UC-NRLF $B EbM flMM <■ KH • ^ c alifor: H O 2 K o :^:5 c ^it. °^ > — ( 2 '^ i: 35 > • HH t. ^4 ^ !^ t D ^ (i' or PREFACE. As the forms of infidelity are constantly chang- ing, it becomes the duty of all good men to watch its versatile movements, and to endeavor, according to their several abilities, to counteract its subtle and pernicious influence. Standing, as we do, in the full blaze of secular knowledge, there is the utmost danger, through the depravity of our fallen nature, of our preferring the wisdom of man to the wisdom of God ; and if the advocates of revealed truth do not rush into the field of conflict with the enemies of human happiness, there is reason to fear that scepticism will obtain a partial and momentary tri- umph — I say partial and momentary/, for the truth of Heaven must ultimately prevail, and every power that would silence the voice of "the living ora- cles" must at last be crushed by the omnipotent 1* PREFACE. energy of the Son of God. I am not afraid for the ark of the Lord ; but I regard it as a solemn duty to contribute my aid, however humble, to the defence of revealed truth; and particularly to make my ap- peal to that portion of my fellow-men who, either from mental tendency or association in life, are pe- culiarly exposed to the desolating and pernicious onset of sceptical opinions. I am aware there is nothing novel or peculiar in the treatise which I now place on the altar of the public ; but I am fully satisfied that the position I have taken is sure, and that the sternest or the most insidious infidelity has no honest argument to op- pose to the conclusions I have ventured, with un- hesitating confidence, to draw. I have written with the decision which becomes him who feels he has truth, and the truth of Heaven, on his side ; and I beseech no man who deigns to examine what I have said to indulge a sneer, while conscience tells him that he should offer up a prayer to " the Father of lights" for wisdom to guide his devious course, and above all, to rectify his wayward and erring heart. If there be any thing requiring distinct specifica- PREFACE. 7 tion in the plan of the following work, it is the order pursued in laying down the series of evidence in support of the claims of revelation. Whether right or wrong, I have wrought my way from the inte- rior to the outworks ; and have made my first attack on the citadel of the heart, by endeavoring to point out the adaptations of Christianity to the known and admitted condition of human nature. In doing so, I flatter myself that I have pursued a simpler and more natural course than those writers upon the same important subject who have placed an almost exclusive dependence upon external evidence. At the same time, I have not dared to overlook any part of that proof which shows the Bible to be the word of God. r # PART FIRST. A PORTRAITURE OF MODERN INFIDELITY introductory remarks. *' There is no fear of God before their EYES." Such is the concluding- sentence of a de- scription which strips fallen humanity of all its boast- ed excellence ; which shows, by a most convincing train of reasoning", that Jews and Gentiles are alike guilty before God ; and which pictures, in vivid co- lors, the awful depravity into which men sink with- out the intervention and the vital reception of the Gospel of peace. As the whole race is involved in one common apostacy, there is only one remedy that meets their case, and that remedy is Christianity. Wherever this divine catholicon is embraced, it ul- timately effects the cure of man's moral distempers ; it purifies his conscience from guilt, by an applica- tion of " the blood of sprinkling ;" it purifies his heart by the operation of a living faith ; and it puri- fies his life by the all-subduing influence of motives which animate him with the love of God, and with the quenchless desire of being conformed to his moral 10 MODERN INFIDELITY. image. Wherever Christianity is rejected, man re- mains the victim of apostacy, the child of wrath, the sport of evil passions, and, in the truest sense, " with- out God, and without hope in the world." Wheth- er we survey a state of pure heathenism,* or contem- plate a condition of society in which Christianity is rejected as a fable, we behold, in either case, a soil fertile in every species of wickedness that can insult the divine Majesty, or that can degrade and brutal- ize the human race. Could we conceive of a com- munity wholly made up of men denying revelation, and wholly imbued with the principles and feelings of modern deism, we should have presented before our minds a scene of moral turpitude and guilt too fearful to admit of minute examination. In such a community we should see every social tie dissolved, every virtuous obligation trampled upon, and all the savage passions of the human heart brought into re- sistless and destructive play. In the creed of an in- fidel there is nothing whatever to deter him from the basest actions, provided he can screen himself from the eye of public justice, and from the scorn and derision of his fellow-men. He is a man alto- gether without principle, who denies the legitimate distinction between virtue and vice, who resolves all ♦ It may be fairly questioned, from the practices of all pa^ gan countries, whether there be any people in a state of pure heathenism. Tradition seems every where to have spread some faini glimmerings of celestial light. MODERN INFIDELITY. 11 human motive into a principle of self-love, and who is an equal foe to the laws of Heaven, and to the wise and benevolent institutions of men. A powerful writer, and an acute observer of mankind, (Rev. Andrew Fuller,) has said that " modern unbeliev- ers are Deists in theory, Pagans in inclination, and Atheists in practice." They profess, indeed, to believe in one supreme and uncreated intelligence, infinitely benevolent, and infinitely holy ; but they neither cultivate his benevolence nor imitate his pu- rity ; and as it respects prayer, and praise, and the homage of devout worship, they are as scornfully neglectful of them as if there were no God, and are practically in that state of total irreligion which shows that verily " there is no fear of God before their eyes." Though they talk loudly of one God, and profess to pay him homage in the temple of na- ture, it is most clear, that in escaping from the folly and absurdity of the " gods many and lords many " of the heathen, they have plunged themselves into a state of reckless scepticism and doubt, which leaves every perfection of the Deity undefined, which ut- terly extinguishes his moral government, and which renders even the belief of his very existence a pow- erless and uninfluential admission. By the aid of revelation, indeed, they have wrought their w^ay out of the Pantheon ; but standing in the full blaze of celestial discovery, they have set themselves to blaspheme "the only living and true .^^■^J^ 12 MODERN INFIDELITY. God." Ungrateful return for that light which the God of mercy has shed upon their path, and which was never surely intended to heighten their guilt or to accelerate their condemnation ! What, then, are we to understand by modern infi- delity ? Not surely that infidelity is a new thing ; for since man lost the image of his God, he has, in all the periods of his eventful history, evinced a ten- dency to discredit his Maker, and even " when he knew him, not to glorify him as God." To provide in some degree against this tendency, and to pre- serve the successive revelations of heaven from be- ing utterly lost, the Most High selected one family as the depositaries of his truth, and as the ministers of his mercy to the rest of mankind. It would be easy to show, by an induction of facts, that it was infidelity, in days of old, which paved the way for the abominations of polytheism. Men first discredited and opposed the true oracles of Heaven, and then set themselves to serve God in their own way, and to prescribe a religion and a worship for themselves ; and because " they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobe- MODERN INFIDELITY. 13 dient to parents ; without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, un- merciful ; who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." It was such infidelity as this, my esteem- ed reader, which prepared the minds of mankind for all the grossness and all the absurdity of heathenism ; it was such infidelity as this which obtained in Phi- listia, and Egypt, and Canaan ; it was such infidel- ity as this which called forth the stupendous energy of Omnipotence, in confounding and terrifying those evil powers who contemned the name of Israel's God and oppressed the chosen tribes ; yea, it was such infidelity as this which prompted all the idolatries of the ancient church, who no sooner forgot the Lord their God, than they set themselves to worship the gods of the nations among whom they sojourned. Infidelity is no new thing. It is a plant indige- nous to the sinful heart of man ; it has sprung up in every age ; it has more or less prevailed in every na- tion under the whole face of heaven ; it is the pal- pable exhibition of that secret and deep-rooted unbe- lief which is unwilling to accredit any communica- tion as divine that does not picture the Most High as a being altogether answering to the sinful ima- ginings of a depraved and apostate heart. By modern infidelity, then, we are simply to un- derstand those new forms and that new energy which Counsels to Y. Men. 2 ?14 MODERN INFIDELITY. scepticism has put on in modern times, and more particularly since the era of the French Revolution ; by which it has mightily diffused itself among all ranks of society, and has produced a class of writers capable of making their appeal to each separate branch of the community. It is modern, because those who are yet in middle life can remember the baneful period when it began to exert its giant strength, and when, with a fiend-like daring, it aim- ed a deadly blow at the foundations of civil govern- ment and at the altars of religion. We can remem- ber all this, and we can trace in the bloody, and im- pure, and ruthless steps of infidelity, the odious cha- racter which belongs to it. It is modern, for it has decked itself forth in a thousand novel aspects ; at one time assuming the air of reason and philosophy ; at another, appealing to the most vulgar prejudices of the human mind ; now weaving itself into the tex- ture of history, and then clothing itself in the max- ims of political wisdom ; in some instances conceal- ing itself beneath the witchery of a well-imagined tale ; and, in others, polluting even the very streams of salvation, by infusing a portion of its deadly viru- lence into the theology of the age.* It is modern, for where, at any former period in the history of the world, did a thing so worthless and * In proof of this, see Professor Milman's History of the Jews, and many other productions savoring of the Neolo- gical school MODERN INFIDELITY. 15 abominable put on such an imposing air, and give itself forth as an angel of mercy to the afflicted race ? Though it has taught men that " adultery must be practiced if we would obtain the advantages of life ; that female infidelity, when known, is a small thing ; and, when unknown, nothing;"* that "there is no merit or crime in intention;"! that "the civil law is the sole foundation of right and wrong, and that re- ligion has no obligation but as enjoined by the ma- gistrate ;" J that " all the morality of our actions lies in the judgment we ourselves form of them ;"^ " that lewdness," in certain cases only, " resembles thirst in a dropsy, and inactivity in a lethargy ;"|| that vir- tue is "only the love of ourselves :"•][ though these are the scandalous lessons which it has unblushing- ly taught mankind, yet is it loudly proclaimed as the only system calculated to model and perfect hu- manity ; as the last and only refuge for the sorrow- ing, suffering, and unhappy children of men ! This it is which is to rescue them from all unworthy pre- judices, which is to dissipate the mists of ages, which is to bring back the golden period of wisdom and reason, which is to convert the whole earth into a paradise, and which is to make men happy as angels under its mild and benignant sway ! There is no cant so disgusting as that of infidelity. Though ♦ Hume. tVolney's Law of Nature. tHobbes. § Rousseau. II Lord Herbert, the father of English Deists. f Lord Bolingbroke. 16 MODERN INFIDELITY. most of its advocates have been libertines, though its footsteps may be traced in the blood which it has spilt, though it has trampled on all the laws of per- sonal property and of individual right, though it pol- lutes and degrades wherever it touches, yet are its ad- vocates ever and anon boasting of its sublime virtues and its blessed achievements. One thing we may be quite sure of, that no one will listen to their vain and empty declamations till he has lost a certain por- tion of self-esteem, and till he wants to find an excuse for his conduct in the laxness and uncertainty of his belief Looking at both the literary and vulgar part of modern infidels, we are constrained to say of them, in the words of the great apostle, " There is no fear of God before their eyes." CHAPTER I. TVte views of Infidels respectvng the morai charader of God, God cannot be duly feared as the proper object of religious homage, where his moral attributes and perfections are lost sight of If we disconnect his wisdom and power from his holiness, and goodness, and justice, it is impossible to conceive of him with MODERN INFIDELITY* 17 reverence, or to think of him with complacency. In the Christian Scriptures, God's natural attributes are invariably represented as the ministers of his bene- volence, integrity and faithfulness. They declare him, to be " a God of truth and without iniquity ; just and right " in all his ways. They proclaim him to be " the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and in truth ; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving ini- quity, transgression and sin, and yet by no means clearing the guilty." They describe him as "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and tell us that " he cannot look upon iniquity." They exhibit him as *' righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." They teach us that he is " not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with him." Such is the God of revelation; a Being infinitely wise and powerful indeed, but one, at the same time, " glorious in holiness, and fearful in praises," and ever " doing wonders ;" a Being before whom the highest orders of created intelligences prostrate themselves and exclaim, " Holy, holy, ho- ly is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory." How unlike are these descriptions of the eternal and immutable God, to the vague, contradictory and even wicked representations of infidelity ! " We can- not," says Lord Bolingbroke, " ascribe goodness and justice to God, according to our ideas of them, nor 2* 1® MODERN INFIDELITY. argue with any certainty about them ;" and again, "it is absurd to deduce moral obligations from the moral attributes of God, or to pretend to imitate him in those attributes." The language held by Bolingbroke is common to the infidel school. The entire moral character of God is overlooked by them, unless when they talk of his mercy, which they always do in a manner totally inconsistent with the existence of any such thing as a moral governr ment. Mercy displayed at the awful risk of pros- trating the claims of immutable holiness, can only be another name for injustice ; and can therefore have no affinity to that infinitely benevolent Being who, in all the distributions both of his goodness and mercy, acts in a manner worthy of himself, the source and pattern of all the rectitude and purity which exist throughout the universe. " The object," says Andrew Fuller, " of the Christian adoration, is Jehovah, the God of Israel ; whose character for holiness, justice and goodness, is displayed in the doctrines and precepts of the Gos- pel, in a more affecting light than by any of the pre- ceding dispensations. But who or what is the god of deists ? It is true they have been shamed out of the polytheism of the heathens. They have reduced their thirty thousand deities into one ; but what is his character ? what attributes do they ascribe to him ? For any thing that appears in their writings, he is as far from the holy, the just, and the good, as those MODERN INFIDELITY. 