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DEISTS.

CHILDREN OF REASON,

You believe that there is one God; so far you do well: but why do you not believe in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent? No doubt you suppose you have reason for your unbelief; but you think yourselves capable of being mistaken, therefore ought to shew yourselves open to conviction, and to examine with candour every rational argument which the advocates for Christianity make use of in defence thereof: I think you are mistaken, and hope you are capable of being convinced of your error: hence I take the liberty of addressing you. I mean not to abuse you, to charge you with crimes which belong not to you; but wish to reason calmly with you in that spirit of love which one man ever ought to manifest to another; if you should still continue to think that the mistake is on my side, I hope you will be kind enough to answer my Address, and seek to convince me of my error, not by ridicule and banter, but by sober argument; in that case you may depend upon my paying a candid attention to what you may allege in favour of infidelity; for be assured that the discovery and promotion of TRUTH is my only object.

If the miracles which we say were wrought by Jesus of Nazareth were not real, how was it that his vigilant adversaries, who had full opportunity of scrutinizing them, were incapable of detecting the imposture? The Jews never attempted to deny the reality of his miracles, which they most certainly would have done, had not the evidence of their reality appeared to them, prejudiced as they were against him, incontrovertible? If the history of the miracles of Jesus be as well attested as any other history, which is admitted by you to be authentic, which I think many able writers have proved to be the case, if even those men who were on the spot at the time he professed to work them, who would have been glad to have disproved them had they been able, tacitly admitted their reality by not making the attempt, which appears to have been the case, how can their reality be reasonably questioned by you? If it be unreasonable to deny the reality of the miracles of Jesus, it must be reasonable to believe that he was sent by God, and that the gospel is of divine authority, as nothing but divine power could enable him to perform such mighty works. You say, miracles could not be wrought, because they would be a violation of the established order of nature. How dare you assert that he who established the order of nature has no right, in any case, to depart from that order?that he could not, for important purposes, operate contrary to the usual course of things? Why will you set your wisdom in

opposition to his, and limit the operations of his power? Are you quite sure that miracles are a violation of the laws of nature? I deny that they are, and assert them to be operations above the power of nature, without any violation of her established laws. You object to miracles because you have seen none wrought in your day; but you do not object to the original formation of the different species of animals by an invisible being, though you have seen no new species of them formed since you were born; herein you are not consistent, as the objection would be of as much weight in the one scale as in the other. I entreat you seriously to consider this.

Some of you are philosophers, consequently, cannot be ignorant that every effect must have an adequate cause; and how w ll you account for the wonderful effects produced by the gospel, as preached by the apostles, if you deny its divine authority, and the reality of the facts recorded in the New Testament? What other cause can you find capable of producing such effects? If you deny what we suppose to have been the causes of the early successes of Christianity, you ought to find other causes to which such successes may be fairly attributed.

As men of letters, you cannot be ignorant of the state of the world at the time when Christianity was introduced, that the nations of the earth were all, except the Jews, worshippers of idols; that the pagan priesthood had all the powers of the world on their side; and that the Jews, the only nation which professed to worship the only living and true God, were inveterate in their opposition to the gospel. A few plain men, without worldly power, pomp, or the countenance of any one government upon earth, without any honours or emoluments to bestow upon their disciples, introduced a new religion, built upon facts which they professed to have been eye-witnesses of; what they preached stood directly opposed to all the established religions in the world; was inimical to the most rooted prejudices, oldest habits, and general practice of mankind. They paid no court to the great, flattered none of th passions, countenanced no vice, or worldly interest, but called men every where to a life of purity and benevolence, and met, as might be expected, from the nature of the system which they introduced, with the greatest opposition. Yet this system, propagated by men destitute of all the advantages of rank, wealth, power, and but moderately skilled in literature, armed with no carnal weapons, in opposition to all the powers of the world, not only maintained its ground, but undermined the empire of pagan superstition and idolatry, which was most firmly established every where before Christianity was introduced. O ye unbelievers! tell us how we are to account for the progress which the religion of Jesus made in a few ages, without supposing its origin to be divine, and that God interposed to give it success ?

