His _a priori_ argument for the
existence of God seemed only a play on words. His other arguments were
much the same as Watson's.
About this time I read Mosheim's History of the Church. This did me
harm. It is a bad book. It is, in truth, no real history of the Church
at all, but a miserable chronicle of the heresies, inconsistencies and
crimes of the worldly and priestly party in the Church, who perverted
the religion of Christ to worldly, selfish purposes. The whole tendency
of the book is to put the sweet image of Christ and the glories of His
religion, out of sight, and to present to you in their place, a
distressing picture of human weakness and human wickedness. It is a
great pity that this wretched pretence to a church history was not long
ago displaced by a work calculated to do some justice, and to render
some service, to the cause of Christ.
I afterwards read works in favor of Christianity and against infidelity,
by Robert Hall, Olinthus Gregory, Dr. Chalmers, Le Clerc, Hartwell
Horne, S. Thompson, Bishop Watson, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Porteus. I
also read Leland's View of Deistical Writers, Leslie's Short and Easy
Method with Deists, Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity, Fuller's Gospel
its Own Witness, Butler's Analogy, Baxter's Unreasonableness of
Infidelity, and his Evidences of Christianity, Simpson's Plea for
Religion and the Sacred Writings, Ryan on the Beneficial Effects of
Christianity, Cave on the Early Christians, the Debate between R.
Pages:
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473