee. Did not he that 
 made thee in the womb make him ? And did not one 
 fashion us all in the womb?’^ Thou shalt not rule 
 over him with rigour, but shalt fear thy God.’^ Ser- 
 vants, be obedient to them that are your masters ac- 
 cording to the flesh ; not with eye-service as men-plea- 
 sers ; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.^^ Ser- 
 vants, obey your masters in all things, and please them 
 well ; not answering again, not purloining, but showing 
 all good fidelity Servants, be subject to your mas- 
 ters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but 
 also to the froward : for this is thankworthy, if a man 
 for conscience-sake towards God endure grief, suffer- 
 ing wrongfully.’^ Be content with your wages^^.” 
 
 Magistrates and Subjects. The judges and officers 
 that shall be rulers over you shall be able men, such 
 as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. They 
 shall judge the people at all seasons, and hear the 
 causes between their brethren, and judge righteously 
 between every man and his brother, and the stranger 
 
 Eph. vi. 4. 1 Tim. iii. 4, Prov. xxii. 0 ; xix. 18; xiii. 24; 
 
 xxii. 15 ; xxiii. 13, 14 ; xxix. 15. 2 Cor. xii. 14. 1 Tim. v, 8. 
 
 Eph. vi. 1, 2, 3. Col. iii. 20. Prov. xxx. 17. 
 
 20 Col. iv, 1. Eph. vi. 9. Job, xxxi. 13, 15. Lev. xxv. 43. 
 Eph. vi. 5, 6, 7, 8. Col. iii. 22. Tit. ii. 9, 10. 1 Pet. ii. 18, 19, 
 
 Luke, iii. 14. 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 483 
 
 that is with ‘^They shall not wrest juclg-ment ; 
 
 they shall not respect persons in judgment : but they 
 shall hear the small as well as the great. They shall 
 not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the per- 
 son of the mighty ; neither take a gift; for a gift doth 
 blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the 
 righteous. They shall not be afraid of the face of man, 
 for the judgment is God’s. It is an abomination to 
 kings to commit wickedness; for the throne is esta- 
 blished by righteousness.” The prince shall not 
 take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust 
 them out of their possession.” Mercy and truth pre- 
 serve the king : and his throne is upholden by mercy.” 
 ^‘Take away the wicked from before the king, and his 
 throne shall be established in righteousness.” Let 
 every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there 
 is no power but of God : the powers that be are ordain- 
 ed of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, 
 resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist 
 shall receive to themselves damnation: for rulers are 
 not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou 
 not then be afiaid of tiie power ? Do that which is 
 good, and thou shalt have praise of the same ; for he 
 is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou 
 do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not 
 the sword in vain : for he is the minister of God, a 
 revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 
 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for 
 wu’ath, but also for conscience-sake. For this cause 
 pay you tribute also; for they are God’s messengers.” 
 
 Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the 
 Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; 
 or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him 
 for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of 
 them that do welPk” 
 
 Deut. xvi. 18, 19 ; i. 13, 16, 17. Exocl. xviii. 21, 22. Lev. 
 xix. 15. Prov. xvi. 12. Ezek. xlvi. 18. Prov. xx. 28; xxv. 5. 
 Ram. xiii. 1, 2 — 6. 1 Pet. ii. 13 — 16. 
 
SOCIAL DUTIES. 
 
 484 
 
 You can scarcely fail to remark, that the exhortations 
 to these and other relative duties are independent of 
 character. We are commanded to be dutiful to parents, 
 affectionate to children, kind to servants, just to sub- 
 jects, obedient to magistrates and monarchs, absolutely; 
 and not merely dutiful to tender parents, affectionate 
 and communicative of instruction to dutiful children, 
 diligent under the employment of kind masters, obedi- 
 ent to wise governors, and so on ; which appears to me 
 a mark of great wisdom in the deliverance of such in- 
 junctions. For, we thence learn, that though the extent 
 of obligation to several duties may perhaps vary in 
 some slight degree with the conduct of the individuals 
 towards whom the respective sorts of behaviour are 
 due, yet that the obligation itself results from the mu- 
 tual relation subsisting between the persons, so that 
 each particular duty must be performed, or we are cri- 
 minal : whereas, if the relative duties were made to 
 depend upon character, they would depend upon inter- 
 pretation of character, which may often be erroneous ; 
 and a man^s mind, nay, \\\^ fancy, would, in reference 
 to his duties to others, become his law, his tribunal, 
 and his judge. 
 
