It is not possible, in a discourse of this nature, to enter into a detail on the subject; but the chief obstacles to a faith in Jesus, independently of the evidence on which it rests, are, I suppose, these TWO.
1. A confused idea that the law of nature is sufficient to the salvation of mankind;
2. The mysterious nature of the Christian revelation.
Reason, they say, is a sufficient guide in matters of Religion; therefore, Christianity is unnecessary: Again, Christianity is all over mysterious; therefore, it is unreasonable.
Now, it will not be presuming too much to say, that the greater advances any man makes in true knowledge, the more insignificant must these two great stumbling-blocks of infidelity needs appear to him.
1. And, first, for the sufficiency of nature in matters of religion.
Whether nature be a sufficient guide in morals, let the history of mankind declare. They who know most of that history, and have, besides, a philosophic knowledge of human nature, are the proper judges of the question; and to that tribunal I leave it: the rather, because, though it be very clear what its decision must be, I hold, that what is most essential to the Christian religion (which is a very different thing from a republication of the law of nature) is not at all concerned in it.
Let the law of nature be what it will, under this idea of a guide in morals, let Socrates, if you please, be as great a master of it, as Jesus, still the importance of Christianity remains, and is indeed very little affected by that concession.
Our religion teaches, that man is under the sentence of mortality, and that immortal life in happiness, (which is the true idea of Gospel-salvation) is the gift of God through Christ Jesus. These it relates as two facts, which it requires us to believe on its own authority; facts, which could not otherwise have come to our knowledge, and on which the whole superstructure of Christianity is raised.
Now, let the men of reason, the men who say, WE SEE, tell us, whether they are sure that these facts are false; and, if they are not, whether they know of any natural means by which that sentence of mortality can be reversed, or that gift of immortality can be secured.