CHRISTIANITY. 



391 



Christian!- Atheism we may have founded on the common phenome- 

 tv> na around us, here is a new phenomenon which demands 



V " 1W "Y"""""' our attention, the testimony of a man who, in addition to 

 evidence of honesty, more varied and more satisfying than 

 were ever offered by a brother of the species, had a voice 

 from the clouds, and the power of working miracles, to 

 vouch for him. We do not think, that the account 

 which this man gives of himself can be viewed either with 

 indifference or distrust, and the account is most satisfy- 

 ing. " I proceeded forth, and came from God." " He 

 whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God." 

 " Even as the Father said unto me so I speak." He 

 had elsewhere said, that God was his Father. The ex- 

 istence of God is there laid before us, by an evidence al- 

 together distinct from the natural argument of the schools, 

 and it may therefore be admitted in spite of the deficien- 

 cy of that argument. From the same pure and 'unques- 

 tionable source we gather our information of his attri- 

 butes. " God is true." " God is a spirit." He is 

 omnipotent, " for with God all things are possible." 

 He is intelligent, " for he knoweth what things we have 

 heed of." He sees all things, and he directs all things, 

 for " the very hairs of our head are numbered," and " a 

 sparrow falleth not to the ground without his permission." 



182. The evidences of the Christian religion are suit- 

 ed to every species of infidelity. We do not ask the 

 Atheist to furnish himself with any previous conception. 

 We ask him to come as he is, and, upon the strength of 

 his own favourite principle, viewing it as a pure intellec- 

 tual question, and abstracting from the more unmanage- 

 able tendencies of the heart and temper. We conceive 

 his understanding to be in a high state of preparation, for 

 taking in Christianity in a fair, purer, and more scriptu- 

 ral form, than can be expected from those whose minds 

 are tainted and pre-occupied with their former specula- 

 tions. 



183. The remainder of this article shall be devoted to 

 , the illustration of a very plain but a very important pro- 

 position, viz. That, after having established the New 

 Testament to be a message from God, it behoves us to 

 make an entire and unconditional surrender of our minds, 

 to all the duty and to all the information which it sets be- 

 fore us. 



18-t. There is, perhaps, nothing more thoroughly be- 

 yond the cognizance of the human faculties, than the 

 truths of religion and the ways of that mighty and in- 

 visible Being who is the object of it; and yet nothing, 

 we will venture to say, has been made the subject of 

 more hardy and adventurous speculation. We make no 

 allusion at present to Deists, who reject the authority of 

 the New Testament, because the plan and the dispensa- 

 tion of the Almighty, which is recorded there, is diffe- 

 rent from that plan and that dispensation which they 

 have chosen to ascribe to him. We speak of Christians, 

 who profess to admit the authority of this record, but 

 who have tainted the purity of their profession by not 

 acting upon its exclusive authority, who have mingled 

 their own thoughts and their own fancy with its infor- 

 mation ; who, instead of repairing in every question, and 

 in every difficulty, to the principle of " What readest 

 thou," have abridged the sovereignty of this principle, 

 by appealing to others, of which we undertake to make 

 out the incompetency j who, in addition to the word of 

 God, talk alno of the reason of the thing ; or the stand- 

 ard of orthodoxy, and have in fact brought down the 

 Bible from the high place which belongs to it, as the 

 only tribunal to which the appeal should be made, or 

 from which the decision should be looked for. 



185. But it is not merely among partizans or the ad- 



vocates of a system, that we meet with this indifference Christiani- 



to the authority of what is written. It lies at the bot- ( tv - 



torn of a great deal of that looseness, both in practice "*"Y" 

 and speculation, which we meet with every day in so- 

 ciety, and which we often hear expressed in familiar 

 conversation. Whence that list of maxims which are so 

 indolently conceived, but which, at the same time, are so 

 faithfully proceeded upon ? " We have all our passions 

 and infirmities ; but we have honest hearts, and that 

 will make up for them. Men are not all cast in the same 

 mould. God will not call us to task too rigidly for our 

 foibles, at least this is our opinion ; and God can never 

 be so unmerciful, or so unjust, as bring us to a severe 

 and unforgiving tribunal for the mistakes of the under- 

 standing." Now, it is not licentiousness in general, which 

 we are speaking against. It is against that sanction 

 which it appears to derive from the self- formed maxims 

 of him who is guilty of it. It is against the principle 

 that either an error of doctrine, or an indulgence of pas- 

 sion is to be exempted from condemnation, because it 

 has an opinion of the mind to give it countenance and 

 authority. What we complain of is, that a man no 

 sooner sets himself forward and says, " this is my senti- 

 ment," than he conceives that all culpability is taken 

 away from the error, either of practice or speculation, 

 into which he has fallen ; the carelessness with which the 

 opinion has been formed, is of no account in the estimate. 

 It is the mere existence of the opinion, which is plead 

 in vindication, and under the authority of our maxim, and 

 our mode of thinking, every man conceives himself to 

 have a right to his own way and his own peculiarity. 



1 86. Now this might be all very fair, were there no 

 Bible and no revelation in existence. But it is not fair, 

 that all this looseness, and all this variety, should be still 

 floating in the world, in the face of an authoritative 

 communication from God himself. Had no message 

 come to us from the fountain-head of truth, it were na- 

 tural enough for every individual mind to betake itself to 

 its own speculation. But a message has come to us, 

 bearing on its forehead every character of authenticity, 

 and is it right now, that the question of our faith, or of 

 our duty, should be committed to the capricious varia- 

 tions or this man's taste or of that man's fancy ? Our 

 maxim, and our sentiment ! God has put an authorita- 

 tive stop to all this. He has spoken, and the right or 

 the liberty of speculation no longer remains to us. The 

 question now is, not " What thinkest thou ?" In the 

 days of Pagan antiquity, no other question could be put, 

 and the wretched delusions and idolatries of that period 

 let us see what kind of answer the human mind is ca- 

 pable of making, when left to its own guidance, and its 

 own authority. But we call ourselves Christians, and 

 profess to receive the Bible as the directory of our faith, 

 and the only question in which we are concerned, is, 

 " What is written in the law > how readest thou ?" 



187. But there is a way of escaping from this conclu- 

 sion. No man calling himself a Christian, will ever dis- 

 own in words the authority of the Bible. Whatever be 

 counted the genuine interpretation, it must be submitted 

 to. But in the act of coming to this interpretation, it 

 will be observed, there is room for the unwarrantable 

 principles which we are attempting to expose. The bu- 

 siness of a scripture critic is to give a fair representation 

 of the sense of all its passages as they exist in the origi- 

 nal. Now, this is a process which requires some inves- 

 tigation, and it is during the time .that this process is 

 carrying on, that the tendencies and antecedent opinions 

 of the mind are suffered to mislead the enquirer from the 

 true principles of the business in which he is employed. . 



