I may be wrong in this theory, and I therefore appeal to fact. The fact is evident, that, notwithstanding all that has been written to demonstrate* Christianity, by argument drawn from reasoning and history, infidelity has increased, and is every day increasing more and more. Let those who think the dry argumentative apologies irresistibly convincing, bring them forward Now, and silence the gainsayers at once. The demonstrations of a Huet, the evidences of a Clarke, the reasonings of a Locke, a Grotius, a Hartley, should be presented to the people in the most striking manner, by public authority; and if they are really efficacious in producing conviction, we may be assured that infidelity will vanish at their appearance, like the mists of an autumnal morning, when the sun breaks forth in meridian splendour. But the truth is, they are already very much diffused, they are to be met with on every stall, and yet the Christian religion is said to be rapidly on the decline.

As these attempts appear to have failed, it cannot be blamable to devise some other method of calling back the attention of erring mortals to the momentous truths of revelation. I have conceived an idea that our old English divines, who lived at and near the time of the reformation, were great adepts in the knowledge of genuine Christianity, and that their

* "As the advocates of Christianity," says an acute writer, "have multiplied their demonstrations, the less it has been believed or regarded; so that now at length the effect seems nearly the same, as might have been expected if they had proved it to be false. If Christianity appear to a plain man merely a question of words and names, or a curious speculation, he will leave it to the discussion of idle people and philosophers, and may probably treat it with indifference or contempt, in proportion to the zeal and elaborate argument with which it is agitated."

Inquiry into the present State of Religion in England, 1786.

method of recommending it was judicious, because I know it was successful. There was much more piety in the last century than in the present; and there is every reason to believe that infidelity was then rare. Bishop Hall, among many others of his time, appears to me to have been animated with the true spirit of Christianity; and I beg leave to convey my own ideas on the best method of diffusing that spirit, in his pleasingly-pious and simple language.

"There is not," says the venerable prelate, " so much need of learning as of grace to apprehend those things which concern our everlasting peace; neither is it our brain that must be set to work, but our hearts. However excellent the use of scholarship in all the sacred employments of divinity; yet, in the main act, which imports salvation, skill must give place to affection. Happy is the soul that is possest of Christ, how poor soever in all inferior endowments. Ye are wide, O ye great wits, while ye spend yourselves in curious questions and learned extravagancies. Ye shall find one touch of Christ more worth to your souls than all your deep and laborious disquisitions. In vain shall ye seek for this in your books, if you miss it in your bosoms. If you know all things, and cannot say I know whom I have believed, you have but knowledge enough to know yourselves miserable. The deep mysteries of Godliness, which, to the great clerks of the world are as a book clasped and sealed up, lie open before him (the pious and devout man) fair and legible; and while those book-men know whom they have heard of, he knows whom he hath believed."

Christianity indeed, to the pious and unprejudiced, discovers itself, like the sun, by its own lustre. It shines with unborrowed light on the devout heart.

It wants little external proof, but carries its own evidence to him that is regenerate and born of the Spirit. "The truth of Christianity," says a pious author, "is the Spirit of God living and working in it; and when this Spirit is not the life of it, there the outward form is but like the carcass of a departed soul."

Christian theology has certainly been confused and perplexed by the learned. It requires to be disentangled and simplified. Its object appears to me to consist in this single point, the restoration of the divine life, the image of God, (lost or defaced at the fall,) the restoration of it by the influence of the Holy Ghost.

When this shall be restored, every other advantage of Christianity will follow in course. A great degree of purity in morals* is absolutely necessary to the reception of the Holy Ghost, and an unavoidable consequence of his continuance. The attainment of GRACE is then the one thing necessary. It includes in it all gospel comfort, it teaches all moral virtue, and infallibly leads to light, life, and immortality.

* Common and preventing grace, it is asserted by the ablest divines, is given even before complete conversion, where the heart is sincere; and given in such a degree as to cause this purity of morals, and prepare the way for more abundant grace, for sanctification, consolation, and illumination. See the note at the end of the next Section.

SECTION II.

On the Sort of Evidence recommended to notice and attempted to be displayed in this Treatise.

Quid est fideliter Christo credere? est fideliter Dei mandata servare. In what consists a faithful belief in Christ? It consists in a faithful obedience to his commandments. SALVIAN. de Gub. lib. 3.

I THINK it right to apprize my reader, on the very threshold, that if he expects a recapitulation of the external and historical evidence of Christianity, he will be disappointed. For all such evidence I must refer him to the great and illustrious names of voluminous theologists, who have filled with honour the professional chairs of universities, and splendidly adorned the annals of literature. I revere their virtuous characters; I highly appreciate their learned labours; I think the student who is abstracted from active life, and possesses leisure, may derive from them much amusement, while he increases his stores of critical erudition, and becomes enabled to discourse in the pulpit, or dispute in the schools on subjects of theology. But men, able to command their time, and competently furnished with ability for deep and extensive investigation, are but a small number in the mass of human beings who want the comforts and the guidance of religion. That systematic or speculative treatise which may delight and instruct students, in the cool shade of philosophical retirement, will have little effect on the minds of others who constitute the multitude of mortals, eagerly engaged in providing for the wants of the passing day, or warmly contending for the glittering prizes of secular ambition. Indeed, I never heard that the

laborious proofs of Christianity, in the historical and argumentative mode, ever converted any of those celebrated authors on the side of infidelity, who have, from time to time, spread an alarm through Christendom, and drawn forth the defensive pens of every church and university in Europe. The infidel wits, unconvinced and unabashed, wrote on in the same cause; deriving fresh matter for cavil from the arguments of the defenders; and reassailing the citadel with the very balls hurled from its battlements.

What then, it may be justly asked, have I to offer? What is the sort of evidence which I attempt to display? It is an internal evidence of the truth of the gospel, consequent on obedience to its precepts. It is a sort of evidence, the mode of obtaining which is pointed out by Jesus Christ himself, in the following declaration: "If any man will do my will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God."*

But how shall he know? By the illumination of the holy Spirit of God, which is promised by Christ to those who do his will.

Therefore if any man seriously and earnestly desire to become a Christian, let him begin,† whatever doubts he may entertain of the truth of Christianity, by practising those moral virtues, and cultivating those amiable dispositions, which the written gospel plainly requires, and the grace of God will gradually remove the veil from his eyes and from his heart, so as to enable him to see and to love the

* John, vii. 17.

If he begin with natural religion, faithfully practising its duties according to his conscience, the grace of God, it is humbly presumed, will be vouchsafed to him in such measure, as shall render him, in due time, a firm believer in revealed religion.