19 of their heathen predecessors. They enjoy a plea- sure, it is allowed in contemplating the productions of wisdom and power ; but as to holiness, it is foreign from their inquiries : a holy God does not appear to be suited to their wishes. After tracing the conflicting views of modern in- fidels, in reference to the proper standard of mo- rality, the same powerful writer adds — '• It is wor- thy of notice, that, amidst all the discordance of these writers, they agree in excluding the Divine Being from the theory of morals. They think af- ter their manner ; but " God is not in all their thoughts." In comparing the Christian doctrine of morality, the sum of w^hich is love, with their athe- istical jargon, one seems to hear the voice of the Al- mighty, saying, " Who is this that darkeneth coun- sel with words without knowledge ? Fear God, and keep his commandments ; for this is the whole duty ot man." CHAPTER II. Though Infidels profess to hold the doctrine of the Divine eX" Istencej yet they refuse or neglect all religious worship. In this feature of their character they are more inconsistent, and more irreligious too, than even pa- 20 JttODERN INFIDELITY. gan idolaters themselves, who evince great zeal and make many sacrifices in the service of their dumb idols. One would imagine, that if there be one great first cause, the Creator and upholder of all things, the benignant source of all the happiness which creatures in any part of the universe enjoy — one would imagine, I say, that if such a Being exist, he is entitled to the devout and spiritual worship of all his intelligent creatures. Such is the dictate even of unassisted reason, as has been demonstrated by a reference even to the rudest and most brutalized portions of the human race. How astounding then is the fact, that only in Christian countries can men be found denying the validity of stated worship to the Deity ; as if the only use to be made of revela- tion were to employ it for the horrid purpose of ob- literating all our natural feelings of reverence for his awful perfections! In the inspired volume we learn that " God is a spirit, and that they who wor- ship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth." This supposes the duty of worship, and prescribes the qualities by which it is to be distinguished. The language of those who know the divine character, and who possess a right spirit, will ever be, *' O come, let us sing unto the Lord ; let us make a joy- ful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. O MODERN INFIDELITY. 21 come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel be- fore the Lord our Maker ; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Men may boast as they please of their belief in one God, but if they do him no actual hom- age, if they have no stated seasons and places of de- votion, they are in a far worse condition than were those benighted Athenians whom Paul beheld pros- trate at an altar dedicated to '* the unknown God." It is the temper, the disposition of infidelity, no less than its preposterous creed, which distances it from the spirit of true worship. Devotion cannot grow in a soil on which the inexpressible levity of scepticism has cast its withering blight. Religious awe cannot be felt in a mind that has no sensible hold of God's moral perfections. Love to God, drawing the soul forth in repeated and habitual acts of grateful adora- tion, cannot dwell in a heart where worldly lusts and enmity against the moral government of the Most High are struggling for the mastery. The very same thing which led men of old to for- sake the worship of the only living and true God, and to betake themselves to the abominations of idol- atry, is that which banishes from every circle of in- fidels every thing like the semblance of religious homage to the Deity. Is it demanded what this said thing is ? I reply in the language of the apostle, " they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." They lost all delight in his holy character, and hence they 22 MODERN INFIDELITY* sought relief for their guiky feelings in the exercises of a religion which corresponded with the dictates of their own impure hearts. Deists are placed somewhat peculiarly. As they are found only where revelation has either complete- ly banished the grossness of idolatry, or where, at least, it has shed its benignant rays, they cannot for' shame revel in the impurities of heathenism ; but as they take no delight whatever in the character of that one God whom they profess to adore, they live in the habitual and avowed neglect of his worship. The ancestors of paganism forsook his worship, •• because they did not like to retain him in their thoughts ;" and for the same reason precisely, infi- delity has no temple, no altar, no sacrifice, no avow- ed, habitual, and well defined worship to that glori- ous Being, from the near contemplation of whose character it shrinks with instinctive dislike and dread. Could w^e see infidelity cultivating the spirit of prayer, laying aside its extreme and disgusting levi- ty, and evincing an anxiety to arrive at the true know- ledge of God, we should begin to hope on behalf of its unhappy victims ; but reckless as its advocates are of all devotion, and leaning as they do to their own understanding, and evincing an utter contempt for every thing sacred, we are compelled to look on them as in a condition peculiarly hopeless, and must say respecting them, " There is no fear of God befor?. their eyes." MODERN INFIDELITY. 23 CHAPTER III. ^ Brief survey of the Morality which Infidelity inctUeates and All who read the Bible attentively, whatever they may think of its divine origin, must be struck with the perfection of its moral precepts, and especially with the sublime and cogent reasons which it assigns for the performance of every duty which we owe both to God and man. That monster of wickedness, Thomas Paine, has said respecting the Bible, ** I feel for the honor of my Creator in having such a book called after his name." He must surely have meant, that he felt for himself, when he discovered in the Bible, if he ever read it, such an array of holy and benevolent precepts upon which it had been his habitual practice, during a long life, to trample with proud disdain ! The morality of the Bible is not the morality of mere decorum, the garnishing of the outward man, the " making clean the outside of the cup and platter ; " it is the morality of principle ; it is the morality of right disposition ; it is the morality of love to God and love to man. Infidelity says, " there is no merit or crime in intention ;" but Christianity says, that hatred is murder,* that secret lust is adultery,t and ♦ I John, 3 : 14, 15. t Matt. 27 : 28. 24 MODERN INFIDELITY. thai we must " love the Lord our God with all our heart, and strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves." It prohibits the resentment of injuries, and urges the forgiveness of enemies.* It tells us " to weep with them that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice." It enforces every relative duty by an appeal to motives equally tender and sublime,! and it demands a personal sanctity of manners, which ad- mits of no reserve, and leaves room for the indul- gence of no single habit of transgression .J If infidelity were from above, it would bear the marks of its celestial origin. God must be holy ; and a religion suited to his intelligent creatures ought to carry with it some resemblance to his mo- ral nature. Infidelity has no such resemblance in ei- ther theory or practice. In theory it is an apology for almost every crime that disgraces human nature ; and in the diflferent codes of its advocates every spe. cies of transgression is either defended or palliated. And what it is in theory, it is yet more abundantly in practice. Its leading characters have oeen worthless beyond expression. What were Herbert, and Hobbes, and Shaftesbury, and Woolston, and Tindal, and Bolingbroke, but so many notorious hypocrites, who, for a piece of paltry self-interest, professed to love and reverence Christianity, while they were all the while insidiously endeavoring to lower its credit in the • Rom. 12 : 19-21. t Eph. 5 : 26. 6 : 1 , 5-9. t Heb. 12 : 14. MODERN INFIDELITY. 25 world ? In the long and gloomy catalogue of human delinquents, where shall we find two miscreants such as Rochester and Wharton ? They were indeed a reproach to our common nature. Morgan's dishon- est quotation of Scripture to serve a purpose, and his miserable cant in professing himself to be a Chris- tian, notwithstanding his amazing zeal to subvert all the peculiarities of revealed religion, speak volumes as to his notions of morality. Hume, the most dis- honest and prejudiced of all historians,* died as a fool dieth, cracking vulgar jokes with some of his unhappy companions. Voltaire so little regarded truth, that, in speaking in his " Ignorant Philoso- pher " of the tolerative spirit of the ancient Romans, he observes, " they never persecuted a single philo- sopher for his opinions, from the time of Romulus till the popes got possession of their power.*' In this pas- sage a veil is drawn over the massacre of thousands and tens of thousands of unoffending Christians. In like manner this boasted friend of liberty and reason, when he describes the expatriation or cruel death of one million of Frehch Protestants, speaks of them as " weak and obstinate menP As these Protestants not being infidels, were stripped of all claim to phi- losophy, we suppose it was a small matter to mur- der such vulgar persons in cold blood ! We find this * How can the guardians of the rising generation still leave them to the guidance of such a sycophant in politics, and such a sceptic in religion ! Counsels to Y. Men. 3 26 MODERN INFIDELITY. same champion of infidelity requesting his friend D'Alembert to tell for him a direct lie, by denying that he was the author of the " Philosophical Dic- tionary." His friend told the lie for him ; and he has himself well described his own character in the fol- lowing words : " Monsieur Abb6, I must be read, no matter whether lam believed or not." Voltaire, af- ter all his infidelity, being threatened by the autho- rities, died professedly a Catholic. Rousseau was profligate and immoral from his youth up. " I have been a rogue," says he, " and am so still sometimes, for trifles which I had rather take than ask for." He abjured Protestantism, and became a Catholic ; "for which," says he, " in re- turn, I was to receive subsistence ; but," he adds, " from this interested conversion nothing remained but the remembrance of my having been both a dupe and an apostate." After this, settling at Geneva, and finding that there he was denied the rights of Chris- tian citizens, he renounced popery and conformed to the religion of the state. The life of this wretched man was one continued and uninterrupted scene of hypocrisy, fornication, seduction, base intrigue, and withal, constant violation of the rules of honesty. What he said of one of the events of horror which marked his career may be applied, with too much truth, to his whole history — " Guilty without re- morse, I soon became so without measure." MODERN INFIDELITY. 27 CHAPTER IV. The Practical effects of Infidelity. It is no wonder surely that such a race of men should have prepared the minds of their disciples for deeds of unusual atrocity. In France a fit theatre presented itself for the exhibition of infidelity in its own native colors. There gross superstition on the one hand, and arbitrary government on the other, led thousands virtuously to sigh for national deliver- ance. With loud professions of love of liberty and self-devoted patriotism, infidelity rushed into the field of conflict ; but though she professed to be an angel of mercy, she soon proved herself to be but a fiend of perdition. There was no deed of horror which she did not perpetrate. Within her destructive sphere life and property ceased to have any value attached to them. The most virtuous citizens fell victims to her insatiable cruelty. Personal aggrandizement became the sole object of her ambition ; and, under the fair pretence of philosophy, of enlightened policy, and of regard to the public weal, a whole nation was laid in ruins, every public institution was plun- dered, the state was sunk in anarchy and confusion, deeds of blood too shocking to describe were perpe- trated, and the church herself, already sufficiently degraded, was made the organ of propagating blas- phemies the most hideous against the God of hea- 28 MODERN INFIDELITY. ven. " Infidelity," observes a spirited and able chron icier of these events, (Judge Rush,) " having got pos- session of the power of the state, every nerve was exerted to efface from the mind all ideas of religion and morality. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, or a future state of rewards and punish- ments, so essential to the preservation of order in so- ciety, and to the prevention of crimes, was publicly ridiculed, and the people were taught to believe that death was an everlasting sleep, " They ordered the words ' Temple of Reason ' to be inscribed on the churches, in contempt of the doctrine of revelation. Atheistical and licentious ho- milies were published in the churches, instead of the old service ; and a ludicrous imitation of the Greek mythology exhibited under the title of ' The Reli- gion of Reason.' Nay, they went so far as to dress up, with the most fantastic decorations, a common strumpet, w^hom they blasphemously styled ' The Goddess of Reason,' and who was carried to church on the shoulders of some jacobins selected for the purpose, escorted by the national guards and the con- stituted authorities. When they got to the church, the strumpet was placed on the altar erected for the pur- pose, and harangued the people, who, in return, pro- fessed the deepest adoration of her, and sung the Car- magnole and other songs by way of worshiping her. This horrid scene (almost too horrible to relate) was concluded by burning the prayer-book, confessional. MODERN INFIDELITY. 29 and every thing appropriated to the use of public worship ; numbers, in the meantime, danced round the flames with every appearance of frantic and in- fernal mirth." I might also notice the fiend-like ma- lignity which was directed against the institution of the Sabbath, during the reign of terror in France, as if the sole design of that desperate faction was not only to efface all reverence for the Deity from the public mind, but also to destroy every memorial of an intelligent creature's obligation to him, and every symbol of the existence of a moral government. Let revolutionary and infidel France teach man- kind, by one great and affecting lesson, what the en- emies of revelation can do to heighten the standard of national morals, and to render inviolable the per- sons and properties of men. With the page of their ' own infamous history before them, let sceptics of every school blush to talk of the benefits which their system is fitted to confer on the human race. And let them remember, that the grand reason why the prevalence of their principles has ever issued in the disruption of every social and moral tie, has been be- cause there was " no fear of God before their eyes." 30 MODERN INFIDELITY. CHAPTER V. A coTUrasted view of Infidelity and Christianity* From such scenes as these, how delightful to turn to the pure, and mild, and benignant genius of Chris- tianity ! Were her golden rule, "as ye would that * The Bishop of Calcutta, in his twenty-second lecture on the " Evidences of Christianity)" has finely contrasted the character of Voltaire with that of the Hon. Robeit Boyle, ** Now contrast," says he, " with this character, any of the eminent Christians that adorned their own country and Eu- rope about the same period. Take the Hon. Robert Boyle, of whom it is difficult to say whether his piety as a Christian, or his fame as a philosopher, was most remarkable. Consider 'the compass of his mind, the solidity of his judgment, the fertility of his pen, the purity of his morals, the amiableness of his temper, his beneficence to the poor and distressed, his uniform friendships, his conscientious aim at truth in all his pursuits and determinations. At an early age he examined the question of the Christian religion to the bottom, on occa- sion of some distracting doubts which assaulted his mind. Confirmed in the truth of Christianity, his whole life was a comment on his sincerity. He was admitted to certain se* cret meetings before he had reached mature years ; but they ^\ere graced and enlightened associations for canvassing subjects of natural philosophy, at a time when the civil war suspended all academical studies, and they led to the forma- tion of the Royal Society, one of the noblest establishments of his country. His disinterestedness and humility were such that he refused the provostship of Eaton and the honors of a peerage, that he might devote his talents, and time, and no- MODERN INFIDELITY. 