Testament establishes the support of the ministers of religion on a reasonable footing. Is it thought equitable, that those who teach philosophy and the learned languages should be recompensed for their labour? The Gospel sets the maintenance of its ministers on the same footing (see Luke x. 7. 1 Cor. ix. 11-14;) but it does not countenance in them any claim of either power or wealth.

OBJECTION V.-The Gospel prohibits free inquiry, and demands a full and implicit assent, without any previous examination.

ANSWER.-The contrary is the fact. The Gospel not only invites but demands investigation: free inquiry is not prejudicial, but in the highest degree beneficial to Christianity, whose evidences shine the more clearly, in proportion to the rigour with which they are examined.

OBJECTION VI.-The Morality of the Bible is too strict, and lays mankind under too severe restraints.

ANSWER.-The contrary is the case: for the morality of the Bible restrains us only from what would be hurtful to ourselves or to others, while it allows of every truly rational, sober, and humane pleasure.

OBJECTION VII.-Some of the Moral Precepts of Jesus Christ are unreasonable and impracticable.

ANSWER.-A candid examination of a few of the precepts objected to, will show how little foundation there is for such an assertion. For,

1. The prohibition of anger, in Matt. v. 22, condemns only implacable anger,-sinful anger unrepented of. The same restriction must be understood respecting other general assertions of Jesus, as Matt. x. 33, which cannot apply to Peter.

2. The precept of Jesus Christ to forgive injuries, has been asserted to be contrary to reason and nature.

A few of the most eminent heathen philosophers, however, have given the same direction; particularly Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, and Confucius. It has further been objected that this precept is given in a general and Indefinite way; whereas there are certain necessary restrictions.

Assuredly. But these exceptions are so plain, that they will always be supposed, and consequently need not to be specified. The Christian religion makes no alteration in the natural rights of mankind, nor does it forbid necessary self-defence, or seeking legal redress of injuries in cases where it may be expedient to restrain violence and outrage. The substance of what it recommends, relates chiefly to the temper of the mind.

3. Against the injunction to love our enemies, it has been argued, "If love carry with it complacence, esteem, and friendship, and these are due to all men,-what distinction can we then make between the best and worst of men ?"

But, in this precept, as in all moral writings "love" signifies benevolence and good will; which may be exercised by kind actions towards those whom we cannot esteem, and whom we are even obliged to punish.

4. The commandment to "love our neighbour as ourselves," is also odjected to as unreasonable, and impossible to be observed.

In moral writings, love (as we have just noticed) signifies good will expressing itself in the conduct. Now, this precept of Jesus Christ may be understood,

(1.) As enjoining the same kind of affection to our fellow creature as to ourselves, disposing us to avoid his misery, and to consult his happiness as well as our own. Or,

(2.) It may require us to love our neighbour in some certain proportion as we love ourselves. The love of our neighbour must bear some pro

portion to self-love, and virtue consists in the due proportion of ft. Or, (3.) The precept may be understood of an equality of affection. Moral obligation can extend no further than to natural possibility. Now, we have a perception of our own interests, like the consciousness of our own existence, which we always carry about with us; and which, in its continuation, kind, and degree, seems impossible to be felt with respect to the interests of others. Therefore, were we to love our neighbour in the same degree (so far as this is possible) as we love ourselves, yet the care of ourselves would not be neglected.

The precepts,-to "do to others as we would have them do to us," and to "love our neighbour as ourselves,"-are not merely intelligible and comprehensive rules: but they also furnish the means of determining the particular cases which are included under them: and they are likewise useful means of moral improvement, and afford a good test of a person's progress in benevolence.

5. The command to believe in Jesus Christ, and the sanctions by which it is enforced," he that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned," (Mark xvi. 16,)—have been objected against: and it has been said that "Faith, considered in itself, can neither be a virtue nor a vice, because men can no otherwise believe than as things appear to them."

Yet, that they appear in such a particular manner to the understanding of individuals, may be owing entirely to themselves. All threatenings, moreover, must be understood of unbelievers, who had sufficient light and evidence afforded them, and who, through inattention, neglect, wilful prejudice, or from corrupt passions and vices have rejected the Gospel, as Christ himself says in John iii. 19, and xv. 22.

OBJECTION VIII.-Christianity produces a timid passive spirit, and also entirely overlooks the generous sentiments of friendship and patriotism.

