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1880. 








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THE 



BIBLE TRUE, 



INFIDELITY WICKED 



BY WM. S. PLUMER, D. D. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 

in 2010 with funding from 

Princeton Theological Seminary Library 



http://www.archive.org/details/bibletrueinfidelOOplum 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



Nothing strictly new can be pertinently said on the 
subject of this little treatise. The reader will not, there- 
fore, expect originality. All that has been attempted is 
to group together the most important truths on the subject 
in a form more condensed than usual. The author has 
not written for the learned. It would have been much 
easier to satisfy himself with a more extended discussion 
of every topic ; but such a course would have been fatal 
to his chief object, which was, to furnish plain people, 
who have not much leisure, with a brief manual in a 
popular form. Such as it is, it is commended to God, 
whose blessing alone can make it useful. 



CONTENTS 



PACK. 

General observations, 7 

The right spirit necessary, 7 

Right use of reason, ....... 8 

The human mind weak, 9 

Different kinds of proof, 11 

A mystery not a contradiction, .... 12 

The Bible or nothing, 13 

Our Scriptures genuine, 14 

The Septuagint, 19 

Testimony of opposing sects, 20 

A Revelation reasonable, 21 

Why were the Scriptures received as divine? . . 22 

Miracles, 23 

Miracles prove a revelation, 27 

Mohammed, ........ 28 

Popish miracles, 29 

Prophecy, 29 

Universal empires, 31 

Cyrus, 31 

Tyre, 32 

The Arabs, . 32 

Christ, 32 

Jerusalem, 33 

The Jews, 33 

Bible True. 1 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



Collateral Proofs, .... 

The Bible makes men better, . 

The Bible comforts, .... 

Voltaire and Halyburton, 

Gibbon and Paul, . 

The argument cumulative, 
Scientific objections, .... 

Astronomy, 

Geology, 

The Causes of Infidelity, 

Men do not gather grapes from thorns, 

Sinful ignorance, .... 

Bad temper of infidels, 

Pride, especially of learning, . 

Singularity, ..... 

Health and prosperity, 

Covetousness, . 

General licentiousness, 

Ambition, 

Lewdness, 

Depraved principles, .... 

Want of the love of truth, 

A general inference, .... 
Infidelity worthless, destructive, . 

A case, 

France, 

Deaths of infidels, .... 

The dying sceptic and the dying Christian, 
Remarks, 



. 35 

36 

. 37 

38 
. 40 

42 
. 43 

43 
. 47 

52 
. 53 

54 
. 55 

57 
. 58 

60 
. 61 

61 
. 63 

64 
. 64 

65 
. 69 

69 
. 71 

72 
. 73 

76 
. 77 



THE BIBLE TRUE 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

IN WHAT SPIRIT SHOULD THE SUBJECT BE STUDIED 1 

To satisfy the captious, to teach the wayward, to 
persuade the stubborn, and to please the malignant, 
are four impossible things. On the other hand, it 
is easy to teach the docile, to satisfy the candid, to 
guide the meek, and to solve honest doubts. In all 
investigations of truth, he, whose state of mind is 
best, will make the most progress. " A word enter- 
eth more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into 
a fool." We should not be surprised, therefore, 
when we find in religious inquiries the same variety 
and diversity of results, which are seen in the char- 
acter of those who make them. " Temper is every 
thing," is a saying as true in religion as in any thing 
else. Neither the kingdom of science, nor the king- 
dom of heaven, is open to those who have not the 
spirit of a little child. God reveals to babes, who 
are willinq- to learn, things, of which the wise and 
prudent remain ignorant through a haughty spirit. 
Let every man see that his heart is right. 



8 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

RIGHT USE OF REASON. 

The power of reasoning distinguishes men from 
brutes, and the habit of reasoning distinguishes wise 
men from fools. 

The Bible never makes war upon right reason. 
On the contrary, it encourages and demands the best 
exercise of all our faculties. We are, indeed, to use 
our reason in a lawful manner, setting it no impos- 
sible tasks, and carefully distinguishing between the 
influence of prejudice or passion, and the dictates 
of a sound mind. The uses of reason in regard to 
a revelation are chiefly these : to ascertain whether 
God has given us a revelation ; and, if so, to learn 
what that revelation is. To inquire whether God 
should make known to us a given matter does not 
belong to the province of reason ; for if we knew be- 
forehand what ought to be in the Bible, we did not 
need a revelation. Indeed, that which is already 
known to a man, cannot be revealed to him. But 
we may ask, yea, we are bound to ask, Is the Bible 
from God ? and, under responsibilities as solemn as 
eternity, our reason is summoned to try that ques- 
tion. If we decide that question affirmatively, let 
us then ask, What is that revelation ? what does it 
teach ? what does it promise ? what does it threaten ? 
what does it require ? In these questions there is 
full scope for the exercise of all our rational facul- 
ties. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 9 

THE HUMAN MIND WEAK. 

In prosecuting these and all inquiries on the sub- 
ject of religion, it is proper always to remember, that 
the human mind is feeble and very liable to err, and 
that sometimes " a painted falsehood in many respects 
bears the marks of high probability, and often tri- 
umphs over naked truth." 

"A mind which has no restraint from a sense of 
its own weakness, of its subordinate rank in the cre- 
ation, and of the extreme danger of letting the ima^- 
ination loose upon some subjects, may very plausibly 
attack every thing the most excellent and venerable. 
It would not be difficult to criticize the creation 
itself, and if we were to examine the divine fabrics 
by our ideas of reason and fitness, and to use the 
same method of attack by which some men have 
assaulted revealed religion, we might with as good 
color, and with the same success, make the wisdom 
and power of God in his creation appear to many 
no better than foolishness. There is an air of plau- 
sibility, which accompanies vulgar reasonings and 
notions, taken from the beaten circle of ordinary 
experience, that is'admirably suited to the narrow 
capacities of some, and to the laziness of others." 

There can be no greater error than a belief that 
human reason is of itself a sufficient light and guide 
in religion. The history of the world for several 
thousand years abundantly demonstrates this. All 
the wisest of the heathen acknowledged as much. 



10 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

Dr. Young well describes modem infidels, when he 
says, " The sufficiency of human reason is the golden 
calf, which these men set up to be worshipped ; and 
in the frenzies of their extravagant devotion to it, 
they trample on venerable authority, strike at an 
oak with an ozier, the doctrine of God's own plant- 
ing and the growth of ages, with the sudden and 
fortuitous shoots of imagination, abortive efforts of 
an hour." 

Saurin says of such, "What surprises me, what 
stumbles me, what frightens me, is to see a diminu- 
tive creature, a little ray of light glimmering through 
a few feeble organs, controvert a point with the 
Supreme Being ; oppose the intelligence, that sitteth 
at the helm of the world ; question what he affirms, 
dispute what he determines, appeal from his decis- 
ions, and, even after God hath given evidence, reject 
all doctrines that are beyond his capacity. Enter 
into thy nothingness, mortal creature ! What mad- 
ness animates thee? How darest thou pretend, 
thou who art but a point, thou whose essence is but 
an atom, to measure thyself with the Supreme Be- 
ing, with him whom the heaven* of heavens cannot 
contain?" 

If the child cannot comprehend the wisdom of the 
plan by which a vast empire is governed, it is surely 
no great act of humility for creatures of a day to 
submit their understandings in matters relating to 
the government of the universe and the counsels of 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 11 

eternity. Nothing is more proper than that the 
ignorant should be learners, and that the blind should 
have guides. 



KINDS OF PROOF. 

It is proper here, to make a few remarks upon the 
different kinds of evidence. Lord Bacon says, " The 
rigor and curiosity in requiring the more severe proofs 
in some things, and chiefly the facility in contenting 
ourselves with the more remiss proofs in others, have 
been amongst the greatest causes of detriment and 
hinderance to knowledge." Nothing is more unrea- 
sonable than mixing the different kinds of evidence. 
Geometry is a beautiful science, but its very nature 
confines it to magnitudes. No man can thereby 
prove that Victoria is queen, that Virgil wrote the 
^Eneid, that air and water are compound substances, 
that a murder was committed, or a battle fought. 
So you cannot prove the Bible true or untrue, you 
can prove nothing on the subject of a revelation by 
the exact sciences. There is, therefore, amazinsr 
folly in the objection that the Bible lacks a species 
of evidence which is found to sustain some branches 
of knowledge. 

Whether the proof of a truth be drawn from con- 
sciousness, from sensation, from intuition, from de- 
monstration, or from testimony, is not to a wise man 
a matter of importance, provided it be ample and 
adapted to the nature of the subject. If Christian- 



12 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

ity has all its appropriate evidences, we ought to be 
satisfied. If we cannot by demonstration or intui- 
tion prove it true, yet if its evidences are sufficient 
to satisfy the candid, who make war on their sinful 
inclinations, this is sufficient. Though you cast 
pearls before swine, they will but trample them 
under their feet. Though you give that which is 
holy unto the dogs, they will turn and rend you. 
Conviction from testimony is as philosophical and 
proper as from demonstration. 



A MYSTERY NOT A CONTRADICTION. 

Nor ought men to complain when asked to dis- 
tinguish between a mystery and a contradiction. He 
who believes in nothing which he cannot fully un- 
derstand, will certainly have a very short creed. He 
cannot believe in anatomy, in animal life, in gravita- 
tion, in vegetation, in electricity, if he refuses to 
assent to the existence of things mysterious. God 
himself is the greatest mystery in the universe, and 
he who rejects all mystery, must be an atheist. It 
is our duty carefully to ask, not whether we fully 
understand every thing belonging to what we believe, 
but whether the evidence, on which we believe it, is 
sufficient. An objection drawn from mystery alone 
is insignificant. A religion free from all mystery 
must be a human invention. 

But to establish a contradiction in any matter is 
to render belief impossible. No man can believe 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 13 

that a thing exists and does not exist at the same 
time and in the same sense, nor that black is white, 
nor that a part is equal to the whole. If the Scrip- 
tures contained contradictions, we could not receive 
them as true, although in the mysteries of revelation 
we may even rejoice. There is no greater mystery 
than the love of God in giving his Son to die for us. 
We cannot give it up, simply because it transcends 
all human love and comprehension. 



THE BIBLE OR NOTHING. 

Whether we receive the Bible or not, it is clear 
that if we reject it, we have not on earth any sys- 
tem of religion worthy of reception. If we give 
up the divinity of the Scriptures, we seek in vain to 
affix the seal of God to any other form of belief and 
worship, known to men. If the volume, which we 
call the true light, be a fiction, man is left to grope 
his way to the judgment-seat of God without a 
lamp to shine upon his path. This fact invests our 
inquiry with the most solemn interest. 

The trial of the truth of the Bible is the trial of 
man for his immortal life, and all his highest hopes. 
If we give up this book, there remains to us nothing 
but the blindness of superstition and imposture, and 
a long series of overwhelming degradations. It is 
certainly a wild madness, which can lead any one 
to suppose that human nature can ever be elevated 
by proving it on a level with beasts, by confounding 

Bible True. 2 



14 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

good and evil, vice and virtue, by annihilating all 
expectation of righteous recompense. Maniacs never 
held a wilder sentiment than that piety was pro- 
moted by denying Providence, by shaking confidence 
in the justice, holiness, or goodness of God. 

The moment men forsake the Bible they are at 
sea without a compass. If Christianity be a fiction, 
it is infinitely preferable to the fictions of heathen- 
ism, or the dogmas of that class of modern writers, 
who publish themselves to the world as philoso- 
phers. If Christianity be a fiction, it must be con- 
fessed that it at least breathes a very remarkable 
spirit of good-will, and produces an incalculable 
amount of happiness to society, of quiet to the mind, 
and of pleasing hope for the future. On the other 
hand, the sum of all that infidelity clearly teaches 
is contained in this short creed, " I believe in all 
uncertainty." 

