The Evidences of the Christian Religion

nd printed them with it. But though the treatife and the other papers are well calculated to prove the truth of, and recommend the Chriftian religion to, the faith and practice of mankind ; jet their influences will be but fmall, till men are awakened out of that infenfibility into which they are falten, and brought to believe how much they are interefled in the great truths Chriftianity reveals. To beget thought and excite inquiry it was judged the jallowing extract from Mans. Pafcal's Thoughts, againft an atheifttcat indifference, would neither he an improper, nor an unacceptable introduction to the fubfequent papers. IT were to be wifhed that the enemies of religion would at leaft bring themfelves to apprehend its nature before they oppofe its authority. Did religion make its boaft of beholding God with a clear and perfect view, and of poffeffing him without a covering or veil, the argument would bear fome colour, 'when men mould alledge, that none of the things about them do indeed aSyrd this pretended evidence, and this degree of light. But fince religion, on the contrary, repre- fents men as in a ftate of darknefs, and of eftrangement from God ; fince it affirms him to have withdrawn himfelf from their dif- covery, and to have chofen in his word, the very ftyle and appellation of Dens abfconditus ; laftly, fince it employs itfelf alike, in cflablifh- ing thefe two maxims, that God has left in his church certain characters of himfelf, by which they who fincerel...