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pride, ambition, concupiscence, weakness, misery, and unrighteousness, he is blind. And if, knowing this, he has no desire for deliverance, what can be thought of so irrational a man? How then can we do otherwise than esteem a religion which so well understands the defects of mankind? Or do otherwise than wish that religion may be true, which provides such suitable remedies against them?

It is impossible to take a view of all the proofs of Christianity together, without feeling their force; which is such, as no reasonable man can resist.

Consider its establishment. That a Religion so opposite to nature, should have established itself by means so gentle, on the one hand, as to use no force or constraint; and so powerful on the other, that no torments could deter its martyrs from confessing it: and not only was this effected without the assistance of any earthly prince, but in spite of all the princes who conspired to oppose it.

Consider the holiness, the dignity, and the humility, of a truly Christian soul. The heathen philosophers, sometimes, raised themselves above the rest of mankind, by a more regular mode of life, and by doctrines, in some degree, conformable

dered, what Christians call humility, as a virtue; they even thought it incompatible with the virtues they professed. Nothing but Christianity knew how to unite, what till then had appeared so inconsistent; or to teach men, that so far from humility being incompatible with other virtues, without it all other virtues are nothing more than vices and defects.

Consider the infinite wonders displayed in the holy scriptures; the grandeur, and more than human sublimity of the things they contain, and the admirable simplicity of their style; in which there is nothing forced or affected, and which bears a stamp of truth that nothing can disprove.

Consider Jesus Christ himself. Whatever opinion we entertain of him, it is impossible to deny that he had a most elevated and superior mind, which he evinced at a very early age, before the Doctors of the Law; yet, instead of cultivating his talents by study and the society of the learned, he passed thirty years of his life in manual labour, and in entire obscurity; and during the three years of his public ministry, he took into his company, and chose for his apostles, men without science, without study, without repute: while his enemies were men who passed for the most learned and wise of their time. A

strange mode of proceeding for a man who intended to establish a new religion.

Consider, also, the persons who were chosen by Jesus Christ as his Apostles: men without learning or study, who found themselves at once made able to confute the most skilful Philosophers; and strong enough to withstand all the monarchs and tyrants; who set themselves in opposition to the Christian Religion which they preached.

Consider that miraculous succession of prophets; who followed one another for two thousand years, and who all foretold, in different ways, even the minutest circumstances relating to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the mission of his Apostles; the promulgation of the Gospel; the conversion of the Gentiles; and many other things concerning the establishment of Christianity; and the abolition of Judaism.

Consider the wonderful accomplishment of those prophecies which apply, so exactly to the person of Jesus Christ, that it is impossible not to recognize him without being wilfully blind.

Consider the state of the Jewish nation both before and since the coming of Jesus Christ; its flourishing state before his coming, and its most miserable condition since their rejection of him;

racter of their religion; without a temple, without sacrifices, dispersed all over the earth, the scorn and derision of every nation.

[Consider the perpetuity of Christianity; which has always subsisted from the beginning of the world, either among the saints under the Old Testament, who lived in expectation of Christ Jesus to come; or among those who have received him, and believed on him, since he actually did come. No other religion has this mark of perpetuity, which is the principal character of the true.

Lastly, consider the holiness of this religion; its doctrines, which explain even the greatest contrarieties in man; and all the other uncommon, supernatural, and divine things, which beam forth from every part of it: and let any one judge, after all this, if it be possible to doubt, that Christianity is the only true Religion, and if there ever was any other that could bear a comparison with it.]

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III.

THE TRUE RELIGION PROVED BY THE CONTRARIETIES WHICH ARE DISCOVERABLE IN MAN, AND BY ORIGINAL SIN.

THE greatness and the misery of man are

both so conspicuous, that the true religion must necessarily teach, that he contains in himself some noble principle of Greatness, and, at the same time, some profound source of Misery. For true religion will search our nature to the bottom, so as perfectly to understand all that is great, and all that is miserable in it, together with the reason both of one and the other. It must also account for those astonishing contrarieties which we find within us. If there be but one principle, or efficient cause of all things, and but one end of all things; true religion must teach us to make him alone the object of our worship and love. But since we find ourselves unable to worship him whom we know not, and to love any thing but ourselves; the same religion, which enjoins these duties, must also acquaint us with this inability, and teach us how it is to be

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