31 men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," the universal law of all the families and nations un- der heaven, how would it change the face of society < ble fortune to works of public utility and benevolence. Hi3 uniform regard to truth made him the example and admira- tion of his age. His tenderness of conscience led him to de- cline the most honorable office in the scientific world, be- cause he doubted about the oaths prescribed, and his reve- rence for the glorious Creator induced him to pause when- ever he pronounced his name. From such a student we may expect truth. From such a philosopher we receive, with un- mixed pleasure, A Treatise of the high veneration which merits intellect owes to God ;" or a discourse " On greatness of mind promoted by Christianity J" The same excellent author furnishes the following admi- rable contrasts : "Contrast, in point of mere benevolence, the lives and de- portment of such an infidel as Rousseau, and such a Christian as Doddridge ; the one all pride, selfishness, fury, caprice, rage, gross sensuality ; casting about firebrands and death; professing no rule of morals but his feelings, abusing the finest powers to the dissemination, not merely of objections against Christianity, but of the most licentious and profligate principles ; — Doddridge, all purity, mildness, meekness, and love, ardent in his good will to man, the friend and counsel- lor of the sorrowful ; regular, calm, consistent ; dispensing peace and truth by his labors and by his writings: living, not for himself, but for the common good, to which he sacrificed his health, and even life. " Or contrast such a man as Volney with Swartz. They both visit distant lands ; they are active and indefatigable in their pursuits ; thy acquire celebrity, and communicate re- spectively a certain impulse to their widened circles ; but the 32 MODERN INFIDELITY. how would it stem the torrent of pride, ambition, and vain glory ! how would it cause wars and rumors of wars to cease to the very ends of the earth ! how would It unite the whole family of man in one com- mon bond of brotherhood ! how would it banish in- justice, cruelty, oppression, and licentiousness from the earth ! In proportion as Christian principles have triumphedjin that same proportion immorality has dis- appeared, and all social virtues have been practiced ; and when it is universal, which we are assured it will be, it will bring moral health along with it to all the dwellers upon earth. '• Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity," said the immortal Washing- ton, " religion and morality are indispensable sup- one, jaundiced by infidelity, the sport of passion and caprice, lost to all argument and right feeling, comes home to diffuse the poison of unbelief, to be a misery to himself, the plague and disturber of his country, the dark calumniator of the Christian faith. The other remains far from his native land to preach the peaceful doctrine of the Gospel on the shores of India; he becomes the friend and brother of those whom he had never seen, and only heard of as fellow-creatures ; he diffuses blessings for half a century ; he insures the admira- tion of the heathen prince near whom he resides ; he be- comes the mediator between contending tribes and nations ; he establishes a repditation for purity, integrity, disinte- restedness, meekness, which compel all around to respect and love him ; he forms churches ; he instructs children ; he disperses the seeds of charity and truth ; he is the model of all the virtues he enjoins." MODERN INFIDELITY. 33 ports In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert the great pillars of human happiness, those firmest props of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in the courts of justice ? And let us with caution in- dulge the supposition that morality can be maintain- ed without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of a pe- culiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." In a happier age, fast approaching, Christianity will dictate rules of right government ; it will estab- lish equitable principles of national commerce; it will teach kings and senates how to rule in wusdom and love ; it will remove the great barriers to na- tional tranquillity and national prosperity out of the way, by constituting the " people all righteous," and setting up the authority of God as the best possible support of laws which accord with his word. Infidelity can dream of no such renovation. Its past steps may be traced in blood and anarchy ; and the prospect which stretches before it is scarcely 34 MODERN INFIDELITY. less appalling. It has no link whereby to bind man to man, because it severs man from his Maker. It is essentially heartless and cruel. It rules without God, and would exclude him from his own world, and notning awaits it but the exposure and in- famy which must sooner or later overtake all sys- tems of evil. O what a world were this, if all men were infi- dels ! Then, indeed, would they soon destroy them- selves. Their vices would be such as to annihilate all the social sympathies, and to cause the various elements of society to rush together in wild confu- sion and ruin. What cause of congratulation is it, that infidelity, in its more direct forms, has so little power in this country to mould our national institutions ! No one who marks the zeal and malignity of our infidel press, can doubt, for a moment, what would be the fate of every honest and virtuous family, if infidels could, by any means, acquire ascendancy. There is a great deal of secret and avowed infidelity in the land ; but, blessed be God, our property, our do- mestic peace, our national security are not as yet menaced by the impugners of revelation. It is at the same time a mournful consideration, that so many of the laboring classes of the commu- nity are vitiated by the wretched dogmas of this school. It is a distinct characteristic of modern in- fidelity, that it aims to subvert the hopes of the poor. MODERN INFIDELITY. 35 The writings of Mr. Paine, combined with other circumstances, have led to this feature in its malig- nant history. The libertinism of sceptics, till of late years, was regarded as the exclusive privilege ot the educated, the intellectual, and the distinguished portion of mankind. Now it is far otherwise; the pestilence has spread itself, and operatives, in every department of trade, are plied by the apostles of in- fidelity, who, not content with destroying the poor man's hopes of immortality, set themselves to lower all his notions of moral obligation, to vitiate all his social habits, to foster in him the spirit of rebellion against all constituted authority, and thus, as it were, to deck their victim for the day of sacrifice. I firmly believe that in London alone, to say nothing of other large populations, there are thousands and tens of thousands lost to industry, to health, to re- putation, and to peace, outcasts from society, and terrors to the community, who might trace th^ utter wreck of their character to their association with companions of infidel sentiments, and to their fami- liarity with the infidel press. It has been my lot as a Christian minister, more than once to confirm these affecting statements by the unequivocal avow- als of infidels themselves, in the last periods of hu- man existence, and also by witnessing in some, once promising characters, the baneful effects arising from the adoption of infidel opinions. 86 MODERN INFIDELITY. CHAPTER VI. An affectionate appeal to those who have been enta/nglcd in th/i snares of Infidelity. When I reflect how many there are whose faith in Christianity has heen shaken, and whose minds have fallen a prey to the wiles of scepticism ; and, moreover, when I call to remembrance that so many of the young and promising rank among the victims of this moral contagion, I cannot but feel an earnest desire to become an instrument of good to a portion of my fellow-creatures, at once so interesting and so much exposed. O that God would strengthen me to speak a word to unhappy and deluded sceptics 1 With all the zeal for their salvation to which I can possibly give utterance, would I make my appeal to their judgments and consciences. Let me bespeak their candor. I am conscious of no motive but a desire to honor God, and to save their souls. Re- garding them as the victims of fatal error, I am de- voutly anxious to see them extricated from it. Their creed I hold to be alike gloomy and pernicious, and I would show them a more excellent way, and would introduce them, with a bounding heart, into the light and liberty of Christianity. What, then, let me ask, has led you to reject Christianity ? Have you carefully examined it, and MODERN INFIDELITY. 37 found its evidence defective ? If so, where does the difficulty press ? If you are really perplexed, ask counsel of some enlightened Christian, and he will leadily aid you in disposing of the doubts and mis- givings of a mind really sincere. I believe a doubt- ing man may be sincere. There are many volumes suited to you^ state, and which you might read with the greatest possible advantage. Let me particularly recommend to your attentive perusal, " The Gospel its own Witness," by the late Rev. Andrew Fuller ; " The Evidences of Christianity," by Dr. Paley ; "A Short Method with Deists," by Leslie; Dr. Chalmers' work on " The Christian Revelation," and a work entitled " A Treatise on the Nature and Causes of Doubt in Religious Questions." But let me deal honestly with you, as your friend. Have you all this supposed difficulty about the evi- dence and the truth of Christianity? Or is your hesitancy of a very different order ? Do you feel a repugnance to the holy requirements of Christianity, and a consequent dread of the judgments which it threatens ? And does this prompt in you the bane- ful wish, " O that it might not be true ?" Remember what Rochester said, " A bad life is the only grand objection to this book ;" laying his hand'emphatical- ly on the Bible. Has not this been very much the case with you? You have fallen into sinful courses j you have yielded to the ways of the world ; you have gone with a multitude to do evil ; you have CouDsels to Y. Men. ^ 3o MODERN INFIDELITY. forsaken your better fellowships ; you have learned to spend your Sabbaths in pleasure, and you have gradually become more and more careless. In this state you have been very unhappy at times ; you have thought, well, " What if, after all, the Bible be true ! What if, after all, the wicked shall be turned into hell !" At this juncture, some one further ad- vanced in scepticism than yourself has aided you in shaking off the galling yoke of conscience. He has put some infidel publication into your hand; you have read it; it has fallen in with your previous wishes and habits ; you have said, "This is the very thing I wanted ;" and you have, at last, learned to revile the Bible, to set light by its hopes, and to talk slanderously of its professors. Come now, my friend, and let us reason together. Look back on the process. Why did you so readily drink in the poison contained in the infidel volume ? Why ? Because you were in a state of mind very much the opposite of that which the Bible demands. But what have you found, my friend, in the regions of scepticism ? You have relinquished the hopes of Christianity by Christ Jesus. What have you ob* tained in their place ? Amidst all your acquirements, have you found peace of mind ? Will your present character and your present religion sustain you in a dying hour? Multitudes of infidels have found their creed, at death, insufficient to meet the awful catastrophe. Not a single instance can be produced, MODERN INFIDELITY. 39 in which a believer in revelation was terrified or dismayed because he had been a Christian, Many- have been distressed on account of the defective evi- dence of their Christianity, but none on account of their being Christians. Does it never occur to you, that if Christianity be true, you are undone ? — that if it be false, he who believes it can suffer no in- jury?* Who, let me ask you, are your compa- nions ? What are your pursuits ? and what your hopes ? I deeply feel for you, while I greatly blame you. You may have been inadequately instructed ; you may have seen bad examples ; you may have witnessed great inconsistencies in some of the pro- fessors of religion. Granting, however, that all this may have been the case, still the interests of the soul are a personal concern. No man can stand in your place when you die. I beseech you, then, to arouse yourself from that lethargy into which sin and unbelief, acting and reacting, have conjointly sunk you. Ask yourself this question, " What makes me a * " Indisputably," said Lord Byron, in a letter sent by him to the late Mrs. Sheppard, " the firm believers in the Gos- pel have a great advantage over all others, for this simple reason — that if true, they will have their reward hereafter ; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappointment, since (at the worst, for them) ' out of nothing, nothing can arise/ — ^not even sorrow. " 40 MODERN INFIDELITY. sceptic ? Is it because I have examined for myself, and know the Gospel to be a fable ? or is it because I desire that it may be one T' And why should you desire this ? If Christianity does not meet your case, no other system can. Infidelity has not met your case ; it has not awakened hope ; it has not allayed despair ; it has not ministered peace. No : it has only stupified a conscience which must yet awake ; it has only taught you to put the evil day far away ; it has only blinded you for a time to the dread pros- pects of a future and impending eternity. Why, I ask again, should you wish that Christi- anity may not be true ? Is it because you feel your- self guilty, and shrink from the condemnation which it threatens ? Well might you thus shrink if it did not reveal a remedy, as well as disclose a disease, and point out its consequences. You are guilty, yea, ten thousand times more guilty than you ever ima- gined yourself to be ; but what I maintain is, that if you turn aw^ay the eye of faith from that great sa- crifice which Christianity reveals, you must sink for ever beneath the pressure of your guilt, and with this superadded horror, that you perish at the thresh- hold of mercy. Is it because you do not love the pure and holy demands of Christianity, that you turn away from it? Well; but is not this, its pure character, the proof of its celestial origin ? and if so, will it avail you to reject it ? Will the holy life it requires be less MODERN INFIDELITY. 41 obligatory because you determine not to pursue it ? Will the great Judge excuse you at last because you loved your sins more than his revealed will ? Besides, what is to root out unholy inclinations, to correct depraved habits, to superinduce devotion, and to raise the soul to God ? Is it not divine meditor tion on the blessed word ? Here is that consecrated fountain which, by the grace of God, shall quench your thirst for sin. Here you may read of " the new. heart" till you know, by experience, what it is. Here is a divine Deliverer, whose " name is called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins." Here is a divine Sanctifier, who can " create within you a clean heart, and renew within you a right spirit." One word more, and I have done. Ask God to teach you. Ask him, if the Bible be from him, to enable you to come to the belief of it. Ask him to re- move your blindness, to allay your prejudices, and, above all, to prevent any sinful habit from giving a bias to your decision. Make no delay in this work. If you die a stranger to the hopes of Christianity, it had been better for you that you had never been born ! 4* PART SECOND. THE TRUTH AND EXCELLENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHAPTER I. TVte coTTvparative credit due to the conclusions of Sceptics and Christians, *'F0R WE HAVE NOT BELIEVED CUNNINGLY DE- VISED FABLES." Such, at least, is the Christian's estimate of the stability of his own hopes ; and such is the settled conviction of every sincere friend of re- vealed truth. When the moral character and habits of those who profess their belief in Christianity is ta- ken into account, there can be no hesitation in ad- mitting that they are strictly honest in the avowal of their faith, and that they do not affect to repose on the truth of a system which, after all, they secretly disbelieve. That there are many false pretenders to the iaith of Christ is readily conceded ; but after the names of all such have been struck off from the list of its genuine friends, there will yet remain a multi- tude of honest men, far above all suspicion, who, hi MODERN INFIDELITY. 43 life, and at death, have professed their sincere and heart-felt belief in the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. To impugn their integrity, as men of veracity, would be alike absurd and unjust. They are, beyond doubt, entitled to all credit for sincerity, when, with the Bi- ble in their hands, they exclaim, " We have not fol- lowed cunningly devised fables." The great question then is, are they mistaken in the estimate which they have formed of the Bible ? Are they under the influence of delusion, though they fondly believe that^they have embraced the truth of God ? In deciding such inquiries as these, several considerations naturally occur to the mind, irrespective even of the direct evidences of the Chris- tian revelation. What, then, has been the amount of intellectual qualification possessed by Christians for investiga- ting the truth or falsehood of their hopes ? It may be true, indeed, that the mass of those who have em- braced the Gospel have been little elevated, in point of mind, above any other equal portion of the hu- man race ; although it cannot be denied, that in Christian countries the common people are much superior to their fellows in heathen lands. But be this as it may, can any one affirm that among the list of Christian advocates there are not to be found multitudes of men in the highest degree qua.- lified to decide upon any question of evidence submit- ted to their notice ? Will it be pretended that imbe- 44 MODERN INFIDELITY. cility of intellect produced the faith of such men as Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Sir Matthew Hale, the Hon. Robert Boyle, Bishop Butler, Dr. Watts, Mr. Wilberforce, Dr. Paley, Dr. Beattie, Dr. Chal- mers, and Robert Hall. Such a pretence on the part of any infidel would be equally fatal to his sense and candor. In grasp of mind, in depth of erudition, in diversity and extent of science, the pledged advocates of the Gospel have had no rivals in the republic of letters, or in the ranks of scepticism.