Think not I am come to send peace on the earth; I am come not to send peace but a sword."* Who can think that our Lord here expressed the final object of his mission? Is it necessary to say, by how trite a figure of speech it is, that a contingent consequence is spoken of as an intended effect, nay, that events are said in scripture to be done and brought about, by that course of providence, in which they are only permitted. "And

the Lord said unto Moses, I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, THAT I may lay my hand upon Egypt." Does any one, in reading this passage, suppose that the Deity intended to declare that he would give to Pharaoh a miraculous hardness of heart, that he might then exert his power in punishing that hardness? The meaning of our Saviour in like manner was expressed in the language of his nation, though in a form of speech not forbidden among us. It is abundantly manifest that he spoke of division, not as the design of his mission, but as the consequence, which flowed from opposition to it.

Hear Mr. English himself in this selfcontradictory passage: "From the very commencement of Christianity, we perceive very

Matt. x. 34.

† Exod. vii. 3, 4.

# "Pharaoh SET HIMSELF to weaken the Israelites with hard bondage, and when he saw that did not do, he SET HIMSELF to extirpate the race, by commanding that every male child be drowned." Edwards' History of Redemption, p. 65.

violent disputes among its founders and teachers; and through every succeeding age of the church, nothing but schism and heresy. These are followed by persecutions and quarrels, exceedingly well adapted to destroy the vaunted spirit of concord, said by its defenders to be peculiar to Christianity, and the existence of which is in fact impossible in a religion, which is one entire chaos of obscure doctrines, and impracticable precepts. In every religious dispute both parties thought that God was on their side, and consequently they were obstinate and irreconcilable. And how should it have been otherwise, since they confounded the cause of God with the miserable interests of THEIR OWN VANITY! Thus BEING LITTLE DISPOSED TO GIVE WAY on the one part or the other, they cut one another's throats, they tormented, they burnt each other, they tore one another to pieces, and having exterminated and put down the obnoxious sects, they sung Te Deum."* This is as loose and indefinite as it is vulgar. If it mean any thing however it is this, that the persecutions and quarrels of professing Christians, which ended in bloodshed and death, sprung from two sources: 1. The vanity of the contending parties, in "thinking their cause the cause of God," and 2. Their selfishness, or "not being disposed to give way on the one part or the other." Meagre as is this account, in a

* Grounds of Christianity examined, p. 182.

philosophical view, let us grant it to be correct. And is it not somewhat moving to the patience, to hear Mr. English in one breath charging upon Christ and his apostles, what in the next he involuntarily ascribes to their true causes, the vanity and the selfishness of man?"How could it be otherwise, since they confounded the cause of God with the miserable interests of their own vanity and being little disposed to give way on the one part or the other, they cut one another's throats!" Why then is the reason of the reader insulted with having these sad calamities ascribed to the gospel of Christ? Does that encourage vanity and indisposition to give way? Let a single passage of the New Testament cover the charge with reproach. "Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or VAIN GLORY, but in LOWLINESS OF MIND let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also ON THE THINGS of others."*

The supposition itself, on which the objection rests, that the period during which Christianity has prevailed in the world has been one of unusual discord and war, though a favourite topick of infidel declamation, is erronéous. For though it be true that there has not been an age free from these plagues, yet they have not been less frequent in the countries Phillipians ii. 2, 3, 4.

where Christianity is unknown, nor were they less frequent, extensive, or distressing, in the ages before the advent of our Lord. It is not a fact, which approves itself to the unprejudiced mind, that Christendom is marked out as the theatre of unexampled desolation. There is nothing in the annals of the Chris. tian nations, which rises above the atrocity of the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, or Roman wars. But it is not on this truth, unquestion able as it is, that we rest the Christian cause. How large a portion of the wars and tumults which have wasted the world have no connexion, nor the pretence of any, with Christianity. The causes of war are the mistaken interests, and bad passions of men. And he

has little claim to the character of a fair observer, who can examine the sources of these convulsions, and then attribute them to the Gospel, Here nation is arrayed against nation, to decide by the effusion of human blood which of two pretenders shall sit upon a throne; and there the treasures and lives of a country are exhausted to vindicate some worthless foreign possession. One country is convulsed with war to gratify the military ambition of the reigning prince; and another, to promote the private intrigues of ministers or rulers. The order andestablishment of government are the source of some wars, the privileges and immunities of commerce are the prize of others; and many, perhaps most, are the unhappy results of conflicting interests, unnecessa

rily wrought up into open discord and hostility. Why then are they ascribed to Christianity?

But it may be asked whether wars, professedly undertaken in the cause of religion, such for instance as the crusades, and the wars of the reformation-whether these are not justly to be charged to the account of the Gospel? Why should they be? Did Christ leave an injunction to levy these wars, or encourage the spirit which finds sustenance in them? Did any precept of Christianity bid the nations of Europe pour forth their millions on the plains of Palestine; did any passage of the gospel enjoin on men to disregard every law and ordinance of Jesus, in a fanatical attempt to redeem his tomb? Would the spirit which burst forth in these lawless inroads have found no opportunity, if it had not been for the Gospel? Were there no passions, no vices in ancient days? Is it Christianity which has made men ambitious, proud, and cruel? If it was the gospel that poured down the hosts of Europe upon Asia, what was it that fifteen hundred years before overwhelmed the states of Greece with the armies of the Persian despot, as numberless and as barbarous? What was it that reared the Macedonian state, and led its conqueror from the hills of Thrace, across the world, destroying nations of whom he had never heard, and subduing regions unexplored and unknown? What formed at Rome that monstrous power, which for a thousand years was the terror and curse of the nations? What