 There is an important class of reciprocal duties 
 arising from the connexion subsisting between pastors 
 or ministers of churches, and their flocks ; but these 
 diverge into too many separate branches to be ade- 
 quately treated in small compass. I therefore proceed 
 to notice, though with infnitely more brevity than is 
 commensurate with their immense moment, 
 
 III. Duties to God. In the Gospel we have im- 
 parted to us the noblest and most exalted conceptions 
 of the Supreme Being ; and the various relations in 
 which he has been pleased to manifest himself as sus- 
 taining, in respect of his creatures and of his people, 
 are amply revealed; while the corresponding duties 
 are urged upon ns, and the most palpable and obvious 
 directions given with regard to their extent and obli- 
 
DUTIES TO GOD. 
 
 485 
 
 gation. Thus we are commanded to ^Move the Lord 
 our God, with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and 
 strength:” which is represented by our Saviour as 
 the first and greatest commandment^^;” from which 
 all other duties emanate. We are told that we must 
 be animated with a pure and ardent zeal for his 
 glory, and must consider the pleasing and honouring 
 him, as infinitely preferable to the indulgence of any 
 sensual inclinations. We are farther taught, that our 
 love to God, if genuine, will be accompanied with a 
 solemn and holy fear of his Divine majesty ; indeed 
 the .terms are described as in a measure coexistent, nei- 
 ther operating to any great extent without the others. 
 The fear, therefore, enjoined upon believers, is not of 
 a discouraging or desponding nature; but a cautious, 
 watchful fear, of offending and grieving our heavenly 
 Father. It is farther required of us to exercise trust in 
 God ; implying faith, confidence in his wisdom and 
 mercy, unreserved submission to his will, and resigna- 
 tion to all his dispensations; and we are exhorted to 
 live under a practical and habitual conviction of his 
 essential presence with all, and of his spiritual pre- 
 sence with truly devout persons. A strict obedience 
 to his righteous commands is most energetically en- 
 forced ; and this, besides honour and worship in gene- 
 ral, includes the diligent and faithful discharge of every 
 personal and social duty. We are also urged to aspire 
 after a conformity to God in all his imitable or com- 
 municable attributes; to be holy as he is holy, pure 
 as he is pure, perfect as he is perfect,” &c. (the likeness, 
 however, being obviously one of quality, not of equali- 
 ty), and to this end we have set before us the spotless 
 example of ‘‘ the Captain of our salvation ;” being 
 assured that we most resemble God, when the greatest 
 portion of the same mind” is in us, which was also 
 in Christ Jesus.” We are recjuired to worship God, 
 
 22 Matt. xxii. 37, 38. 
 
DUTIES TO GOD. 
 