* All who know * The following eloquent passage, from a speech of the late Lord Erskine, delivered by him in the Court of King's Bench, on occasion of a prosecution for the publication of Pains's '*Age of Reason," may not be unacceptable, as tending to illustrate the position, that superiority of intellect has been enlisted on the side of Christianity. " It seems, gentlemen," said his lordship, " this is an age of reason ; and the time and the person are at last arrived, that are to dissipate the errors which have overspread the past generation of ignorance. The believers in Christianity are many, but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason, and superior rea- son may, therefore, dictate to the weak. " In running the mind along the list of sincere and de- vout Christians, I cannot help lamenting that Newton had not lived to this day, to have had his shallowness filled up with the new flood of light. " But the subject is too awful for irony ; I will speak plains ly and directly. Newton was a Christian ! Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by Nature upon our finite conceptions. Newton ! whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy j MODERN INFIDELITY 45 any thing of the state of facts must concede this point, that the sublimest exercise of reason is not incom- not those visionary and arrogant presumptions which too of- ten usurp its name, but philosophy, resting upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie. Neioton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers o^the crea- tion, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists. " But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, the errors which a minuter in- vestigation of the created things on this earth might have taught him of the essence of his Creator. " What, then, shall be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the brute inanimate substances which the foot treads on 1 Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to ' look through Nature up to Nature'? God.' Yet, the result of all his contemplation was, the mos* confirmed and devout belief of all which the other held ir contempt, as despicable and driveling superstition. " But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the foundations of human judgment, and the structure of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth. " Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who was, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, a Christian. Mr. Locke, whose ofiice was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination ; putting a rein, besides, upon false opinion, by practical rules for the con- duct of human judgment. "But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived in 46 MODERN INFIDELITY. patible with the most profound deference to the truth and excellence of revelation. It is easy for some in- their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind ! "Gentlemen ! in the place where we now sit to adminis- ter the justice of this great country, above a century ago, the never-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided ; whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reeison, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits in man — administering human justice with a wis- dom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of Christian dispensation, which has been, and will be in all ages, a sub- ject of the highest reverence and admiration. * ' But it is said by the author, that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world^ and may easily be detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of the heathen. " Did Milton understand those mythologies! was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world 1 No ; they were the subject of his immortal song ; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of memory, rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order, as the illustration of that exalted faith, the unquestionable source of that fervid geni- us, which cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of man. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed Savior (which this work blasphemes in words so wholly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court of justice, that I dare not, and will not, give them utterance) Milton made the grand conclusion of the ' Paradise Lost,' the rest from his finished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation^ and glory of the world. * A virgin is His mother, but his eire . * The Power of the Most High ; he shall asceiid 'The tbroue hereditary, and bound Hisreigu * With earth's wide bounds, His glory with the heavens ' " MODERN INFIDELITY. 47 fidel demagogue to vaunt himself of his great wis- dom and learning before an ignorant and vicious as- sembly ; but let the entire history of the Christian era be appealed to as the proof, that the choicest spirits in each age, since the days of the apostles, have been the professed adherents of the Gospel. Christianity, then, has not been subjected to the humiliation of being only embraced by the weak and ignorant of mankind; it has called forth the plaudits of the greatest men that ever lived, and has done more by its own simple energy to augment the genius and to multiply the acquirements of the race, than all other systems of religion and all other causes combined. But I ask again, what have been the moral quali- fications possessed by Christians to enable them to decide upon the validity of their own hopes ? Have they been men in genera] whose perceptions have been blunted and vitiated by an irregular and profli- gate life? or has not the very reverse of this been the case? If two persons of equal intellect, but of extremely different moral habits, — the one devout, consistent, benevolent ; and the other proud, self-im- portant, devoted to pleasure, — should set themselves to ascertain the truth or falsehood of any system as- suming to be a revelation from God — which of the two parties might be expected to be the more suc- cessful in the investigation, provided that the assumed revelation were genuine ? It cannot surely be denied 48 MODERN INFIDELITY. that the advantages in favor of the man of correct moral feeling and habit would be immense. Nor can it be maintained by any one in possession of sound reason, that a wrong state of mind and character will not materially influence the decision of the under- standing, in reference to moral truth. Upon this prin- ciple it is that we enter our earnest protest against the flimsy dogma of modern infidelity, that belief is, in all cases, a thing strictly involuntary. On the con- trary, we submit, that in no case where belief is claimed on behalf of moral truth, can it be yielded in a state of mind fairly entitled to the appellation involuntary. That can never be involuntary which may either be prompted or retarded by the state of disposition. Nothing is more obvious than that men may blind themselves to the light of truth, and stum- ble, as in the dark at noon day. But who would say that that blindness is involuntary Avhich is the resuh of man's loving darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil ? Upon a fuU and impartial view of the moral cha- racter and habits of those who have truly embraced Christianity, we are disposed to abide by the conclu- sion, that their advantages for reaching truth have been astonishingly great. Compared with the lead- ing advocates of Deism, they stand on a lofty emi- nence, from which, with a vision unclouded by the mists of prejudice and crime, they can discern the moral beauty and loveliness of that fair land which MODERN INFIDELITY. 49 opens to their view in the territory of revealed truth.* If, then, the intellectual advantages of the Chris- tian are fully equal to those of the infidel, and if his moral advantages are far superior, to what conclusion must such a fact conduct us 1 Why, to this, that the Christian is much more likely to be right in embrac- ing the Gospel, than the sceptic is in rejecting it. His judgment is not less to be respected, and his dis- positions and habits are more in accordance with the dictates of what even natural conscience and pure deism would pronounce to be right. And do we on this account urge men to receive Christianity? By no means. All we demand is, that they will give it a fair hearing, and that they will look on it with that respect which will dispose them to weigh well its divine evidence, and not rashly to dash from their parched lips the cup of salvation. We ask not that men should believe because others have believed ; but that they would honestly inquire whether believ- ers or sceptics are most worthy of imitation. The careful investigation of this question Avill generate a state of mind favorable to the claims of revelation, and will prompt the reasonable desire that the Gospel may be true. I may here premise, that no man was ever in ear- ♦ *' Religion cannot exist," said Sir Walter Scott, " where immorality prevails, anymore than a light can burn where the air is corrupted."— Z^i/e of Napoleon, vol. i. p. 54. Counsels to Y. Men. 5 50 MODERN INFIDELITY. nest to find out the truth of Christianity, who did not make conscience of imploring God's direction and assistance in an inquiry upon which so much de- pends. If Christianity he not a. revelation from God, then has none ever been vouchsafed to the children of men ; and if none has ever been vouchsafed, then are the whole race sunk in gross darkness as to the character of God and the destinies of futurity. If Christianity be a revelation from God, then is it trea- son against Heaven to reject its evidence, or to set light by thB remedy which it prescribes for our fal- len and guilty nature. Under these circumstances, how necessary is it to ask of God that he would lead us, his erring children, into all truth, and that he would so far banish every unholy prejudice that our minds may be open to receive whatever bears upon it the stamp of a celestial origin. It is a mournful fact, that this spirit of devotion seems an utter stranger to almost all writers of the sceptical class. They boast of their deism, and neglect one of its first and simplest lessons, viz. the duty of an intelligent, but feeble and dependent creature, seeking counsel of the great and merciful Being who formed him. MODERN INFIDELITY. 51 CHAPTER II. ne Evidence of Christianity admits of being brought home individually, with convincing power , to every man^s bosom. It is never to be forgotten that those who are called to examine the divine pretensions of Chris- tianity are the very persons interested in its com- munications. To man it distinctly makes its appeal, and in him it proposes to effect that mighty renova- tion of v^^hich it speaks. Should it be true, then, to its own assumed character, it will undoubtedly ve- rify its several claims in the personal consciousness of all its recipients. I choose to begin here, because I am satisfied that no man can sit down to investi- gate the truth of his Bible, who does not stand in need of light on the subjects of which it treats. Every man's conscience may suggest to him that he has offended against God, that he has violated, in innu- merable instances, his own sense of right and wrong, and that there may be some fearful retribution awaiting transgressors in another and unknown state of existence. But whatever reason may surmise on these subjects, she has no balm with which to soothe an anguished conscience, no system of propitiation by which to relieve a guilty and foreboding mind, no mediator between the offended Majesty of Heaven and his erring creatures. It is Christianity alone d2 MODERN INFIDELITY. which opens up a door of hope to an apostate race ; every thing besides is utter conjecture. Infidels may boast of the composure and satisfaction they feel in contemplating the issues of the present life; but their exemption from anxious dread is but one in- stance out of many in which the voice of conscience is silenced by that spirit of utter and reckless scep- ticism, which on the one hand rejects a mass of well-authenticated evidence, and on the other pro- fesses firm belief and unshaken confidence in its own dogmas, without so much as a tittle of proof to support them. The man, then, who examines Christianity in a right spirit, may expect to perceive, in its intimate bearing on his own case, that it is of God. U he is in that state of mind which is suitable to a rational creature anxious to know the will of God, he will find in Christianity what he can discover no where else. Is he conscious of sin ? It reveals to him its true character, traces it to its source, and points to its consequences. Is he tlie subject of legitimate dread and apprehension in prospect of standing be- fore an offended God ? It tells him how his guilt may be efTectually removed, and how the peace of an accusing conscience may be restored. Is he op- pressed whenever he thinks of the divine purity, and contrasts it with a nature ever prone to evil ? It proposes to subject him to a healing and remedial process, by which moral health is to be restored to MODERN INFIDELITY. 63- his diseased soul, and by which he is to be taught to delight in God, and to aspijre after his likeness. Is he mournfully sensible of the fact, that " all is vanity and vexation of spirit," and that nothing un- der the sun can satisfy the desire of a mind panting after immortality ? It opens up to his view sources of never-ending delight, it brings him to the very fountain of all happiness, it shows him how his fondest expectations may be realized, it tells him how to delight in God, and how to draw near in accept- able worship to him whom angels adore, and before whom the spirits of darkness flee in terror and dismay. It becomes every man who sets himself to the task of examining Christianity, to fix his attention on the following momentous inquiry : — " Is this professed revelation adapted to my actual necessi- ties ? to my fear and hopes ? to the circumstances by which I am surrounded ? and to the prospects which stretch before me^" If, upon minute inquiry, it is found to be thus adapted to our fallen state, it will surely carry along with it a striking demonstra- tion of its divine origin ; and if, upon actual experi- ment, we find that the reception of Christianity al- lays our guilty fears, gives peace to our troubled consciences, quenches the thirst of sin, inspires the hope of immortality, supplies motives for patient endurance, and sheds the lustre of moral loveliness and purity over the character in whom it dwells, 5* 64 MODERN INFIDELITY. then may we assure ourselves of the source whence It sprung, and then may we enter, with a full heart, into the meaning of the beloved disciple v/hen he says, *' He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself" *• I think," said the good and great Richard Bax- ter, " that in the hearing and reading of the Bible, God's Spirit often so concurreth, as that the will it- self should be touched with an internal gust and sa- vor of the goodness contained in the doctrine, and at the same time the understanding with an internal irradiation, which breeds such a certain apprehen- sion of the verity of it, as nature gives men of na- tural principles. And I am persuaded that this, in- creased by more experience and love, doth hold most Christians faster to Christ than naked reason- ings could do. And were it not for this, unlearned, ignorant persons were still in danger of apostacy by every subtle caviller that assaults them. And I be- lieve that all true Christians have this kind of inter- nal knowledge from a suitableness of the truth and goodness of the Gospel to their now quickened, il- luminated, and sanctified souls." . Let no one venture to reject Christianity, then, who has never made it the subject of his intense re- gard, in connection with the exigencies which press upon his own condition and prospects. It can be but ill understood by the man who has never looked at it in its adaptation to his own case. It is an indivi- MODERN INFIDELITY. 55 dual, as well as a general remedy ; and the true study of Christianity is the examination of its coin- cidence with the wants and wishes, the hopes and fears, which press upon every son and daughter of Adam. For the want of this close inspection of the individual aim of Christianity, it is to be feared that thousands either reject it, or are utterly indifferent to it. But how contrary is all this to the spirit of true science, which rejects nothing, and admits no- thing, but upon actual experiment. Let Christianity be fairly put to the test ; let it be taken home with unhesitating confidence to the heart ; let its divine remedies be applied to the dis- tempered mind ; let its proffered influence be im- plored ; let its true character as a restorative system be fully and impartially tried, and then, should it after all fail to impart peace, to heal the malady of the soul, to answer its own professed designs, let it be held up to that obloquy which it deserves. But where is the man who ever betook himself to Christianity without finding it to be the refuge of his weary mind ? Who could ever, upon actual trial, charge it with a lack of faithfulness to its own pretensions? Who ever embraced its animating hopes without finding them productive of peace, and purity, and joy ? Who ever became a true Chris- tian without feeling the self-evidencing power of the Gospel ? Who ever believed on the Son of God without having proof, in his own mind, that the 56 MODERN INFIDELITY. Bible is true ? Who ever made actual trial of Christianity without finding it to be the " wisdom of God/ and the power of God," to the salvation of his soul ? Who ever knew the truth as it is in Jesus without being made free by it from the thral- dom of sin and the bondage of corruption? The man who is a genuine believer, is as fully conscious as he is of existence, that Christianity is no cunning- ly devised fable. It has established its throne in the deep-seated convictions of his heart. He has felt the transformation it has wrought: "old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become new." His entire character has been favorably affected by it. Upon his once gloomy path it has shed the light of immortality ; it has taught him to " rejoice even in tribulation ;" it has changed all the aspects of life, by throwing over them the hues of eternity ; it has conferred on him a reality of happiness which the whole creation had no power of imparting. In his own person he beholds a monument of the truth and excellence of Christianity, which forbids him for ever to doubt. By other evidences, indeed, his faith is confirmed ; but in his peace of mind, in that " hope which is full of immortality," and in the heavenward bearing of his once earthly character, he is enabled to feel that Christianity is no " cunningly devised fable." Having briefly looked at what may be regarded as the experimental evidence which Christianity is MODERN INFIDELITY. W capable of planting in every man's bosom, we may now advance to other parts ot this momentous subject. CHAPTER III. Brief survey of the branches of Evidence which may be urged upon those who have not yielded their minds to tJie divine authority aJhd transforming power of the Gospel. Some of those evidences may be traced in the in- ternal character of Christianity itself, and others in those outward attestations by which Divine Provi- dence has demonstrated the fact of its celestial ori- gin. As I am fully convinced of the self-verifying power of the religion of Jesus Christ, I think it well to begin with the first of these branches of evidence, that no one may, with truth, imagine that we shrink from a thorough investigation of the in- ternal structure and actual tendencies of our Holy Faith.