OUR SCRIPTURES GENUINE. 
In an argument on the subject of the truth of the 
Bible, the first question is, " Have we the same 
Scriptures which the early Christians had?" I 
answer affirmatively, and prove it just as we prove 
that any writing now in our possession is the same 
that went under the same name in former times, and 
just as men, w,ho shall live 1,800 years hence, if the 
world shall stand so long, will prove that they have 
the same Bible that we have now. Let a man prove 



OUR SCRIPTURES GENUINE. 15 

that we have the Commentaries of Caesar, or the 
Orations of Cicero, and not some spurious works 
passing under their names, and by a thousand-fold 
stronger evidence shall it be proven that we have 
the genuine epistles of Paul, the genuine prophecies 
of Isaiah, the genuine gospels, and other sacred 
writings originally published by their authors. 

One way of proving that we have the same books 
which bore a given name in former days, is by com- 
paring modern with ancient copies. 

There lies before me a work first published in 
A. D. 1643. Now, if I should meet with a new edi- 
tion of that book, and should wish to know whether 
it were correct, I would compare the last with the 
first, and form my judgment accordingly. To ap- 
ply this argument, I would observe that we have 
manuscript copies of the New Testament, supposed 
to be as old as A. D. 500. These copies correspond 
in all points of fact or doctrine with our own Scrip- 
tures. Owing to the wasting persecutions which 
took place for the express purpose of exterminating 
Christianity, we have not any copies of the Scrip- 
tures in the Greek lano-ua^e more than about thir- 
teen hundred and fifty years old. Besides, the early 
Christians — and we are following their example — 
never thought of depositing in some sacred and 
secure place a copy of the word of God, for the 
purpose of giving to posterity an accurate copy of 
their sacred books. Indeed, no place intended as a 



16 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

depository of Christian monuments would have been 
either sacred or secure. The attempt to have made 
it so would have excited both suspicion and malig- 
nity. Moreover, the art of printing not having been 
then invented, all books, sacred and profane, were 
scarce, and all copies were of necessity made out 
in the slow and expensive method of handwriting. 
Accordingly, complete copies of the Scriptures were 
possessed only by respectable churches, and by a 
few rich or learned men. 

Even down to the time of the invention of the art 
of printing, a complete copy of the Scriptures could 
not be procured in England at a cost less than the 
aggregate hire of a common laborer for thirteen 
years. It is, then, no wonder that we have not a 
larger number of ancient manuscript copies of the 
sacred writings. The wonder rather is, that we have 
any. 

The Bible, like the burning bush seen by the pa- 
triarch, has been in the midst of the fire, and has not 
been consumed. Spiritual and political despotisms 
have summoned kings and cabinets, armies and the 
rabble, to extirpate the word of God. It has often 
been a capital offence to be found possessing the 
Bible. Yet this book has lived. Many very ancient 
copies have come down to us, and these agree with 
our Scriptures. 

But this is not all, for in early times the Scrip- 
tures were translated into different languages. Of 



OUR SCRIPTURES GENUINE. 17 

these translations I shall notice but one, namely, the 
Syriac. This translation, as learned men agree, 
has been in use in Syria ever since the second cen- 
tury. See Michaelis. The internal evidence, the 
traditions of the East, and many very ancient manu- 
script copies found in different places, establish for 
it at/ least a very great antiquity. About two hun- 
dred and thirty years ago, the Bishop of Antioch, 
in Syria, sent a copy of this translation into Europe 
to be printed, and since that time the work is found 
in the library of every clergyman of considerable 
learning. Several other translations have been made 
at different, though early periods of the Christian 
era ; and all of these contain the history and doc- 
trine of revelation, in a degree not equal indeed to 
the original, but in sufficient accuracy to prevent 
fatal mistake. Indeed, the ancient translations will 
well bear a comparison with an equal number of 
those that are more modern. So that, if we had no 
ancient manuscripts, and had to depend for our 
knowledge of the Gospel entirely on translations, 
we should have as correct sources of information as 
the mere English reader has of a history of France, 
originally written in the language of that country, 
and carefully rendered into English. 

Furthermore, all of the books of the New Testa- 
ment have been largely quoted, from early times 
down to the present, so that if every translation and 
every copy, written and printed, ancient and mod- 

Bible True. ■<• 



18 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

em, were entirely destroyed, and all the books which 
have been written for fifteen hundred years were 
instantly burned up, the Gospel would not be lost ; 
for it might be gathered from books written within 
three hundred years of the ascension of our Saviour. 
This is one of the highest kinds of proof appropriate 
to such a subject. Three writers, living in different 
countries, quote the same sentence from an old writer 
for purposes quite diverse. A man who never saw 
the original may reasonably believe that the agree- 
ing quotations are correctly made. 

This is the common practice of mankind, even in 
the most important matters. This kind of evidence 
increases with the number of quotations, with the 
distance of time and place at which they were made, 
and with the variety and contrariety of object had in 
view by those who made them. Our Scriptures 
have been quoted not only by three, but by many 
writers, at different times, for different purposes, 
some friendly, some hostile. These quotations con- 
tain the same things in substance. We can be at 
no loss for the substance of the (rospel. 

Numerous commentaries on the Scriptures, har- 
monies of their contents, and catalogues of them, 
similar to those found in modern authors, were 
early written and published. These constitute a 
mass of evidence, which it requires indeed learning 
and candor duly to estimate ; but which, when 
properly weighed, gives an overwhelming force to 



OUR SCRIPTURES GENUINE. 19 

the argument for the genuineness of the sacred writ- 
ings. 

As to the books of the Old Testament, it is not 
necessary to dwell on the proofs of their genuine- 
ness. It is sufficient to state, that all history repre- 
sents the Jews as exceedingly careful in correctly 
preserving the sacred text. When a copy was made 
out, not only the number of words, but even the 
num.ber of letters in it was counted, and compared 
with the original, in order to prevent mistake. 



THE SEPTUAGINT. 

It is proper also to state, that the Jewish Scrip- 
tures were translated into Greek about two hundred 
and eighty- eight years before Christ, by order of 
that great patron of learning and of commerce, 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt; that the 
work was executed with great care ; that when com- 
pleted, it was deposited in the largest library then 
in the world, the Alexandrian; that Jesus Christ 
and his apostles quoted this translation ; and that it 
corresponds with our copies of the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures as nearly as any translation commonly does 
with the original. This work, called the Septuagint, 
'has ever since been in the possession of scholars, and 
is highly esteemed by learned men ; so that if we 
had no Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament Scriptures 
would not be lost. 



20 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

TESTIMONY OF OPPOSING SECTS. 

Before and since the coming of Christ, there were 
true and false teachers, and various controvertists 
and sects, widely differing from each other. And 
yet Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, quoted the 
same copy of the Scriptures. Since the coming of 
Christ, the Jews and Christians, who differ on the 
Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth, a doctrine con- 
fessed on both hands to be fundamental to Jheir 
respective systems, do still read, study, and quote 
the same editions of the Hebrew Bible. The Jews 
and Christians have closely watched each other ever 
since the days of the apostles, yet do they now agree 
in receiving the same sacred text. So heretics and 
Christians have watched each other in every age, yet 
no material corruption of the text of the Old or New 
Testament has taken place. It could not have been 
even attempted without an exposure which would 
have ruined the credit of any man or sect. 

Let me illustrate. A. B. dies, leaving a will and 
seven children. Each of the children takes a copy 
of the will, leaving the original in the hands of a 
common friend, whose house is destroyed and the 
will with it, before it is admitted to record. Each 
of the heirs produces his copy of the will in court ; 
the handwriting of each is different ; the spelling of 
some words is different ; the punctuation does not 
in all cases agree ; yet the true intention of the tes- 
tator is manifest from each copy. Whatever may 



A REVELATION REASONABLE. 21 

be the decision of the judges in the case, surely 
the heirs cannot doubt what the will of the testator 
was ; and if they agree to divide the estate by it, 
surely his views and the ends of law and justice will 
be as well answered as if the original had been pre- 
served. 

Just so the millions of Christians appeal to the 
same copies of God's word, as containing the char- 
ter of their hopes, the rule of their lives, and the 
standard of their creed. Higher evidence of the 
genuineness of our Scriptures is not in the nature 
of things to be expected. No other records have 
ever been esteemed so sacred ; none have ever had 
so many safeguards to their purity. It is, there- 
fore, safe to conclude, that our Bible is the same 
which the early Christians had. 



A REVELATION REASONABLE 

There is nothing absurd in the supposition that 
He who made us should instruct us. It is to this 
day a question among scholars, whether language 
was at first a human invention or a revelation from 
God. Those who contend that it is a human inven- 
tion, have never argued that God could not, or if 
necessary, would not have revealed it to man. 
Surely, they would not have overlooked so obvious 
an argument if it had possessed any weight. 



22 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

To use an illustration : I speak not of what God 
did, but of what he might have done. If God may, 
in the judgment of reason, have taught us language, 
may he not teach us the knowledge of himself ? If 
we are capable of communing with him, is he not 
full of condescension, and may he not commune with 
us ? If he teaches the ant and the bee to provide 
for winter, why may he not teach man to provide 
for eternity ? It is also according to the divine plan 
generally to teach truths gradually, and by a few 
men at first. The world stood nearly six thousand 
years before the use of the mariner's compass, the 
art of printing, the true system of astronomy, the 
use of steam, and the use of electricity were known. 
And when they were at last well known, it was by 
means of a few men. In revealing the divine will 
on religious subjects to a few men able to teach 
others, God is but following an analogy which runs 
through all his dispensations. 



WHY WERE THE SCRIPTURES RECEIVED AS DIVINE ? 

The question then arises, On what evidence were 
the books of Scripture received as a revelation from 
God ? On this subject many false things have been 
said by the enemies of revelation. In answer it may 
be stated, that the divine authority of the Scriptures 
was attested by numerous 



MIRACLES. 23 

MIRACLES. 

God gave sight to all who do see. Why can he 
not give it to a man born blind ? He gave life to 
all who live. Why can he not give it to the dead ? 
Against the existence of miracles there can lie no 
valid objection. It is reasonable that men, sent by 
God to teach their fellows, should be able to attest 
their commission in the most impressive manner. 
There is no absurdity in the belief of miracles. 

Mr. Hume, indeed, has said that miracles are con- 
trary to experience. If he means that miracles are 
contrary to our experience in this day, it is admitted. 
But if he means that miracles were contrary to the 
experience of the early Christians, he does but mis- 
erably beg the whole question. These men testified 
to the existence of miracles, and thousands of them, 
in proof of their honesty and sincerity as witnesses, 
joyfully suffered all the pains of martyrdom. It is 
not possible to find witnesses more competent for 
their intelligence and opportunities of observation, or 
more credible for their honesty, for the disinterested 
purity of their lives, and for their agreement among 
themselves. No man has ever detected any dis- 
qualification in the witnesses, or shown how better 
witnesses could be found among men. 

Neither is there any presumption against mira- 
cles from any lack of power in the Almighty. As 
Omnipotence has established, so it can suspend the 



21 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

laws of nature. Nothing is too hard for God. The 
only question, which we can with propriety raise, is, 
" Whether God is willing, in any circumstances, to 
work a miracle ?" The truth on this point can only 
be learned by God's declaring that he is willing, or 
by his working the miracle. If he work the mira- 
cle, his declaration of his willingness to do so is 
unnecessary. When one of the ancients denied mo- 
tion, his adversary refused to argue the point ; but 
arose and walked across the room, thus silencing all 
sophistry. So, if a man deny that God is willing to 
work miracles, and he be answered by their exhibi- 
tion before his eyes, or by the sure records of his- 
tory, his doubts may properly cease. Matters of 
fact in things external to us can be known only in 
two ways, either by our own senses, or by the testi- 
mony of others. 

The miracles establishing the truth of Christianity 
were properly wrought at the time of its first prop- 
agation. Had they not been wrought until this day, 
all who have gone before us would have been desti- 
tute of sufficient evidence of the truth of the Gos- 
pel. And had miracles been so multiplied and con- 
tinued as that every man, down to our day, should 
have witnessed many of them, they would by their 
very commonness probably have lost their power 
over the human mind, and wicked men would have 
said that they proved nothing, because they were a 
part of the laws of nature ; or if their strangeness 



MIRACLES. 25 

had still arrested the mind, it would have been kept 
in an awe amounting to terror, and thus freedom of 
choice would have been impaired. We are, there- 
fore, from the nature of the case, left to the testi- 
mony of others, who were eye-witnesses of the 
miracles wrought in attestation of the truth of the 
inspired writings. That Jesus Christ allowed the 
people to believe that he wrought miracles, no sober- 
minded man can deny. All history, whether by 
friends or foes, confirms this truth. His disciples 
abundantly testify to this point. Now, if Jesus 
Christ intended to make the people believe that he 
wrought miracles, he either did perform them, or 
he was an impostor. 