 486 
 
 who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth deadness, dul- 
 ness, and formality, both in prayer and praise, are 
 hence excluded; and a remarkable simplicity and 
 purity of worship is represented in the New Testament 
 as that vvhich God will most approve. The rites therein 
 prescribed are few in number, and hip^hly excellent 
 and instructive in their nature and signification. The 
 only sacraments enjoined upon us are Baplism^^ and 
 '‘the Supper of the Lord both of which, being posi- 
 tive institutions, should doubtless be observed with all 
 possible regard to the circumstances exhibited in their 
 primitive establishment. Great care seems taken, how- 
 ever, to guard us against mistaking “the form^^ for 
 “ the power of godliness being taught that rites and 
 ceremonies are as nothing, unless the heart be purified 
 and the conduct become holy and upright. Private 
 meditation, secret, domestic, social, and public wor- 
 ship, are each most powerfully recommended, n^y com- 
 manded : the benefits resulting from the “communion 
 of saints’^ in worship, and the evils flowing from “ for- 
 getting to assemble ourselves togetheiV^ are strikingly 
 depicted. We are also shown the advantage as well 
 as the duty of “ confessing our sins to God and of 
 throwing ourselves entirely upon his covenanted mercy 
 for pardon, acceptance, and gracious assistance. Much 
 of this, I am well aware, is extremely repugnant to the 
 notions which generally prevail ; but it is consistent 
 with Scripture ; and you will scarcely be able to turn 
 to a page in the New Testament (where the subject is 
 not purely historical), in which you will not find exhor- 
 tations to one or other of the duties I have here 
 attempted to sketch. 
 
 It farther appears, being indeed a necessary conse- 
 quence of the Christian system, that we are required, 
 in order to worship God acceptably, to approach him 
 through the appointed Mediator, by reason of whose 
 intercession the prayers and praises of his sincere dis- 
 ciples are approved. Hence results another class of 
 
DUTIES TO GOD. 
 
 487 
 
 duties relating to the Lord Jesus Christ/^ whom we 
 are required to receive by faith and whom we are 
 taught to regard continually and habitually as our 
 instructor, atonement, intercessor, guardian, example, 
 &c. We are also exhorted to pray for the influences 
 of God’s Holy Spirit, and at all times so to conduct 
 ourselves, as not to grieve or offend that Spirit, but 
 rather to draw down a more copious communication of 
 its influences. These latter duties, however, are not 
 considered by all as such, but are regarded as of minor 
 importance. I shall therefore throw together for your 
 perusal a few passages from which you may learn that 
 the sacred writers did not place those duties in a sub- 
 ordinate rank. 
 
 ‘Werily, verily, I say unto you, whatever ye shall 
 ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” What- 
 ever ye do in word or deed, da all in the name of the Lord 
 Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” 
 
 For through him we both have access by one Spirit 
 unto the Father.” My sheep hear my voice, and I 
 hear them, and they follow me.” “ We are the circum- 
 cision, which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in 
 Jesus Christ.” am crucified with Christ: yet not 
 I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live 
 in the flesh, 1 live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
 loved me and gave himself for me.” Whom, having 
 not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him 
 not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory.” Let us run with patience the race 
 that is set before us, looking mito Jesus, the author and 
 finisher of our faith.” If any man love not the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maran-atha.” Grace 
 be with all them that love our Lord Jesus in sincerity.^'' 
 “ If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your heavenly 
 Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” 
 
 Quench not the Spirit.” ‘‘ Grieve not the Holy 
 Spirit of God.” ‘'Be not drunk with wine, wherein 
 
488 CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.’^ If we live 
 in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit 
 
 From this view of Christian duties, slight and imper- 
 fect as I am conscious it is, I trust you will perceive 
 that the New Dispensation, considered as a source of 
 morality, is infinitely superior to any scheme that was 
 ever devised by the wisest and greatest of men, who 
 were not favoured by a revelation from God. Such is 
 the simplicity of the Gospel precepts that the plainest 
 and most uncultivated understanding may compre- 
 hend them ; and such, at the same time, their beauty 
 and excellency, their fitness to expand the intellect, to 
 enrich the soul, to improve the character of individuals, 
 as well as to illuminate the whole world and to fill it 
 with harmony and love, that they furnish scope for 
 the noblest contemplations of the philanthropist and 
 the philosopher. ‘‘ The law of the Lord is perfect, con- 
 verting the soul ; the testimony of the Lord is sure, 
 making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are 
 right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the 
 Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes: the fear of the 
 Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the judgments of the 
 Lord are true and righteous altogether‘^^.^^ 
 
