general, men of profligate lives and characters; and furely it cannot weigh much, with reasonable and thinking men, that a thing is not believed by thofe who are fo circumftanced, that they must neceffarily be exceedingly prepoffeffed against the belief of it, and who are known, for that very reafon, to have taken no pains to inform themfelves concerning it. I do not think that I fhall be deemed uncharitable in concluding, that a very great majority of modern unbelievers are of this clafs. Many, however, I readily acknowledge, are of a different character; but thefe, I dare fay, will agree with me in my cenfure of the reft.

Others are men of fair and reputable characters, many of them men of taste and science, especially in Popish countries, who, taking it for granted, that what paffes for chriftianity is really fo, or who from a curfory inspection of the books of fcripture, conceive that fome of the things related of God are unworthy of him, think it fuperfluous to attend to any difcuffion of its hiftorical evidence. They alfo fee that the writers of the books of fcripture have fallen into fome inaccuracies, that their narration is not, in all respects, perfectly coherent with itself, or that the different accounts of the fame transaction are not altogether confiftent with each other.

These men of genius may discover fome things that are frivolous or weak in the discourses of

the

the facred writers, and fome things inconclufive in their reasoning, especially in their quotations from, and their application of the Old Teftament; and taking it for granted that (as indeed the profeffors of christianity have too generally and incautiously boafted) the books which contain the hiftory of our religion are as perfect as the religion itself, haftily conclude, that because the books of scripture were written by men, and bear the marks of human imperfection, therefore the fcheme in which they were engaged was wholly of men, and had nothing fupernatural in it; without reflecting that those very imperfections in the books of fcripture, at which they are fo much offended, demonftrate that the writers of them were incapable of contriving fuch a scheme, or of procuring credit to it; and alfo without reflecting that, on the very fame grounds, they might reject the whole current of antient hiftory, no part of which has been written with perfect accuracy, uniformity, or even confiftency. For here, as in the fcripture hiftory, different hiftorians agree in their accounts of the principal things only; but as certainly differ in their accounts of leffer circumstances.

Men of tafte and fcience are alfo exceedingly apt to be ftruck with the idea of what appears, on the first view, to be rational and liberal in their fentiments, and remote from vulgar prejudices; and because the bulk of mankind are, in many respects, credulous,

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credulous, and often think very abfurdly, the fe gentlemen, though they will not avow it, and indeed may not be fenfible of it, are fecretly difpofed to reject what others admit, and to pride themselves in their fingularity in this refpect; thinking it more greát, noble, and philofophical, to err on the fide of incredulity; whereas they ought to confider that the understandings of all mankind being naturally fimilar, even the loweft of the vulgar, when lying under no prejudice (and men of letters are fubject to their peculiar prejudices as well as the illiterate) must be as capable of judging concerning truth, and especially concerning facts, as themselves; that their opinions, if they are not true, are founded upon fomething analogous to truth, though the analogy may be faulty; and therefore are not to be rejected at random, but are themselves an object worthy of philosophical investigation. A true philofopher will no more fatisfy himself without endeavouring to trace the rife and progrefs of prevailing opinions, than without understanding the caufe of any other general appearance in nature.

The opinion of men of letters, however, and of fpeculative perfons of all kinds, will always have great weight with many who do not pretend to fpeculation. As they will not take the pains to think for themselves, they chufe to think with philofophers rather than with the vulgar; not confidering that men of learning and genius, who are

ever so capable of determining juftly, have no advantage over the reft of mankind, unless they will carefully attend to a fubject, and make themselves masters of it; and that a politician might as well be expected to be an aftronomer, or an aftronomer a politician, as that a mere philofopher fhould be a competent judge of the evidence of christianity, when his attention to them has been very fuperficial, if he have attended to them at all.

I will not deny that fome unbelievers are serious and inquifitive men; they even wish to find chriftianity to be true, and have some secret hope that it may be fo; but they cannot fully fatisfy themfelves with respect to many objections which they have heard made to it; fo that the arguments in favour of it do not, at least they do not always preponderate with them. Were a very great number of perfons in this fituation, it would be a circumstance, I readily own, that might afford a reasonable foundation for doubt, or at leaft for fufpence; but confidering how very few these ferious and inquifitive unbelievers are, in comparison with the numbers who are profligate and thoughtless among them, I think that no conclufion can be drawn from the confideration of it, unfavourable to the evidences of christianity. For what cause is there fo good and fo clear, as that every perfon can be brought to join in it.

Some of the perfons above-mentioned may have been much in the way of fenfible and fubtile unbelievers, to whofe objections, through want of prefence of mind, or of a fufficiently comprehenfive acquaintance with the subject, they have not been able readily to reply; or, being perfons of weak and timid difpofitions, they may have been led by their extreme anxiety to give more attention to the objections which have been thrown in their way than to the plain and folid arguments in favour of christianity; on which account only the former may have made more impreffion upon their minds than the latter; whereas if they had been more converfant with chriftians and chriftian writers, and lefs with unbelievers and their writings, they would have thought as well of the evidences of christianity as of chriftianity itfelf; objections which have been fwelled into mountains in their imaginations, would have appeared no greater than mole-hills; and doubt and anxiety would never have invaded them. Befides, it is true, I believe, in general, that the things at which well-disposed minds ftumble the moft, are fuch as ought to give them no offence, being quite foreign to christianity, though unhappily they have been generally deemed to belong to it.

Having confidered who, and how many of the prefent age are unbelievers, let it likewife be con

fidered