ANSWER 1. Christianity omits precepts founded upon false principles, such as recommend fictitious virtues, which, however admired and celebrated, are productive of no salutary effects, and in fact are no virtues at all.

Valour, for instance, is for the most part constitutional; and, when not under the control of true religion, so far is it from producing any salutary effects by introducing peace, order, or happiness into society, that it is the usual perpetrator of all the violences, which, from retaliated injuries, distract the world with bloodshed and devastation. But, though Christianity exhibits no commendation of fictitious virtues, it is so far from generating a timid spirit, that, on the contrary, it forms men of a singular courage. It teaches them to be afraid of offending God, and of doing injury to man; but it labours to render them superior to every other fear. The lives of Christians have, in numberless instances, displayed the efficacy of its divine principles, which have enabled them to sustain unexampled active exertion, persevering labour, and patient suffering.

2. With regard to Friendship, various satisfactory reasons may be as. signed why Jesus Christ did not enact any laws concerning it.

[i.] A pure and sincere friendship must be a matter of choice, and reluctant to the very appearance of compulsion.

[ii] It depends upon similarity of disposition, and coincidence of sentiment and affection, and upon a variety of circumstances not within our control, or our choice.

[iii] Partial attachments, which usually led persons to prefer their friends to the public, would NOT be favourable to the general virtue and happiness. But though the Gospel makes no provision for friendship, it does not prohibit that connexion, but rather sanctions it by the example of Christ himself; whose attachment to Lazarus and his family, and to

John the beloved disciple, may satisfy us of his approbation of friendship both as a duty and as an enjoyment.

3. With respect to Patriotism,-if by this be meant a bigoted, selfish, or fiery love of our country, which leads us to seek its aggrandisement, regardless of the morality of the means by which that is accomplished, it is no virtue.

But Jesus Christ virtually established the duty of patriotism, by establishing the principle from which it flows, viz. the universal obligation of justice and love; leading us to do good unto all men, but especially unto them who are of the household of faith, and enforcing more than ordinary affection between husbands and wives, parents and children, brethren and sisters. In all which cases he has decided that every additional tie, by which man is connected with man, is an obligation to additional love. Above all, Christ himself, by his own conduct, sanctioned, exemplified, and commanded patriotism.

OBJECTION IX.-The Bible is the most immoral book in the world.

ANSWER. A candid examination of the morality of the Scriptures, most completely refutes this assertion. If, indeed, the Bible be an immoral book, how is it that the reading of this book should have reclaimed millions from immorality ?-a fact, too notorious to be denied by any impartial observer. Further, many of the immoral statements, which are said (but which cannot be proved) to exist in the Bible, are founded on a wilful inattention to the difference which exists between ancient and modern manners. The characteristic of modern manners is the free intercourse of the two sexes in the daily commerce of life and conversation. Hence the peculiar system of modern manners; hence that system of decorum, delicacy, and modesty (founded on the morality of Scripture) which be. long entirely to this relation of the sexes, and to the state of society in which it exists. But in the ancient world there was nothing of this intercourse. Besides, the immoral actions which are recorded in Scripture, are not related for our imitation, but for our caution.

OBJECTION. X. The Bible inculcates a spirit of intolerance and persecution.

ANSWER.-The religion of Jesus Christ has been represented as of an unSocial, unsteady, surly, and solitary complexion, tending to destroy every other but itself. It does, indeed, tend to destroy every other, but in the same manner as truth in every subject tends to destroy falsehood, that is, by rational conviction. Jesus Christ uniformly discountenanced bigotry and intolerance in his disciples. Distinctions of nations, sects, or parties, as such, to him were nothing: distinctions of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, were to him every thing.

The moderation and liberality of pagan governments have been eulogised by the opposers of Christianity, who have asserted that persecution for religion was indebted for its first rise to the Christian system. The very reverse is the fact. Ancient history records numerous instances of pagan governments that persecuted the professors of other religions.

Thus, the Athenians put Socrates to death, on account of his religious tenets; and Antiochus Epiphanes exercised the most horrid cruelties against the Jews for their religion. (1 Mac. i. 40-64,) Tiberius prohibited the Egyptian and Jewish worship, banished the Jews from Rome, and restrained the worship of the Druids in Gaul, while Claudius had recourse to penal laws, to abolish their religion. Domitian and Vespasian banished the philosophers from Rome, and the former confined some of them in the islands, and whipped or put others to death. The violent means and cruel persecutions, which were adopted by pagan governors to annihilate the Christian religion, for three hundred years after its first origin, are too well known to be controverted.