 But rules of moral duty, however complete, precepts, 
 however excellent, will be of comparatively little avail, 
 unless they be enforced by suitable motives obvious to 
 the understanding, and energetic in their operation. 
 And here again the superiority of the Religion of Christ 
 is equally evident. Good men are supported in the path 
 of duty, and consoled under affliction, by the enchant- 
 ing prospect of an eternal weight of glory bad men 
 
 John, xvi. 23. Col. iii. 17. Epli. ii. 18. John, x. 27. Phil, 
 iii. 3. Gal. ii. 20. 1 Pet. i. 8. Heb. xii. 1, 2. I Cor. xvi. 22. 
 
 Eph. vi. 24. Luke, xi. 13. 1 Thess. v. 19. Eph. iv. 30 ; v. 18. 
 
 Gal. V. 25. For many more texts thrown into an order well calcu- 
 lated to enforce the several Chistian duties, the reader may consult 
 Gastrell’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Warden’s System of 
 Revealed Religion, or Talbot’s Analysis of the Holy Bible. 
 
 Ps. xix. 7, 8, 9. 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 489 
 
 are persuaded to turn from their evil courses by having 
 exhibited to them the terrors of the Lord:’^ — the de- 
 lights of heaven, the unending anguish of hell ; the 
 blessed society of the just made perfect,’^ and that of 
 devils and damned spirits are the awful alterna- 
 tives placed before them. The example of him ‘‘ who, 
 though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor/^ 
 and tabernacled amongst men, as well to show them 
 tlie way to glory, as to secure glory for them, stimu- 
 lates powerfully to action: while the privileges of the 
 Gospel and the truly extraordinary means employed to 
 entitle believers to those privileges, furnish in their 
 turn admirable incentives to virtuous conduct. Let me 
 entreat you to peruse attentively the few portions of 
 Scripture referred to at the foot of this page^^; and 
 then to consider whether any thing less than the irre- 
 sistible power which out of stones could raise up 
 children to Abraham,’’ can touch the soul which is 
 insensible to the impressions they are calculated to 
 make. Lastly, for our great encouragement, Divine 
 assistances are promised, to strengthen and preserve in 
 the path of duty all who are duly aware of their own 
 insufficiency, and humbly seek for guidance and pro- 
 tection where alone they are to be obtained. 
 
 I have now, my dear friend, executed the task I 
 undertook at your entreaty : happy shall I esteem my- 
 self if it be so begun, continued, and carried through, 
 as, under the blessing of God, to transmit conviction 
 to your mind, and render you in all respects such as I 
 wish to see you. But, to this end, allow me to remind 
 you, that I undertook it in consequence of an implied 
 contract: my part is accomplished, faithfully, I trust, 
 though doubtless, very imperfectly; let me, then, beg 
 of you to execute your part with all possible fidelity,- 
 and it will be easy to predict the issue of the inquiry. 
 
 25 Rom. vi. 9—13. 1 Cor. vi. 20; vii. 23 ; xv. 50—58. Phil. 
 
 ii, passim, iii. 7 — 21 ; iv. 1 — 7. Col. iii. 1 — 17. Eph. ii. 8 — 22 ; 
 
 iii. iv, 1 — 5. 30 — 32. 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 490 
 