Some of you have spoken highly of the morality of the new Testament, and of the spirit and conduct of Jesus, though you have continued to disbelieve his divine mission: and surely you must admit, that the theology of the gospel, the leading principles of which are, the unity of God, his unbounded goodness to his creatures, and that his service consists in doing good to others, is vastly superior to the theology of the

gentile philosophers; but how do you account for this while you continue to deny the divine origin of Christianity, how can you account for the invention of a system by a few mechanics and fishermen, so much superior to every thing suggested by the wisdom of the ancient sages? Can it be thought that after all the efforts of philosophy had been found insufficient to recover a single city from idolatry to the knowledge and worship of the one God, a few obscure men unacquainted with philosophy, should, without divine assistance, be able to attain that knowledge, to invent the best system of ethics ever heard of, and to recover, not a single eity only, but a considerable part of the world from idolatry to the knowledge and worship of one supreme being? Is it not quite unaccountable that Christianity, if it be a system of imposture, should be the only means yet found of recovering mankind from the worship of dumb idols to the service of the living and true God? Is it not very extraordinary, if reason, unaided by revelation, be sufficient to bring mankind, after having fallen into superstition and idolatry, to that degree of knowledge re-pećting God and moral duty, which you profess, that no part of mankind, either in ancient or modern times, where the advantages of divine revelation have not been enjoyed, have been able to recover themselves from idolatry, much less to attain the ideas of the Creator and Governor of the universe, and of moral duty, which you have received? May it not be concluded that you are indebted to the gospel, which you reject, for your ideas both of God and moral duty? I conceive that you have derived your knowledge of these subjects from the contemplation of the system of nature, surrounded with that blaze of light which the Scriptures have diffused over it, though yourselves are not aware that this is the case.

Man is at present in a mortal dying state: all his hopes and prospects, pleasures, and usefulness terminate in the grave. You think a future state probable; but on this point, important as it is to man, you can rise no higher than probability; you never can arrive at certainty so long as you reject the gospel, by which life and immortality are brought to light.Would it not be highly interesting to man, in his present state, to be assured of a future existence? to know that virtue will be rewarded and vice punished, in a future life? Would not the prospect of such a state invigorate the good man, and gladden his soul in his virtuous course; while its tendency, on the other hand, would be to check vice in its high career? Is it not reasonable to suppose that the benevolent Parent, the righteous Governor of the universe, would afford man the knowledge of a subject so important to his happiness, and of so much consequence to the moral system? But if God hath not revealed himself to us in the Scriptures, he hath not afforded us the means of attaining this knowledge, seeing it cannot be attained from the contemplation of his visible works. If the gospel be a divine revelation, the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is established beyond all controversy; it follows that the gospel is just such a revelation as ‚ mankind stand in need of, as God might be expected to afford, calculated for our benefit in the present state, as it assures us of a future existence and retribution, and for the general good of the moral system.

If the account which the gospel gives of the divine character and designs, stood opposed to the known attributes of Deity, as displayed in his visible works, you might well reject the New Testament as an erroneous book; but this is not the case. You maintain that God is wise, powerful, and good; this you think reason may discover by a view of the system of nature; this also the New Testament positively. asserts. You will find, if you re-examine the subject, that Christ and his apostles spake of the Deity as infinitely perfect, only wise, powerful beyond conception, love itself, and the common parent of mankind;. nor did they ever ascribe to him any attributes inconsistent with wisdom, power, and goodness. What objection can you have to their representation of the Deity? Wherein does it appear that reason and Christianity are at variance upon this point? It requires much close reasoning, for a considerable length of time, and that degree of ratiocination which many men appear not to be capable of, or at least not to have sufficient leisure to exercise, to attain the above knowledge of God from his visible works, and to deduce those practical inferences therefrom which are necessary to regulate their conduct: indeed, the difficulty is so great that few men have surmounted it, and they had: some previous acquaintance with the Scriptures, or at least were situated where the light of revelation was diffused around them, which renders it very doubtful whether they would have attained such knowledge had they lived where the Bible had never been heard of. But the gospel is calculated to bring the most illiterate part of mankind, whose powers are the most obtuse, and who have but little leisure for reflection, to the knowledge of God, as a being infinitely wise, powerful, and good, and to a correct view of moral duty in a few days; when even a philosopher might study the book of nature for years before he derived the same knowledge therefrom. This is utterly unaccountable if the gospel be a system of falsehood; but acknowledge its divine origin, and it is át once accounted for,