* * I do not think, judging from the manner in which infi- dels themselves have written, that the most successful me- thod of assailing them is to begin with a discussion of the externul evidence of the Gospel. From their general igno- rance of the character of revelation itself, and from its marked adaptation, when examined, to produce conviction of its divine origin, I rather hesitate as to the propriety of 68 ittODKRN INFIDELITY. SECTION I. The l7Uernal Evidence of Christianity. When the su{)ject of internal evidence has at any time deeply engaged my thoughts, I have proposed to myself the following question : — " What is the most wonderful, and at the same time the most un- accountable, object which presents itself to our no- tice in a careful perusal of the New Testament Scriptures ?" This question has always drawn forth one simple answer — the character of Jesus of Na- zareth. In examining the internal evidence of Christianity, look — 1. At the moral character of its Great Founder. Let that character be fairly investigated, and I am greatly mist'aken if it will not breed a conviction that Christianity must be from heaven. That such a person lived, and suffered, and died in the land of Judea, is admitted equally by heathen and Jewish demanding the belief of a sceptic upon the mere presentation of its external credentials. Besides, there is scarcely any ob- ject to be achieved by this mode of procedure, which is net •equally well answered by the method of arguing the truth of Scripture from an examination of its own contents. As- suredly the divine authority of the heavenly messengers may be verified as much by what they say, as by any other circumstance whatsoever ; and if the real power of convic- tion lies in their message, it seems but right to try its - efficacy. MODERN INFIDELITY. 59 writers, and requires no formal proof, therefore, to establish the fact. Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger, place beyond all reasonable doubt the fact of his existence, and the period of his life, ministry, and death. But what an object of astonishment and wonder do we behold in " the man Christ Jesus !" Trace the son of Mary and Joseph from the manger at Bethlehem to the cross on Calvary, and what a combination do you witness of all that is innocent, and pure, and benevolent ! Here is wisdom the most profound, in the absence of all the ordinary means of acquiring it. Here is a Being in whom all the social and relative affections are not only seen to advantage, but in absolute perfection. Here are hu- mility and dignity perfectly combined — ^the lofti- ness of moral excellence, without a single approxi- mation to the feeling of contempt for others. Here is a sanctity of character which never yielded to a single temptation, and never deviated from the path of rectitude in a single instance, combined at the same time with a condescension and mercy which never spurned the miserable, and never frowned on the trembling penitent conscious of his guilt and pleading for forgiveness. Here is one who never resented an injury, and never forgot a kindness: who never thought of an enemy, but to bless him, or of a faithless friend, but to pity and forgive him. Here is one whose days were devoted to the exer- 60 MODERN INFIDELITY. cises of active benevolence, and whose nights were spent in communion. with his God; who sought no reward of all his generosity ; who wept tears oi anguish over the approaching fate of those who persecuted him at every step of his existence with unabating cruelty ; and who spent his last breath in praying for his guilty and relentless murderers. Whence such a character as this ? Was it from earth or heaven ? If from earth, then where can we look for its great archeiyjje? Not surely in the Gentile world ; for it infinitely surpassed even the ideal models which were laid down by the purest and most enlightened of its philosophers. Not in the Jewish world ; for even its most cherished patriarchs were chargeable with innumerable imperfections; and in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, the great body of the nation were peculiarly degraded, both as it respected the acquirements of the understanding and the habits of the life and conduct. Whence, then, this mysterious and wonderful personage — this Being so unlike all the generations of men who had preceded him, or who have followed after him, yet clothed in a human form, possessed of human sympathies, and subject to human woes ? No won der that Rousseau, in his exquisite and well-known contrast between Socrates and Christ, should feel himself constrained to remark, that " the inventor of such a personage would be a more astonishing cha- racter than the hero." Works, vol. v. pp. 215-218. MODERxX INFIDELITY. Gl " Is it possible," said he, speaking of the Bible and of the character of Christ, "is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, should be merely the work of man ? Is it possible that the sa- cred personage, whose history it contains, should himself be a mere man ? Do we find that he as- sumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sec- tary ? What sweetness, what purity in his manner ! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery ! What sublimity in his maxims ! What profound wisdom in his discourses ! What presence of mind, what sublimity, what truth in his replies ! How great the command over his passions ! Where is the man, where is the philosopher, w^ho could so live and so die without weakness and w^ithout os- tentation ? When Plato described his imaginary good man, loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ: the resem- blance was so striking that all the fathers perceived it." Yet this was the strange and unhappy man •?V'ho, through the wickedness and pride of his heart, declared, " I cannot believe the Gospel." Upon no correct or reasonable supposition what- ever but that the Lord Jesus was the very person he assumed to be, the person whom the Christian Scrip- tures describe him to be, viz. the Messiah of the Church, and " God manifest in the flesh," can we Counsels to Y. Men. (} •• 62 MODERN INFIDELITY. account for the solitary and awful grandeur* of a character *' holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens," "who did no sin," and "who knew no sin." The Rev. Charles Bridges, in his excellent * Bishop Sherlock, in contrasting the character of Jesuis Christ with that of Mohammed, has, in one of the most beau- tiful personifications in our language, finely touched the ar- gument for the truth of Christianity here contended for. "Go," says he, " to your Natural Religion ; lay before her Mohammed and his disciples arrayed in armor and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands who fell by his victorious sword ; show her the cities which he set in flames, the countries which he rav- aged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the in* habitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carr}^ him into his retirements. Show her the pro- phet's chamber, his concubines and wives ; let her see his adultery, and hear him alledge revelation and his divine commission to justify his lust and his oppression. " When she is tired with this prospect, then show her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and per- verse ; let her see him in his most retired privacy ; let her follow him to the mountain, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to see his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him in- jured but not provoked ; let her attend him to the tribunals, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross, and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors, * Father, forgive them, for they kno^ not what they do.' MODERN INFIDELITY. 63 Memoir of Miss M. I. Graham, (and which I take the liberty of strongly recommending to the notice of the young,) who had been considerably tinctured with infidelity, states that the character of Christ, as a proof of the credibility of the Christian revelation, arrested her peculiar attention. A minute scrutiny of his spotless life was most satisfactory in its result. *' The more," said she, " I studied this divine charac- ter, the more I grew up as it were into its simplici- ty and holiness, the more my understanding was en- abled to shake off those slavish and sinful prejudices which had hindered me from appreciating its excel- lence. Truly, his words were dearer to me than my necessary food. He was my * All in All.'. I did not want to have any knowledge, goodness, or strength, independently of him. I had rather be ' accepted in the Beloved,' than received (had that been possible) upon the score of my own merits. I had rather walk leaning upon his arm, than have a stock of strength given me to perform the journey alone. To learn, as a fool, of Christ, this was better to me than to have the knowledge of an angel to find out things myself. " From that moment," she adds, " I ceased to stumble at the doctrines of the cross. The doctrines " When Natural Religion has viewed both, ask — which is the prophet of God? Bather answer we have already had when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross; by him she spake and said, * Truly this man was the Son of God.' " 64 MODERN INFIDELITY. of Scripture, which had before appeared,to mean in- explicable mass of confusion and contradictions, were now written on my understanding with the clearness of a sun-beam. Above all, that once abhored doctrine of the Divinity of Christ was become exceeding pre- cious to me. The external evidences of Christianity, though I now perceived all their force, were no lon- ger necessary to my conviction. From that time,'' she concludes, " I have continued to * sit at the feet of Jesus, and to hear his word,' taking him for my teacher and guide in things temporal as well as spi- ritual. He has found in me a disciple so slow in com- prehension, so prone to forget his lessons, and to act in opposition to his commands, that were he not in- finitely * meek and lowly in heart,' he would long ago have cast me off in anger ; but he still continues to bear with me, and to give me ' line upon line, and precept upon precept ,' and I am certain that he ' will never leave me nor forsake me,' for though I am va- riable and inconsistent, 'with him there is no varia- bleness, neither shadow of turning.' " Such was the effect produced upon this intelligent lady's mind by an examination of the moral charac- ter of the Lord Jesus, and I am satisfied that a simi- lar result will follow in every instance the adoption of the same course. At least we do claim from infi- dels, if they will still continue to reject the truth, that they furnish us, upon their own principles, with some reasonable account of the source whence sprung the MODERN INFIDELITY. 65 ineffable purity and benevolence of the Son of God. Till they have accounted for his unequalled charac- ter they are chargeable with the utmost levity and irrationality in persisting in their unbelief 2. Contemplate, as another internal evidence of the divine origin of Christianity, the unrivaled sub- limity of its diction. Compared with the rich treasures of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, all other compositions must retire into the shade. Rousseau must have felt this conviction most pow- erfully when he made the following reluctant but im- portant concession : " I will confess," said he, " that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admi- ration, as the purity of the Gospel hath its influence upon my heart. Peruse the works of our philoso- ^ phers with all their pomp of diction ; how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures !" The opinion of Rousseau is confirmed by that of men vastly his superiors in learning and virtue. Sir William Jones, than whom few of the human race have been distinguished by a more laudable thirst after knowledge, has penned the following striking, but just eulogium, on the style and manner of the sa- cred writers : *' The collection of tracts, which we call, from their excellence, the Scriptures, contain, independently of a divine origin, more true subli- mity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same 6* 66 MODERN INFIDELITY. compass from all other books that were ever com- posed in any age or in any idiom. The two parts of which the Scriptures consist, are connected by a chain of compositions which bear no resemblance in form or style to any that can be produced from the stores of Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The antiquity of those compositions no man doubts, and the unstrained application of them to events long subsequent to their publication, is a solid ground of belief that they are genuine predic- tions, and consequently inspired." The celebrated Mr. Addison, in discoursing on the same subject, says, " After perusing the book of Psalms, let a judge of the beauties of poetry read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar, and he will find in these two last such an absurdity and confu- sion of style, with such a comparative poverty of ima- gination, as will make him sensible of the vast su- periority of the Scripture style." If we examine carefully the pathetic story of Jo- seph and his brethren ; the songs of Moses at the Red Sea, and on the borders of the promised land ; the sublime narrative of the giving of the law from Mount Sinai ; the celebrated prophecy of Balaam ; the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the tem- ple ; the visions of the Jewish prophets, particularly those of Isaiah; the odes of Jesse's son ; the match- less Sermon on the Mount ; the public appeals of the apostles before heathen tribunals ; and the mystic MODERN INFIDELITY. 67 symbols of the Apocalypse, we cannot but be struck and awed with the unrivaled diction, the surpass- ing imagery, and the lofty conceptions of the inspir- ed writers. Let all the other books of antiquity be produced ; let the classic page disclose its richest stores , let the entire mass of apocryphal writings undergo the strictest scrutiny ; let Egypt, and Greece, and Arabia bring forth the proudest mo- numents of their genius ; let the most dazzling pas- sages of the Koran be separated from the mass of its absurdities ; let all ages and all nations vie with the writers of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and it will be seen, by a judge of the most inferior grade, that no argument can be held for a single moment as to the comparative grandeur of the book commonly called the Bible, that it throws the whole round of other productions into the shade, and that it is written altogether in a style and manner which admits of no successful rival or counterfeit. Now, what is the force of this particular argu- ment ? Why, the Bible was written by the posterity of Abraham — a people proverbial for their destitu- tion of all mental refinement, and who, in their se- cular history, have displayed a marked inferiority to all the other nations of antiquity. The conclusion then is, if the wonderful volume known by the name of the Bible was verily the production of several Jews who lived in the different ages of the world, they must have written under a direction and an im- 68 MODERN INFIDELITY. pulse more than human ; they must have written under the guidance of that Spirit to whom they themselves trace their loftiest and humblest inspi- rations. I feel that this conclusion is sound and ra- tional. Try the Bible by any other Jewish produc- tion of any age whatsoever, try it by any work that has ever emanated from the pen or the genius of man, and the feeling must resistlessly take possession of the mind, that the words which God speaks, " they are spirit, and they are life." Unlike every other document that has been handed down from a remote antiquity, the volume of inspiration carries along with it, in the unutterable dignity and sublimity which pervades all its parts, an evidence of the source whence it sprung, an evidence which could not fail to strike the mind even of an untutored sav- age who might meet with it accidentally in some vast desert, and who had no living teacher to unfold to him the character or merciful designs of the God whom it reveals. How can men of taste, and genius, and literature, remain blind to this argument ! The very poetry, the lofty and well sustained imagery, the unparalleled diction of the sacred volume, will rise up in judgment against them, inasmuch as their dislike to the truths of revelation has led many of them to overlook qualities which would have com- manded their profoundest veneration had they been able to discern them in a single uninspired produc- tion. It may be added here, that the few infidels ^ MODERN INFIDELITY. 