Men, indeed, calling themselves Christians, have cruelly persecuted

others; but the Gospel does not authorise such a conduct, and therefore is not chargeable with it. And facts and experience have proved (particularly in France during the revolution,) that not the friends but the enemies of the Gospel,-not sincere believers, but apostates and atheists,have been the most cruel oppressors and persecutors, and the greatest enemies both of civil and religious liberty.

SECTION II. The wonderful Harmony and intimate Connexion subsisting between all the Parts of Scripture, are a further proof of its Divine Authority and Original.

Most of the writers of the Scriptures lived at very different times, and in distant places, through the long period of sixteen hundred years, so that there could be no confederacy or collusion: and yet their relations agree with, and mutually support, each other.

The same essential agreement, and the same dependency of one upon another, obtains also among the chief practical precepts, as well as between the doctrines and precepts of Christianity.

OBJECTION.-There are contradictions to morality as well as among the different writers themselves.

ANSWER. These contradictions, as they are termed, are seeming only, and not real: they perplex only superficial readers. Nor is there a single instance, which does not admit of a rational solution, by attending to the original languages, and to the manners, customs, &c., that obtained in the countries where scenes mentioned in the Scriptures were situated.

SECTION III.-The Preservation of the Scriptures a Proof of their Truth and Divine Origin.

To nothing, indeed, but the mighty power of God, can we ascribe their preservation. amid all the attempts made to annihilate them.

SECTION IV. The tendency of the Scriptures to promote the present and eternal Happiness of Mankind, constitutes another Proof of their Divine Inspiration.

Were all men sincerely and cordially to believe the Bible to be a divine revelation, and to obey its precepts, how would the moral face of the world be changed! Wherever it has been thus embraced, the most beneficial effects have been the result.

I. The Writings of the earliest Professors of Christianity prove, that the first converts were reformed charac

ters.

1. For testimonies from the New Testament, compare Rom. vi. 21, 22. 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. 1 Pet. iv. 3, 4.

2. The various Christian Apologists, who were compelled to vindicate their character, bear ample testimony to their exemplary lives and conversation. Among these, the attestations of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Origen, and Lactantius, are particularly wor thy of notice.

Though we cannot expect, from PAGANS, direct testimonies to the vir tues of men whom they persecuted; yet the works of heathen writers incidently furnish proofs of their innocence and worth. Pliny, for instance, in his memorable letter to Trajan, says, that the great crime of the Christians consisted,-not in the commission of any wickedness, but-in assembling together on a stated day before light, to sing hymns to Christ as God. The apostate emperor Julian, also, in his epistle to an heathen pontiff, commended their charity and other virtues to the imitation of the pagans. If the Gospel were merely the contrivance of man, the virtues and holiness of the first Christians would be an inexplicable fact.

II. A Summary of the beneficial effects of Christianity

on SOCIETY IN GENERAL.

The benevolent spirit of the Gospel has served as a bond of union between independent nations, and has broken down the partition which separated Heathens and Jews; has abated their prejudices, and has rendered them more liberal towards each other. Further, it has checked pride and promoted humility and forgiveness; has rendered its sincere professors just and honest, and it has inspired them with firmness under persecution.

The benign influence of the Gospel has descended into families, and abolished polygamy; has diminished the pressure of private tyranny, has exalted and improved the female character; has improved every domestic endearment; given tenderness to the parent, humanity to the master, respect to superiors, and to inferiors ease: numberless charitable institutions unknown to the heathen world, have sprung from Christianity.

III. Beneficial Effects of Christianity on the POLITICAL STATE of the World.

A milder system of civil government, and a better administration of civil justice, have been introduced: the horrors of war have been miti. gated; and the measures of governments have been directed to their proper objects.

IV. Beneficial Effects of Christianity on LITERATURE and the FINE ARTS.

Christianity has been the means of preserving and disseminating moral, classical, and theological knowledge in every nation where it has been established. The Law, the Gospel, the comments on them, and the works of the fathers, were written in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, so that the know. ledge of these languages became necessary to every man, who wished to become an intelligent Christian. The Christian doctrines and precepts being contained in books, the use of letters became necessary to its teach ers; and by them was learning preserved. Modern opposers of revelation ascribe all our improvements to philosophy: but it was religion, the RBLIGION OF CHRIST, that took the lead. The reformers opened to us the Scrip.