If he were an impostor, there never has been 
one like him. Never has malice found a flaw in his 
character. Infidels themselves, among whom are 
Paine and Jefferson, acknowledge that Jesus Christ 
was a benevolent and just person. Then, if he was 
good, he was not a deceiver, but a true and sin- 
cere man, and did all he claimed to have done. Yet 
he often claimed obedience to his authority, on the 
ground of his miracles. 

The enemies of Christianity admitted that Christ 
did do those things which we call miracles. The 
Jews, who witnessed them, admitted them, but as- 
cribed them to satanic power. Celsus, the first 
infidel writer, admitted them, but compared them to 
the tricks of the magicians. Porphyry, the second 

Bible True. 3 



26 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

infidel, did not deny them, but said the Scriptures 
contained contradictions. Julian was emperor of 
Rome in the fourth century. He was an apostate 
from Christianity, and manifested a bitterness against 
it, which has hardly ever been surpassed, or even 
equalled. He used all his power and all his tal- 
ents — and both were vast — to oppose the word of 
God. In writing against the Christians, he does not 
pretend that no miracles had been performed by 
Christ. In two places he distinctly admits them to 
have been wrought. He admits that " he rebuked 
the winds, walked on the seas, healed lame and 
blind people," etc. Flavius Josephus, a Jew, who 
wrote about sixty years after the commencement 
of Christianity, speaking of a period some years 
previous, says, in his History, L. 18, cap. 3, sec. 
3, "At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he 
may be called a man, for he performed many won- 
derful works. He was a teacher of such as received 
the truth with pleasure." This passage is in every 
copy of Josephus now extant. It may be safely 
asserted that there is not a fragment of history, 
either contemporary with Christ and his apostles, or 
extant within many ages of their time, which dis- 
proves, or tends to disprove the fact that those 
things, which we call miracles, were wrought to es- 
tablish the truth of Christianity, although some are 
found, who admit the facts, but attempt to account 
for them as caused by magic or by satanic influence. 



MIRACLES. 27 

By the undeniable character of the miracles 
wrought, not only were all doubts removed from the 
minds of Christ's immediate followers, but enemies 
were confounded and silenced, or put to rage and 
made to gnash their teeth ; and in tens of thou- 
sands of cases enemies were converted into friends, 
and died excruciating deaths rather than deny what 
they knew to be the truth. Our countryman, Rit- 
tenhouse, well observed, that all the miracles of 
Christ were benevolent ; and we know that they were 
wrought not only at night, but generally by day, in 
the open air, and under the light of heaven, not 
only in the presence of friends, but in the midst of 
shrewd, cunning, and deadly enemies. There was 
no room for deception. Legerdemain never gave 
sight to the blind, never made the lame man walk 
and leap, never raised the dead. 



MIRACLES PROVE A REVELATION. 

Admitting miracles to have been wrought, the 
question arises, " How do they become a proof of a 
revelation?" The answer is, that the argument is 
based on two suppositions, to deny either of which 
renders it impossible to reason on this subject. The 
first is, that none but God can work a miracle. The 
other is, that God. loves truth, and will not exert his 
power miraculously to establish error and falsehood. 
If a man think that any other, than the power, which 
ordained -the laws of nature, can suspend them, or 



28 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

that a good, true, and loving God would suspend 
the laws of nature to confirm a fraud upon mankind, 
he is not prepared for any argument on the evi- 
dences of Christianity, but needs to be instructed 
in the first principles of natural religion, which show 
by innumerable proofs that God is good. He denies 
axioms in the argument, for Nicodemus expressed 
not only his own views, but the common sense of 
mankind, upon ascertaining the reality of miracles, 
when he said, " Master, we know that thou art a 
teacher come from God ; for no man can do the 
miracles that thou doest, except God be with 
him." 



MOHAMMED. 

"But," says one, "did not Mohammed work 
miracles, and thus establish his imposture ?" I an- 
swer, he did not. He said that God had wrought 
miracles enough by the prophets, and by Jesus 
Christ, and that God had sent him to teach. This 
would have been good reasoning, if he had taught 
the doctrines of Christ and the prophets. He did, 
indeed, assert that the Koran itself was a miracle. 
But this is evidently a play upon a word, and not a 
serious argument ; or, if it be the latter, then we 
disprove it by the Iliad of Homer, or the Paradise 
Lost of Milton, which are much more sublime, but 
which no man ever regarded as proofs of any thing 
beyond an elevated genius, and much careful study. 



PROPHECY. 29 

Mohammed's great argument, as every well-informed 
man knows, was the sword, not miracles. On that 
he relied, as the history of his life shows. 



POPISH MIRACLE?. 

The miracles pretended to be wrought in the 
dark ages, and in more modern times, in support of 
superstition, are wholly destitute of the support of 
credible and competent testimony. They were 
wrought secretly, or in the presence of those only, 
who already embraced the superstition, which was 
intended to be supported by them ; or it took years 
to accomplish one miracle ; or when the miracle was 
pronounced complete, the effect said to have been 
wrought was imperfect and doubtful. On one or 
more of these principles, or on those equally valid, 
the spurious character of every miracle mentioned 
by Mr. Gibbon and other enemies of the truth may 
be easily shown. 



PROPHECY. 
Leaving this brief sketch of the argument from 
miracles, let us look at the argument for the truth 
of the Bible, drawn from prophecy. This argument, 
like the last, is based upon two suppositions, neither 
of which a reasonable man will deny. One is, that 
prescience belongs to God only. The other is, that 
God will 'not reveal the secrets of futurity for the 

purpose of misguiding his creatures. He, who grants 

3* 



30 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

these two truths, needs but to have a real prophecy 
presented to his mind, to be satisfied that its author 
speaks by the authority of God. Things in their 
very nature contingent, and, for their accomplish- 
ment, not dependent on any second cause now in 
existence, do, if foretold, imply foreknowledge in 
the being foretelling them. If he who prophesies 
expressly disclaims all honor as due to himself, and 
ascribes his prophecies to the teachings of God, and 
if they prove true, it is evident that God is with 
such a man. 

In the foregoing principles we have the necessary 
distinctions between inspired prophecy and that un- 
usual sagacity which is sometimes found in men. 
Soon after the battle of Waterloo, Mr. Canning said, 
" The next contest in Europe will be a war of prin- 
ciple." He had good reasons for saying so, drawn 
from the state of things known to all the world. His 
prediction was true, and was in a few years proved 
to be so. But he did not pretend that it was in- 
spired. It was the product of his own reasonings. 

The same gentleman, in 1826, pronounced the 
abolition of slavery in the British West Indies utter- 
ly impossible. Here he reasoned with perhaps as 
much accuracy on the principles and facts before 
him ; but he left out of view the public temper, 
which soon became much changed ; and his predic- 
tion failed. Had he claimed divine inspiration in the 
case, he would have been justly numbered among 



PROPHECY. 31 

the lying prophets. As it is, we only say his sa- 
gacity was not equal to his subject. He was not, 
he did not claim to be a prophet. 

Now, there are prophecies in the Scriptures, 
amounting to several hundreds, of so distinct and 
remarkable a character as to be inapplicable to any 
but the times, the places, or the persons, to which 
the Christian world generally applies them. 



UNIVERSAL EMPIRES. 

Some of these prophecies contain an outline of all 
the empires, called universal monarchies, which have 
ever existed. They describe their character, their 
extent, and their end, with a minuteness that leaves 
the historian little else to do than to fill up the out- 
line by the events, which are remarkably well known. 
Let any man read Rollin's Ancient History, and he 
must be sceptical indeed, if he does not rise from 
the perusal convinced of the truth of all here as- 
serted. 



CYRUS. 

Some of these prophecies relate to particular 
persons and places. Those respecting Cyrus and 
the taking of Babylon were written two hundred 
years before his time. They give his name ; they 
tell how he should take the city ; they describe the 
nature of its defences ; they foretell his decree for 
the return of the Jews, and all in the clearest manner. 



32 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

TYRE. 

Perhaps no commercial city ever had greater 
wealth, or gave fairer promise of standing -while the 
world shall stand, than ancient Tyre, in the days of 
Ezekiel. Yet by that prophet God declared that he 
would "make her like the top of a rock," and that 
she should " be a place for the spreading of nets in 
the midst of the sea." Ezek. 26 : 4, 5. For cen- 
turies, every man who has visited the seat of ancient 
Tyre, and Volney among others, has seen no greater 
evidence of wealth than was found in the fish spread 
upon the rocks to be cured, and the nets spread to 
be dried. 



THE ARABS. 

The prophecies respecting the Arabs, the descend- 
ants of Ishmael, are in our day, as for more than 
three thousand years they have been, in a course of 
striking fulfilment. See Gen. 16 : 12. The Arab 
is still " a wild man." " His hand is still against 
every man, and every man's hand is still against him, 
and he still dwells in the presence of all his breth- 
ren," notwithstanding the mighty exertions which 
have been made to get rid of him. 



CHRIST. 

The prophecies respecting our Saviour predict his 
miraculous conception, the time and place of his 
birth, his lineage, his character, his miracles, his 



PROPHECY. 33 

doctrine, his rejection by the Jews, the manner of 
his death, and his resurrection, with a minuteness in 
many cases truly surprising. Yet all was fulfilled, 
even down to the words and acts of mockery used 
by his enemies at his death, and the division of his 
apparel among his crucifiers. 



JERUSALEM. 

The prophecy of our Saviour respecting the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, limited that event to the gen- 
eration then upon the earth. Matt. 24 : 34. In that 
generation it perished. He also said that in that 
event there should "be great tribulation, such as 
had not been from the beginning of the world to 
that time, no, nor ever should be." Matt. 24 : 21. 
No candid man can read Josephus' account of that 
event without consenting to the assertion, that he 
never read, or heard, or conceived of such suffer- 
ing in any other case. See Jerusalem in her fallen 
condition for nearly eighteen centuries : " How doth 
the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! How 
is she become as a widow, she that was great among 
the nations!" 



THE JEWS. 

Look, too, at the dispersed, distressed, distinct 
state of the Jews, concerning whom God said that 
all these things should come upon them. Scattered 
to the ends of the earth, persecuted for many cen- 



34 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

turies, their children, in many cases, taken from them 
in early life, to conceal their origin and change their 
religion, they still remain a suffering people ; and to 
this day they are as distinct from all other people 
as when they lived in Judea. I need not dwell upon 
the prophecies concerning them. Let one of their 
own number tell their views on this matter. 

Rabbi David Levi speaks of the proofs of " the 
exact accomplishment of every event foretold by 
Moses as affording such clear and unequivocal proofs 
of divine inspiration, as to strike the Deist and Infi- 
del dumb." Again he says, "I am free to assert, 
no nation ever suffered the like, during a space of 
almost eighteen hundred years." Again, "If we 
enter into particulars, we shall find that punishments 
which he (Moses) denounced against them, (the 
Jews,) have been so exactly fulfilled in every par- 
ticular, that it is no wonder if infidels have recourse 
to the old hackneyed objections, that the facts were 
prior to the predictions, and that the prophecies were 
written after the histories." Having given a brief 
view of these prophecies and their fulfilment, he 
Bays, " I must freely acknowledge, that they not 
only convince, but astonish and amaze me beyond 
utterance."* 

On these two great pillars, miracles and prophecy, 
Christianity rests its weight. No friend of the truth 
* Defence of the Old Testament, pp. 11, 15, 16, and 33. 



COLLATERAL PROOFS. 35 

ought for a moment to surrender either of them, or 
fail to defend them, when a proper opportunity of- 
fers. The merest outline of the argument from each 
has been given. If any one would know more on 
the subject, let him read several well-known works 
on miracles and prophecy. 



COLLATERAL PROOFS. 

