tage of religion, from obferving the númerous controverfies which are carried on amongst its profeffors; and likewise of inducing a fpirit of lenity and moderation in our judgement, as well as in our treatment of those who stand, in such controverfies, upon fides oppofite to ours. What is clear in Christianity we shall find to be sufficient, and to be infinitely valuable; what is dubious, unneceffary to be decided, or of very fubordinate importance; and what is moft obfcure, will teach us to bear with the opinions which others may have formed upon the fame subject. We shall say to those who the most widely diffent from us, what Auguftine said to the worst heretics of his age; Illi in vos fæviant, qui nefciunt, cum quo labore verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores qui nefciunt, cum quantâ difficultate fanetur oculus interioris hominis --- qui nefciunt, quibus fufpiriis et gemitibus fiat, ut ex quantulacunque parte poffit intelligi Deus *.” -- Aug. contr. Ep. Fund. cap. ii. n. 2, 3 A judge, A judgement, moreover, which is once pretty well fatisfied of the general truth of the religion, will not only thus difcriminate in its doctrines, but will poffefs fufficient ftrength to overcome the reluctance of the imagination to admit articles of faith which are attended with difficulty of apprehenfion, if fuch articles of faith appear to be truly parts of the revelation. It was to be expected beforehand, that what related to the economy, and to the perfons, of the invisible world, which revelation profeffes to do, and which, if true, it actually does, should contain fome points remote from our analogies, and from the comprehenfion of a mind which hath acquired all its ideas from sense and from experience. It hath been my care, in the preceding work, to preferve the feparation between evidences and doctrines as inviolable as I could; to remove from the primary queftion all confiderations which have been unneceffarily joined with it; and to offer a defence to Chriftianity, which every Chrif ་ tian might read, without feeing the tenets in which he had been brought up attacked or decried and it always afforded a fatisfaction to my mind to obferve that this was practicable; that few or none of our many controverfies with one another affect or relate to the proofs of our religion; that the rent never defcends to the foundation. The truth of Chriftianity depends upon its leading facts, and upon them alone. Now of these we have evidence which ought to fatisfy us, at least until it appear that mankind have ever been deceived by the same. We have fome uncontested and incontestable points, to which the hiftory of the human species hath nothing fimilar to offer. A Jewish peasant changed the religion of the world, and that, without force, without power, without fupport; without one natural fource or circumftance of attraction, influence, or fuccefs. Such a thing hath not happened in any other inftance. The companions of this person, after he himself had been put to death for his attempt, afferted his fupernatural character, founded upon his fupernatural operations; and, in teftimony of the truth of their affertions, i. e. in confequence of their own belief of that truth, and in order to communicate the knowledge of it to others, voluntarily entered upon lives of toil and hardship, and, with a full experience of their danger, commi'ted themselves to the last extremities of perfecution. This hath not a parallel. More particularly, a very few days after this perfon had been publicly executed, and in the very city in which he was buried, these his companions declared with one voice that his body was reftored to life; that they had seen him, handled him, eat with him, converfed with him; and, in purfuance of their perfuafion of the truth of what they told, preached his religion, with this ftrange fact as the foundation of it, in the face of those who had killed him, who were armed with the power of the country, and neceffarily and naturally difpofed to treat his followers as they had treated himself; and having done this upon the fpot where the event took place, place, carried the intelligence of it abroad, in despite of difficulties and opposition, and where the nature of their errand gave them nothing to expect but derifion, infult, and outrage. This is without example. These three facts, I think, are certain, and would have been nearly fo, if the Gofpels had never been written. The Chriftian story, as to thefe points, hath never varied. No other hath been fet up against it. Every letter, every difcourfe, every controverfy, amongst the followers of the religion; every book written by them, from the age of its commencement to the prefent time, in every part of the world in which it hath been profeffed, and with every sect into which it hath been divided (and we have letters and difcourfes written by contemporaries, by witnesses of the transaction, by perfons themselves bearing a share in it, and other writings following that age in regular fucceffion), concur in representing these facts in this manner. religion, which now poffeffes the greatest part of the civilised world, unquestionably sprang up at Jerufalem at this time. Some account A muft |