attending death in its natural form; to have an opportunity of turning the common lot of mortality into an occasion of manifesting heroic gratitude and fidelity to the best of masters and of friends; to die with those warm sentiments and elevated views which such a condition so naturally tends to excite and suggest, would not surely be, as you seem to insinuate, the death of a fool; (which I cannot think even that of Socrates to have been) surely, Sir, on second thoughts you must rather judge it a consummation of the labours, cares, and sorrows inseparable from human life, to be devoutly wished for, rather than dreaded. I will on the other hand grant, that hellish acts of cruelty may be invented and practised, under which the resolution of an upright mind may faint, and even reason itself be overborne, unless God were pleased to interpose by extraordinary supports, which there is great encouragement to hope he would in such a case do but while reason remains undisturbed, I should imagine, that death in its most horrible form, when met in the cause of such a Saviour who had so graciously borne it for us, should appear more desirable than life in its most agreeable circumstances; and surely then, infinitely more desirable than life purchased by base ingratitude to him, and worn out under the sense of his just displeasure, and the sad prospect of being finally disowned by him, as an apostate and a traitor. This, I think, to be solid reason; and I bless God, there are numberless facts which confirm it, and shew, that persons not pretending to any such immediate revelation as you assert to be necessary, have conquered the greatest difficulties on these principles, and, after having adorned the gospel by a most exemplary and holy life, have steadily and cheerfully sealed it with their blood. And every fact of this kind is so unanswerable an argument against all that you alledge here, that I do not judge it necessary to pursue this part of my reply any farther. With this therefore I conclude what I had to offer in vindication of the perspicuity and solidity of those arguments in proof of christianity, to which the generality of its professors among us may attain: and I hope it will be allowed, that I have fairly and candidly, as well as seriously considered what you object against it, and so have answered the first part of your pamphlet, which I take to be by far the most plausible and dangerous. Your endeavours to prove, that christianity itself avows, that it is not built upon argument, but on a revelation to be immediately made from the Spirit of God to every christian, by which all argument is superseded, and all possibility of doubt and error excluded, is such a direct contradiction to the whole tenour of the New Testament, that I hardly think you would be understood seriously to mean it. It is sufficient, that you have shewn, you have wit enough to give a varnish to so wild a notion. Yet lest any should be so weak, as to imagine there is any solidity in what you have so adventurously advanced on that head, I am willing plainly to discuss it with you; and at the same time to enquire into what you say, with regard to the awful sentence which the gospel passes on those who reject it: a circumstance, which you every where represent as utterly irreconcilable with a religion to be rationally proved and defended; but which, on the contrary, appears to me most wisely adapted to the rest of the scheme, and, when compared with it, an addition rather than abatement of its internal evidence. This and several other particulars in yours, I should be glad to examine; but I wave it at present, because this letter is already swelled to a pretty large size. I therefore reserve what I have farther to say to another opportunity, and I hope a few weeks more may afford it. But I chuse to send you what I have already written, without any farther delay; because I am conscious of the many hindrances, which, in a life like mine, oblige me often to postpone, much longer than I intended, the execution of attempts to do what little I can towards serving the world, by promoting the interest of christianity in it; and because I really think your piece has been already too long unanswered. If you please to offer any thing in reply to what I have here proposed, I shall give it a serious consideration: and hope that I shall, in the whole course of this controversy, endeavour to write like a christian, and then I shall not forget any other character which, I could wish to maintain. At present, Sir, I conclude with assuring you, that it is with sensible regret I have found myself obliged, for the honour of the gospel, and the preservation of men's souls, to animadvert on what you wrote, in the manner I have already done. Should you prove, which may possibly be the case, some old acquaintance and friend, I hope I have written nothing which should make me blush at any interview with you; and should you, as I rather apprehend, be an entire stranger, I am, on the common principles of that faith, which it is the great glory of my life to profess and defend, with sincere good wishes for your temporal and eternal happiness, in any thing which may conduce to either, Sir, your obedient humble Servant, Northampton, Nov. 5, 1742. P. DODDRIDGE. LETTER IT. SIR, THOUGH HOUGH my former Letter considered what I thought most essential in your late Treatise, yet there are several other things in it, which however designed, have so plain a tendency to expose christianity to suspicion, and even to contempt, that on the principles which led me to animadvert upon it before, I find myself obliged to give you this second trouble. I proceed therefore, without any farther ceremony, to consider the pains you have taken, under the second general head of your tract, to represent the gospel as pleading guilty to the charge of not being founded on argument; or in other words not being generally capable of such rational proof, as its disciples may be able to receive. You would seem indeed, if one may judge by your manner of introducing this topic, to think this is doing great kindness to the New Testament, as it delivers it from the absurdity of saying, "Judge, whether you have time, or not :—Judge, whether you are judges, or not :-Judge all for yourselves, and yet judge all alike." (page 35.) But I hope, Sir, before I have finished my Letter, to shew, that all, whom we can suppose to be concerned in any demand of judging, i. e. all persons of common understanding, to whom the gospel is, or has been, faithfully and intelligently preached, can have no just plea from the want of time, or capacity, and must, on the supposition of an honest and diligent enquiry, all judge alike, i. e. all agree in receiving it as a divine revelation. To illustrate and confirm the view you have given of the matter, you undertake to shew,-that Christ did not propose his doctrines to examination; (page 36-38.)