groffeft understandings. That it has, however, gained fuch credit, and extended itself over a great part of the world is indifputable: And left this its amazing Spread and long continuance should be deemed by fome ignorant people an argument in its behalf, and fhould feem to have the fame weight and force in favour of Mahometifm, as we alledge the fame arguments to have in favour of Chriftianity, the genius of the two religions, and the manner of their propagation, ought well to be confidered. Attend therefore carefully to the following characters of oppofition which appear primâ fronte between the religion of JESUS and that of Mahomet. The religion of CHRIST is pure, fevere and selfdenying; that of Mahomet fenfual and indulgent to the irregular paffions and appetites of men; tolerating, nay, enjoining revenge, perfecution, polygamy and divorce; promifing fuccefs in rapine, and a future paradife of grofs fenfual delights; enfuring falvation to all, even to the very devils, who should only believe the Koran. The religion of CHRIST was first propagated without the aid of worldly power, protection, wisdom and eloquence; yea, against the influence of all thefe, by the dint of truth, the evidence of miracles and prophefies, and a patient continuance in well-ding under an un paralleled load of injuries, reproaches, afflictions, perfecutions and martyrdoms: Mahomet rightly difclaimed all pretenfions of working public miracles, and pretended that GOD had fent him to profelyte mankind by the edge of the fword; accordingly be levied an army, and fet about converting the world by this hard and unanswerable argument, BELIEVE OR DIE, fhewing no mercy to infidels, and threatning with bell juch of his foldiers as did; thus relying more on the fuccefs of his arms,

than

than the truth and evidence of his pretended reve lations. The Chriftian religion was first propagated in the most learned and enlightened parts of the earth, fuch as Judea, Rome and Greece: The religion of Mahomet in the darkest and most barbarous, and had its first, and indeed its continued triumphs over the groffest heathen ignorance and fuperftition; and as for the few Chriftians which went over to him, they were little better than their heathen neighbours, being either grofly ignorant, or apoftates from the Chriftian church while it was torn and rent by the Neftorean and Eutichean herefies. The Chriftian religion flees not the light, founs not the fevereft fcrutiny and examination; nay, appeals to history and to the fenfes and reafon of mankind for a proof of its reafonableness and veracity. It is fo far from apprehending any danger of being convicted of falfhood or impofture, of abfurdity or incredibility, that it commands its votaries and difciples to fearch it, to try its pretenfions, to examine whether the matters it contains are fo or not, to prove all things and hold fast that which is beft. Yea, if I may fo express myself, it glories in being compared with all other religions, being, as it were, conscious that its truth must finally prevail, and that it cannot be a lofer but a gainer by fuch comparison; whereas Mahometifm fhuns the light as its mortal enemy, Shelters itself under the wings of darkness and ignorance, and has its strong hold in a blind and implicit faith. The prophet of Mecca exprefsly forbids all his difciples to difpute about religion, otherwife than by cutting off the heads of infidels and gainfayers.

And now, when all these things are well confidered, we shall not much wonder at the Spread

and

6

and continuance of Mahometifm in the caft, notwithstanding all its abfurdities; ingrafted as it was by the edge of the fword on ignorance and flavery, and fo artfully accommodated to the prevailing taste and genius of the Arabs and Afiatics, among whom it was first propagated, and over whom it ftill continues to hold its ufurped reign: Nor fhall we wonder why the spread of Christianity, under its peculiar circumftances, fhould be esteemed a great miracle, and a fubftantial argument of its truth and divine original.

Again, if we examine Judaism we shall find, that, notwithstanding it bears all the characters of antiquity, divinity and truth, yet it is, at prefent, an obfolete and fuperannuated religion. If the Meffiah, early promifed to that nation, and long expected by it, is not already come, there is no rational profpect of his coming at all. All the periods fixed by the ancient rabbies to the prophefies of that remarkable event are long fince expired: The fceptre is long ago departed from Judah, and therefore, either the Shilo is come, or the prophesy is void, and that too according to the explanations of their own ancient doctors. The famous feventy weeks prophesy of Daniel, which was allowed by all the most noted rabbies of antiquity to point out the time of the Meffiah's coming, and which, together with other predictions, raifed fo general an expectation of his advent among the Jews about the time of Chrift's incarnation, is expired above feventeen hundred years ago, according to all the interpretations which have or can be reasonably put upon it. The ancient rabbies were fo pofitive that the Meffiah was to appear at the expiration of b Dan. ix. 24, &C.

a Gen, xlix. 10.

thefe

thefe feventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety prophetic years, that Nehumias, who flourished about fifty years before the birth of Christ, publicly declared, that the Meffiah's advent, according to this prophecy of Daniel, could not be protracted above fifty years after that time. And as to that part of the prophecy which foretels the deftruction of the city of Jerufalem and of the fanctuary, Jofephus expressly applies it to his own times, and to the war of Vefpafian ©. It is alfo well known ta have been the current opinion of the ancient Jews, that the Meffiah was to make his appearance among them during the fecond temple, and to fill it with his glory, and render it far more honourable by his perfonal prefence and inhabitation than ever was the firft temple built by Solomon, notwithstanding_its great inferiority upon every other account.

But

now it is indifputable that Titus razed this fecond temple to the very foundation, and caufed Turnus Rufus to draw a plow over the place where it food, by which action that remarkable prophecy was literally accomplished, Zion fhall be plowed like a field. And that all the attempts of the Jews to rebuild it afterwards, by the favour and affiftance of the Emperor Julian, were vain and ineffectual. So that either the Meffiab is come near eighteen hundred years ago, or else these prophecies are void, and the Jews can have no reasonable expectation of his coming at all.

Befides, a number of other circumftances render it impoffible for the Jews, at this day, to obferve

Jof. lib. x. chap. 12.

Hag. ii. 6-9. Mal. iii. 1.

VOL. I.

their

their laws or know the Meffiah, if he were yet to come. They have no temple, no facrifice, nor any polity or civil government of their own, and confequently the greater part of their ceremonial and judicial laws are ipfo facto abrogated and void. Their Meffiah was to defcend lineally from David, in the tribe of Judah, and to be born in Bethlehem; but at present they have no part of Ephratah, and their tribes and families are fo confounded, that they can have no certainty in this matter, and therefore, must be exposed to unavoidable delu fions.

On the whole it appears, that the Jewish religion, however true and divine in itself, is at prefent obfolete and wholly out of date. That either the whole is a fable (which none, I hope, will dare to affert, who carefully enquire into its evidences) or that their Meffiah is already come, however difowned by the body of that people, their ceremonial law abolished, and a more pure, spiritual and extenfive difpenfation founded on its ruins.

It remains, therefore, that the contest about true religion lies in a very narrow compafs, and is wholly between Chriftians and Deifts, or the votaries of natural religion. The first feven difcourfes are an attempt to bring the chief arguments in favour of Chriflianity into as narrow a compass as is well confiftent with perfpicuity, and to answer fome of the chief cbjections which the Deifts have offered against a written revelation. I dare not venture to say that they contain any thing truly original, and I am deeply fenfible that they have many defects. They are fo far from being a full and compleat defence of Chriflianity, that many excellent argu

ments