but in the ignorance, the pride, and the prejudice of mankind. If these causes

did not exist Divine reve. lation would command the universal assent of rational beings. But the fact itself of this liability, which is all that is asserted by Rammohun Roy, is indisputable, or at least cannot be disputed except by those who are determined to shat both their eyes and ears, Read the Heathen and Deistical controversies, from the days of Celsus and Porphyry to those of Gibbon and Hume, and you will no longer question the doubts which anti-christians have entertained respecting historical passages. Listen to the wranglings of the thousand sects into which the Christian world is divided, and you will at once acknowledge the disputes

to be a member. Luther refus. ed to admit 1 John v. 7. into his German translation as long as he lived, although after his death it was surreptitiously added, and is retained to the present day.

Can a man of Mr. Schmid's information and acuteness be ignoraut that it is no part of the words of John ? I would respectfully refer him to Sir Isaac Newton's Disser. tation on it in his Letter to Le Clerc, to Griesbach's Diatribe at the end of his New Testa. ment, to Porson's Letters to Travis, to Michaelis's Dissertation in his Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. IV. Ch.

to which the exercise of free and independent thinking on other passages bas given oc. casion. To assert therefore the mere liability of the historical and dogmatical parts of scripture to such doubts and disputes is to assert nothing but what is true, and at the same time nothing but what is perfectly consistent with the most sincere reverence for the entire volume of inspiration.

Instead, therefore, of perceiving any indications of a wish to depreciate the rest of the scriptures or to represent them as calcula ted to do injury, which is the very weighty charge. brought against Rammohun Roy, I can perceive only a useful, sincere, and jadici ous endeavour to recommend a peculiarly valuable portion of them to the peru. sal and attention of his xxxi, or, to go no farther, to an Article in a late number of the Quarterly Review, con taining a refntation of Bishop Burgess's lame attempt to re vive the credit of this exploded passage. Bishop Marsh has said, and justly, that "it is not less inconsistent with the prin ciples of religion to ascribe the authority of Scripture to what is not Scripture, than to refuse our acknowledgement where such authority exists ;" and a greater than Bishop Marsh has taught us that to" add unto" is as criminal as to take a way from" the words of inspi. ration.

bountrymen. And in the opinion of every enlightened Christian, this endeavour was not likely to be the less useful because he described the improvement of their hearts and minds as the primary end of all religion, nor the less sincere because, while he acknowledged the doubts and disputes to which certain passages are Jiable, he laboured to exclude from his compilation whatever was calculated to occasion doubts and disputes amongst them, nor the less judicious because he sought to disarm their prejudices by introducing them to an acquaintance' with the Christian scriptures, through the medium of those plain and necessary requi sitions of faith and duty which few will refuse to ad. mit, however much they may be forgotten and violated.

2 The next charge which has been brought aganst Rammohun Roy's Introduation to the Precepts of Jesus is that he has attempted to invalidate the miracles of Christianity, by classing them with those of Hindooism. It is thus stated in the words of Dr. Marsbman:

"The Deist and the Ir. fidel will he delighted to find the miracles of Jean8 Christ classed by a well in. formed Hindoo with the sage Ugusti's drinking up the ocean in a fit of passion, and his caus

ing the Vindhyu mountains to prostrate themselves before him, described to his country. men as being sucb, as, if nara rated; would be apt at best to carry little weight with them,' and hence represented as being better suppressed, though his Precepts are excellent."

I have already quoted from the Introduction the passage on which this charge is evidently founded.

Dr. Marshman is well acquainted with the ambiguity of language, and has no objection sometimes to employ it to his own advantage and the discredit of his opponent. To class the mira. cles of Christ with those of Ugusti may signify either to mention them in the same connection, or to attribute to them equal authority. Again, to describe the miracles of Christ as being "apt at best to carry little weight with them" may refer either to the low estima tion in which they would be held by those for whom the compilation was intended, or to the low estimation in which they actually are held by the compiler himself. And, lastly, to represent them as being better suppressed may relate to a temporary suppression rendered necessary by the ignorance and prejudice of the Hindoos preventing the perception of their truth,or to a perpetual suppression advoca

ted by Rammohun Roy because he considers that they are false. Now in each of these cases admitting of two opposite constructions it is only the latter one that can be regarded as in the slightest degree favourable to the cause of the Deist and the Infidel, and yet this is the construction which Dr. Marshman has adopted, notwithstanding its palpable incorrect. ness. Even Mr. Schmid, strongly as he objects to the language which Rammohun Roy has employed, might have taught him that in the Introduction there is nothing more than "a juxta position of the miraculous relations contained in the New Testa. ment and of the impure fictions of Hindoo mythology"; and the reference which is made in the passage under consideration to "the natives of Asia" and to the light in which the Christian miracles" would be" regarded by them, sufficiently shows that he meant only to give an opinion of the inntility, in present circumstances, of arging this branch of the Christian evidence upon the attention of Hindoos. If this opinion be erroneous, let it be shown that it is so. But the mere delivering of such an opinion can never be represented, except with the grossest injustice, as an attempt to invalidate the mira

ales of the gospel and ás affording a matter of triumph to the Deist and the Iofidel.