But there are also many collateral sources of evi- 
dence, such as the majesty, the purity, the impar- 
tiality, and the harmony of the word of God. Each 
of these topics might be enlarged upon, and with 
much propriety. They are merely alluded to now 
for the purpose of saying that they are, in their 
place, important, and that they have summoned and 
won the confidence of thousands of the greatest and 
wisest men the world has ever seen. 

Sir Isaac Newton, having, by the application of 
known principles of science, made known the dis- 
tance and magnitude of the sun and many of his 
satellites, sat down to the study of the Bible, say- 
ing, "We account the Scriptures of God the sub- 
limest philosophy." 

Milton, of whose Paradise Lost Dr. Johnson says, 
" It is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because 
it is not the first," declares, " There are no songs 
comparable to the songs of Zion." 



36 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

A volume might be filled with similar testimonies 
to the unparalleled excellence of the sacred writings, 
which, as Mr. Locke says, "have God for their 
author, salvation for their end, and truth without 
any mixture of error, for their matter." 

On this branch of the subject I take pleasure in 
recommending to the reader a work, published by 
the American Tract Society, entitled, " The Bible not 
of Man." 

THE BIBLE MAKES MEN BETTER. 

There are two effects produced by the Bible on 
the hearts of those who embrace it, which are pe- 
culiar to revelation. One is, elevated purity. " The 
law of the Lord converteth the soul." This effect 
is not confined to the less vicious part of mankind, 
but is witnessed also in the desperate, and outra- 
geous, and lawless, who are brought under its power. 
Men as fierce as wild beasts, as cruel as death, as 
ungovernable as a storm, have often felt its purify- 
ing power. This has been the case from the first. 
An early Christian writer says, " Give me a man of 
a passionate, abusive, headstrong disposition ; with 
a few only of the words of God, I will make him 
gentle as a lamb. Give me a greedy, avaricious, 
tenacious wretch ; and I will teach him to distribute 
his riches with a liberal and unsparing hand. Give 
me a cruel and bloodthirsty monster ; and all his 
rage shall be changed into true benignity. Give me 



COLLATERAL PROOFS. 37 

a man addicted to injustice, full of ignorance, and im- 
mersed in wickedness ; he shall soon become just, pru- 
dent, and innocent." Lactantius, Inst., 1. 1, c. 26. 

Such has ever been and still is the power of the 
Bible on the heart. The history of the true church 
of God, if correctly written, would be very much a 
succession of narratives of the power of Bible truth 
in converting and sanctifying the hearts of men. 
This effect is not produced by the Bible in common 
with other moral writings. Cicero was eloquent and 
studious. He wrote concerning the nature of God 
and the duties of life. But history has never yet 
recorded that his works converted one sinner from 
the error of his ways. The Bible alone, and books 
which embody the truths of the Bible, have this 
wonderful efficacy. 

The human heart seems to say, " Paul I know, 
Jesus I know ; I feel the force of their teachings ; 
but who are ye, that come to me with your philos- 
ophy, and splendid poems, and powerful eloquence ? 
I may admire, but I will not obey you." Must not 
such a book be from God ? 



THE BIBLE COMFORTS. 

Another excellency of Christianity is, its power to 
console the afflicted mind. Compared with all other 
systems, and especially with infidel systems, how 
cold, and dark, and cheerless are they, and how 
quieting, animating, and enlivening is Christianity ! 
4. 



38 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

It tells us a thousand things to make us not only 
patient, but triumphant ; not merely in some of the 
minor afflictions of life, but even when the cup of 
bitterness is full, and we are called to drink its dregs. 
Instead of dealing in generals, allow me to state 
some cases. 



VOLTAIRE AND HALYBURTON 

I will contrast the feelings of the prince of infi- 
delity with those of an humble yet learned and pious 
servant of God. 

Voltaire says, "Who can, without horror, con- 
sider the whole world as the empire of destruction ? 
It abounds with wonders ; it abounds also with vic- 
tims. It is a vast field of carnage and contagion. 
Every species is without pity pursued and torn to 
pieces through the air, and earth, and water. In 
man there is more wretchedness than in all other 
animals put together. He loves life, and yet he 
knows he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, 
he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by 
worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative. 
Other animals have it not. He spends the transient 
moments of his existence in diffusing the miseries 
which he suffers ; in cutting the throats of his fel- 
low-creatures for pay ; in cheating, and being cheat- 
ed ; robbing, and being robbed ; in serving that he 
might command ; and in repenting of all he does. 



COLLATERAL PROOFS. 39 

The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd 
of wretches equally criminal and unfortunate ; and 
the globe contains rather carcasses than men. I 
tremble at the review of this dreadful picture, and 
find it contains a complaint against providence itself. 
I wish I had never been born." This is the testimony 
of him whom kings courted and nations flattered. 
This is the sum of all to him, " I wish I had never 
been born." 

Turn we now to Halyburton, a good man, who 
loved his Maker and his Maker's word. In the midst 
of pain, he said, " I shall shortly get a very dif- 
ferent sight of God from what I have ever had, and 
shall be made meet to praise him for ever and ever, 
O, the thoughts of an incarnate Deity are sweet and 
ravishing. 0, how I wonder at myself that I do 
not love him more, and that I do not adore him 
more. What a wonder that I enjoy such composure 
under all my bodily pains, and in the view of death 
itself. What mercy, that having the use of my rea- 
son, I can declare his goodness to my soul. I long 
for his salvation. I bless his name that I have found 
him, and I die rejoicing in him. 0, blessed be God 
that I was born. that I was where he is. I have 
a father and mother, and ten brothers and sisters in 
heaven, and I shall be the eleventh. 0, there is a 
telling in this providence, and I shall be telling it 
for ever. If there be such a glory in his conduct 
towards me now, what will it be to see the Lamb in 



40 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

the midst of the throne ? Blessed be God that I 
was horny 

Here is a contrast indeed — a contrast in which the 
blind themselves may discern between the righteous 
and the wicked, the man that loves and the man 
that hates the word of God. 



ANOTHER CONTRAST. 

Take another example of each kind — Gibbon the 
historian, and Paul the apostle. Both of these men 
were accomplished scholars ; both had great energy 
of character ; both had given to the world writings 
which they had a right to expect woul<J be read to 
the end of time ; both had filled a large space in the 
public eye for a long time, and both attained to 
about the same age. Just before they left the world, 
they tell us their thoughts. 

The closing paragraph of Mr. Gibbon's autobi- 
ography is in these words : " The present is a fleet- 
ing moment ; the past is no more ; and our prospect 
of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may 
possibly be my last ; but the laws of probability, so 
true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow 
about fifteen years. I shall soon enter into that pe- 
riod which, as the most agreeable of his long life, 
was selected by the judgment and experience of the 
sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the elo- 



COLLATERAL PROOF3. 41 

quent historian of nature, [Buffon,] who fixes our 
moral happiness to the mature season, in which our 
passions are supposed to be calmed, our duties ful- 
filled, our ambition satisfied, and our fame and for- 
tune established on a solid basis. In private con- 
versation that great and amiable man added the 
weight of his own experience ; and this autumnal 
felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, 
Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far 
more inclined to embrace than to dispute this com- 
fortable doctrine. I will not suppose any premature 
decay of the mind and body ; but I must reluctantly 
observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, 
the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner 
shade the evening of life." Thus wrote the author 
of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Ro- 
man Empire, and in a few months he died and left 
the world. As to Voltaire's "autumnal happiness," 
we have read his words, " I wish I had never been 
born." 

Listen now to the language of Paul, standing on 
the verge of time. He says, " I am now ready to 
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. 
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is 
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day ; 
and not to me only, but unto all them that love his 
appearing." 

Bible True. ^ 



42 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

The unbeliever in trouble is a reed shaken with 
the wind — he is tossed with tempest and not 
comforted. But he whose trust is in the living 
oracles of Jehovah, even when sorrow betides him, 
stands 

" As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm ; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 



THE ARGUMENT CUMULATIVE. 

Much of this evidence, instead of being weaken- 
ed, is strengthened by the course of time. Every 
sinner who is converted, every poor believer who 
is cheered, every afflicted saint who is enabled to 
triumph, every new instance of the power of the 
Gospel in any form, . and every continued or new 
fulfilment of prophecy, adds another strand to a 
cord, which is already strong enough to bind the 
consciences and the hearts of all the best men in 
the world. So that to the candid, humble, and in- 
telligent believer, who shall live in that time when 
the Sun of righteousness shall ascend the heavens, 
and stand still, a thousand years, and pour floods 
of light and love and redemption over all the earth, 
there will still be evidence abundant for his strong 
and triumphant faith in the oracles of God. 



SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 43 

SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 

ASTRONOMY. 

It may be proper here to notice some objections, 
drawn from science, against the truth of the Bible. 
The first is, that the Bible speaks of the sun rising 
and setting, whereas modern astronomy shows that 
it does neither, but only seems to do so. To this it 
is sufficient to reply, that the Bible is not a book on 
science ; that it uses popular language on the sub- 
jects on which it speaks ; and that it would have 
been mere affectation in Newton or any other as- 
tronomer to have avoided such phrases as were in 
common use. Had the Bible used scientific lan- 
guage on this subject, all men, whose system of as- 
tronomy was wrong, must have rejected the Bible, 
or renounced their science; whereas the Bible at- 
tacks no system of astronomy and teaches none. It 
teaches God's will and man's duty in morals and 
religion; it professes to have no other objects in 
view, and yet, in teaching God's power, it says, "He 
hangeth the earth upon nothing." 

But it is also said that modern astronomy gives a 
vastness to creation never understood by the readers 
of the Bible until taught by modern science. That 
may be so. But there is nothing in the Bible which 
opposes the idea that creative wisdom has its mon- 
uments throughout immensity. The Bible certainly 
uses as pious and elevated language concerning God 



44 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

and his vast works of creation as if the inspired writ- 
ers had been familiar with all the ideas we derive 
from the advancement of science. It is sufficient 
that the Bible says nothing contrary to what we 
have learned respecting these things. It does not 
profess to teach them. This would have been 
beside its great object, as much as arithmetic or 
chemistry is. 

But some say, It is now pretty generally sup- 
posed that many other worlds besides ours are filled 
with intelligent inhabitants, and that the plan of 
salvation contemplates no reference to any other 
race of beings than the human family, and is thus 
on too small a scale to be worthy of God. That 
other planets have rational inhabitants is a mere in- 
ference from the analogy of this world — an analogy 
very limited, as all must confess, and never to be 
brought in serious argument against any better or 
solid grounds of knowledge. No wise man can hes- 
itate, if the alternative be to renounce the Bible or 
give up the opinion that every heavenly body has 
its teeming millions of rational creatures. But there 
is no such alternative. Recent observations have 
pretty generally satisfied the learned that the moon, 
at least, is without inhabitants. It may be so with 
other worlds. The science of astronomy rests on 
evidence : the supposition that all worlds are intel- 
ligently peopled, is a conjecture — not wild, indeed, 
nor irrational, but still a conjecture. A man who 



SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 45 

had tasted but one orange and found that sour, 
might very naturally, but by no means truly, infer 
that all were so. It is eminently philosophical to 
hold fast well-established principles against all that 
have less decisive marks of truth. Yet Christians, 
no less than others, admit the conjecture to have 
marks of probability. 

Having admitted thus much, it is proper to say 
that the Bible does recognize the existence of other 
rational and immortal creatures besides man, some 
of them holy and some of them sinful, and both of 
them very numerous. They are spoken of as "le- 
gions," "thousands," and "ten thousand times ten 
thousand, and thousands of thousands." The Scrip- 
tures admit that some of God's rational creatures 
were created before our world was, but they do not 
say how much older they are than we. Nor is there 
any evidence from revelation or philosophy that sin 
has ever corrupted any but the human race and a 
part of the angelic. The latter have been passed by 
without an offer of mercy. 

A few public examples may as clearly display the 
nature of government as a thousand. So also, the 
grace and mercy offered to man may show that 
" God is love," as well as if the same were offered 
to a million of worlds. Besides, the Scriptures fully 
admit that, compared with the whole of God's do- 
minions, man is an exceedingly small part of the 
creation, Psalm 8 ; and therefore the divine conde- 



46 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

scension towards him is the more striking. The Bible 
also declares, that before this world was made, God 
contemplated it as the seat of wonderful exhibitions 
of the divine glory and perfections. Prov. 8. 

