of the Gospel revelation, which, partial and imperfect as undoubtedly it is, could not yet fail, to awaken inquiry, and command attention.

General attention, accordingly, has long been excited by this correspondence; and the spirit of inquiry is still anxiously directed towards it. Nor is the anxiety without foundation. For a successful counterfeit will necessarily be regarded, both by its enemies and by its friends, as the most available ground of objection to revealed religion. In this light, the success of Mahometanism is viewed and treated by the opposite parties. Infidel writers artfully press the parallel: the advocates of Christianity studiously expose the contrast. But, as the former have certainly pushed their argument beyond all reason and reality, so the latter, in return, have been disposed, perhaps, to concede less, than truth and fairness would seem to demand. On one side of the question, that of the Christian advocates, the course adopted has been a mistaken one; since a good cause can never fare the worse for a candid examination. The best cause, indeed, may be disserved and dishonoured by an advocate whose sole aim is victory: but we have yet to learn, that a good one has ever suffered by being brought to the test of its own merits, without prejudice indulged, or injustice

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practised, against any other, with which it may stand in contrast. On this principle it is designed to proceed in the present work: however he may fail in doing justice to it in the execution, the author feels hopeful, that his motives will be fairly judged of, and that the principle itself will be respected.

The disciples of Mahomet appeal confidently to the success of his religion, as the grand test and argument of its truth. The enemies of Christianity have taken advantage of this appeal, to disparage and cast a doubt upon the argument arising from the success of the Gospel.* With this view, no pains have been spared by modern infidels and sceptics, to render the analogy between Christianity and Mahometanism complete, by a laboured comparison of the rival creeds, in all the available points of their origin and promulgation. Their obscure rise, their irresistible progress, and their rapid and wide diffusion, have been successively adduced and dwelt upon, in order to level to one and the same standard, the claims of the Gospel, and the pretensions of the Koran. The task was not an easy one. A religion of peace, and a religion

* M. D'Herbelot has observed, that Mahometanism is particularly valued by the Jews, as serving " de confondre les Chrêtiens, sur l'étendue, et sur l'universalité, de leur religion."— Bibliotheque Orientale, tom. i. p. 71. ed. 1777.

of the sword, a faith preached by the disciples of a meek and lowly Master, and a faith propagated by force of arms, under the banner of a warlike enthusiast or impostor, were too utterly at variance to stand credibly or even plausibly upon the same footing, with respect to the causes of their successful propagation. The intrinsic weakness of the comparison in these points was soon felt, and the ground silently abandoned, by later and more skilful practitioners in the school of infidelity. These advocates of scepticism wisely transferred their efforts, from the very imperfect analogy of the two religions in their rise and progress, to seize upon the parallel in its strong hold. "It is not," observes an eloquent and insidious writer, treating of the success of Mahomet, “the "the propagation, but the permanency of his religion that deserves our wonder: the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran."* The

*Decline and Fall, vol. ix. p. 350. edit. London, 1802. Mr. Gibbon's assertion, however, holds true only so far as respects the maintenance of the divine unity. On most other points of doctrine and discipline, the Mahometan world is split into countless sects and schisms. See Pocock, Specim. pp. 19-25. 212, 214, &c.; Hotting. Hist. Orient. lib. ii. cap. vi. pp. 340–373.; Sale, Preliminary Discourse, sect. viii; and sect. ix. of the present work.

argument here insinuated from the permanency of Mahometanism obviously aims to affect the parallel argument derivable from the permanency of the Gospel dispensation. And while the correspondence of the rival systems is thus shown to be complete in so capital a feature of the evidences, the inviolable purity of the sublime doctrine and simple ritual of the law of Mahomet is further brought into artful contrast, on the one hand, with the idolatrous deflections of Israel from the faith and worship of Jehovah, and on the other, with the gross corruptions which so early crept in to disfigure the purity of Christianity. The object of the sceptical historian is plain for once, however, it is easier to perceive the disingenuousness of his purpose, than to deny the validity of his reasoning. In every prior stage of this controversy, the fallacies of scepticism have been sufficiently confuted and exposed but the validity of the argument arising from the permanency of Mahometanism, and the preservation of its doctrines and rites in their original severe simplicity, may seem established by the silence of the ablest champions of Revelation. The admission implied by this silence is the more remarkable, as it leaves unexplained those characters of Mahometanism,

which most impress the mind as mysterious and inexplicable.

The suspicious zeal of infidelity in the investigation of the Mahometan religion, has not been allowed to pass unobserved by the guardians and defenders of Evangelic truth. To the popular argument in favour of Mahometanism, founded on its success, it has been summarily and fairly replied by Christian writers, "that success alone is no sufficient criterion of the truth and divinity of any religious system." This sound first principle being taken for the basis of their general reasoning, they proceed next to examine the human means possessed and resorted to by Mahomet, for the advancement of his imposture; and profess to discover in these means, seconded as they were by the favourable concurrence of the times, the whole secret of his success.

The means chiefly insisted on, are, the birth and family-connections of the pretended Prophet, which threw, at the outset, the weight of personal interest into the scale; the consummate art and prudence with which he conducted his design, which gave the strength and solidity of system to each step of his progress; the merit of the great doctrine of the UNITY, with which he set out, and which was already immemorially known and acknowledged by the various tribes