Mr. Sebmid has left it to Dr. Marshman to be the author of this charge and has contented himself with dispoting the correctness of the opinion on which Rammohon Roy has acted, in excluding the miracles of Christ from his compilation. "I am atterly at a loss," he says, "to conceive how a reasonable man can imagine that the silly nursery stories which form the substance of the Hindoo religion and li. terature, can in any wise diminish the weight wbich the well authenticated nar. ratives of the benign and bighly significant miracles of the holy Jesus carry with them." Rammohuo Roy rests his opinion on the one class of miracles appearing to the natives of Asia less wonderful than the other, a statement to which, apparently. Mr. Schmid has not adverted, or at least which he has not attempted to dis. prove. This consideration does not appear to me to possess the weight which Rammohun Roy ascribes to it, but although the subject is one which requires investigation and involves impor tant consequences, yet it is foreign to my present purpose to enter into it at large. I think it of more importance

to remark that, for a reason suggested by Mr. Schmid bimself, the miracles of the New Testament can be in present circumstances urged upon few Hindoos with. mach prospect of advantage to the Christian cause. The Darratives of Christ's miraeles he justly describes as well authenticated, and this forms one of the principal grounds of their saperiority to "the silly nursery stories" of Hindoo mythology. We may therefore consider him as admitting that if they were NOT "well-authenticated" they would not doserve the credit which they bow receive. But a miracle the narrative of which is not authentic, and a miracle the narrative of which cannot be proved to an objector to be authentic, amount, as -far as that objector is concerned, to one and the same thing. Now, in the present state of knowledge among the Hindoos, how few are. there that can feel the force of the evidence that con. vinces Mr. Schmid of the authenticity of the Evange lical narratives, and yet until they are both capable of feeling and do feel its force, they must necessarily regard the miracles of Christianity in the same light as he regards the miracles of Hipdooism. In such circum. stances the mere publication of the miracles of Christia

nity without the evidence which supports them will only afford an occasion to the ignoraut and prejudiced to ridicale what they will call "the sil ly barsely stories which, form the substance of the" Christian "religion", and to express their surprise how they "can in any wise dimi wish the weight" of the stu péndous and well antbenticated miracle's of Hindooism. It clearly follows that the miracles of Christ should be arged only upon those who, from their previous habits and acquire ments, are likely to perceive the force of the evidence upon which they rest and to appreciate the peculiar characters by which they are distinguished. Nor does this impose upon the Christian Missionary to the Hindoos any extraordinary hardship. It is the glory of Christianity that it possesses various kinds of evidence adapted to the diversified circumstances and characs ters of mankind, each by itself sufficient to prove the Divine authority of our religion. To employ therefore only one kind, or even all the kinds, of Christian evi dence, under all circumstances, and for the conviction of persons of all descriptions of character, would argue not our reverence for Divine authority or the value we place on Di

of a Sect, instead of adoring

sions of infinite Wisdom and Goodness.

It is worthy of remark, in relation to this subject, that the primitive apologists Christianity, although

for

they lived so migch nearer the age of miracles than we do, were frequently compelled by local, temporary, and occasional causes to Tay much less stress upon them than their intrinsic value required and their own convictions dictated.*

3. The last charge, and. that which has been most vehemently urged against Rammohun Roy, is that of representing Jesus Christ as a mere Teacher of morality, who has neither the will nor the power to examine whether bis precepts are obeyed. It would not, how. ever, be doing justice to Dr. Marshman if I were not to quote the language which bé has thought himself at liberty to employ on this subject.

"It is well known," he says, "that in Britain and on the Continent there are many, who, while they do not openly deny Him, earnestly wish to degrade the Redeemer of the world to a level with Confucius or Ma. homet, and to contemplate him as the Teacher and Founder

See Paley's Evidences, Part III. Chap. V. particularly the quotations from Justin, Irenæus, Lactantius, Origen, and Jerome fu pages 884, 885, 338–340.

deemer of men, the sovereign Judge of quick and dead. These, viewing the Compiler of this work as a man new to the

to

subject and not yet biassed, (as they term it,) to any sys Tem of doctrine, will insist on his being far more likely to dis. cover the genuine meaning of the Scriptures, that those who, educated in a Christian coun try, have been conversant frum their youth with the generally received interpretation of Scripture and giving him full credit for having examined the whole of the sacred writings in the closest matiner, will be pleased beyond measure find that by the testimony of an intelligent and unprejudiced heathen they have in Jesus Christ a Teacher who cannot search the heart-a Saviour (if the name may be still used) who does not reduce them to the mortifying necessity of giv. ing up all their boasted rectitude of intention and submitting unconditionally to his mere grace for salvation, who while be, in their opinion, duly appreciates their native goodness of heart, by submitting to them the noblest and most equitable precepts, never intends, as the Judge of all, to examine whe ther they cordially obey them, mor indeed lays clain to that Divine Nature which alone could render Him capable of judging the secrets of the heart, the hidden springs of action, at the great and final day."

As Dr. Marshman bas not adducedany evidence in support of this accusation, I cán only refer to the whole of Rammohun Roy's Introduc