69 who have written in commendation of the style of the inspired writers, have totally neglected to ac- count for the commanding and indubitable superio- rity of the Scriptures to all other compositions. Upon any hypothesis but that of their divine origin, the at- tempt must utterly fail. My only wish is, that intel- ligent men would make the honest effort to satisfy their own convictions that the Bible might have been written by such persons as the Jewish patriarchs and the fishermen of Galilee, without any divine afflatus. When such an attempt has been made by them, I am satisfied that, whether they are led to embrace the Holy Scriptures as the word of God or not, they will be compelled to admit the fact that, upon all the canons of literary criticism ever admit- ted, there is nothing whatever to warrant the idea that the Bible has been furnished to mankind in the same way, and on the same principles, as other docu- ments of a remote antiquity. When men are brought thus far, there is great reason to hope that they will look with some measure of devoutness and integrity at the whole question of Christian evidence. 3. Let the high standard of the morality of Chris- tianity be examined with impartiality, and it cannot fail to arouse attention to its extraordinary claims. For though the uncompromising sanctity of revealed truth is among the chief reasons which induce men to cavil at its evidence, and secretly to reject its au- thority, it is, nevertheless, one of the most powerful 70 MODERN INFIDELITY. and indubitable proofs of its proceeding from the fountain of infinite purity and benevolence.* On this subject the celebrated John Locke has said, *' The morality of the Gospel doth so far excel that of all other books, that to give a man full know- ledge of true morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament." And verily, if we examine all the writings of the most enlightened and virtuous of the heathen world, and compare, or ra- ther contrast them with the writings of inspiration, we shall be fully satisfied of the accuracy of this great man's opinion. That there are fine passages on certain branches of morals, in some of the wri- tings of pagan philosophers and poets, w^e do not at- tempt to deny ; but the great question is, what were their writings as a whole, and what were the views of morality generally entertained and acted upon among their disciples ? Is it not notorious that self- murder,! that crimes which admit of no descrip- * Lord Bolingbroke himself has said, that " the Gospel is in all cases one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, of benevolence, and of universal charity." — Works, vol.5, p. 138. t Seneca thus pleads for self-murder : *' If thy mind be melancholy and in misery, thou mayest put a period to this wretched condition ; wherever thou lookest, there is an end to it. See that precipice ! there thou mayest have liberty. Seest thou that sea, that river, that well 1 liberty is at the bottom of it ; that little tree 1 freedom hangs upon it. Thy own neck, thy own throat, may be a refuge to thee fromsuch MODERN INFIDELITY. 71 lion,* that theft, that sacrilege, that fornication, that adultery, that revenge, that pride, that dissimulation in the worship of the gods, that habitual disregard of the duty of prayer, and that awful irreverence for the name of the Great Supreme, are taught, with an unblushing effrontery, by some of the chief patrons and guardians of pagan morality? Who does not know that some of the most brilliant passages both of the Greek and Latin classics, cannot be read by ingenuous youth without involving the risk of a total downfall of their morals ? We shall find no counter- part, indeed, to the writings of heathen antiquity, unless we turn to the licentious and utterly reckless ^productions of modern infidelity, in which every thing like disguise is laid aside, and men are taught to do, without restraint, whatever their own vile in- clinations may dictate. How unlike the imperfect and often polluted writings of men, is the system of morality laid down and detailed in the several books of the Old and New Testament ! Let any man devote a reasonable period to the examination of the spirit and moral precepts of Christianity, and he will he compelled servitude ; yea, every vein of thy body." Deira, lib. 3, cap. 15, p. m. 319. Plutarch, and Cato, and Brutus, and Cas- sius, and Cicero, all agree to justify the crime of self-de- struction. See Plutarch's Life of Cato. * Juvenal, Satire 2, ver. 10. Diog. Laertius,vol. 1, pp. m. 165, 166. 72 moderK infidelity. to admit its unsullied purity, its coincidence with alJ our natural notions of right and wrong, and its in- dubitable tendency to improve human intercourse, and to constitute mankind a community of brothers. Did all men believe and obey the dictates of reve- lation, what a mighty and favorable revolution would be wrought in the entire frame-work of so- ciety ! What habit of known evil does it not pro- scribe ? What irregular passion does it not forbid ? What acknowledged virtue does it not enforce ? What kindly or generous affection does it not incul- cate ? How lofty is its standard of action ! Though self-interest is not and cannot be excluded from a system so adapted to the nature of man, yet it is only permitted to occupy a subordinate place in the morality of the Gospel. There men are urged to endure and act " as seeing Him who is invisible ;" there we are commanded to do no act of beneficence to be seen of men ; there the honor of God and the good of others are the objects at which they are called habitually to aim ; there the surface morality of the world is treated with scorn, and a right state. of the thoughts and affections is imperatively de- manded; there meekness, and humility, and con- descension are represented as the true path to greatness ; there haughtiness and pride are associat- ed with all that is mean and worthless ; there an assuming and lofty air is forbidden even in the or- dinary intercourses of social life; there covetous- MODERN INFIDELITY. 73 ness is branded as idolatry, hatred as murder, and hidden lust as adultery ; there every species of re- sentment is absolutely prohibited ; there the refusa to forgive an injury is described as an effectual bar- rier in the way of the exercise of divine mercy; there all detraction, all backbiting, all evil speaking, all envy, all malice, all circumvention, are shown to be inconsistent with the hope of eternal life and the state of acceptance through a Redeemer. There is indeed one grand peculiarity belonging to the morality of Christianity, which distinguishes it from that of every other system, viz : the sublime and all-subduing character of its motives. Many useful virtues were enjoined by the Gentile philoso- phers, but they had no paramount considerations by which to insure obedience to their own precepts ; they had no moral engine of sufficient power to urge a sinful race onward in the path of obedience. Hence their code of morals was almost a dead letter, little regarded by themselves, and totally overlook- ed by the mass. But who can glance for a moment at the morality of the Bible without coming into contact with those mighty and heart-stirring consi- derations which are fitted to rouse all the sensibili- ties of human nature, and to subdue into willing and grateful obedience the most stubborn and rebel- lious of the race? Let the following examples of the class of motives referred to suffice : '* Herein lb love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us^ C*>i.n8el8 to Y. Men. 7 74 MODERN INFIDELITY. and sent his Son tol)e the propitiation for our sins." " Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and cla- mor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice : and be ye kind one to another, tender- hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Chrisfs sake hath forgiven you." *' Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." " God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- gotten Son, that whosoever believetii in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." " Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another." " Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory ; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other bet- ter than themselves." " Ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are his." " The love of Christ con- straineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them and rose again." How mean and povertj^-stricken are the motives of all other systems when compared with the reli- gion of Christ Jesus ! A book which founds its code of morals upon such considerations can never surely be the production of man. In the wide rango , MODERN INFIDELITY. 75 of his efforts there is nothing analogous. The fair inference, therefore, is, that a greater than man speaks to us in the living oracles. It may be safely affirmed, that if Christianity were cordially embraced as the religion of mankind, it would renovate the entire fabric of society. It is impossible for any one to say advisedly, or with truth, that one immoral habit, or one irregular thought or desire, receives a sanction from the writ- ings of Christ and his apostles. The Christian may often have reason, through the infirmity and corrup- tion of his fallen nature, to blush on account of the very imperfect manner in which he acts, out his great principles; he may often have occasion to mourn that in him the religion of Jesus has such an unworthy representative ; but he can at all times refer with exultation and triumph to the glorious charter of his hopes ; and while he sees that " the wickedness of man upon earth is great," he may unhesitatingly assure himself that the total neglect, or but partial reception of Christianity, is the sole cause of the crime and wretchedness which abound. The enemies of revelation themselves being judges, what can they predicate of its probable tendency on the race but unmixed good? Must they not own that all the moral evil which abounds in the earth is in direct violation of the doctrines and precepts of revealed truth ? Must they not, however reluc- tantly, concede that the principles of deism are 76 MODERN INFIDELITY. feeble and powerless as a system of moral renova- tion, compared with the high and holy dictates of the Gospel ? Who does not perceive that if a time should ever arrive when all men shall give heed to the words of Christ, that that will be the precise pe- riod of the world's deliverance from the cruel vas- salage of sin ? " Men would then," to use the words of an eminent divine, "universally do justice, speak truth, show mercy, exercise mutual forgiveness, fol- low after peace, bridle their appetites and passions, and lead sober, righteous, and godly lives. Mur- ders, wars, bitter contentions, cruel oppressions, and unrestrained licentiousness, would no more desolate the world, and fill it with misery ; but righteousness, goodness, and truth would bless the earth with a felicity exceeding all our present conceptions." This is, no doubt, the direct tendency of the scriptural doctrines, precepts, motives, and promises: nothing is wanting to remedy the state of the world, and to fit men for the worship and felicity of heaven, but that they should believe and obey the Bible. And if4nany enormous crimes have been committed un- der the color of zeal for Christianity, this only proves the depravity of man's heart ; for the Scripture, so- berly understood, most expressly forbids such prac- tices ; and men do not act thus because they duly regard the Bible, but because they will not believe and obey it. Now the argument for the divine origin of Chris- MODERN INFIDELITY. 77 tianity arising from its transcendent morality, may be viewed in various lights. In the first place, hovir comes it to pass, that of all the religions which have sought to obtain the suffrages of mankind, that of Jesus of Nazareth is incomparably the most pure and benevolent in its tendency? How comes it to pass, moreover, that among a rude people, such as were the Jews, there should have arisen a system of faith and worship, which, for grandeur of conception and sanctity of character, outstrips all the other re- cords of time? Is there not in this very circum- stance a presumption of the highest order in favor of the divine origin of Christianity? But supposing, in the second place, that the apos- tles of our Lord were chargeable with the crime of dexterously imposing a false religion upon mankind, how happens it that they set themselves with such zeal and ardor to oppose the prejudices and precon- ceived notions of their countrymen ? How happens it that they took the very method the least likely to conciliate their good opinion and to secure their hearty approval ? How happens it that in their sys- tem of morality they not only struck a death blow at the pride and hypocrisy of their own nation, but insisted on a purity of heart and life which they knew must expose them to the hatred and derision of all mankind ? Upon a mere human calculation, they adopted a method which could only issue in a perfect failure. Had they flattered the depravity of 78 * / MODERN INFIDELITY. man ; had they introduced a scheme which winked at any of his corruptions ; had they imitated the subsequent conduct of the False Prophet ; had they promised to their disciples a life of ease and sensual indulgence ; had they exhibited in their own histo- ry an exemption from poverty, reproach, persecu- tion, and death ; in a word, had there been any one thing in the scheme of doctrine they taught to secure the esteem and to call forth the approbation of a cor- rupt and vitiated state of society, we might then have been left to suspect that they had artfully construct- ed a system to suit the depraved taste of mankind, and to raise themselves to notoriety by pandering to the vices of human nature. But when the very re- verse of this is the case; when the morality of the Gospel is so lofty and unbending as to surrender none of its claims to meet the prejudices either of Jews or Gentiles ; when it is so pre-eminent as to stand forth, in solitary grandeur, amidst the religions of all ages and all nations ; when it is found to embody every quality which is fitted to diffuse peace, and justice, and benevolence among mankind ; when it is im- possible to detect in it a single precept which would not elevate the character of man and augment all his personal and relative enjoyments, what ought any thoughtful and considerate mind to conclude re- specting it, but that it is the offspring of the Foun- tain of all Purity, and that it has been vouchsafed by Him, in mercy, to heal the distempers and redress the miseries of our fallen race? MODERN INFIDELITY. 79 I conclude the consideration of this topic in the words of one who cannot be suspected of any undue partiality to the Christian faith ; of one who, unhap- pily for himself, did not allow the convictions of his judgment to rule his decisions or to form his cha- racter : " The Gospel, that divine book, the only one ne- cessary to a Christian, and the most useful of all to the man who may not be one, only requires reflection upon it to impress the mind with love for its author, and resolution to fulfill its precepts. Virtue never spoke in gentler terms ; the profoundest wisdom was never uttered with greater energy or more simplici- ty. It is impossible to rise from the reading of it without a feeling of moral improvement. Look at the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp, how little they are, compared Avith this ! Shall we say that the history of the Gospel is a pure fiction ? This is not the style of fiction ; and the history of Socrates, which nobody doubts, rests upon less evi- dence than that of Jesus Christ. After all, this is but shifting the difficulty, not answering it. The suppo- sition that several persons had united to fabricate this book, is more inconceivable than that one person should have supplied the subject of it. The spirit which it breathes, the morality which it inculcates, could never have been the invention of Jewish au- thors ; and the Gospel possesses characters of truth so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor 80 MODERN INFIDELITY. would be a more astonishing object than the hero." J. J. Rousseau, works, vol. 36, p. 36, Ed. Paris, 1788-'1793. 