INTERESTING VIEWS O F CHRISTIANITY. SECTION I. GENERAL CHARACTERS OF THE WITNESSES OF THE GOSPEL, AND OF THEIR DEPOSITION. A BOOK, faid to contain the faithful depofitions of men, who call themselves witneffes and fervants of a Meffenger from heaven, is put into my hand. I examine this book with all poffible attention, and confefs, the more I examine it, the more more I am ftruck with the charac ters of probability, originality, and grandeur, which I discover in it and which, in my opinion, render it a moft fingular and inimitable work. The elevation of thought, the majeftic fimplicity of expreffion; the beauty, the purity and harmony of the doctrine; the importance, univerfality, and fmall number of the precepts; their admirable fuitablenefs to the nature and neceffities of man; the ardent charity fo generously enforced; the unction, the force and gravity of the language; its concealed and truly philofophical meaning; these especially arreft my attention, becaufe I do not find them in any production of the human mind, mind, in the fame degree of excellence. I am, at the fame time, very much ftruck with the candour, the ingenuoufnefs, the modefty, and, I muft add, the humility of the writers, and with that fingular and perpetual neglect of themselves, which never allows them to intermingle their own reflections, nor even the least eulogium in recounting the actions of their Mafter. When I see these writers narrating with fo much fimplicity and coolness, the most weighty matters, and never attempting to aftonifh, but always to enlighten and convince, I must acknowledge, that their fole end is to atteft to mankind a truth, which they judge to be of the high. est importance to their happiness. As they appear to me entirely occupied with this truth, and inattentive to their own perfonal concerns, it does not furprize me, that they fhould look to it alone; that their only wishes are to exhibit it to view, and that they never think of giving it embellishments. With the utmoft fimplicity therefore do they say, The leper Stretched out his hand, and it was reflored whole. The fick man took up his bed, and walked. This book exhibits the true fublime: for when it fpeaks of GOD, nothing can be more truly fo, than He wills, and the thing is done. But I can eafily judge, that this fublimity is found in it, for this reason only, that the thing itself is of an extraordinary nature, and that the writers reprefented it just as they saw it, just as it was, and have not mixed with it any other matter. These writers appear not only to poffefs the most perfect ingenuoufnefs, and even to make no attempts to diffemble their own faults, but, what is moft furprizing, they have not diffembled certain circumstances of the life and fufferings of their Mafter, which, in the eyes of the world, do not tend to elevate his glory. If they had fuppreffed them, they would most affuredly have been beyond the reach of difcovery, and their adverfaries could not have drawn any advantage from them. They |