wn
history, and, Secondly, to check the spread of infidelity, and promote
the interests of Christianity. How far it is calculated to answer these
ends I do not pretend to know. I have no very high opinion of the work
myself. I fear it has great defects. On some points I may have said too
much, and on others too little. I cannot tell. I have however done my
best, and I would fain hope, that my labors will not prove to have been
altogether in vain.

I have spent considerable time with a view to bring my readers to
distinguish between the doctrines of Christ, and the theological
fictions which are so extensively propagated in His name. It is
exceedingly desirable that nothing should pass for Christianity, but
Christianity itself. And it is equally desirable that Christianity
should be seen in its true light, as presented in the teachings and
character, in the life and death of its great Author. A correct
exposition of Christianity is its best defence. A true, a plain, a
faithful and just exhibition of its spirit and teachings, and of its
adaptation to the wants of man, and of its tendency to promote his
highest welfare, is the best answer to all objections, and the most
convincing proof of its truth and divinity. And the truth, the
reasonableness, the consistency, the purifying and ennobling tendency,
and the unequalled consoling power of Christianity, _can_ be proved, and
proved with comparative ease; but to defend the nonsense, the
contradictions, the antinomianism and the blasphemies of theology is
impossible.

I have taken special pains to explain my views on the Divine
Inspiration of the Scriptures. I am satisfied that no attempts to answer
the objections of infidels against the Bible will prove satisfactory, so
long as men's views on this subject go beyond the teachings of the
Scriptures themselves. To the fanciful theories of a large number of
Theologians the sacred writings do not answer, and you must therefore,
either set aside those theories, and put a more moderate one in their
place, or give up the defence of the Bible in despair. I therefore leave
the extravagant theories to their fate, and content myself with what the
Scriptures themselves say; and I feel at rest and secure.

The views I have given on the subject in this work, and in my pamphlet
on the Bible, are not new. You may find them in the works of quite a
number of Evangelical Authors. The only credit to which I am entitled
is, that I state them w