Sin, we admit, breaks the golden chain that binds 
the family of God together ; but it is expressly de- 
clared in Scripture, that by Christ Jesus a new head 
is given to the family of God, and all unf alien and 
all redeemed creatures constitute for ever one glori- 
ous household under him. Thus new and glorious 
relations are introduced between God and all holy 
rational creatures. This is the grandest display of 
wisdom and goodness of which we have any know- 
ledge. Eph. 1 : 8-10 ; Col. 1 : 20. 

If the work of Christ has such effects on the ra- 
tional creatures of whose existence we are assured, 
who can limit it to them ? The Bible puts no bounds 
to its effects in bringing glory to God and happiness 
to his creatures. Whatever may be the vastness of 
creation, there is nothing in the Bible discouraging 
the idea that the happiness of all unfallen creatures 
will be augmented by the work of Christ. Although 
those who have not sinned needed no redemption, 
yet their discoveries of God's glories may be far 
greater by this than by any other of his works ; and 
their relations to God, to one another, and to the 
rest of creation, may be not only novel, but full of 
increasing knowledge and glory for ever. 



SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 47 

GEOLOGY. 

Some ill-informed persons have alleged that there 
are discrepancies between the statements of the 
Bible and the teachings of geology concerning the 
creation, the flood, etc. The following remarks are 
believed to be sound, and fairly to meet any preju- 
dices from this quarter. 

1. I freely admit that there is such a science as 
geology ; yet no one, who is entitled to respect, will 
claim that it is demonstrative. It is admitted by its 
friends, to be yet incomplete as a science, and to be 
in a state of rapid advancement. 

2. For a lon^ time it has been coming nearer and 
nearer to the standard of revelation. Even the most 
scrutinizing of its devotees have yielded point after 
point, until it has lost, by the concessions of its 
friends, most, if not all its supiiosed discrepancy with 
revelation. A little further progress in the science 
will probably show, that its teachings wonderfully 
harmonize in all respects with the scriptural state- 
ments on the same subjects. 

3. No class of respectable scientific men have 
probably been more hasty and rash in making asser- 
tions, than some geologists. Buffon set the example. 
He supposed that the earth and moon had been 
rived off from the sun by the stroke of a comet, and 
that the momentum and motion thus received caused 
the moon to revolve around the earth, and both the 
earth and moon to revolve around the sun. He 



48 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

supposed that the fiery vapors brought from the sun 
condensed into water, and produced the ocean. Thus 
he proceeded from folly to folly, though with quite 
an air of confidence, and with an eloquence extremely 
captivating. It is hardly necessary to inform the 
reader that no respectable writer, now living, em- 
braces the theory of Buflfon above alluded to. 

4. The assertions of some geologists are hardly 
more surprising than the facility with which one 
abandons ground formerly taken and confidently 
maintained by another, or even by himself. This 
necessarily results from the low state of the science, 
and the uncertainty of many principles said to be- 
long to it; and has often, though improperly, led 
some sober men to doubt whether geology has any 
claims to the rank and dignity of a science. Vol- 
umes would be required to show the sudden and 
total changes which have been made in a short time 
on this subject. 

5. Men make unreasonable drafts on our belief, 
when they demand our credence to the assertion, 
that all processes of organization and induration, 
which have ever gone on, have proceeded as slowly 
as those we now witness on or near the surface of 
the earth. If they but admit that the laws of mat- 
ter are distinct and different from the properties of 
matter, and that the laws of nature are nothing but 
the usual modes of divine operation in nature, how 
can they show that God, in the early periods of the 



SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 49 

world, did not give unusual celerity or efficiency to 
these laws? This view alone would preserve all 
that is essential in the distinction between creation 
and providence. If there were no Bible, we could 
not, without forfeiting a title to a truly scientific 
state of mind, ask less or yield more on this and 
some other points. 

6. Christianity has fairly stood the test in regard 
to every true principle of real science which has yet 
been established, although oftentimes ignorant and 
timid friends, and ignorant and insolent enemies, 
have been led to suppose there was a discrepancy. 
It will be so with geology. Of this we have the 
strongest assurance in the large and valuable contri- 
butions to natural theology made by this science. 
Between natural and revealed religion there is the 
firmest union and the best agreement. That which 
is really friendly to one, cannot be inimical to the 
other. The result always has proved it, and always 
will prove it. 

7. Geology has clearly settled the point that ani- 
mal organization and life have not been eternal, and 
that there is no evidence that the human family has 
been in existence much more than five or six thou- 
sand years. From the time of Cuvier down, these 
things have not been seriously questioned. Thus, in 
the argument with a large number of sceptics, we 
have an advantage of great importance. 

8. Nor is there any thing in Scripture, which as- 



50 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

serts that animals never died until man sinned, or 
that they would not have died if man had not sin- 
ned ; though it is freely admitted that man himself 
would have been immortal, if he had not, by trans- 
gression, lost the favor of God. The Bible does 
not even assert, although it may be true, that there 
are circumstances revolting to our feelings often at- 
tending the death of animals, beyond what would 
have attended their dissolution if man had not sin- 
ned. 

9. Nor is there any thing in revelation which for- 
bids us to believe that the substance of the earth was 
formed long before it received its present organiza- 
tion. The first verse of Genesis may relate to a pe- 
riod millions of ages prior to the events noticed in 
the rest of the chapter. Commentators, who wrote 
hundreds, and some of them fifteen hundred years 
ago, seem to have understood the first verse as re- 
lating to a period far anterior to the creation of man. 
This interpretation, therefore, is not modern, nor 
made merely to obviate a difficulty. But if it were, 
it is so perfectly coincident with the just rules of 
interpretation, that there can be no just objection 
to it. 

10. Nor do any considerable number of respecta- 
ble geologists now resort to the supposition favored 
by Parkinson, Cuvier, and Jameson, that the six 
days of creation were six periods of indefinite, or, 
at least, of vast duration. The word day does not 



SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS. 51 

necessarily, or always, in Scripture, signify a period 
of twenty-four hours. But there are serious diffi- 
culties from other quarters in giving this interpreta- 
tion to this part of Scripture. The objections to 
this "device of interpretation," as a respectable ge- 
ologist calls it, are so great that sober critics have 
entirely rejected it, and a large majority of the best 
geologists now think such an interpretation uncalled 
for by any facts known in their favorite science. 

11. Geologists generally admit that there is abun- 
dant evidence that the earth everywhere bears marks 
of having been subjected to a deluge. Cuvier, after 
a long statement of facts and reasonings on the sub- 
ject, says, "I think, therefore, with Deluc and Do- 
lomieu, that if there be any thing settled in geology, 
it is this, that the surface of our globe has been 
subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the date 
of which cannot be carried much farther back than 
five or six thousand years." 

12. Every passage of Scripture has been so ex- 
plained, or can be so explained, in perfect consist- 
ency with the established laws of exegesis, as not in 
the slightest degree to interfere with the settled or 
generally received principles of geology. 

The foregoing remarks are sufficient to put to rest 
all fears which have been entertained in any quarter 
from the science of geology. It would require only 
time to fortify every one of them with the proof 
believed to be appropriate to the subject. 



52 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

The question here arises, " How comes any man 
to reject the belief of the Scriptures?" In other 
words, 

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OP INFIDELITY? 

If we answer this question generally, we may say, 
"Free- living is the father of freethinking." Cor- 
rupt manners are the basis of infidelity. A wicked 
heart is the nursery of a wicked creed. The Bible 
opposes all sin, secret and open. A heart in love 
with sin, therefore, naturally opposes the Bible. This 
is the method adopted in the Scriptures themselves 
of accounting for infidelity. Peter, 2 Epis. 3 : 3, 
says, "There shall come in the last days scoffers, 
walking after their own lusts." These men he de- 
scribes as making some attempts at argument, and 
yet the very effort at reasoning is so filled with im- 
piety and insolence that it is properly denominated 
"scoffing." The reason for this "scoffing" is also 
given. It is an expression of the enmity of those 
who " walk after their own lusts," that is, they are 
men of irregular and licentious lives ; not all to an 
equal degree or in like manner, perhaps, but all really 
so. In 1 Tim. 1 : 19, Paul says, "Some have put 
away a good conscience," that is, they have fallen 
into sin. What was the consequence ? This, " Con- 
cerning the faith they have made shipwreck." Sin 
made them renounce the Gospel. Christ himself 
said, " How can ye believe, who receive honor one 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 53 

of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from 
God only ?" In many places the Scriptures assert 
that the truth is rejected on account of a wicked 
life. 



MEN DO NOT GATHER GRAPES FROM THORNS. 

It is also true, that men are not surprised at any 
immorality in one known to them only as an infidel, 
while all are surprised at the same in one known 
to them only as a professor of Christianity. The 
reason of this is, that a mind at all informed does 
not expect men to be restrained except in accordance 
with their principles. Where is the chapter in in- 
fidelity, which, under any adequate sanctions, forbids 
lewdness, profanity, and dishonesty, or which re- 
quires " a chaste conversation," reverent speech, and 
whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, 
and of good report ? No such doctrine is found in 
it. In other words, mankind do not expect to gather 
grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles. The 
morality of infidels is owing to education, to habit, 
or to public opinion, and never to their infidel prin- 
ciples. So far as they have good moral principles, 
they are indebted to Christianity for them. Infi- 
delity, in this respect, always ploughs with a bor- 
rowed or stolen heifer. But let us descend to par- 
ticulars. We shall then find a sufficient cause in the 
moral character of the most noted infidels for their 
rejection of the Bible. 

Bible True. 5* 



54 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

SINFUL IGNORANCE. 

Peter charges " wilful ignorance " upon the infi- 
dels of his day. It is no less chargeable upon their 
more modern followers. Where was there ever an 
infidel, who was well informed on the subject of 
religion ? Hume always carefully eschewed the 
Bible as a book unworthy of him. Paine never read 
the whole Bible, and when he wrote the first part 
of his Age of Reason, he says he had not examined 
the Testament, meaning, no doubt, the New Testa- 
ment. Mr. Gibbon, first a Catholic and then a 
Protestant, and then an infidel, and then a Prot- 
estant, was as ignorant of the Bible as Hume or 
Paine. 

History does tell us of some celebrated infidels, 
who, in order to be able to attack Christianity in her 
vitals, undertook to search the Scriptures, and make 
themselves masters of their doctrines. But so far 
from being confirmed in infidelity, they were con- 
verted through the truth they had learned, and 
wrote ably in defence of Christianity. One of them 
was Gilbert West, whose work on the resurrection 
of Christ has always been regarded with great re- 
spect. Another was Lord Lyttelton, whose argu- 
ment for the truth of Christianity, drawn from the 
conversion of Saint Paul, remains without any re- 
spectable attempt to answer it. This gentleman, 
towards the close of his life, used to lay his hand 
upon his Bible, and say, " A wicked life is the only 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 55 

grand objection to this book." It is also said of 
Soame Jenyns, author of the able treatise on the 
Internal Evidence of the Genuineness of the New 
Testament, that he was in like manner convinced, 
while searching for arguments to prove it spurious. 
Christianity challenges investigation. Nor ought 
men to be offended at her demanding that the in- 
vestigation be candid and thorough. To most, if not 
all modern infidels, who have attacked Christianity, 
might be applied the cutting advice of Fielding, 
who recommends that before writing on any subject, 
a man should gain some information concerning it. 



BAD TEMPER OF INFIDELS. 

The indulgence of bad passions on the whole sub- 
ject of religion shuts many up to infidelity. " In- 
fidels," says Cecil, "are loose, fierce, overbearing 
men. There is nothing in them like sober and seri- 
ous inquiry. They are the wildest fanatics on 
earth." 

A poet, having read Paine's Age of Reason, wrote 
on a blank leaf the following just though severe 
stanza : 

" At every page divine his rancor teems, 
This hour he reasons, and the next blasphemes ; 
Marking each text with a censorious eye, 
That gives his practice, or his pride, the lie." 

