What pure Christianity is, divested of all its ornaments, appendages, and corruption, I pretend not now to say ; but what it is not, I will venture to affirm, which is, that it is not the offspring of fraud or fiction. Such, on a superficial view, I know it may appear to a man of good sense, whose sense has been altogether employed on other subjects; but if any one will give himself the trouble to examine it with accuracy and candor, he will plainly see, that however fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, yet it never could have been grafted on the same stock nor planted by the same hand.

To ascertain the true system and genuine doctrines of this religion, after the controversies of above seventeen centuries, and to remove all the rubbish which arti fice and ignorance have been heaping upon it during all that time, would indeed be an ardous task, which I shall by no means undertake; but to show that it cannot possibly be derived from human wisdom, or human imposture, is a work, I think, attended with no great difficulty, and requiring no extraordinary abilities; and therefore I shall attempt that, and that alone, by stating and then explaining the following plain and undeniable propositions.

FIRST, that there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament.

SECONDLY, that from this book may be extracted a system of religion entirely new, both with regard to the object and the doctrines, not only infinitely superior to, but unlike, every thing which had ever before entered into the mind of man.

THIRDLY, that from this book may likewise be collected a system of Ethics, in which every moral

precept, founded on reason, is carried to a higher degree of purity and perfection than in any other of the wisest philosophers of preceding ages; every moral precept founded on false principles is totally omitted, and many new precepts added, peculiarly corresponding with the new object of this religion.

LASTLY, that such a system of religion and morality could not possibly have been the work of any man, or set of men; much less of those obscure, ignorant, and illiterate persons, who actually did discover, and publish it to the world; and that, therefore, it must undoubtedly have been effected by the interposition of Divine power; that is, that it must derive its origin from God.

PROPOSITION I.

Very little need be said to establish my first proposition, which is singly this:-That there is now extant a book entitled the New Testament; that is, there is a collection of writings, distinguished by that denomination, containing four historical accounts of the birth, life, actions, discourses, and death of an extraordinary person named Jesus Christ, who was born in the reign of Augustus Caesar, preached a new religion throughout the country of Judea, and was put to a cruel and ignominious death in the reign of Tiberius. Also one other historical account of the travels, transactions, and orations of some plain and illiterate men, known by the title of his apostles, whom he commissioned to propagate his religion after his death; which he foretold them he must suffer in confirmation of its truth. To these are added several

epistolary writings, addressed by these persons to their fellow-laborers in this work, or to the several churches or societies of Christians which they had established in the several cities through which they had passed.

It would not be difficult to prove that these books were written soon after those extraordinary events, which are the subjects of them, as we find them quoted and referred to by an uninterrupted succession of writers from those to the present time: nor would it be less easy to show that the truth of all those events, miracles only excepted, can no more be reasonably questioned than the truth of any other facts recorded in any history whatever; and there can be no more reason to doubt that there existed such a person as Jesus Christ, speaking, acting, and suffering in such a manner as is there described, than that there were such men as Tiberius, Herod, or Pontius Pilate, his contemporaries; or to suspect that Peter, Paul, and James were not the authors of those epistles to which their names are affixed, than that Cicero and Pliny did not write those which are ascribed to them. It might also be made to appear, that these books, having been written by various persons at different times, and in distant places, could not possibly have been the work of a single impostor, nor of a fraudulent combination, being all stamped with the same marks of a uniform originality in their very frame and composition.

But all these circumstances I shall pass over unobserved, as they do not fall in with the course of my argument, nor are necessary for the support of it. Whether these books were written by the authors whose names are prefixed to them; whether they have been

enlarged, diminished, or any way corrupted by the artifice or ignorance of translators or transcribers; whether in the historical parts the writers were instructed by a perpetual, a partial, or by any inspiration at all; whether in the religious and moral parts they received their doctrines from a divine influence, or from the instructions and conversation of their Master; whether in their facts or sentiments there is always the most exact agreement, or whether in both they sometimes differ from each other; whether they are in any case mistaken, or always infallible, or ever pretended to be so, I shall not here dispute: let the deist avail himself of all these doubts and difficulties, and decide them in conformity to his own opinions. I shall not now contend, because they affect not my argument; all that I assert is a plain fact, which cannot be denied, that such writings do now exist.

PROPOSITION II.

My second proposition is not quite so simple, but, I think, not less undeniable than the former, and is this: That from this book may be extracted a system of religion entirely new, both with regard to the object and the doctrines; not only infinitely superior to, but totally unlike every thing which had ever before entered into the mind of man. I say extracted, because all the doctrines of this religion having been delivered at various times, and on various occasions, and here only historically recorded, no regular system of theology is here to be found; and better perhaps, it had been, if less labor had been employed by the learned to bend and twist these divine materials into the po

lished forms of human systems. Why their great author chose not to leave any such behind him, we know not, but it might possibly be because he knew that the imperfection of man was incapable of receiving such a system, and that we are more properly and more safely conducted by the distant and scattered rays, than by the too powerful sunshine of divine illumination. "If I have told you earthly things," says ne, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" John, 3: 12. That is, if my instructions concerning your behavior in the present, as relative to a future life, are so difficult to be understood that you can scarcely believe me, how shall you believe me if I endeavor to explain to you the nature of celestial beings, the designs of Providence, and the mysteries of his dispensation? subjects which you have neither ideas to comprehend, nor language to capacities & beltownd

express.

First, then, the object of this religion is entirely new, and is this; to prepare us by a state of probation for the kingdom of heaven. This is every where professed by Christ and his apostles to be the chief end of the Christian's life; the crown for which he is to contend, the goal to which he is to run, the harvest which is to repay all his labors. Yet, previous to their preaching, no such prize was ever hung out to mankind, nor any means prescribed for the attainment of it.

It is indeed true, that some of the philosophers of antiquity entertained notions of a future state, but mixed with much doubt and uncertainty. Their .egislators also endeavored to infuse into the minds of the people a belief of rewards and punishments after death; but by this they only intended to give a sanction to

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Infidelity.