tianity, as it came from its author, either with other religions, or with itself in other hands, the most reluctant understanding will: be induced to acknowledge the probity, I think alfo the good fenfe, of those to whom it owes its origin; and that fome regard is due to the teftimony of fuch men, when they declare their knowledge that the religion proceeded from God; and when they appeal, for the truth of their affertion, to miracles which they wrought, or which they faw.

Perhaps the qualities which we observe in the religion, may be thought to prove fomething more. They would have been extraordinary, had the religion come from any perfon; from the person from whom it did come, they are exceedingly fo. What was Jefus in external appearance? A Jewish peasant, the fon of a carpenter, living with his father and mother in a remote province of Palestine, until the time that he produced himself in his public character. He had no mafter to inftruct or prompt him.

He had read no books, but the works of Mofes and the Prophets. He had visited no polished cities. He had received no leffons from Socrates or Plato; nothing to form in him a taste or judgement, different from that of the reft of his countrymen, and of perfons of the fame rank of life with himfelf. Suppofing it to be true, which it is not, that all his points of morality might be picked out of Greek and Roman writings, they were writings which he had never feen. Suppofing them to be no more than what fome or other had taught in various times and places, he could not collect them toge ther,

Who were his coadjutors in the undertaking, the perfons into whofe hands the religion came after his death? A few fishermen upon the lake of Tiberias, persons juft as uneducated, and, for the purpofe of framing rules of morality, as unpromifing, as himfelf. Suppose the miffion to be real, all this is accounted for; the unfuitableness of the authors to the production, of the characters

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racters to the undertaking, no longer furprifes us; but, without reality, it is very difficult to explain, how fuch a system fhould proceed from fuch perfons. Christ was not like any other carpenter; the ароfles were not like any other fishermen.

But the fubject is not exhausted by these obfervations. That portion of it, which is moft reducible to points of argument, has been ftated, and, I truft, truly. There are, however, fome topics, of a more diffuse nature, which yet deserve to be proposed to the reader's attention.

The character of Chrift is a part of the morality of the Gospel one ftrong obfervation upon which is, that, neither as reprefented by his followers, nor as attacked by his enemies, is he charged with any personal vice. This remark is as old as Origen:"Though innumerable lies and calumnies. had been forged against the venerable Jefus, none had dared to charge him with an intemperance."

temperance

Not a reflection upon his moral character, not an imputation or fufpicion of any offence against purity and chastity, appears for five hundred years after his birth. This faultleffness is more peculiar than we are apt to imagine. Some stain pollutes the morals or the morality of almost every other teacher, and of every other lawgiver t. Zeno the ftoic, and Diogenes the cynic, fell into the fouleft impurities; of which alfo Socrates himself was more than fufpected. Solon forbade unnatural crimes to flaves. Lycurgus tolerated theft as a part of education. Plato recommended a community of women. Ariftotle maintained the general right of making war upon Barbarians. The elder Cato was remarkable for the ill ufage of his flaves. The younger gave up the person of his wife. One loofe principle is found in almost all the Pagan moralifts; is distinctly, however, perceived in the writings of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero,

*Or. Ep. Celf. 1. 3. num. 36. ed. Bened.

See many inftances collected by Grotius de Ver. in the notes to his fecond book, p. 116. Pocock's edition. Senecá,

Seneca, Epictetus, and that is, the allowing, and even the recommending to their disciples, a compliance with the religion, and with the religious rites, of every country into which they came. In fpeaking of the founders of new inftitutions, we cannot forget Mahomet. His licentious tranfgref fions of his own licentious rules; his abuse of the character which he affumed, and of the power which he had acquired, for the purposes of personal and privileged indulgence; his avowed claim of a special per miffion from heaven of unlimited sensuality, is known to every reader, as it is confessed by every writer, of the Mollem story.

Secondly, in the histories which are left us of Jefus Chrift, although very short, and although dealing in narrative, and not in observation or panegyric, we perceive, befide the absence of every appearance of vice, traces of devotion, humility, benignity, mildness, patience, prudence. I speak of traces of these qualities, because the qualities themfelves are to be collected from incidents ;

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