 Meditate upon what I have written; and then insti- 
 tute a few comparisons. Compare, for example, the 
 many difficulties, and absurdities, the baseless supports, 
 and the cheerless prospects of Infidelity, with the few 
 difficukies, the reasonable service,’’ the ‘‘ everlasting 
 foundations,” and the glorious and delightful pros- 
 pects of Christianity. Compare again, the cold spe^ 
 culations, the unsatisfactory and forced criticisms, the 
 proud spirit of rejection, the assumed superiority in 
 point of information over those who were personally 
 ‘" taught of Christ,” the false or ridiculous translations, 
 and the feebleness of motives to love of Christ and de- 
 votedness to God, which are exhibited and exemplified 
 by those who usurp to themselves the exclusive title of 
 ^'rational Christians;” with the noble glow of senti- 
 ment, the natural and obvious interpretations, the hum- 
 ble and teachable disposition, the grateful eagerness to 
 receive instruction from the word of God communi- 
 cated by Prophets and Apostles, the resolute determi- 
 nation to bend the mind to the geyiuine meaning of 
 Scripture whatever it may be, and the ready yielding 
 to the peculiar and powerful incentives furnished in 
 the exquisite plan of redemption, manifested among 
 many other professed disciples of Christ. Make these 
 comparisons with your wonted acuteness and impar- 
 tiality; and I have no fear that the result will be 
 favourable to the cause I have here so feebly defended, 
 and infinitely favourable to your own happiness. 
 
 If you wish, my friend, to have your capacious mind 
 still farther ennobled and expanded by the influence 
 of those truths which can make "" the simple wise,” 
 and have been known to confer a remarkable dignity 
 of character and enlargement of souP® upon the other- 
 
 “ II y a dans les maximes de I’Evangile une noblesse et une 
 elevation oil les coeurs vils et rampans ne sauroient atteindre. La 
 Religion, qui fait les grandes anies, ne paroit faite que pour elles : 
 et il faiit etre yrand ou le devenir, pour etre Chretien.” — Massil- 
 lon. 
 
CHRISTIAN DUTIES. 
 
 491 
 
 wise ignoble and illiterate; — if you wish to have your 
 ‘^conversation in heaven while your residence is on 
 earthy to “ see the invisible/^ and secretly enjoy that 
 Saviour whom “ to know is life eternal — if you wish 
 to place your trust on solid rock, to have your hope 
 anchored in eternity, your charity glowing toward all 
 mankind; — if you wish to enjoy all the blessings of 
 Providence with a new zest unknown before, to gaze 
 upon the delights of creation with new eyes, to explore 
 the wonders of nature with double ardour; — if you 
 wish to evince a meek, gentle, compliant, forgiving, 
 benevolent, conscientious behaviour in every station 
 and character, to be a dutiful and respectful son, a dis- 
 creet and tender husband, an affectionate and pious 
 parent, an honest and obedient subject; — if you wish 
 to possess a heart swelling with love to God, a tongue 
 ready to speak his praises and defend his cause, hands 
 prepared to do his work, and feet to “ walk in the way 
 of his commandments;^^ — if you wish to bear prospe- 
 rity without high-mindedness, adversity without a mur- 
 mur, to manifest calm resignation under affliction, 
 patient acquiescence in all the divine dispensations, to 
 honour God through life, and to glorify him in death ; 
 to have the sting of the last great enemy deprived of 
 its poison, and to quit the present life with a soul 
 panting after immortality, and anxious to join the 
 glorious assembly who “ surround the throne of God 
 and of the Lamb — if such as these be your desires, 
 then, “ forsake not the fountain of living waters,’’ walk 
 not by the light “ of sparks of your own kindling,” con- 
 fide not in that strength which is “ perfect weakness;” 
 but throw yourself in imagination and in soul at the 
 foot of the cross, implore with the deepest humility, 
 yet with the unceasing ardour of Jacob, when he 
 “ wrestled with God and prevailed,” a sincere and 
 active faith in the merits and mediation of a “ cruci- 
 fied” Redeemer, daily and copious supplies of the 
 purifying and invigorating influences of the Spirit, 
 
492 CHRISTIAN DUTIES, 
 
 and an ability so to persevere unto the end of your 
 course, that you may adorn the doctrine of God your 
 Saviour in all things.” 
 
 That these blessings may he yours: that you may 
 here live long to enjoy and to impart much happiness; 
 and at length, full of years and full of holiness, be 
 called to partake of the ‘‘ rest which remaineth for the 
 people of Godf is the fervent prayer of 
 
 Your affectionate Friend. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHISWICK : 
 
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