Violent contempt is very much the style in which 



56 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

infidels have ever treated the whole subject of re- 
ligion. Mr. Jefferson, when writing on law, and 
liberty, and politics, is calm, serious, dignified, and 
very forcible ; but when writing on the subject of 
religion, he never fails to lose his temper or display 
his vanity. See his works. 

Infidels, feeling that the Bible makes war on 
their sinful lusts and practices, in self-defence make 
war on it ; and being unable to conduct the contest 
in manly dignity, they fall into a passion, and soon 
begin to rave. Indeed, malevolent passions consti- 
tute no small part of infidel character. Paine was 
habitually violent and ungovernable in his temper. 
Slight opposition enraged him. The same was true 
of Voltaire. Nothing made him more your enemy 
than a refusal to flatter his vanity. To curry favor, 
he professed any thing. "At London he was a 
Freethinker, at Versailles a Cartesian, at Nancy a 
Christian, at Berlin an infidel." The nature of his 
opposition to Christianity may be judged by the 
fact that he often closed his letters and notes to his 
friends with the words, " Crush the wretch," mean- 
ing Jesus Christ. Is it wonderful that such men 
should reject a religion whose first great lesson is, 
" He that humbleth himself shall be exalted ;" a 
religion which denounces vainglory under the pen- 
alty of damnation, and pronounces hatred of man- 
kind, or of the truth, to be an infallible mark of 
enmity to God ? 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 57 

PRIDE. 

Pride, especially pride of learning, has made 
many a man an infidel. Learning itself, if sound 
and thorough, tends to correct this pride. Lord 
Bacon has well said, " It is an assured truth, and a 
conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial 
knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of 
man to atheism, but a farther proceeding therein 
doth brin^ the mind back a^ain to religion. For in 
the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, 
which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves 
to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may 
induce some oblivion of the highest cause ; but when 
a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence 
of causes and the works of Providence, then, ac- 
cording to the allegory of the poets, he will easily 
believe that the highest link of nature's chain must 
needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." 

It is a singular fact that anatomy and astronomy, 
two sciences which do in a most remarkable manner 
prove that God is, and that he is good, and wise, 
and mighty, should, through the pride of super- 
ficially learned men, have so often led to atheism. 
The influence of science on minds truly great and 
truly humble has been exactly the reverse of this, 
of which Bacon himself, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir 
Robert Boyle, John Locke, and John Milton are 
illustrious examples. Because nothing is more op- 
posed to God, therefore he opposes nothing more 



58 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

than pride. " God resisteth the proud." All that 
knowledge which puffeth up the mind is both nar- 
row and perverted. But " God giveth grace to the 
humble." " The meek will he guide in judgment." 
There is as much propriety as authority in the coun- 
sel, " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom ; 
but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he un- 
derstandeth and knoweth the Lord." In proof of 
the pertinency of these remarks to the character of 
infidels, let the history of almost any celebrated in- 
fidel be examined, especially that of Hume, Vol- 
taire, and Gibbon. Mr. Hume's philosophy is 
known to have carried him to the greatest lengths. 
He balked at nothing. One of his principles led 
him so far as gave just occasion to a person to 
inscribe on the circular slab over his grave these 

lines : 

" Beneath this circular idea, 
Vulgarly called a tomb, 
Impressions and ideas rest, 
Which constituted Hume." 



SINGULARITY. 

Some men are also led to embrace infidel princi- 
ples through an affectation of singularity. We see 
this cause powerfully at work among men in regard 
to dress, equipage, and a thousand things. Few 
things have a greater effect on a part of our race 
than the conceit that they are or ought to be dis- 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 59 

tinguished from the mass of mankind. This princi- 
ple mightily prevailed, both in Europe and America, 
when French infidelity was at its height, and when 
men seemed to think that to be as wicked as Voltaire, 
or Paine, or Rousseau, would make them no less 
distinguished. A man who will address mankind in 
bold paradox, will not lack auditors or admirers. 

"It is," says Burke, "an observation which I 
think Isocrates makes in one of his orations against 
the sophists, that it is far more easy to maintain a 
wrong cause, and to support paradoxical opinions 
to the satisfaction of a common auditory, than to 
establish a doubtful truth by solid and conclusive 
arguments. When men find that something can be 
said in favor of what, on the very proposal, they 
have thought utterly indefensible, they grow doubt- 
ful of their own reason; they are thrown into a 
pleasing surprise ; they run along with a speaker, 
charmed and captivated to find such a plentiful har- 
vest of reasoning, where all seemed barren and 
unpromising. This is the fairy land of philoso- 
phy." 

To utter the most solid, though familiar truths, 
is often the most tedious employment. But to 
dismiss all tedious common-places, and soar even 
to the regions of absurdity, is at least a bold 
enterprise, and attracts attention on the same prin- 
ciples as the flights of aeronauts. To a portion 
of mankind, hardly any thing is more unpleasant 



60 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

than to conceive of themselves as being, thinking, 
and acting like their neighbors. All such are ready 
to be led captive by the first wild theory that is 
presented. Every sober man has witnessed many 
illustrations of this remark. 



HEALTH AND PROSPERITY. 

So also, a wicked mind turns every thing into a 
wrong channel, and perverts every blessing. Thus, 
firm health and the glow of ardor consequent upon 
it, especially united with much general prosperity, 
make many a man an infidel or an atheist. Dr. 
Young somewhere says, 

" 'Tis health that keeps the atheist in the dark, 
A fever argues better than a Clarke ; 
Let but the logic in his pulse decay, 
The Grecian he'll renounce, and learn to pray." 

An inspired writer, speaking of such, says, 
" They are not in trouble as other men ; their eyes 
stand out with fatness ; they have more than heart 
could wish. They set their mouth against the 
heavens. They say, How doth God know ?" Ps. 
73. So the "scoffers" spoken of in Scripture 
argued that the world had stood so long it would 
stand for ever, and that no account would ever be 
given to God. " The wish was father to the 
thought." 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 61 

COVETOUSNESS. 

Nor can it be denied that the wicked gains which 
some men are reaping, much incline them to reject 
a system which utters terrible denunciations against 
usury, covetousness, fraud, extortion, and all unjust 
gain. This was the grand objection of Demetrius 
and the other silversmiths mentioned in Acts 19: 
"This our craft is in danger." Men who are fully 
purposed to acquire wealth by means which they 
know the Bible condemns, must be miserable or re- 
nounce the word of God as a rule of life. Thus 
men, who for gain separate husbands and wives, 
parents and children, brothers and sisters, do uni- 
formly in practice, and generally in theory, renounce 
the Gospel. " They that will be rich, fall into temp- 
tation and a snare, and into many foolish and 
hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and 
perdition." 

GENERAL LICENTIOUSNESS. 

The Bible also lays the axe at the root of the tree 
of all sinful pleasures, and therefore its messages 
are hated and opposed. On the very frontlet of 
Christianity is inscribed, " Deny thyself — take thy 
cross." Could any thing be more repulsive to the 
devotee of carnal delight? Mr. Hume calls self- 
denial a "monkish virtue." Emerson and Paine 
were habitual and beastly drunkards. Rousseau, 
the accomplished Rousseau, has written his own 

RiM* TniP. 6 



62 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

biography, in which he " confesses " that he was 
through life both a thief and a liar. His language 
is, " I have been a rogue, and am so still sometimes 
for trifles which I had rather take than ask for." 
For a "subsistence," at Turin, he renounced the 
Protestant religion, and became, as he says, " both 
a dupe and an apostate." He lived a life of infamy 
with Madame de Warrens, "finding," says he, "in 
her all those ideas I had occasion for." He then 
lived in infamy with one, whom he calls Theresa, and 
says he " cheerfully adopted without the least scru- 
ple," the saying of one, " that he who best filled the 
foundling-hospital was always the most applauded." 
At Geneva he openly returned to the profession of 
the Protestant religion, "because," says he, "I 
thought it was the exclusive right of the sovereign 
power in every country to fix the mode of worship, 
and these unintelligible opinions." 

He subsequently engaged in another intrigue, of 
which he says, " Guilty without remorse, I soon 
became so without measure." He not only stole, 
but on one occasion laid his theft to a female ser- 
vant, who thereby lost her place. Yet so blinded, 
so perverted, so wicked was he, that he says, 
" Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will pre- 
sent myself before the Sovereign Judge with this 
book [' Confessions of J. J. Rousseau'] in my hand, 
and loudly proclaim, Thus have I acted ; these were 
my thoughts ; such was I, Power Eternal ! Assem- 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 63 

ble around thy throne the innumerable throng of my 
fellow-mortals. Let them listen to my confessions ; 
let them blush at my depravity ; let them tremble 
at my sufferings ; let each in his turn expose, with 
equal sincerity, the failings, the wanderings of his 
heart ; and, if he dare, aver ' I was better than that 
man.' " 

No wonder that such men should reject a system 
which requires truth, honesty, chastity, temperance, 
the love of man, and the fear of God. 



AMBITION. 

Nor does the Christian system tolerate ambition 
in any of its forms. On the contrary, it says, " Seek- 
est thou great things for thyself ? Seek them not." 
"Mind not high things." Love not "to have the 
preeminence." " Let each esteem other better than 
themselves." "In honor, prefer one another." Mr. 
Hume's great objection to the principles of Christi- 
anity is, that they repress ambition and produce 
moderation, humility, and the passive virtues, to an 
extent which he considers undesirable. No doubt 
almost the whole line of the great and masculine 
virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, 
fidelity, and firmness, are, if spurious, closely allied 
to obstinacy ; but if genuine and holy, nothing is 
farther removed from it. 

The Roman governors saw nothing but " obsti- 
nacy" in the holy martyrs, who died imploring 



64 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

blessings on their persecutors, but this was because 
the martyrs had principles as unknown to their ene- 
mies as to modern infidels. " The secret of the Lord 
was with them." They were his " hidden ones." 
But " the natural man receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned ;" and he has no spir- 
itual discernment, but is, as to holy things, like a 
" brute beast." 



LEWDNESS OF INFIDELS. 

Infidels are often such because of the hostility of 
the Christian religion to every form of obscenity, 
vulgarity, and depravity of manners and conversa- 
tion. No wonder that Voltaire was an infidel, for 
even when writing on the most sacred subjects, he 
uses the most coarse and polluted language. No 
man who has any regard to his reputation, would 
dare to read aloud in company scores of pages in his 
infidel writings. He practised the sin of the heathen 
and of Sodom. No gentleman would even repeat to 
another many things found in the writings of Paine. 



DEPRAVED PRINCD7LES. 

The causes of infidelity in particular men may 
often be learned from their writings. The philo- 
sophic Hume has written an essay asserting one's 
right over his own life, even to take it away at pleas- 
ure. He seems to be unable to understand how it can 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 65 

be any crime to change the course of a few ounces 
of blood. He has also written another essay to 
prove that the seventh commandment is not binding 
on either sex. No wise man will be surprised to 
find this advocate of suicide and adultery shockingly 
profane in his correspondence with his friends, even 
with a clergyman. Much less can any fail to see in 
these principles of his a sufficient cause for his infi- 
delity. 

Lord Bolingbroke says, the only thing which can 
reconcile a man to any other state of marriage than 
that of polygamy, is, that it is a mere civil institution, 
not of binding moral force. Dr. Johnson says, 
"Chesterfield taught the manners of a dancing- 
master, and the morals of a prostitute." Mr. Hobbes 
maintained that the law of the land " was the sole 
foundation of right and wrong, and that even relig- 
ion had no obligation but as enjoined by the mag- 
istrate:" in other words, that our Creator and Pre- 
server has not any right to control our actions, unless 
his authority be seconded and supported by human 
governments. Even Lord Herbert, the most decent 
of all the English infidels, apologizes for lewdness. 
Godwin both defended and practised lewdness. The 
proof of his guilt is his own confession. 



WANT OF THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 

Christianity declares that "all liars shall have 
their part in the lake that burns with fire and brim- 

Bible True. 6 



66 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

stone," and denounces all insincerity of speech and 
behavior. How troublesome all such rules must be 
to infidels, may be judged of by the following facts. 

