men, sometimes no less benevolent in their intentions than able in their exertions, have not only done no good to the cause of religion, but great injury. They have revived old cavils and objections, or invented new, in order to display ingenuity in refuting them; cavils and objections which have frequently been answered, or which might never have occurred; but which, when once they have occurred, produce suspicion and unsettled notions on topics never doubted, and among honest men whose faith was firmly established. Such conduct is like that of a physician, who should administer doses of arsenic to his patients, in order to prove to them, at their risk, the sovereign power of his nostrum. The venom, finding a constitution favourable to its operation, triumphantly prevails over the antidote, and the preventive remedy cannot rescue the sufferer from his hapless fate.

I am persuaded, that even a sensible, thinking, and learned man might live his whole life in piety and peace, without ever dreaming of those objections to Christianity, which some of its most celebrated defenders have collected together from all ages and a great variety of neglected books, and then combined in a single portable volume, so as to render it a convenient manual or synopsis of infidelity. What must be the consequence? It must at least disturb the repose of the sensible, thinking, and learned man; and if it should be read and understood by the simple, the unlearned, the unthinking, and the ill

* "The laboured productions," said a very popular deist, "of Dr. Clarke himself, on the existence of a Deity, have rather contributed to make for the other side of the question, and raised a thousand new doubts on the reader's mind." Wherever a very laborious effort seems to be made to defend a doctrine, the appearance of a great struggle in its defence leaves a suspicion that it is scarcely defensible.

disposed, I am of opinion that its objections would be studied, its solutions neglected; and thus a very large number of recruits enlisted, by defenders of the faith, as volunteers in the army of unbelievers.

As one exemplification of what I have here advanced, I mention in this place, Bishop Warburton's View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy. There the unbeliever sees the scattered arguments of scepticism and unbelief all picked and culled for him, without any trouble of his own, and marked with inverted commas, so as to direct the eye, without loss of time, to their immediate perusal. The book becomes an anthologia of infidelity. The full-blown flowers are gathered from the stalks, and conveniently tied up in a nosegay. The essence is extracted and put into a phial commodious for the pocket, and fitted for hourly use. The late Bishop Horne also, in his facetious Letters on Infidelity, has collected passages from obscure books and one wretched anonymous pamphlet, and sent them abroad in such a manner as must of necessity cause them to be read and received where they never would have found their way by their native force. Such ingenious and well-meaning divines resuscitate the dead, and give life to the still-born or abortive offspring of dulness and malignity. I might mention many more instances of similar imprudence,* in men of the deepest erudition, and I believe, the sincerest piety; but I am unwilling to follow their example, in pointing out to unbelievers compendiums, abridgements, and manuals of sceptical cavil. To say in their excuse that they refute those arguments which they insert

* A very remarkable one is that of Dr. John Leland, who employs nearly six hundred pages in viewing Lord Bolingbroke's Deistical Opinions, quoting the most striking passages on almost every page. This conduct is like preserving vipers or monsters in spirits for an exhibition.

so liberally from the writings of the unbeliever, may prove our candour, but not our judgment or knowledge of human nature. Evil is learned sooner and remembered longer than good; and it would be better to let the books and pamphlets of the deists sink into oblivion, than to preserve and extend them, by extracting their most noxious parts, and then mixing them with the productions of sound learning and unaffected piety. The refutations are often long, laboured, and tedious, while the objections are short and lively. The refutations are therefore either not read or soon forgotten, while the flippant sarcasm of the sceptic attracts attention and fixes itself in the memory. It must also be allowed, that the refutations are too often unsatisfactory; and that the weakness of the defence invites new attacks, and gives fresh courage to the restless enemy.

The style also and manner of some among the celebrated defenders of Christianity is extremely improper. It is not respectful. It treats Jesus Christ as if he were an inferior to the person who takes upon him to examine, as he phrases it, the pretensions of Jesus Christ. To speak in authoritative, inquisitorial language of the Author of that religion by which the author himself professes to hope for salvation, is inconsistent with such professions, and with a reverence for Christianity. Think of a poor, frail, sinful mortal, sitting a self-appointed judge, and like a lawyer in a human court of judicature, arraigning Jesus Christ, the Lord of life. A venal solicitor might thus have questioned the two thieves that were crucified with him, had they been

*Some of them talk much and magisterially about the claims of Jesus (without adding the appellation of Christ, or any respectful epithet); they talk also, with a familiar air, of the carpenter's son, the Galilean, and even, as will be presently noticed more particularly, the peasant of Galilee.

accused at a modern police-office. The cold yet authoritative style of the tribunal has been much used by poor sinful mortals in examining, as it is called, that religion which brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. You would think the learned theologist, who assumes the office of an examiner, another Pontius Pilate. He places himself in the seat of judgment, and with an air of judicial importance decisively pronounces his opinion on the words and actions of that person, whom he owns, at the same time, to be the great Captain of salvation. In such defences or examinations, Jesus Christ, as I have just now intimated, is spoken of in terms that must divest him of his glory, and therefore vilify him in the eyes of the gainsayers, and all unthinking people. But how, on the contrary, do the prophets represent him? Language has no terms of magnificence adequate to his dignity.

The prophets describe Jesus Christ as the most august personage which it is possible to conceive. They speak of him indeed as the Seed of the woman and the Son of man; but at the same time describe him of celestial race. They announce him as a being exalted above men and angels; above "all principality and power; as the Word and the Wisdom of God; as the eternal Son of the Father; as the Heir of all things, by whom God made the worlds; as the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of his person."

Thus speak the prophets of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Now let us hear an ingenious apologist and defender of him and his religion. A reverend author, highly estimable for his learning and ingenuity, and whom I sincerely esteem, speaking of Jesus Christ, in a book professedly written to vindicate his truth and honour, repeatedly calls him,

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a Jewish peasant," and a "peasant of Galilee." "For what are we comparing?" says he, (in a comparison of Jesus Christ with Mahomet,) " a Galilean PEASANT, accompanied with a few fishermen, with a conqueror at the head of his army;" and again, in the next page, he says, "a Jewish PEASANT Overthrew the religion of the world."

Unbelievers are commonly, what are called, men of the world; fascinated by its pomps and vanities. Is it the most likely means to overcome their prejudices and teach them to bow the knee to Jesus, thus to lower his personal dignity? Was there any occasion for it? Do not the prophets, as I have just now observed, exalt him above every name? Why call him a Jewish peasant? The term is by no means appropriate to him, supposing that it were not an injudicious degradation of his character in the eyes of unthinking worldlings and malignant unbelievers. It is also peculiarly offensive to hear dignified ecclesiastics, who live in splendour and affluence entirely in consequence of the religion of Jesus Christ, speaking of him in their defences of his religion, as a peasant, as a person, compared to themselves, vile and despicable. Neither will such arguments as this appellation is meant to support, render service to Christianity. No; for the men of the world will say it was impossible for a peasant to effect so much; and therefore they will, like Mr. Gibbon, attribute the success of Christianity merely to political artifice. They will attribute it to king-craft, state-craft, and priest-craft, forcing a religion upon the weak, the timorous, and the ignorant. They will attribute more to Constantine than to St. Paul; and will mock the Jewish peasant, and all who bow the knee to him. The representation becomes to the worldly man a stumbling block and a rock of offence.