BT 1210 Fa

1829 To the young and rising generation of the

city of New York, this edition of “ Difficulties of Infidelity” is respectfully dedicated, by the Publisher.

To you, who at times may have been, in some degree, enamoured with the beauties of holiness, the fruits whereof are joy and peace, and the end eternal life, if abode under : you, who are so imminently exposed to the contaminating influence of the corrupt sentiments and principles of not a few, who may be compared to twining subtle serpents who lie in wait to deceive the young and inexperienced, and upwatchful, and to seduce them into the mazes of unbelief, and into the labyrinths and sinking sands of infidelity, with all their tremendous consequences, such books as this, through the sanctifying influence of the power of truth, are peculiarly beneficial; and with this object in view, without calculating emolument, it is respectfully offered.

After reading Faber on the Difficulties of Infidelity, inquire for “The Power of Religion on the Mind, in Retirement, in Affliction, and at the Approach of Death, by Lindley Murray.” It is a book that should be frequently read by every young man.-1829.

PREFACE.

The theological system of a Christian is -- that God, who, at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son; whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and by whom also he made the worlds: who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high. *

The theological system of the Infidel is, ---that all religions, claiming to be revelations from heaven, are alike impostures upon the blind credulity of mankind ; that the only religion, worthy of a philosophical Deist, is uninspired, natural religion ; and that, as human reason alone is amply sufficient to guide us into all needful truth, a divine communication is no less unnecessary in the abstract, than all pretensions to such communication are false in the concrete.

If we ask the specific ground, on which the latter system is preferred to the former; we are told, that the religion of the Bible is hampered by too many difficulties to be rationally credible: and these difficulties are forthwith produced, and expatiated upon with no small degree of triumphant satisfaction.

But here a question naturally rises, whether the Deistical scheme itself, in all its component parts, be free from difficulties and objections: for that which is preferred to Christianity, on the express score of the difficulties attendant upon revealed religion, ought certainly in reason to be as free as possible from all liability to the unpleasantness of a direct and well-founded retort.

* Heb. i. 1-3.

In the following discussion, the question now before us is answered in the negative. Its purpose is to show, not only that Infidelity has its own proper difficulties as well as Christianity, but that those difficulties are incomparably greater and more formidable: for, while the alleged difficulties attendant upon Christianity have repeatedly met with an adequate solution, though Deistical writers are accustomed confidently to urge and reurge them, without taking the slightest notice of the answers which have been so often afforded; the difficulties attendant upon Infidelity are of such a nature, that they never can be solved to the satisfaction of an unbiassed and rational inquirer. Hence results the plain and self-evident conclusion, that, since Infidelity is encumbered by more and greater difficulties than Christianity, to adopt the Infidel system evinces more credulily than to adopt the Christian system.

The principle, in fine, of the argument which has been prosecuted throughout the ensuing pages, is the reductio ad absurdum. By a specification of the immense and insuperable difficulties which on all sides beset his system, the Deistical Infidel, even on ground of his own selection, is convicted of gross irrationality.

August 6, 1823.

It will be proper to state, that this work was written as a competitory Treatise on the proposition, That there is more credulity in the disbelief of Christianity than in the belief of it: a proposition, which was adopted by the Church Union Society in the diocess of St. David's, as the subject of their Essay for the year 1823.

January 20, 1824.

CONTENTS.

SECTION 1.

The difficulties attendant upon deistical Infidelity in regard to its

possible grounds and reasons, p. 13.

It is useful not to suffer Infidelity to be always the assailant of re-

vealed religion, but occasionally to carry the war into the coun-
try of the enemy himself. By such a process it will be found,
that to reject revelation evinces more credulity than to retain
it: because the difficulties attendant upon unbelief are greater

than the difficulties attendant upon belief, p. 13.
I. A statement of the possible grounds and reasons of Infidelity,

p. 14.

p. 17.

1. A discussion of the first possible ground, that a revelation

from heaven cannot, in the very nature of things, take

place, p. 15.
2. A discussion of the second possible ground, that a revelation

from heaven is in itself so improbable an occurrence that

it beggars all credibility, p. 15.
3. A discussion of the third possible ground, that the evidences,

upon which our reception of a system claiming to be a
divine revelation is deinanded are so unsatisfactory, that

they are insufficient to command our reasonable assent,
4. A discussion of the fourth possible ground, that numerous

objections exist in the case of each system claiming to be

a divine revelation ; which objections cannot be answered,
5. A discussion of the fifth possible ground, that as various

theological systems have alike claimed to be revelations
from beaven, the presumption is, that all these systems are

equally impostures, p. 21.
6. A discussion of the sixth possible ground, that our unassisted

reason is sufficient, and therefore that a revelation is urr
recessary, p. 23.

p. 18.

II. A summary of the grounds of a Christian's belief, p. 25.
III. A summary of the grounds of an infidel's unbelief, p. 26.
IV. Conclusion, p. 27.

SECTION II.

The difficulties attendant upon deistical Infidelity in the abstract

rejection of all revelation from God, p. 28.
Deism presents so many difficulties that, unless they can be satisfac-

torily removed, the presumption will be, that a revelation from

God to man has actually been made, p. 28.
1. Though the deist may be able to prove from the frame of the

world, that it must have been created, he is unable to prove

that it was created by one only God, p. 28.
II. If it be allowed to him for the sake of argument, that there is

one only God, he is unable to demonstrate the moral attri-

butes of that being, p. 31.
1. He cannot demonstrate the justice of God, p. 32.
2. He cannot demonstrate the mercy of God, p. 35.

3. He cannot demonstrate the goodness of God, p. 38.
III. Thus unable to demonstratc the moral attributes of God, he

is of necessity ignorant what service will be pleasing to him,
IV. All these difficulties in the deistical scheme draw after them

the crowning difficulty, that God, whose works evince his
wisdom, yet acted so unwisely as to place his creature man
in the world without giving him the least instruction or in-
formation relative to his duty, p. 43.

p..40.

SECTION III.

The difficulties attendant upon deistical Infidelity in regard to histo-

rical matter of fact, p. 47.

From the fact of the general deluge, laken as a specimen of the

mode of reasoning from historical matter of fact, may be de-
monstrated the additional fact of a direct intercourse between
man and his Creator, or (in other words) of a revelation from

God to man, p. 47.
5. 'Proofs of the fact of the universal deluge, p. 48.
1. Historical proof built upon the attestation of all nations to

the fact of a general deluge, p. 48.