[“What Mahomet did, lies within any man's reach. He was authorized by no miracle, he was countenanced by no prediction. But what was performed by Jesus Christ, is absolutely above the power and the imitation of man.
“Mahomet established himself by slaughter, Jesus Christ by commanding us to lay down our lives. Mahomet, by forbidding his law to be read, Jesus Christ by engaging us to search and read. In a word, the two designs are in all respects so directly opposite that Mahomet took the way, in human probability to succeed, Jesus Christ, humanly speaking, to be disappointed. And hence, instead of so irrational a conclusion, as that because Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ might, in like manner have succeeded before, we ought to infer, that since Mahomet has succeeded, Christianity must inevitably have perished had it not been founded and supported by a power altogether divine” (Pascal's Thoughts p. 95. Lond. 1886). Whoever wishes to see this comparison carried farther, may consult the masterly sermons of Professor White, preached before the University of Oxford at the Bampton Lecture. These contain a view of Christianity and Mahometanism, in their history, their evidence and their effects pp. 225-463. Lond. 1792.—Ed.]
[The first of Francis Quarles, Emblems Divine and Moral, is the picture of a heart. A representation of the globe covers the whole of the heart with the exception of the three angles or corners on each of which a syllable of the word Tri ni tas is imprinted.
Frances Quarles was secretary to Archbishop Usher. He died in 1644.—Ed.]
[There is no fact, connected with the history of former times, which can be more easily proved than this that religious sacrifices were prevalent throughout every part of the Gentile world. Animals, which were deemed suitable for sacrifice by one nation, might be considered improper for such a purpose by another. But in the most remote countries victims of one kind or another, and not unfrequently human victims were seen bleeding on the altars of superstition, and with the death of these, the idea of substitution, or of presenting life for life, was almost invariably connected. When sacrificing her victim, Ovid makes his votaress exclaim—“I like heart for heart, I beseech thee, take entrails for entrails. We give to thee this life for a better one”—
Cor pro corde, precor, pro obras sumite fibras.
Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus
Fast lib. vi. v. 161
But “as Kennicot observes from Delaney, whatever practice has obtained universally in the world, must have obtained from some dictate of reason, or some demand of nature, or some principle of interest, or else from some powerful influence or injunction of some Being of universal authority. Now the practice of animal sacrifice did not obtain from reason, for no reasonable notions of God could teach men that he could delight in blood, or in the fat of slain beasts. Nor will any man say, that we have any natural instinct to gratify, in spilling the blood of an innocent creature. Nor could there be any temptation from appetite to do this in those ages, when the whole sacrifice was consumed by fire; or when, if it was not, yet men wholly abstained from flesh; and consequently this practice did not owe its origin to any principle of interest. Nay, so far from any thing of this, that the destruction of innocent and useful creatures is evidently against nature, against reason, and against interest, and therefore must be founded in an authority, whose influence was as powerful as the practice was universal and that could be none but the authority of God, the sovereign of the world; or of Adam, the founder of the human race. If it be said of Adam, the question still remains, what motive determined him to the practice? It could not be nature, reason, or interest, as has been already shown, it must therefore have been the authority of his Sovereign, and had Adam enjoined it to his posterity, it is not to be imagined that they would have obeyed him in so extraordinary and expensive a rite, from any other motive than the command of God. If it be urged, that superstitions prevail unaccountably in the world, it may be answered, that all superstition has its origin in true religion; all superstition is an abuse; and all abuse supposes a right and proper use. And if this be the case in superstitious practices that are of lesser moment and extent, what shall be said of a practice existing through all ages, and pervading every nation?—See Kennic, Two Diss. pp. 210, 211 and Rev. Exam. Diss. 8 p. 85-89.” Magee on the Atonement, vol. ii. part i. pp. 27-29.—Ed.]
[Diod. Sic. Bibl. lib. i. p. 68.