the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore. Rom. i. 21, 25. SAMUEL CAREY. ESSAY II. ON THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. THOUGH the light of nature is abundantly sufficient, as I trust I have shown in my former essay, to prove the existence of God, and the duty of worshipping and serving him, yet this was not the only light that was communicated to mankind in the first ages of the world concerning these matters, since many things relating to them were revealed by God to the Patriarchs, and through them to their contemporaries and descendants. At length, however, this knowledge was almost universally obliterated from the minds of men, and the light of reason itself was so clouded by the boundless indulgence of their passions, that they seemed everywhere sunk almost to a level with the brute creation. Even the most polished nations, the Greeks and the Romans, blushed not at unnatural lusts, and boasted of the most horrid cruelties. Plutarch describes the celebrated Grecian sages, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Cebes, &c. as indulging freely in the former, (1) and every one knows that the chief amusement of the Roman people, was to behold their fellow creatures murdering one another in the amphitheatres, sometimes by hundreds and thousands at a time. But the depravity and impiety of the ancient pagans, and I may say the same of those of modern times, appear (1) De Isid. et Osirid. Even the refined Cicero and Virgil did not blush at these infamies, chiefly in their religious doctrines and worship. What an absurd and disgusting rabble of pretended Deities, marked with every crime that disgraces the worst of mortals, lust, envy, hatred, and cruelty, did not the above-named refined nations worship; and that, in several instances, by the imitation of their crimes! Plato allows of drunkenness in honour of the Gods; Aristotle admits of indecent representations of them. How many temples were everywhere erected, and prostitutes consecrated to the worship of Vehus! (1) And how generally were human sacrifices offered up in honour of Moloch, Saturn, Thor, Diana, Woden, and other pretended Gods, or rather real demons, by almost every Pagan nation, Greek and barbarian, and, among the rest, by the ancient Britons, inhabitants of this Island! It is true, some few sages of antiquity, by listening to the dictates of nature and reason, saw into the absurdity of the popular religion, and discovered the existence and attributes of the true God; but then how unsteady and imperfect was their belief, even in this point! and when they knew God they did not glorify him us God, nor give him thanks, but became vain in their thoughts. Rom. i. 21. In short, they were so bewildered on the whole subject of religion, that Socrates, the wisest of them all, declared it 'im'possible for men to discover this, unless the Deity himself deigned to reveal it to them.' (2) Indeed, it was an effort of mercy, worthy the Great and Good God, to make such a revelation of himself, and of his acceptable worship, to poor benighted and degraded man. This he did, first, in favour of a poor, afflicted, captive tribe on the banks of the Nile, the Israelites, whom he led (1) Strabo tells us, that there were 1,000 prostitutes attached to the Temple of Venus, at Corinth The Athenians attributed the preservation of their city to the prayers of its prostitutes, (2) Plato Dialog. Alcibiad, from thence into the country of their ancestors, and raised up to be a powerful nation, by a series of astonishing miracles; instructing and confirming them in the knowledge and worship of himself by his different prophets. He afterwards did the same thing, in favour of all the people of the earth, and to a far greater extent, by the promised Messiah and his Apostles. It is to this latter Divine Legation I s. all here confine my arguments: though, indeed, the one confirms the other; since Christ and the Apostles continually bear testimony to the mission of Moses. All history, then, and tradition prove, that, in the reign of Tiberius, the second Roman EmpeFor after Julius Cæsar, an extraordinary personage, Jesus Christ, appeared in Palestine, teaching a new system of religion and morality, far more sublime and perfect than any which the Pagan Philosophers, or even the Hebrew Prophets, had inculcated. He confirmed the truths of natural Religion and of the Mosaic revelation: but then he vastly extended their sphere, by the communication of many heavenly mysteries, concerning the nature of the one true God, his economy in redeeming man by his own vicarious sufferings, the restoration and future immortality of our bodies, and the final, decisive trial we are to undergo before him, our destined judge. He enforced the obligation of loving our heavenly Father, above all things, of praying to him continually, and of referring all our thoughts, words, and actions, to his divine honour. He insisted on the necessity of denying, not one or other of our passions, as the philosophers had done, who, Tertullian says, drove out one nail with another; but the whole collection of them, disorderly and vitiated as they are, since the fall of our first parent. In opposition to our innate avarice, pride, and love of pleasure, he ope-ed his mission by teaching that-Blessed are the poor in spirit; Blessed are the meek; Blessed are they that mourn, &c. Teaching, as he did, with respect to our fellow-creatures, every social virtue, he singled out fraternal charity for his peculiar and characteristic precept; requiring that his disciples should love one another as they love themselves, and even as he himself has loved them; he who laid down his life for them; and he extended the obligation of this precept to our enemies, equally with our friends. Nor was the Morality of Jesus a mere speculative system of precepts, like the systems of the philosophers: it was of a practical nature, and he himself confirmed, by his example, every virtue which he inculcated, and more particularly that hardest of all others to reduce to practice, the love of our enemies. Christ had gone about, as the sacred text expresses it, doing good to all, Acts, x. 38., and evil to no one. He had cured the sick of Judea and the neighbouring countries, had given sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even life to the dead; but, above all things, he had enlightened the mind of his hearers with the knowledge of pure and sublime truths, capable of leading them to present and future happiness: yet was he every where calumniated and persecuted, till at length, his inveterate enemies fulfilled their malice against him, by nailing him to a cross, thereon to expire by lengthened torments. Not content with this, they came before his gibbet, deriding him in his agony with insulting words and gestures!-And what is the return which the author of Christianity makes for such unexampled affronts and barbarity? He excuses the perpetrators of them! He prays for them! Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do! Luke, xxiii. 34. No wonder, this proof of supernatural charity should have staggered the most hardened infidels; one of whom confesses that, if Socrates 'has died like a philosopher, Jesus alone has died ike a God!' (1) The precepts and the example of the master has not been lost on his disciples.These have ever been distinguished by their practice of virtue, and, particularly, by their charity and forgiveness of injuries. The first of them, who laid down his life for Christ, St. Stephen, while the Jews were stoning him to death, prayed thus, with his last voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! Acts, vii. 59. Having considered the several systems of Paganism, which have prevailed, and that still prevail in different parts of the world, both as to belief and practice, together with the speculations of the wisest infidel philosophers concerning them, and having contemplated, on the other hand, the doctrine of the New Testament both as to theory and practice; I would ask any candid unbeliever, where he thought Jesus Christ could have acquired the idea of so sublime, so pure, so efficacious a religion as Christianity is; especially when compared with the others above alluded to? Could he have acquired it in the workshop of a poor artizan of Nazareth, or among the fishermen of the lake of Genezareth? Then, how could he and his poor unlettered Apostles succeed in propagating this religion, as they did throughout the world, in opposition to all the talents and power of Philosophers and Princes, and all the passions of all mankind? No other answers can be given to these questions, than that the religion itself has been divinely revealed, and that it has been divinely assisted, in its progress throughout the world. In addition to this internal evidence, of Christianity, as it is called, here are external proofs, which must not be passed over. Christ, on various occasions, appealed to the miracles which he wrought, in confirmation of his doctrine and mission: miracies public and indisputable, which, (1) Rousseau, Enule. |