4. Let attention be devoted to the coincidence of Christianity with the character of God and the ac- tual condition of man. There is a marked tendency in the human mind to trace results to some adequate cause. Hence our dissatisfaction in the mere percep- tion of facts which, in our present state of know- ledge, we cannot account for ; and hence also the restless effort made by us to discover some princi- ple of causation sufficient to produce the phenomena beheld. The revolutions of the heavenly bodies must impress every one endowed with reason, that there is some mighty impulse to which they are all obe- dient ; and the feeling we have of the existence of such an impulse has aroused that inquiry into the laws of the material universe, which has led to all the discoveries of modern science, and which has enabled us to trace, in the one pervading law of gra- vitation, the reason ef certain revolutions and appear- ances, which, without such an application of the hu- man faculties, must have been hid in perpetual ob- scurity. Nor is the tendency in man to reason from effects to causes the only one discoverable in the examination of what may be called his mental instincts. It is obvious that he is equally prone to reason from cause§ to effects ; so that virhen he has satisfied him< MODERN INFIDELITY. 81 self as to the existence of a particular cause, and has acquired some knowledge of the mode in which it operates, he is prepared to concede that other effects may be attributed to it besides those which he has already discovered, provided they are in no vyay in^ consistent with the facts and relations now perceived. Now, the tendencies thus described will be found equally to manifest themselves in reference to mental and moral science, as in reference to the phenomena of the material universe. It is to the^e laws of our nature that we are indebted for many of those in- ductions by which we are enabled to judge of the characters and actions of men, and to predicate what may or may not be reasonable to anticipate in certain given circumstances. Apply these general principles to the investiga- tion of the subject in hand. The Bible is a book professing to come from heaven. Is it then a com- munication possessing any thing in common with our ordinary associations ? or is it a book so entirely new as to furnish us with no means of judging of it by the exercise of that ordinary tendency of our nature which leads us to judge of causes by their effects, and of effects by their causes ? The slightest ex- amination of the Christian scheme will convince any impartial mind that the view of the divine character and government which it presents is in strictest harmony with what may be deduced from the survey of nature, the phenomena of divine providence, and 8^ MODERN INFIDELITY. the dictates ot natural conscience. The particular modifications of divine perfection which are seen displayed in the pages of revelation may be to a great extent new, but the great question is, — Are not these modifications such as to fall in and harmo- nize with all that the reason of man would suggest to him as suited to the character of God and the con- dition of human nature ? I am satisfied that the dis- coveries of the Bible, though so transcendently glo- rious, are, in their great outline, answerable to all our natural conceptions of the Most High, as the supreme moral governor. Two things seem necessary to authenticate a religion as coming from Godi— first, that the facts and representations which it contains should be such as to exhibit all that is lofty in wisdom, mighty in power, awful in purity, and subduing in kindness; and, second, that the representation thus afibrded of the divine character should, when contemplated and believed by man, be fitted, by the laws of his being, to transform him into the divine image, and to make him a partaker of the divine happiness. The very first showing of Christianity is to this eflfect. It pro- poses, by an overwhelming manifestation of the cha- racter of God in the great scheme of redemption, to raise man from his present state of sin and rebellion, and to confer on him that elevated species of bless- edness which arises from conformity to the will of an infinitely perfect Being. MODERN INFIDELITY. 83 " When," says an eloquent writer, " we read a history which authoritatively claims to be an exhibi- tion of the character of God in his dealings with men, if we find in it that which fills and overflows our most dilated conceptions of moral worth and loveli- ness in the Supreme Being, and at the same time feel that it is triumphant in every appeal that it makes to our consciences in its statements of the ob- liquity and corruption of our o\^ai hearts ; and if our reason farther discovers a system of powerful moral stimulants, embodied in the facts of this history, which necessarily tend to produce in the mind a re- semblance to that high character which is there por- trayed : if Ave discern that the spirit of this history gives peace to the conscience by the very exhibition which quickens its sensibility ; that it dispels the ter- rors of guilt by the very fact which associates sin with the full loathing of the heart ; that it combines in one wondrous and consistent whole our most fear- ful forebodings and our most splendid anticipations for futurity ; that it inspires a pure, and elevated, and joyful hope for eternity, by those very declarations which attach a deeper and more interesting obliga- tion to the discharge of the minutest part of human duty ; if we see that the object of all its tendencies is the perfection of moral happiness, and that these ten- dencies are naturally connected with thebelief of its narration ; if we see all this in the Gospel, we may then say that our own eyes have seen its truth, and 84 MODERN INFIDELITY. that we need no other testimony. We may then well believe that God has been pleased, in pity to our wretchedness, and in condescension to our feebleness, to clothe the eternal laws which regulate his spiritual government in such form as maybe palpable to our conceptions, and adapted to the urgency of our ne- cessities." Erskine on Internal Evidence, to which the author is much indebted in this part of his essay. Such an interposition has the eternal Majesty of heaven vouchsafed in the revelation of mercy by Christ Jesus, — a revelation which abounds in all that is awful and all that is tender ; which de- scribes God as the avenger of sin and the Savior of the guilty ; which exhibits the loftiest claims of the lawgiver and the tenderest attributes of compassion ; which makes moral impurity infinitely odious and detestable by the very means whereby it is forgiven ; which points to a guilty race reclaimed and saved, wliile the Glorious Projector of the scheme stands forth before the intelligent universe in the inefl^able majesty of spotless and unchangeable purity. Does reason tell us, that as God has seen fit to create various orders of intelligent creatures, to him they must all be accountable, and over them all he must exercise the right and control of a moral go- vernor ? Revelation comes in with its direct and ab- solute assurance upon this point, resolving all the doubts which sin had fostered in the human mind, and proclaiming God's right to rule, his title to obedi- MODERN INFIDELITY. 85 ence, and his determination to punish every infringe- ment of his righteous government. Had the Bible said less on this head, or spoken a language quite different, it would have been at variance with the simplest dictates of sound reason. If there be one God, the creator and upholder of the universe, the fountain of all being and of all happiness, it follows, by resistless consequence, that he is the governor of the world he has made, and that the laws by which he governs must be in accordance with the dictates of his own pure and benevolent nature. The Scrip- tures teach us distinctly what those principles are ; but in doing so, they do not violate one of all our natural conclusions. Does the reason of man whisper to him that the Being who made him is the constant inspector of his actions, and that a period may arrive when . an account will be required of the manner in which he has passed the few short years of his transitory ex- istence ? Revelation does not proffer its aid to re- press this natural and almost universal feeling ; but to place it upon the sure basis of a divine communi- cation, to impart to it the character of an incontrover- tible truth, and to raise it to the potency of an all- pervading and all-subduing motive. Does a secret monitor disturb man's inward re- pose, and tell him that he has sinned against his own acknowledged standard of duty, and fill him with awful forebodings of judgment to come, and Counsels to Y. Men. 8 86 MODERN INFIDELITY. urge him to many a vain expedient for the settlement of that score of guilt which he knows he has been contracting from the earliest dawnings of reason ? Revelation does not lift up its voice to repress the natural testimony of conscience, but to cause it to be heard in yet louder strains of condemnation ; to strip man of all vain conceit of excellence which, in his fallen state, he does not possess ; to show, by the pure standard of the written law, how far he has de- parted from his original integrity ; to present such an image of his moral defection as shall cause him to loathe and abhor himself in dust and in ashes be- fore God ; and to teach him the utter insufficiency of all human aid to extricate him from that state of con- demnation and sin into which, by rebellion against the righteous Lawgiver of the universe, he has sunk. Does the mind of man, conscious of its own evil desert, and no less conscious of the blight which sin has spread over all the sources of human enjoy- ment, sigh after some hidden well-spring of life; some new manifestation of the character of God, which shall dart a ray of mercy and hope across the gloom of his apostacy ; some divine balm that shall heal those wounds which have been inflicted in his lacerated spirit 1 Yes, my beloved reader, such have been, and such are the wishes and aspira- tions of the guilty spirit of man. He has departed from ** the fountain of living waters," and the entire range of creature enjoyment has proved but a bro- ^ MODERN INFIDELITY. 87 ken cistern to him. He is not, indeed, rightly affect- ed with the true nature of his malady, nor does he properly appreciate the means by which his peace and happiness may be restored ; but he is in that precise state in which, if he will open the revelation of God, and prayerfully examine its contents, he will find the very blessings after which he sighs, and in the application of them will perceive that the Author of his being is also the God of his salvation. In the promise of a Savior, divinely accomplished in the fullness of time, and in the propitiatory sacri- fice of the cross, we behold a scheme w^hich bears along with it indubitable proofs of its conformity to the character of God, and of its adaptation to the guilt and necessity of man. It is so far, indeed, above all his natural conceptions of a divine interposition, that it may well be styled " the wisdom of God in a mystery ;" but it is at the same time so exquisitely adjusted to his moral relations, and to the moral ca- tastrophe in which he is involved, that he has only to open his eyes that he may see, and his heart that he may feel. The problem of his salvation is here solved, while the claims of the moral governor re- main unimpaired. His conscience tells him that he is a transgressor ; but it suggests no effectual method of escape from merited condemnation. But Chris- tianity points him to " the blood of the Lamb," to the " one offering" of Jesus Christ "for the sins of the people." He feels that he is at a fearful moral dis- 88 MODERN INFIDELITY. taniee from God ; but he sees in the method of his re- conciliation the means whereby his nature may be re- claimed ; and learns that a heart all rebellion may be drawn by the mighty attractions of divine love into the habit of cheerful, unreserved, and filial obedience. To doubt that such a scheme — so perfect in its con- formity to all that we connect with the infinitely pure Spirit, and so admirably adapted to the nature, con- dition, and prospects of man — to doubt that such a scheme is from heaven, is to do violence to the surest inductions of enlightened reason, to turn a deaf ear to the voice of conscience, and obstinately to lose sight of a coincidence which distinctly shows that the nature of man and the means of his redemption lay claim to a common origin. Without the provisions of the Bible, man is a wan- derer and an outcast. He beholds, in some mea sure, his responsibility and his guilt ; but he has no well-defined prospect as to how it may fare with him when his body goes down to the dust. He feels that this world is a wilderness, and all its inhabitants mourners ; but he is unable to solace himself in the prospect of ablessed immortality. He finds himself the subject of indefinite forebodings, and discovers no thing in the wide range of created nature that can fill up the desires of a mind distanced from its native element ; but how to impart a fixed character to his hopes, and how to satisfy his enlarged desires, he knows not. Let him turn, then, to the well-springs MODERN INFIDELITY. 89 of salvation, let him view the character of God as set forth in the doctrine of the Gospel, let him exa- mine for himself the great mystery of godliness, let him yield up his w^hole soul to the impression of redeeming love, let him implore the Spirit of Christ to unfold the infinite grace and loveliness of his character, let him bov^ down his reason to the veri- ties of the cross, — then will his guilt subside, his fears vanish, his prospects brighten ; then will his soul glow with ardent love to God ; then will the darkness which broods over the scenes of earth be scattered ; then will the truth of revelation be felt ; then will the self-evidencing power of the Gospel be verified; and then will the proud objector be converted into a *' little child," and the vain disputer into a meek and humble disciple of the Son of God. SECTION II. The External Evidence of Christianity, By the external evidences of Christianity we are to understand those attestations to its divine origin which have been either directly vouchsafed from heaven, or which may be infallibly traced in its early success and in its great moral results. And if, by an impartial survey of the various topics connect- ed with internal evidence, we are compelled to ad- aiit the presumptuous boldness of those who can dis- burden their minds of all apprehension in rejecting 8* 90 MOBERN INFIDELITY. a 'scheme distinguished alike by its grandeur and adaptation, — by a careful examination of external evidence, we are driven to the conclusion, that the rejector of revelation is at war with Omnipotence, and that he is standing out against a species of proof which demands of every intelligent and accountable creature the most prompt and unhesitating submis- sion. Such is the nature and such the variety of ex- ternal evidence, that it leaves every man inexcusable who remains in secret or avowed opposition to the claims of the Gospel. In treating of the subject of external evidence, I begin, 1. With Miracles. If the Bible be from God, it must be true in itself, irrespective of all miraculous attestation; and if it be not from God, it is equally clear that no miracle can have been vouchsafed on its behalf A miracle is an act of omnipo- tence, WHICH deviates FROM, OR SUSPENDS THE ORDINARY COURSE OF NATURE, and which is fitted to produce an impression upon rational beings by the very circumstance of its singularity and its un- accountableness. Such an interposition we may as- sure ourselves would not be granted in support of any messenger not from God, or of any doctrine containing in it the slightest shade of imposture. The most inveterate enemies of revelation have been compelled to admit that a miracle, wrought by any being professing to act under the authority of God, would be a sufficient evidence of the divinity MODERN INFIDELITY. 9t of his mission. " We know," said a Jewish ruler to Christ, " that thou art a teacher come from God ; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." A principle is here ad- mitted which it is impossible, consistently with sound reason, to deny: it is this — that a teacher working miracles furnishes indubitable evidence that his mission is from God. To test with utmost severity the evidence of miraculous interposition in any given instance must be an imperative duty, but to withhold our assent to any doctrine after the finger of Omnipotence has inscribed over it its ce- lestial origin, is to trample reason in the dust, and to set up in its place the most inveterate and stupid prejudice. The question then is, did Christ and his apostles perform the miracles attributed to them in the books of the New Testament ? and did they appeal to those miracles in confirmation of the message they delivered ? In reading the inimitable discourses of Christ, no one can hesitate for a moment as to the nature of the appeal made by him to miracles. " The works," said he, " which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me." " The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." " If I do not the works of my Fa- ther, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works ; that ye may know and 92 MODERN INFIDELITY. believe that the Father is in me, and I in him." " Believe me that I am in the Father and the Fa- ther in me ; or else believe me for the very works' sake." Here miracles are assumed, upon the ordi- nary principles of reason, to be a sufficient evidence of Christ's mission from the Father to every impar- tial and unbiased mind. So unhesitatingly did Jesus of Nazareth use this argument, that when the dis- ciples of John came to him to inquire whether he was indeed the Christ, his only reply was, " 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 to them." And when the apostles of our Lord allude at any time to the power by which they perform their several miracles, they invariably refer to the all-potent charm of " that name which is above every name ;" as when the helpless paralytic was healed at the beautiful gate of the temple — *• If we this day," said Peter, " be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole ; be it known unto you ali, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole." The whole question of miracles, theti, must re- solve itself into a matter of fact. And the attempt of MODERN INFIDELITY. 