-that his apostles had neither leisure, nor qualifications, for such a method, i. e. for the use of reasoning and argument in the propagation of the gospel; (page 38-40.)-and that the very supposition of such a proceeding is evidently preposterous from the nature of the thing. (page 41-46.) In opposition to all which, it is one of the easiest tasks one can imagine, to shew,-that Christ did propose the great doctrines he taught to examination; that the apostles did the same, urging (as their blessed Master had done,) most cogent arguments in the proof of them ;-and that any other method of proceeding had been preposterous, and must necessarily have exposed the gospel to the contempt all reasonable people. It seems hard, indeed, to be put upon proving things so conspicuous as these; and it cannot but be some trial of temper to one who honours and loves the gospel, to see it, and its glorious founders, placed in so ridiculous a view, as that in which your assertions and arguments represent them; that is, described as wild enthusiasts, running all over the world, at the expence of their own lives, to urge men on pain of damnation to receive a religion, for which they did not pretend to give them any reason. But out of respect both to you, and the cause in which I am engaged, I will keep myself as calm as I can. And if some following pages seem to my reader unnecessary, I must beg him to distinguish between what was needful to inform him, and what was requisite to confute you. But before I proceed to hint at the evident proof of the three propositions, which in opposition to yours I have laid down above, I beg leave to premise, that all you say on this subject seems to me founded on an artful and sophistical shifting the question. The grand matter in debate is, whether christianity is founded on rational argument; or whether the only cause, which a professor of the gospel can generally have to give for his belief of it, must be, that God has immediately revealed it to him by his spirit, and testified the truth of it to him, in a manner, which as, on the one hand, he cannot suspect, so on the other, he cannot communicate or explain? Instead of discussing this question, you put off the reader with another very different, (page 36.) Whether Christ and his apostles submitted their doctrine to examination? which is a very ambiguous manner of speaking: and when you assert that they did not, I must beg leave to ask, what you mean by their doctrine? Do you mean this general doctrine, that they were teachers sent from God? Or do you mean those particular doctrines, which in consequence of that general assertion they proceeded to teach? If you mean the former, it is indeed to your purpose; but, as I shall presently shew, is a proposition entirely and notoriously false. But if you mean the latter, which the course of your arguments seems to imply, then it is quite foreign to your purpose: for christianity may be founded on rational argument, though the first teachers of it, when they had proved their mission, should have put the credit of particular doctrines on their own authorized testimony alone, without discussing the several branches of their system, in such a manner as it would have been necessary they should have done, had they proposed it only as a theory, destitute of external proofs. Now that our Lord Jesus Christ did not expect, that it should be believed merely on his own testimony, that he was a teacher sent from God, and one whose doctrine was consequently true and divine, but set himself to prove it, is so evident from the history of the evangelists, that I believe few readers need so much as to be reminded of particular passages on this head. No words can be more express than those, in which he has disclaimed this. If (says he,) I bear testimony of my self alone, my testimony is not true or valid; but my Father who hath sent me, he beareth testimony to me*. And you well know, that he illustrated and argued this testimony of the Father, partly from the predictions of those sacred writings which they acknowledged to be the word of God, in which Jesus declared he was described and foretold; and partly from the attestation of John, whom they generally acknowledged to be a divinely inspired prophet; but principally, from a yet more sensible argument than either, the works which the Father had given him to perform, and which (says he,) bear witness of me†. And all these he represents as illustrated by the excellent design and tendency of his preaching, to which he plainly refers, when he says, The word which I have spoken, shall judge the unbeliever another day‡. These were various and cogent arguments; some of them so very plain, that one single day, or hour, might make a man master of them: I mean, that arising from his miraculous powers, and the tendency of his doctrine to promote real goodness. The argument from John's testimony was, even by the confession of his enemies, known to all the nation; and as for that from prophecy, he submitted it to their candid and deliberate examination, urging them to search the scriptures, and assuring them that if they did so, they would there find a convincing testimony concerning him§, which was to shine with growing evidence. And on the whole, he expostulates with them, in language utterly irreconcileable with your scheme And why even of yourselves, from plain appearances, and without farther explications and remonstrances from me, judge you not that which is right? pleading that the signs of the times, marking them out to be those of the Messiah, were as discernable as any of those prognostications of the weather, which all the world had observed, and formed into common proverbs. So that, in consequence of all, their continued unbelief, in the midst of so many united testimonies and palpable proofs, was not only an irrational and criminal, but a most inexcusable John v. 31, 37. John xii. 48. § John v. 39. |