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disputation, in order for its being carried on in a regular "manner, must not have turned upon the following ques❝tion, whether these doctrines were repugnant to the rules "of logic and metaphysics: but on the question, whether they had been revealed by heaven. It would have been "impossible for St. Paul to have been defeated, except it could have been proved to him, that God did not require "those things to be believed*." This reasoning does not appear to favour deism; it seems to place the mysteries of christianity on their true base.

Neither are those to be reputed deists, who doubt, or deny, the inspiration of some books, which are usually ac counted sacred. Luther denied the inspiration of the epistle of St. James; Grotius that of the Song of Solomon; and Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, denied that the Apocalypse was written by the Apostle John; yet no one of these was a deist.

Nor ought the deist to claim those learned critics, who allow that the scriptures have undergone the fate of all other books, and who therefore expose and amend the errors of copyists; expunge interpolations; restore mutilated passages; and deal with the writings of St. Paul, as they do with the writings of Thucydides. The chronology, the geography, the history, the learning of the bible, (if the expression be not improper) must necessarily submit to a critical investigation, and upright critics have self-evident rules of trial. The most severe piece of criticism on revelation is at the same time one of the most excellent defences of it. One single rule, had it been worthy of that attention, which it merits, would have spared the writing of many a folio, and have freed some christians from many a religious reveriet. Yet the author of this piece of criticism, the great Le Clerc, has been by some of his bigotted countrymen accounted a deist.

Finally, we cannot resign those brightest ornaments of the christian church, whose sense and grace will not allow them to be dogmatical, and who hesitate about some doctrines generally received by their own communities. The celebrated

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* Gen. Dict. vol. x. Illustration upon the Manichees. + Mons. Le Clerc expresses this rule thus; Multa videri in versionibus emphatica, que in ipsis fontibus nullam emphasin habent. Ars Crit. tom. i. p. 2. s. i. c. 4. This rule of interpretation, which regards the idiom of a language, deserves more attention, it should seem, than hath been usually paid to it.

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celebrated Philip Melancthon has been taxed with scepticism: but far be the imputation from him! "He was one of the "wisest and best men of his age, (says a certain historian) he was of a sweet peaceful disposition, had a great "deal of wit, had read much, and his knowledge was very "extensive. The combination of such qualities natural and "acquired is ordinarily a foundation for diffidence. Melancthon was by no means free from doubts, and there were ❝abundance of subjects, upon which he durst not pronounce this is so, and it cannot be otherwise. He lived among a sect of people, who to him appeared passionate, and too "eager to mix the arts of human policy, and the authority "of the secular arm, with the affairs of the church. His ten"der conscience made him afraid that this might be a mark "of reprobation. Although he drew up the Augsburg confession, yet he hated disputes in religion, and when his “mother asked him how she should conduct her belief amidst "so many controversies, Continue, answered he, to believe "and pray as you have hitherto done, and let these wars of ""controversy give you no manner of trouble." This is the Melancthon who was suspected of deism!

Several more classes might be added to these: but these are sufficient to prove that real deists are not by far so numerous as reputed ones. The cause of deism unsupported by reason may magnify its little all: but the cause of revelation has little to fear from the learning, less from the morality, and nothing from the number of its opponents.

When some atheists appeared in the Jewish church, and attacked the knowledge and worship of God, the people of God were intimidated: but, the royal Psalmist justly observes, they were in great fear, where no fear was, Psal. liii. 5. Similar events have produced similar fears in the christian church, and to these honest, but ignorant fears we ascribe the much greater part of those pious frauds, with which christians have disgraced the cause of God. Most of the fathers, most of the church of Rome, and some protestant churches, have treated christianity like an old crazy palace, which requires props or supporters on every side; and they have manifested great injudiciousness in the choice of supporters. The gospel stands like a stately sturdy oak, defying the attack of every storm: but they, who had pitched their tent beneath its shade, heard a rustling among the leaves, trembled for the fate of the tree, and to secure it, surrounded it with a plantation of oziers. To this ignorant timidity,

midity, and not to the base tricks of knavery, the sordid arts of a sorry avarice, or the barbarous pleasure of shedding human blood, we charitably attribute the greatest absurdities in the christian church.

These absurdities, however, have produced very bad effects, and they oblige us to own, that real christians have occasioned violent prejudices against christianity.

Some christians have endeavoured to support the cause of christianity by spurious books; some by juggling tricks, called miracles; some by the imposition of superstitious ceremonies; some by the propagation of absurd doctrines some have pretended to explain it by a wretched philosophy; others have exposed it to derision under pretence of adorning it with allegory: some have pleaded for it by fines, and fires, and swords; others have incorporated it with civil interests; most have laid down false canons of interpretation, and have resembled that synod, which condemned the afore-mentioned Dr. Bekker, because he "had explained the holy scriptures so as to make them contrary to the CATECHISM, and particularly to THE ARTICLES OF FAITH, which he had himself subscribed" Above all, the loose lives of the professors of christianity, and particularly of some of the ministers of it, have covered the daughter of Sion with a cloud, and have cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, Lam. ii. 1.

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Involve christianity in all these thick mists, surround it with all these phoenomena, call a weak eye, or a wicked heart, to contemplate it, and, without a spirit of prophecy, the discovery may be foretold: the observer will become a a philosopher

reasoner

a DEIST.

These are the topics, and not the gospel itself, which most deists have attacked: but if we agree to exonerate christianity of all these incumbrances; what have deists to answer? Very few of them have taken up the argument on its true grounds, and they, who have, could not support it. When a Frenchman undertakes to attack christianity, the disputes of his countrymen afford him an ample supply; he borrows arms of every party of christians, he conquers popery with protestant weapons, opposes the visions of quietism with the subtleties of Jansenism, the mysteries of Jansenius with the laws of good sense, and, having defeated absurdity, he vainly imagines, he has obtained a victory over christianity. English deists have taken the same method, and, as

our

our country has the same excesses, they have an ample field of glory before them. Christianity has nothing to do with the errors of St. Austin, or the dreams of Madam Bourignon but it is founded on a few facts, the evidence of which can never be disproved. The knowledge of these is a preservative against deism.

To establish these facts was the original design of Mons. Saurin in the following sermons, as it is mine in endeavouring to translate them. Those, who are acquainted with his sermons, well know, that there are in the twelve volumes many more on the same topics: but, as it was impossible to put them all into one volume, I have been obliged to make the best choice in my power, and have arranged them in the following order.

The first sermon contains a set of rules essentially necessary to the investigating of truth, and a few reasons to enforce the practice of them. The second proposeth an examination of the truths of christianity, and settles rules of disputation peculiar to this controversy. The facts follow in the succeeding sermons, the birth, the ministry, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, &c. Four of the last discourses expose infidelity and recommend christianity; and the last of all is an exhortation to him, who is supposed to have found the gospel of Christ, to hold it fast, as a system of truth, and to avoid those snares, into which christians are liable to be drawn.

May our readers have these things always in remembrance; for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, 2 Pet. i. 15, &c. but a sure word of prophecy, history, and precept, which holy men of God spake, as they were moved by the holy Ghost.

CONTENTS