93 Hume and others to blink the fact, by assuming the insufficiency of any testimony to transmit the know- ledge of a miraculous occurrence, is neither more nor less than to affirm that if God should at any time see fit to perform a miracle, in attestation of some message of mercy to a ruined race, he could not adopt any method by which the certain evidence of its occurrence could be preserved from age to age.* It is not, surely, the spirit of sound philoso- phy in which any man asserts that a miracle is con- trary to experience. It may not, indeed, come under the head of the ordinary experience of mankind ; but that it is contrary to it cannot be shown. Accord- ing to our ordinary experience, bodily disease, when successfully removed, is subdued by the influence of certain human remedies which God is pleased to bless. According to the wonderful history of the Gospel, disease is often rebuked by a word, a look, an exercise of the secret will of the miraculous agent. But what is there, we ask, in these two distinct classes of facts opposed to each other ? They may each, indeed, belong to a distinct chain of causation ; they may be totally independent events ; they may admit and require various kinds of proof; but he who says that they are contrary the one to the other, utters a sentiment opposed to true philosophy, and * See " A Dissertation on Miracles," &c. by George Campbell, D. D. 94 MODERN INFIDELITY. commits his good sense in his zeal to overturn the evidence of the Gospel. " To pronounce a miracle to be false," says a distinguished writer, " because it is different from experience, is only to conclude against its general existence from the very circum- stance which constitutes its particular nature ; for if it were not different from experience, where would be its singularity? Or what particular proof could be drawn from it if it happened according to the or- dinary train of human events, or was included in the operation of the general laws of nature ? We grant that it does differ from experience; but we do not presume to make our experience the standard of the divine conduct." We hear much among infidel writers of the im- mutability of the laws of nature; but whence do they learn that these laws are never to be infringed by the omnipotent will of the Infinite Mind ? It is surely no proof that the Almighty is a changeable being, because he either creates a world, or acts ac- cording to his own infinite perfections in governing it. There is often a great deal of assumption in the use of the terms " laws of nature," " course of na- ture," &c. as employed by writers of a sceptical turn. If in the use of such terms it were only in- tended to assert that the Most High has subjected the material universe to the government of certain great laws, which act uniformly, except when he is pleased to suspend or to counteract them, there MODERN INFIDELITY. 95 could be no objection whatever to the phraseology employed ; but when they are spoken of as a kind of intelligent and independent power ; when they are described as something almost distinct from the continued exercise of the divine behest ; when they are regarded as an imperative control, binding even the will of Deity itself, they are placed in an impos- ing light, to which they have no conceivable title. " Our knowledge of the ordinary course of things, though limited, is yet real ; and therefore it is es- sential to a miracle, both that it differ from that course, and be accompanied with peculiar and une- quivocal signs of such difference. We have been told that the course of nature is fixed and unalter- able, and therefore it is not consistent with the im- mutability of God to perform miracles. But, surely, they who reason in this manner beg the point in question. We have no right to assume that the Deity has ordained such general laws as will exclude his interposition ; and we cannot suppose that he would forbear to interfere where any important end could be answered. This interposition, though it controls, in particular cases, the energy, does not diminish the utility of those laws : it leaves them to fulfill their own proper purposes, and effects only a dis- tinct purpose, for which they were not calculated. If the course of nature implies the laws of matter and motion, into which the most opposite pheno- mena may be resolved, it is certain that we do not 96 MODERN INFIDELITY. yet know them in their full extent ; and therefore that events which are related by judicious and dis- interested persons, and at the same time imply no gross contradictions, are possible in themselves, and capable of a certain degree of proof If the course of nature implies the whole order of events which God has ordained for the government of the world, it includes both his ordinary and extraordinary dis- pensations, and among them miracles may have their place as a part of the universal plan. It is, in- deed, consistent with sound philosophy, and not in- consistent with pure religion, to acknowledge that they might be disposed by the Supreme Being at the same time with the more ordinary effects of his power ; that their causes and occasions might be arranged with the same regularity ; and that in re- ference chiefly to their concomitant circumstances of persons and time, to the specific ends for which they were employed, and to our idea of the imme- diate necessity there is for a divine agent, miracles would differ from common events, in which the hand of God acts as efficaciously, though less vis- ibly. On this consideration of the subject, miracles, instead of contradicting nature, might form a part ol it. But what our limited reason and scanty expe- rience may comprehend, should never be represent- ed as a full and exact view of the possible or actual varieties which exist in the works of God." See Watson^s Theol. Dictionary, article " Miracles." MODERN INFIDELITY. 97 It is daring and presumptuous in the extreme to attempt, by reasonings a ^priori, to set aside the phy- sical possibility of a miracle, or to assume that hu- man testimony is inadequate to the task of rendering' it available to the conviction of mankind. If the ar^ gument a priori is at all to be admitted in a ques- tion of mere fact, where the senses were originally appealed to, it were easy to show that the miracu- lous attestations of the Gospel are entitled to all the benefits which it can possibly yield. No one can prove that it is contrary to the determined arrange- ments of Divine Providence that miracles should be wrought ; no one can assert, in the spirit of true sci- ence, that it may not have been a part of the great scheme of God's moral government thus to step aside from the rule of his ordinary procedure ; no one can advisedly say that if an occasion worthy of miracu- lous interposition should present itself to the divine omniscience, God would fail to grant such interpo- sition ; no one can seriously contemplate the pro- fessed objects of Christianity, or examine in detail its wondrous provisions, without being constrained to admit that it furnishes an occasion worthy of some unusual effort of Omnipotence ; and no one can calmly survey the miraculous facts recorded in the Gospel history without feeling that they are ad- mirably adapted to attest as divine the several com- munications to which they belong. A priori, I should say that nothing is more reasonable than to Counsels to Y. Men. 9 98 MODERN INFIDELITY. suppose, first, that God would furnish his erring and sorrowful children with a revelation of hi$ merciful designs ; and, second, that he would so attest that revelation with the finger of omnipotence as to leave all without excuse who did not embrace its inestima- ble provisions. If any one is bold enough to affirm that testimony is an insufficient medium for the con- veyance of a miraculous history, he should be pre- pared to go the whole length of his extravagant as- sumption, and to maintain that no revelation could at any time be imparted by God to his creatures, be- cause human testimony, the only method of trans- mitting historic facts, was insufficient to the task of conveying to the next, and to succeeding generations, the evidence of such revelation having been impart- ed. There is no end to vague conjecture, if it is al- lowed to usurp the province of sound reason, and to dictate, beforehand, what may and what may not be proper in the Almighty to do. There is no sure way of knowing what God may do, but by ascer- taining what he has done; and this can only be known through the medium of that testimony, the accuracy of which admits of being tested by rules which cannot deceive. I would state the argument, then, on behalf of the miracles of the New Testament, in some such way as the following : — The Gospel history informs us that both Christ and his apostles wrought miracles ; it shows us that those miracles were appealed to as MODERN INFIDELITY. 99 I evidences of their divine mission, and it presents every direct and collateral mark of authenticity and truth which can possibly belong to any document of antiquity. It is admitted on all hands, that Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and died in Judea ; that his followers became zealous and successful in the pro- pagation of his cause after his death ; and that they were surrounded by many inveterate enemies, both among their own countrymen and the Gentiles. In the midst of danger, and in opposition to all their own worldly interests, they persevered even unto death. The cause they espoused was at all times open to the gaze of subtle and fierce enemies, who would have been more than happy to detect any im- posture, and who would have been eagle-eyed to dis- cover any pretension to the exercise of the mighty power of God which was not actually possessed. The persecutors of Jesus of Nazareth had their at- tention drawn to his miracles, which could no longer be hid in a corner ; and, unable to account for them, and anxious to prevent their mighty effect, they at- tributed them to Satanic power. The cause, however, spread with amazing rapidity, and the death of the Master but added fresh energy to the cause of his disciples. For a time, indeed, through the weakness of their faith, they were filled with gloomy forebo- dings ; but, according to his own prediction, their divine Leader rose from the dead ; with powers of tongues and gifts of healing they went forth in his iOO MODERN INFIDELITY. name ; his resurrection they openly proclaimed in the city of Jerusalem ; thousands of impenitent Jews laid down the weapons of their hostility ; the mira- cles of Christ and his apostles were acknowledged by multitudes as indubitable matters of £act, and their fame spread throughout the whole world. Had they been mere impostures, they would have been speedily detected ; but, on the contrary, they drew down the peculiar notice of heathen writers, and Cel- sus himself finds no better method of disposing of them than by absurdly attributing them to a skil- ful use of the arts of magic on the part of Christ's disciples. The following things are clear respecting Christ's miracles : They were of such a nature as to surpass all efforts of human power or skill. By them, and without the intervention of second causes, the blind received their sight, the paralytic instantly walked, the lepers were cleansed. By them five loaves and two small fishes were multiplied so as to become food for thousands ; by them simple water was con- verted into wine ; by them the stormy tempest was hushed into an immediate calm ; by them the spirits of darkness were compelled to depart from those un- happy victims w^om they had been suffered to pos- sess ; and by them, once and again, the dead were restored to life, and became the resistless witnesses of a supernatural interposition. Now, in all these cases, every human being was an equally sufficient MODERN INFIDELITY. lOl judge : from the very nature of the facts it was im- possible that any one could be deceived ; the finger of God was so distinctly palpable, that both sense and reason combined to verify the true nature of the events. Again, the miracles of Christ were done in fuh- lie, at the doors of the Jewish temple, in the places of public resort, when he had been preaching to thousands, and when thousands were the actual subjects of them. They were, moreover, of such a nature that no collusion, no magical art, no legerdemain, no kind of deception could have been practiced. They were wrought in the presence of persons full of enmity and cruel hatred, who would not have failed to lay open the entire imposture, had any existed; but so confounded were the Scribes and Pharisees at the sight of them, that they sought re- lief from their unhappy impressions by representing Jesus of Nazareth as in league with the great spirit of darkness. The accounts of these miracles were, soon after their occurrence, published to the world in the very places where they happened ; yet no evidence can be adduced to show that a single contemporary of the Savior was found bold enough to deny the fact of their occurrence ; nor indeed can it be shown that any attempt of this kind was made* till long ♦ The fable that the disciples stole the body of Jesus, will 9* 102 MODERN INFIDELITY. after Christ had ascended to heaven. " Here," says Mr. Scott, it may be demanded, " when could the belief of such transactions have been obtruded on mankind, if they had never happened? Surely not in the age when they were said to have been wit- nessed by tens of thousands, who were publicly challenged to deny them if they could ! Not in any subsequent age ; for the origin of Christianity was ascribed to them, and millions must have been per- suaded that they had always believed those things of which they had never till that time so much as heard." Having offered the preceding remarks on the miracles of Christ, I would just observe that the miracles recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures belong to the same great system of truth, and are supported by similar evidence. Infidels have spoken of the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations as if altogether distinct from the religion of Christ ; but this is a gross mistake, as Christianity is the con- summation of all those institutions which are em- bodied in the Jewish Scriptures. The miraculous fact of a universal deluge is abundantly confirmed by all the researches of geologists, and the organic remains of a former world must leave those inex- bc dealt with in its own proper place. It is evident, how- ever, that no use was made of it by the Jews where it could have been most available : in fact, it was too absurd to be gravely referred lo. MODERN INFIDELITY. 103 cusable who reject the data of revelation. And with regard to the miraculous history of the Israelites in Egypt, at the Red Sea, in the wilderness, and in Canaan, the facts of that history, and the national mo- numents which, from the earliest ages, were fixed on to perpetuate it, combine to relieve the mind from the slightest suspicion as to its genuineness. " Can any man of common sense," says Mr. Scott, "think that Moses and Aaron could possibly have persuad- ^ ed the whole nation of Israel that they had witness- ed all the plagues of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea with the waters piled on each side of them, gathered the manna every morning, and seen all the wonders recorded in their history, had no such events taken place ? If, then, that generation could not be imposed on, when could the belief of these extraordinary transactions be palmed upon the na- tion ? Surely it would have been impossible in the next age to persuade them that their fathers had seen and experienced such wonderful things when they had never before heard a single word about them in all their lives, and when an appeal must have been made to them that these were things well known among them ! What credit could have been obtained to such a forgery at any subsequent period ? It would have been absolutely necessary, in making the attempt, to persuade the people that such tradi- tions had always been current among them ; that the memory of them had for ages been perpetuated 104 MODERN INFIDELITY. by days and ordinances observed by all the nation ; and that their whole civil and religious establish- ment had thence originated ; and could this possibly have been effected if they all knew that no such me- morials and traditions had ever been heard of among them?" I cannot deny myself the pleasure of furnishing ray readers with a remarkably clear and beautiful account of the miracles of the Mosaic dispensation furnished by the ingenious author of " Theological Institutes," w^ho has already been referred to. " Out of the numerous miracles," says he, " wrought by the agency of Moses, we select, in addition to those mentioned in chap. 9, the plague