Could it be proved that the Scriptures contain no more information respecting God and his designs than what you suppose may be collected from his visible works, you would have some ground for sɩying they do not contain a divine revelation. But they do contain, yourselves being judges, that information which can never be collected, not even by the acutest reasoners, from the contemplation of nature, for they contain the doctrine of the resurrection and of a future state. Viewing things merely as they are, how can you reconcile a variety of circumstances with the infinite wisdom, power, and goodness of God? and so long as you reject the gospel how can you be sure that things will ever be brought into a better state, in particular into such a state as will reconcile every thing which has taken place under the divine government with the known perfections of Deity? We learn from the Scriptures that sin and suffering will continue only for a time, that they will at length be entirely removed from the creation, that all the works of God will be restored to purity and happiness, be made to praise their Creator, and that he will rejoice in them. Is not this a consummation devoutly to be

wished? Will it not clear up all the difficulties which at present attend the contemplation of the divine government, to be assured that man is in a state of discipline, left to the free exercise of his powers, to prove the real nature of good and evil by experience, that as the child of experience he may be gradually conducted to a state of greater perfection, purity, and happiness, consistently with the free exercise of his powers; that the Most High will display the wisdom, efficacy, and benevolence of his government, by conducting the whole creation to a state of perfect rectitude and felicity? The Scriptures assure us of these things; but the book of nature only makes them appear probable, and Jeaves you in a state of painful uncertainty. How then can you deny that the Scriptures contain a divine revelation? That many professed advocates for Christianity have maintained, as the sense of Scripture, doctrines grossly libellous upon the God who made and governs the world, I do not deny; but I deny that such doctrines are to be found in the sacred writings, consequently I cannot adinit that they ought to be taken as a ground of objection to divine revelation, being a perversion thereof. If any of you will candidly state what you suppose the New Testament to contain, which can fairly be denominated a libel upon the character of Deity, I will either prove that you have mistaken the sense of the apostolic writings, or join with you in asserting that those writings cannot be a divine revelation; upon this point 1 wish to be at issue with you; but I must contend that the writings ought to be suffered to speak for themselves, and not the sense which commentators have given be taken as their indubitable meaning. You do not give up natural religion because it was once so grossly perverted as to become the foundation of polytheism and image worship; then why should you give up the Scriptures because men have built upon them hypotheses absurd and dishonourable to God? As you judge of the system of nature, not by the erroneous systems of philosophy, which men in dark ages built upon visible appearances; but by your own observation and knowledge of the general phenomena; so you ought not to judge of Christianity by the erroneous systems of divinity which men in the dark ages of monkish superstition built upon the gospel, and which have obtained too much credit in more enlightened periods; but by a particular attention to the general import of: the Scriptures themselves. You do not form your judgment of the system of the world by a single appearance, or the examination of a a few detached circumstances; no more ought you to judge of the import of Scripture by the examination of a few detached passages, but by a careful review of the general tendency and design of the whole. The different ideas which philosophers have formed of appearances in nature have not led you to conclude that such appearances are not real, nor prevented your examining them for yourselves; why then should the diversity of ideas which have obtained among Christians, while they all agree in the leading facts upon which Christianity is built, dead you to reject the gospel, or prevent your examining it for yourselves?