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CHAP. XXXIV.-Archbishop Tillotson's Confession of the identity of

Christianity and Paganism

CHAP. XXXV.-Resemblance of Pagan and Christian forms of worship

..The White Surplice.... The Baptismal Font....Nundination and Infant Bap-

tism....The old stories of the ancient Paganism adopted into Christianity....

The Pantheon....Similar inscriptions in Pagan Temples and Christian Church-

es....Saints and Martyrs that never existed

CHAP. XXXVI.—Specimens of Pagan piety....The first Orphic Hymn to

Prothyræa....Hymn to Diana....The Creed and Golden Verses of Pythagoras....

The Morals of Confucius

CHAP. XXXVII.-Charges brought against Christianity by its early

adversaries, and the Christian manner of answering those charges.... The

Doctrine of Manes and his History....Demonstration that no such person as

Jesus Christ ever existed....Admission of Bishop Herbert Marsh....Admissions

to the same effect of the early Fathers

CHAP. XXXVIII.-Christian Evidences adduced from Christian Writ-

ings....Dorotheus' Lives of the Apostles....Origin of the Acts of the Apostles,

Cephas, Judas, Mark, Luke, Paul....That there is no difference between the

Popish legends and the canonical Acts of the Apostles....That no such persons

as the twelve Apostles ever existed

CHAP. XXXIX.-The Arguments of Martyrdom....That Martyrdom is

not the kind of evidence which we have a right to expect....The impropriety

of the argument as it respects the character of God....The impropriety of the

argument as it respects the character of Man....That the argument of martyr-

doin is absolutely not true.....Specimens of Martyrology

CHAP. XL.-The Apostolic Fathers....St. Barnabas, St. Clement, St.

Hermas, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius....Correspondence of Ignatius with the

Virgin Mary....Result....Perfect Parallel of Pagan and Christian Mysteries

CHAP. XLI.-The Fathers of the Second Century....Papias Quadratus,

Aristides, Hegesippus, Justin Martyr, Melito, St. Irenæus, Pantænus, Clemens,

Alexandrinus, Tertullian

PROLEGOMENA.

ON all hands 'tis admitted that the Christian religion is matter of most serious importance: it is so, if it be truth, because in that truth a law of faith and conduct measuring out to us a propriety of sentiment and action, which would otherwise not be incumbent upon us, is propounded to our observance in this life; and eternal consequences of happiness or of misery, are at issue upon our observance or neglect of that law.

To deny to the Christian religion such a degree of importance, is not only to launch the keenest sarcasm against its whole apparatus of supernatural phenomena, but is virtually to withdraw its claims and pretensions altogether. For if men, after having received a divine revelation, are brought to know no more than what they knew before, nor are obliged to do any thing which otherwise they would not have been equally obliged to do; nor have any other consequences of their conduct to hope or fear, than otherwise would have been equally to be hoped or feared; then doth the divine revelation reveal nothing, and all the pretence thereto, is driven into an admission of being a misuse of language. On the other hand, the Christian religion is of scarce less importance, if it be false; because, no wise and good man could possibly be indifferent or unconcerned to the prevalence of an extensive and general delusion. No good and amiable heart could for a moment think of yielding its assent to so monstrous an idea, as the supposition that error could possibly be useful, that imposture could be beneficial, that the heart could be set right by setting the understanding wrong, that men were to be made rational by being deceived, and rendered just and virtuous by credulity and ignorance.

To be in error one's self, is a misfortune; and if it be such an error as mightily affects our peace of mind, it is a very grievous misfortune; to be the cause of error to others, either by deceiving them ourselves, or by connivance, and furtherance of the councils and machinations by which we see that they are deceived, is a crime; it is a most cruel triumph over nature's weakness, a most

barbarous wrong done to our brother man; it is the kind of wrong which we should most justly and keenly resent, could we be sensible of its being put upon ourselves.

A Nero playing upon his harp, in view of a city in flames, is a less frightful picture than that of the solitary philosopher basking in the serenity of his own speculations, but indifferent to the ignorance he could remove, the error he could correct, or the misery he could relieve.

As then there is no falsehood more apparently false, and more morally mischievous, than to suppose that error can be useful, and delusion conducive to happiness and virtue so, there can be no place for the medium or alternative of indifference between the truth or falsehood of the Christian religion. Every argument that could show it to be a blessing to mankind, being true, must in like degree tend to demonstrate it to be a curse and a mischief, being false.

If it be true, there can be no doubt that God, its all wise and benevolent author, must have given to it such sufficient evidence and proofs of its truth, that every creature whom he hath endued with rational faculties, upon the honest and conscientious exercise of those faculties, must be able to arrive at a perfect and satisfactory conviction. To suppose that there either is, or by any possibility could be, a natural disinclination or repugnancy in man's mind, to receive the truths of revelation, is "to charge God foolishly;" as if, when he had the making of man's mind, and the making of his revelation also, he had not known how to adapt the one to the other; nor is it less than to open the door to every conceivable absurdity and imposture, and to give to the very grossness and palpability of falsehood, the advantage over evidence, truth, and reason. If we are to conceive that any thing may be the more likely to be true, in proportion to its appearing more palpably and demonstrably false, and that God can possibly have intended us to embrace that, which he has so constituted our minds, that they must naturally suspect and dislike it, why so, then, all principles and tests of truth and evidence are abolished at once; we may as well take poison for our food, and rush on what our nature shudders at, for safety.

To suppose that belief or unbelief can either be a virtue or a crime, or any man morally better or worse for belief or unbelief, is to assume that man has a faculty which

we see and feel that he has not;* to wit,—a power of making himself believe, of being convinced when he is not convinced, and not convinced when he is: which is a being and not being at the same time, the sheer end of "all discourse of reason."

To suppose that a suitable state of mind, and certain previous dispositions of meekness, humility, and teachableness are necessary to fit us for the reception of divine truth, as the soil must be prepared to receive the seed, is in like manner to argue preposterously, and to open the door to the reception of falsehood as well as of truth; as the prepared ground will fertilize the tares as prolifically as the wheat, and is indifferent to either.

And in proportion as the state of mind so supposed to be necessary, is supposed to be an easily yielding, readily consenting, and feebly resisting state; the more facile is it to the practices of imposture and cunning, and the less worthy conquest of evidence and reason. The property of truth is not, surely, to wait till men are in right frames of mind to receive it, but to find them wrong, and to set them right; to find them ignorant and to make them wise; not created by the mind, but itself the mind's creator; it is the sovereign that ascends the throne, and not the throne that makes the sovereign; where it reigns. not, right dispositions cannot be found, and where it reigns, they cannot be wanting.

The highest honour we can pay to truth, is to show our confidence in it, and our desire to have it sifted and analyzed, by how rough a process soever; as being well assured that it is that alone that can abide all tests, and which, like the genuine gold, will come out all the purer from the fiercer fire.

While there are bad hearted men in the world, and those who wish to make falsehood pass for truth, they will ever discover themselves and their counsel, by their impatience of contradiction, their hatred of those who differ from them, their wish to suppress inquiry, and their bitter resentment, when what they call truth, has not been handled with the delicacy and niceness, which it was never any thing else but falsehood that required or needed.

All the mighty question now before us requires, is, attention and ability; without any presentiment, prejudica

* This thought is Dr. Whitby's; who, after publishing his voluminous Commentary on the Scriptures, published this among his "Last Thoughts."

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