CHAPTER III.

ON THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY.

REVELATION being, as I think I have shewn, the only sure foundation of our hopes, it becomes an inquiry of the highest importance, to ascertain whether the points against which the most substantial objections of unbelievers are directed, are, in fact, the real and genuine doctrines of Christianity.

The great question that occurs at the very threshold, is, What is Christianity? and Where are we to find it?

The Gospel is, undoubtedly, the only authority by which every controversy must ultimately be decided: and it is often supposed that any other book is useless in the inquiry, and would serve only to prejudice the judgment, and perplex the understanding; but this appears to me to be a mistaken view.

If, indeed, the mind were previously uninfluenced by any partiality on the subject, it would, perhaps, be the wisest and shortest way to have recourse at once to the fountain head. But such a state of indifference is hardly possible. Those who are born in

Christian countries insensibly imbibe the doctrines in which they have been educated; and those who are converted to Christianity must receive their instructions from a teacher, who will infuse into the mind of his proselytes the particular tenets of his own church, at the same time that he inculcates the more general truths of Christianity.

Whoever proceeds to the study of the scriptures with his mind thus prepossessed with the views of any particular sect, without any further information as to the points in controversy, will probably find there only a confirmation of his own opinions. A believer in Transubstantiation, for instance, on reading “Take, eat, this is my body," will, no doubt, at first consider that text as an express sanction for the doctrine in question. Whereas, if he had previously studied the merits of the controversy, he would have known that the point in dispute was not, whether such a text existed, but whether it was to be understood literally or figuratively.

For these reasons, I think it may often be of use to have some general knowledge of the different systems that have been raised, and then to refer to the Bible itself, and inquire diligently and impartially, which of them comes nearest to the doctrines which are found there; for undoubtedly, after the conflicting arguments have been weighed, the New Testament is the only authority that can decide, the only rule of our faith, the only guide of our actions and judg

ments.

That Revelation is attended with various and considerable difficulties, it would be idle to deny; but on an impartial investigation, I have no doubt it will appear that many, and the most insuperable of these difficulties, are not inherent in the religion itself, but in the corruptions with which it has been disguised and darkened by the errors, the passions, and interested views of misguided and superstitious The absurd and contradictory tenets which have been added to its genuine doctrines have justly revolted the minds of many, who, mistaking these inventions of fallible or interested men for the oracles of God, and finding them inconsistent with reason, have rejected the whole of a system of which they were represented as forming the most essential part.

men.

When the trinity, the atonement, eternal punishments for temporary offenses, the mysteries of grace, predestination, and other such doctrines were represented as necessary articles of faith, and faith itself in these incomprehensible articles the only means of salvation, and the more meritorious in proportion as the articles themselves were repugnant to reason and common sense-when the simplicity of the Gospel was thus disfigured, it is not wonderful that infidelity should make so much progress; for there are few men who have the resolution and perseverance, and all have not the ability, to distinguish the true and genuine doctrines of Christianity from the corruptions which it has undergone.

The first question, then, is What is genuine Chris

tianity, and what is a man bound to believe in order to be a Christian? Every candid inquirer after truth is under the greatest obligation to Mr. Locke for having disencumbered the subject from the multitude of articles of faith with which it had been overloaded. His argument tends to prove, that the only thing Jesus Christ called upon his hearers to believe was, that he was the Messiah, which, according to the Jewish phraseology, was the same as being the Son of God.

This, certainly, he appears to have proved; but it must be observed, at the same time, that Christ always addressed himself to the Jews only, who expected the coming of the Messiah, as a deliverer to be sent from God; and when he exhorted them to believe that he was the Messiah, it was asserting, in other words, that he came from God,-that the doctrine he preached was the word of God, who had sent him to promulgate it to the world. This was, undoubtedly, conclusive with respect to the Jews, whose hopes of deliverance centered in the Messiah; but when the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles, if the truth of it had depended on the single proposition that Jesus was the Messiah, this would to them have been totally unintelligible; as they had never heard of a Messiah, and were totally ignorant of the Jewish dispensation. The apostles, therefore, when they preached to the Heathens, proved the divine mission of Christ, not from his being the Messiah, but principally from his miracles, from his crucifixion and resurrection.

When Jesus himself rested the proof of his divine

mission on his being the Messiah, and when the apostles attempted to found the authority of his doctrines on his miracles and resurrection, they meant to prove the same thing, viz. that he was sent from God, and that he was authorized by Him to publish the doctrines he delivered. It appears, therefore, sufficient for a Christian to believe that Christ was sent by God to publish his will to mankind; the doctrine is to be received because it comes from God, without any reference to the nature of the person whom he chose to employ in delivering it,-whether a God, an angel,

or a man.

That Christ was sent into the world by the Almighty to reveal his will to mankind, appears, then, to me to be the great article of a Christian's faith. In this there is nothing mysterious-it is merely an assent to a plain, simple, and intelligible fact: nor do I consider it so much a duty in itself, as the means necessary to the performance of all other duties; for we cannot be influenced by commands and promises, unless we are persuaded that they proceed from a being of sufficient authority to impose the one, and make good the other." He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This text shews at once the nature and the necessity of faith, in order to practice, as a means to an end, not as a virtue in itself. As it is impossible to come to God without believing that he is, so it is equally impossible that we should sacrifice our temporal interests to attain everlasting happiness, unless we believe that such a state of feli