science. 9. Christianity differs from other professed Revelations Christianity in this, that it is consistent with modern consistent with scientific discoveries. We had already occasion to mention this consistency of Christianity with science. We now add the fact of Christianity being the only professed Revelation that possesses this character. All other religions fail here. By telling us so much on scientific points, they have multiplied immensely the tests of their own character, and have laid themselves completely open to detection. Their geography, astronomy, botany, zoology, anatomy, medicine, &c. abound in errors. And necessarily so,—unless the writers had been inspired. 10. Christianity differs from other professed Revelations Christianity in being fitted to be a universal religion. fitted to be universal. It professes to be so; and it is so. The philosopher and the unlettered peasant-the rich and the poor-male and female-European, Asiatic, African, American-are equally addressed by it; it can rule in the palaces of kings, and it has been the great civilizer of the savage inhabitants of New Zealand and Polynesia. It is adapted to all understandings; it comes home to all hearts. It has elevated the mind of a Newton; it has cheered the dying bed of a child. We need hardly wait to prove that this is an important mark of a true religion. Only one system of doctrine can be true; it is inconceivable that God should reveal one system in Asia, and other systems, contradictory of the former, in Europe or Africa. 11. Christianity differs from other professed Revelations It has evi- in presenting evidences that are fitted to all minds. dences fitted for all. Christianity does not tell us to believe without proof She does not tell us to follow implicitly the customs of our fathers. She commands us to be acquainted with the reasons of our belief. And the proofs of the truth of Christianity are so many and so various, that some portion of them at least is adapted to every understanding. Rational conviction of the truth of his religion is attainable by every Christian however humble. These are the most important points in which Christianity is unlike other professed Revelations. I shall now say a few words respecting the most celebrated religions of Ancient sys- Heathen antiquity-especially those that prevailed in ancient Greece and Rome. The gods of Greece and Rome have been reckoned as not less in number than thirty thousand. tems of Religion. It has been already mentioned that these gods were in character simply exaggerated men, with human virtues and human vices on an enlarged scale. The repre Greek Religion. sentation ofthe gods, as given in the great poet Homer, is exceedingly repulsive; and some have asked, not without reason, whether a man possessed of the genius of Homer, could really have believed in such a theology. Zeus, or Jupiter, "the king of gods and men," has not a single attribute worthy of the Supreme Being; even his power is not unlimited. The gods in Homer eat and drink; quarrel and fight; and are sometimes so merry that " unextinguishable laughter" shakes the skies. They are capricious, sensitive, jealous, revengeful: they are implacable towards those who slight them, but support their favourites through right and wrong.-Yet this was the national belief of Greece. Such a system could not possibly remain unquestioned, as the nation advanced in knowledge and refinement. Commerce, intercourse with foreign nations, and the progress of philosophy wrought a great change in Greece. The Greeks had naturally a deep attachment to religious rites; and the common people, especially in the country districts, continued believers in the ancient system until Christianity supplanted it. But the philosophers speedily laid losophy. Thus Greek phi- aside all faith in the popular system. Xenophanes denounced the accounts of the deities which were generally received, as "godless fables." Others spoke as strongly. But while the philosophers saw the absurdity of the popular system, they were unable to substitute any thing better. They destroyed; they could not build up. The philosopher now mentioned frankly admitted he knew nothing about God. The description of the Greek philosophers given by our great poet Milton, is thoroughly just. The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only that he nothing knew; The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits; A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense; Others in virtue placed felicity, But virtue joined with riches and long life; In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease; By him called wisdom. Much of the soul they talk, but all awry; And in themselves seek wisdom; and to themselves The morality of Greece did not improve under the teaching of the philosophers. The manners in Homer's time were rude and coarse, and in many respects morally objectionable; but those of subsequent ages, when taste and art, as well as philosophic thought, had attained their highest degree of refinement, were far worse. With morality, patriotism and public spirit died. Even the population died out. What had been flourishing cities were reduced to petty villages; and shocking immorality was "the cancer that ate into the life of Greece." Not less grievous was the state of things in Rome. The * About 534 B. C. Philosophy commenced with Thales about a century earlier. + Paradise Regained, Book iv. The philosophers thus described are Socrates-Plato-the Pyrrhonists-Academics and Peripateties-Epi. curus-the Stoics. See Thirlwall's History of Greece, Vol. viii. p. 464. Roman Religion. Romans copied the Greeks in religion and manners. Cato the Censor used to warn his countrymen against the Greeks as "the parents of every vice;" but his remonstrances were in vain. Greek philosophy, Greek views on religion, more and more pervaded Rome; and the coarser Romans plunged into vice with a hardihood of which the Greeks were scarcely capable. Philosophy repeated the course she had pursued in Greece; she pulled down the old superstition and left the nation without faith in any God. During the two centuries that preceded the birth of Christ, infidelity and immorality spread on all sides like a pestilence. The leading men of Rome became inconceivably flagitious, and those of the highest intellect, such as Julius Cæsar, were often among the most hopelessly abandoned. Again, cruelty was characteristic of those religions. Human sacrifices were openly offered in Rome as late as the reign of Augustus Cæsar. Wars were conducted with dreadful ferocity. Slavery was almost universal; and the wretched slaves were treated like beasts rather than men. Public shows were often held, in which gladiators encountered and slaughtered each other, and both men and women assembled in immense numbers to gaze on the bloody spectacle. Sometimes more than 20,000 men perished in these games during one month.-No institution existed for the relief of the sick and poor. Every reader of history knows that, at the time when the Christian religion was instituted, the state of religion and morality in Pagan nations was fearfully low. The Greek and Roman authors sorrowfully complained that the character of the people was as grossly corrupt as that of the deities they worshipped.* * For some striking facts on this subject, the student may consult Tholuck" On the nature and moral influence of Heathenism." Leland on the 66 Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation" is a store-house of unanswerable facts, connected with the Greek and Roman systems. We need not dwell at any length on the systems of other nations. The religion of Egypt soon Egyptian religion. ran into brute-worship in its most degrading forms. Not content with adoring cat-headed and jackalheaded divinities, they adored the cats and jackals themselves. The Egyptian worship shocked even the Greeks and Romans; and their writers spoke derisively of "mad Egypt."* Nor need we dwell on the systems of Assyria and Babylon. Magic, divination, and sorcery, chaAssyrian, Babylonian, racterized them in a preeminent degree. They religion. were also fearfully immoral; and the worship of the "queen of heaven" in particular was, as the historian Herodotus indignantly remarks "in the highest degree abominable."t The Phrygian and other systems of Lesser Asia, were wild and frantic to an inconceivable deReligions of gree. Lesser Asia. The religions of the Celtic and German nations were Celtic and the irrational beliefs and bloody rites of wild German Relibarbarians. gions. I am, &c. *So Juvenal. He had been in Egypt and had seen the worship. See Clio 199. Also 181. SOLD BY THE J. N. PETIT INSTITUTE |