Voltaire requested D'Alembert to tell a known 
and palpable falsehood, by denying that he [Vol- 
taire] was the author of the Philosophical Dictionary. 
D'Alembert, in reply, informed him that he had told 
the lie. 

Shaftsbury, Collins, and Gibbon did not hesitate 
to qualify themselves for office by partaking of the 
Lord's supper in the established church of England, 
although neither of them believed it ordained by 
God. 

The truth is, that infidels are not addicted to mar- 
tyrdom, or even to suffering slight civil disabilities, 
for the maintenance of their doctrines. A large 
portion of the loose infidels of the days of Charles II. 
had, during the commonwealth, prayed as long and 
as loud, and talked as whiningly and looked as de- 
murely as the fashion of the times seemed to demand. 
Christianity has poured out in triumph the blood of 
millions of her disciples in attestation of her divin- 
ity ; but infidelity has nothing which she regards 
as worth bleeding for. 

It is probably a truth, that the world has never 
yet seen a candid, honest infidel, one free from all 
hypocrisy. Very generally they give the kiss of 
friendship to Christianity, and meanly aim their 
malignant thrusts at her heart. 



CAUSES OF INFIDELITY. 67 

Herbert declared that he had no intention to 
attack Christianity, which he calls the best religion. 
He represents it as the great design of the Gospel 
to establish those great principles in which he makes 
religion properly to consist. 

Hobbes acknowledges that the writings of the 
New Testament are as ancient as the times of the 
apostles ; that they were written by persons who 
lived in those times, some of whom saw the things 
which they relate ; and that they are the true regis- 
ters of those things which were done and said by the 
prophets and apostles. 

Blount acknowledges that it is not safe to trust to 
deism alone, if Christianity be not joined with it. 
"Undoubtedly," says he, "in our travels to the 
other world, the common road is the safest. And 
though deism is a good manuring of a man's con- 
science, yet certainly, if sowed with Christianity, it 
will produce the most plentiful crop." 

Toland says it was not his intention to invalidate, 
but to illustrate and confirm the einon of the New 
Testament. 

Shaftsbury insisted that he faithfully embraced 
the mysteries of our holy religion, notwithstanding 
their amazing depth. 

Collins represents the cause in which he was en- 
gaged, as the cause of virtue, learning, truth, God, 
religion, and Christianity. 

Tindal says, Christianity, stripped of the additions 



68 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

that policy, mistakes, and the circumstances of time 
have made to it, is a most holy religion, and all its 
doctrines plainly speak themselves to be the will of 
an infinitely wise and good God. 

Morgan speaks of "our Saviours doctrines " as 
" the true and genuine principles of nature and rea- 
son." He declares, that " men ought to be thankful 
for the light of the Gospel." 

Chubb puts to one of his infidel tracts this title, 
" The true Gospel of Christ asserted." 

Another entitled his infidel book, " Christian- 
ity as old as the Creation." 

Bolingbroke says, " The system of religion which 
Christ published, and his evangelists recorded, is a 
complete system to all purposes of religion, natural 
and revealed." 

Hume, in the conclusion of his essay on miracles, 
says his piece " may serve to confound those dan- 
gerous friends, or disguised enemies of the Christian 
religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the 
principles of human reason." He adds, " Our most 
holy religion is founded on faith, and not on reason." 

Gibbon speaks of Christianity as "a divine reve- 
lation," and says its success was primarily owing to 
the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to 
the ruling providence of its great Author. 

Carlyle claims that Christianity stands on higher 
ground than miracles, and shows great zeal in the 
cause. 



INFIDELITY WORTHLESS. 



Indeed, time would fail us to show the innumer- 
able falsehoods, deceits, and instances of hypocrisy 
in the lives and writings of infidels, even when acting 
most deliberately and solemnly. 



GENERAL INFERENCE. 

The conclusion to which we come from such a 
review, is well expressed by a writer of the last gen- 
eration : " Modern unbelievers are deists in theory, 
pagans in inclination, and atheists in practice." It 
has happened to them as St. Augustine has spoken 
generally : " He, who knows what is right and does 
it not, loses his power of discerning what is right. 
He, who will not do right when he can, loses his 
capacity to do it when he would." Some one has 
truly said, that if infidels should retain their present 
inclinations, and should find that the demonstration 
of the 47th proposition of Euclid, instead of proving 
what it does, should prove that men ought to love 
and obey God, they would pretend to find some 
flaw in the argument, and declare the reasoning in- 
conclusive. All history, bearing on the subject, 
shows that this statement is not too strong. 



INFIDELITY WORTHLESS, DESTRUCTIVE. 
Suppose we renounce Christianity, what can infi- 
delity do for us ? What good lessons can it teach 
us concerning God, the Creator, Preserver, and Bene- 



70 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

factor of men ? It declares none of his attributes in 
half so clear and glorious a manner as the Bible 
does. Concerning some of them it is silent. It 
neither asserts nor explains his perfect universal 
government. It neither travels back to the counsels 
of eternity, nor down along the unending course of 
duration. It can never determine those grand con- 
troversies, on the right settlement of which even the 
more sober heathen philosophers admitted human 
happiness to depend. It neither explains nor asserts 
the reasonableness of the principles of human ac- 
countability. It prescribes none of the proper offices 
of life, nor regulates the delicate duties of society. 
Instead of expelling superstition, it fosters it, as is 
proven by the history of every people who have 
renounced the Bible, in whole or in part. It inflames 
the ferocious, it disheartens the timid, it makes the 
wise simple, it debases the humble, and exalts the 
proud. It is wholly at a loss what to say about 
retribution, but commonly denies it. It is cold and 
dark, and cheerless and hopeless. To a guilty sin- 
ner it offers no good ground of hope that he may 
obtain pardon. It is silent about "atoning blood." 
It has no sin-offering in its creed. In actual results 
in morals, we have seen some of its effects on men 
who commonly had many worldly influences to 
restrain them within the bounds of decency, and yet 
we have seen them practising the most shameful 
vices, On the lower classes, the masses of men not 



INFIDELITY WORTHLESS. 71 

thus restrained, it has, if possible, a still more de- 
moralizing effect. 



A CASE. 

Mr. Mallet, the infidel, had a servant, who waited 
at his table, and there heard, day after day, the 
dogmas of infidelity, until he well understood and 
could defend them. " Being thoroughly convinced 
that for any of his misdeeds he should have no 
after-account to make, he was resolved to profit 
by the doctrine, and made off with many things 
of value, particularly the plate. He was, however, 
so closely pursued, that he was brought back with 
his prey to his master's house, who examined him 
before some select friends. At first, the man was 
sullen, and would answer no questions ; but being 
urged to give a reason for his infamous behavior, he 
resolutely said, ' I had heard you so often talk of 
the impossibility of a future state, and that after 
death there was no reward for virtue, nor punish- 
ment for vice, that I was tempted to commit the 
robbery.' ' Well, but, you rascal,' replied Mallet, 
'had you no fear of the gallows?' ' Sir,' said he, 
looking sternly at his master, ' what is that to you ? 
If I had a mind to venture that, you had removed 
my greatest terror : why should I fear the least?' " 

Every experiment yet made on the pure princi- 
ples of infidelity has proved a failure. Robert Dale 
Owen with his " Harmony Society," and Dr. Cooper 



72 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

with the college of South Carolina, were but sam- 
ples of what the world has ever seen when men have 
esteemed themselves wiser than God. Jannes and 
Jambres, the leading magicians of Egypt, seemed 
for a little time to be able to withstand Moses ; but 
ere long " their folly was manifest." 



FRANCE. 

The experiment made in France, near the close of 
the last century, ought to have succeeded, if any 
trial of infidelity could result in aught but shame. 
France was the fairest portion of Europe. Science 
nourished astonishingly. The leaders were men of 
prodigious talents. Christianity was abolished. 
The Sabbath was set aside. Infidelity stood forth 
alone, wielding the sceptre over thirty millions. The 
glorious age and reign of reason was announced to 
mankind. The millennium of philosophy was said 
to have commenced. The first thing done by the 
great nation was to prostitute her virtue, the second 
was to abandon every measure that could promote 
her well-being. Then every fastness of society gave 
way, and France "got drunk on blood to vomit 
crime." The voice of law was drowned by the 
screams of brutal men and more brutal women, 
clamoring for vengeance. The reign of reason be- 
came the reign of terror. To terror succeeded hor- 
ror, and to horror desperation and madness. The 
whole experiment was on the greatest scale, and 



INFIDELITY WORTHLESS. 73 

brought forth the most appalling results. The les- 
son was to mankind. Let him that readeth under- 
stand. Nor is there in any correct history any ac- 
count of a successful experiment made on purely 
infidel principles. There can be none such, any more 
than there can be good health in a community, in 
which the plague is raging. 



DEATHS OF INFIDELS. 

No man has any more strength, no principle has 
any more value than a fair trial evinces. Infidelity 
has always failed to give support in the hour of 
darkness. 

When Mr. Hobbes was alone, he was haunted 
with the most tormenting reflections, and if, on 
awaking in the night, he found his candle gone out, 
he expressed great terror. He could not bear any 
discourse on death. It seemed to him a most un- 
welcome subject. As death approached, he con- 
fessed that he "was about to take a leap in the 
dark." 

When Yolney was caught in a dreadful storm on 
one of our lakes, he was among the first to give 
signs of alarm, and to fall on his knees ; yet when 
the storm was over, he meanly said, in excuse of 
his prayers, that his mother had put some notions 
into his head that he could not get rid of. 

Voltaire, the great apostle of modern infidelity, 
when he came to die, was in the greatest horror. 



74 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

When the physician came, he exclaimed, "I am 
abandoned by God and man. Doctor, I will give 
you half of what I am worth, if you will give me 
six months." The physician replied, " Sir, you 
cannot live six weeks." Voltaire answered, "Then 
I shall go to hell, and you will go with me," and 
soon after expired. 

Diderot and D'Alembert died hardly, if at all, 
less terribly. Paine's latter end was full of misery. 
He alternately cursed God, and prayed to Jesus 
Christ for "help." Emerson, towards the close of 
his life, crawled about the floor, at one time praying, 
and at another swearing. Newport's last words 
were, " Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell and dam- 
nation." 

Many have died in our own country, but none of 
them pleasantly, most of them terribly. Dr. Cooper, 
in a letter written shortly before his death, says, 
" My shortness of breath is not now distressing ; my 
legs swell painfully by bedtime. I walk with some 
difficulty from one room to the opposite. It is pos- 
sible I may live over this spring. I greatly disap- 
prove of all kinds of clerical religion, as I do of the 
whole clerical body everywhere. Of a future state 
I have no evidence. Knowing, therefore, nothing 
about it, I shall die believing nothing, hoping nothing, 
fearing nothing, caring nothing." I suppose this 
is as near an approach to a tolerable death as the 
annals of infidelity afford. Yet, by his own confes- 



INFIDELITY WORTHLESS. 75 

sion, he had "no hope in his death." It seems, too, 
that like the timid boy walking by a graveyard, who 
whistles to keep his courage up, so the doctor was 
not satisfied with " caring nothing about a future 
state," but he must say so to encourage his indiffer- 
ence. 

Some may say, however, that Hume " died like 
a philosopher." On this subject it is proper to say, 
that Adam Smith's account of that matter differs 
very widely from that of the very respectable female 
who waited on him, and who had a far better oppor- 
tunity of observing the state of his mind in his last 
days than any one else. But admit Dr. Smith's 
account to be true, is it dying like a philosopher to 
play at cards and crack jokes about Charon and his 
boat as one is about to enter eternity ? If so, rather 
let me die on a gibbet, in penitence for my sins. 
Even if death be esteemed an eternal sleep, surely 
it is too solemn a sleep to laugh about at any time, 
and especially as one is about to fall into it. Dr. 
Johnson correctly says of Mr. Hume, "Here was a 
man who had been at no pains to inquire into the 
truth of religion, and had continually turned his 
mind the other way. It was not to be expected that 
the prospect of death should alter his way of think- 
ing, unless God should send an angel to set him 
right. He had a vanity in being thought easy." 

