said, or even suspected, of the Christian faith? I know, that fraud and falsehood, by being mixed with a great deal of acknowledged evident truth, may obtain respect even with some acute and inquisitive men; as, without doubt, has been the case of Popery, since the Reformation: I know, too, that a false religion, unsupported by any truth, may even keep its ground in a learned age, when restraint or other causes have prevented a free inquiry into that religion; as may have been the case of Mahometanism, in one stage of the Saracen empire: but that a religion, like the Christian, as delivered in the Scriptures, which must either be wholly false, or wholly true, and has been scrutinized with the utmost freedom and severity, should yet, if the arguments for it were weak and fallacious, maintain its credit, and subsist in the belief of the most capable and accomplished reasoners, is, I think, a prodigy, which never has appeared, or can appear among men. I suppose, enough has been, now, said to shew, that, in fact, the knowledge of past or present times has not discredited the cause of Christianity; and that what there is of infidelity may be well accounted for from certain prevailing prejudices, which unhappily sprung up with returning Letters, at the Reformation. I might go on to shew, that the evidences of the Christian religion, as drawn out, and set before us, by its modern apologists, are now stronger, and more convincing, than they ever were in any former period; and that, on the whole, this religion has not lost, but gained infinitely, by all the inquiries, which improved science has enabled men of leisure and curiosity to make into it. But it is time to return to the TEXT, and to conclude this commentary upon it, with one or two short reflexions. FIRST, if it be true, that after so many trials of every kind, those especially of reason, and philosophy, to which the religion of the Gos pel has been exposed, the belief of it remains unshaken in the minds of men, Then is the prophecy of the text thus far signally verified; and it is indisputable, that the gates of hell have not, hitherto, prevailed against it. SECONDLY, if it be scarce imaginable that any future trials, from without, should be more severe, than those which Christianity has already suffered; or that those, from within, I mean the trials of severe rational inquiry, should be more formidable, than what it has undergone in two periods, the most distinguished for the free exertion of the human faculties, of any that have occurred in the history of the world; then may it seem credible, or rather then is the presumption strong and cogent, that neither, hereafter, will the prophecy be confuted, and that the gates of hell shall not, at any time, or at all, prevail against it. THIRDLY, and lastly, We may learn, from both these conclusions, to put our trust in this impregnable fortress of our Religion; to embrace with stedfastness, and to observe with the utmost reverence, a RULE OF FAITH AND LIFE, which bears the signatures of immortality upon it, and appears to be under the special protection, as it proceeded originally from the special favour and authority, of God himself. |