The poet Montgomery has well described the 
dying sceptic and the dying Christian. 



76 THE BIBLE TRUE. 



THE DYING SCEPTIC. 



Lo there, in yonder fancy-haunted room, 

What muttered curses tremble through the gloom, 

When pale, and shivering, and bedewed with fear, 

The dying sceptic felt his hour drew near ; 

From his parched tongue no meek hosanna fell, 

No bright hope kindled at his faint farewell : 

As the last throes of death convulsed his cheek, 

He gnashed, and scowled, and raised a hideous shriek, 

Rounded his eyes into a ghastly glare, 

Locked his white lips — and all was mute despair. 



THE DYING CHRISTIAN. 

Go, child of darkness ! see a Christian die ! 
No horror pales his lips, or dims his eye ; 
No fiend-shaped phantoms of destruction start 
The hope religion pillows on his heart, 
When with a faltering hand he waves adieu 
To all who love so well, and weep so true : 
Meek, as an infant to the mother's breast 
Turns, fondly longing for its wonted rest, 
He pants for where congenial spirits stray, 
Turns to his God, and sighs his soul away. 

The infidel system, so full of darkness, guilt, and 
misery, so destitute of purity in life or hope in 
death, cannot proceed from a God of truth, of good- 
ness, of holiness, of justice, and of mercy. Nor 
can it be pleasing to him. It is a system of malig- 
nant doctrines, malignant practices, and malignant 
results. 



REMARKS. 77 

REMARKS. 

1. If the Bible be true, it is awfully so to the 
wicked. Its truths are not to be trifled with, made 
a jest of, held in unrighteousness of life, or coldly 
received. It is no objection to Christianity that its 
consistent professors are solemn and in earnest. It 
is to the disgrace of infidelity that its professors in- 
dulge levity in nothing more than on sacred subjects. 

2. If the Bible be true, it is, to the humble, good 
man, delightfully so. If it has a rod laid up for the 
indolent, it has also manna laid up for the hungry. 
If it turns a dark side towards the wicked, it turns 
a very bright side towards the pious. Its promises 
are as brilliant as its threatenings are terrible. Let 
the people of God shout aloud for joy, for " all the 
promises do travail," and their redemption draw- 
eth nio-h. Let the inhabitant of this rock of truth 

o 

sing. 

3. In view of all these things, it is not uncharita- 
ble to believe infidels in Christian countries to be, 
on the subject of religion, uncandid while indulging 
opposition to Christianity. By word and deed they 
have often confessed as much. Colonel Ethan Allen 
of New England, was an officer in the war of Amer- 
ican Independence. He was brave, he was patri- 
otic, he was gifted, he was an infidel. Having 
fought the enemies of his country, he made war on 
the Lamb, and wrote with much subtlety a work 



78 THE BIBLE TRUE. 

against Christianity. He was also a husband and a 
father. In the course of time an interesting daugh- 
ter was taken sick. It soon became apparent to her 
physician, her parents, and herself, that she had 
but a short time to live. In these solemn circum- 
stances she made an appeal to her father, an infidel, 
and to her mother, a Christian, not to deceive her, 
but to tell her whether she should believe the infi- 
del or the Christian system. The mother, from 
emotion or from prudence, was silent. In the father, 
parental love gained the ascendency over infidel 
passion and prejudice, and he said, " My daughter, 
believe your mother. She has told you the truth." 

Jesus Christ gave a righteous judgment, when he 
said that infidels in all places where the Gospel was 
made known, should finally be judged and their 
destinies determined according to the standard which 
they reject, because they had no good reason for 
rejecting it. " He that rejecteth me, and receiveth 
not my words, hath one that judgeth him : the 
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him 
in the last day." John 12 : 48. 

4. Let Christians, as they have opportunity, in- 
form themselves on the subject of the truth of 
Christianity. Let them be able to show that they 
"have not followed cunningly devised fables." Let 
them read and study both the Bible and the evi- 
dences of Christianity, not that they may become 
fiery disputants, but that they may be ready with 



REMARKS. 79 

meekness of wisdom to " give a reason of the hope 
that is in them." 

5. Especially, let all who love the truth live ac- 
cording to it, and by " well-doing put to silence the 
ignorance of foolish men." By humility, by kind- 
ness, by forgiveness of injuries, by courage under 
trials, by charity, by the Holy Ghost, it can be 
proven now as in former times, that the Gospel is 
the power of God unto salvation. Something like 
a show of answer may be given to all the evidences 
adduced in favor of the truth of the Bible ; but in- 
fidels commonly find it very difficult to satisfy them- 
selves with their answers to the argument drawn 
from the present evidence of a holy life and blame- 
less conversation in God's people. 



PUBLICATIONS 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 



These works are not exceeded in high evangelical charac- 
ter, spiritual power, and practical worth, by any spiritual col- 
lection in any language. They have been carefully selected 
for the great body of intelligent readers throughout the coun- 
try, and the most watchful parent may supply them to his fam- 
ily or to others, not only with safety to their best and eternal 
interests, but with hope of the richest spiritual blessings. 

D'Aubigne's History of the Re- 
formation. A new translation, 
revised by the author, in four vol- 
umes 12mo, with portraits. Price 
SI 75 extra cloth. 

Baxter's Saints' Everlasting 
Rest, 12mo, in large type ; also 
18mo. 

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 
12mo, in large type, and 18mo. Both 
editions neatly illustrated. 

Jay's Morning Exercises. 

Mason's Spiritual Treasury, for 
every day in the year. Terse, pithy, 
and evangelical. 

Flavel's Fountain of Life, or Re- 
demption provided. 

Flavel's Method of Grace, or Re- 
demption applied to the Souls of 
Men. 

Bishop Hall's Scripture Histo- 
ry, or Contemplations on the His- 
torical Passages of the Old and New 
Testaments. 

Bishop Hopkins on the Ten Com- 
mandments. Two standard works 
of the times of Baxter. 

President Edwards' Thoughts 
on Revivals. 

Venn's Complete Duty of Man. 

Owen on Forgiveness, or Psalm 
cxxx. 

Gregory's (Olinthus, LL.D.) Ev- 
idences of Christianity. 



Paley's Natural Theology. 

Dr. Spring's Bible not of Man. 
or the Argument for the Divine 
Origin of the Scriptures drawn 
from the Scriptures themselves. 

Nelson's Cause and Cure of In- 
fidelity. 

Memoir of Mrs. Isabella Gra- 
ham. A new and standard edi- 
tion. 

Memoir of Mrs. Sarah L. Hunt- 
ington Smith. 

Sacred Songs for Family and 
Social Worship. Hymns and 
Tunes — with a separate edition in 
patent notes. Also, the Hymns 
separately. 

Doddridge's Rise and Progress 
of Religion in the Soul. 

Edwards' History of Redemp- 
tion. 

Volume on Infidelity, comprising 
five standard treatises : Soaine Jen- 
vns on the Internal Evidence ; Les- 
lie's Method with Deists ; Little- 
ton's Conversion of Paul ; Watson's 
Reply to Gibbon and Paine. 

Pike's Persuasives to Early Pi- 
ety. 

Pike's Guide to Young Disciples. 

Anecdotes for the Family and 
the Social Circle. 

Universalism not of God. 

Dibble's Thoughts on Missions. 



ELEGANT PRACTICAL WORKS. 



Wilberforce's Practical View. 
Hannah More's Practical Piety. 
James' Anxious Inquirer. 
Jay's Christian Contemplated. 
Elijah the Tishbite. 
Xevins' Practical Thoughts. 
Melvill's Bible Thoughts, se- 
lected by late Rev. Dr. Milnor. 



Harris' Mammon. 
Gurney's Love to God. 
Foster's Appeal to the Young 
Abbott's Young Christian. 
Abbott's Mother at Home. 
Abbott's Child at Home. 
James' Young Man from Home. 



CHRISTIAN MEMOIRS. 



Rev. Claudius Buchanan, LL.D., 
including his Christian Researches 
in Asia. 

Rev. John Newton. 

Rev. Henry Martyn. 

Rev. David Brainerd. 

Rev. Edward Payson, D. D. 

Harriet L. Winslow, Missionary 
in India. 

James Brainerd Taylor. 



Harlan Page. 

Normand Smith. 

Richard Baxter. 

Archbishop Leighton. 

Matthew Henry. 

Rev. C. P. Schwartz, Missionary 

to India. 
Rev. Samuel Pearce. 
Rev. Samuel Kilpin. 
Hannah Hobbie. 



OTHER SPIRITUAL WORKS. 



Edwards on the Affections. 

Baxter's Call to the Uncon- 
verted. 

Alleine's Alarm to the Uncon- 
verted. 

Flavel's Touchstone. 

Flavel on Keeping the Heart. 

Helffenstein's Self-Deception. 

Pike's Relig. and Eternal Life. 



Sherman's Guide to an Acquaint- 
ance with God. 

Baxter's Dy'ing Thoughts. 

Matthew Henry on Meekness. 

Andrew Fuller's Backslider. 

Scudder's Redeemer's Last Com- 
mand. 

Scudder's Appeal to Mothers. 

Burder's Sermons to the Aged. 



MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, 



Bogue's Evidences of Christ'y. 
Keith's Evidence of Prophecy. 
Morison's Counsels to Young 

Men. 
The Reformation in Europe. 
\evins' Thoughts on Popery. 
Spirit of Popery, [with 12 engs.] 



The Colporteur and Roman Ca- 
tholic. 

Mason on Self-Knowledge. 

Beecher on Intemperance. 

Raising of Lazarus from the 
Dead. 

Hymns for Social Worship. 



POCKET MANUALS. 



Clarke's Scripture Promises. 
The Book of Psalms. 
The Book of Proverbs. 
Daily Scripture Expositor. 
Gems of Sacred Poetry. 
Bean and Venn's Advice to 

Married Couple. 
Reasons of Repose. 
Daily Food for Christians. 



Heavenly Manna. 

Cecil and Flavel's Gift for 

Mourners. 
Daily Texts. 

Diary, [Daily Texts interleaved.] 
Crumbs from the Master's Ta 

BLE. 

Milk for Babes. 
Dew-Drops. 



BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. 



MANY OF THEM BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS. 



Gallaudet's Script. Biography, 
? vols., from Adam to David. 

Gallaudet's Youth's Book of 
Natural Theology. 

Child's Book ox Repentance. 

Peep of Day. 

Line upon Line. 

Precept upon Precept. 

Amelia, the Pastor's Daughter. 

Trees, Fruits, and Flowers of 
the Bible, [9 cuts.] 

Elizabeth Bales. By John Angell 
James. 

Emily Maria. 

Newton's Letters to an Adopt- 
ed Daughter. 

Child's Book on the Sabbath. 

Nathan W. Dickerman. 

Mary Lothrop. 

John Mooney Mead. 



Henry Obookiah. 

Caroline Hyde. 

Gallaudet's Life of Josiah. 

The Dairyman's Daughter, etc. 

Charles L. Winslow. 

Withered Branch Revived. 

Peet's Scripture Lessons. 

Child's Book of Bible Stories. 

Children of the Bible. 

Amos Armfield, or the Leather- 
covered Bible. 

The Child's Hymn-Book. Select- 
ed by Miss Caulkins. 

Scripture Animals, [16 cuts.] 

Letters to Little Children, 
[13 cuts.] 

Pictorial Tract Primer. 

Watts' Divine and Moral Songs. 

With numerous similar works. 



ALSO— 



Dr. Edwards' Sabbath Manual, 
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Dr. Edwards' Temperance Man- 
ual. 



In German— 31 vols, various sizes. 
In French — 12 volumes. 
In Welsh — Pilgrim's Progress and 
Baxter's Saints' Rest and Call. 



Also, upwards of 1,000 Tracts and Children's Tracts, separate, bound, or 
in packets, adapted for convenient sale by merchants and traders, many of 
them with beautiful engravings — in English, German, French, Spanish, Por- 
tuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and Welsh. 



2^° It is the design of the Society to issue all its publications in good type, 
for the poor as well as the rich ; and to sell them, as nearly as may be, at 
cost, that the Society may neither sustain loss nor make a profit by all its 
sales. 



i 



