e
makes them as well informed and as good Christians as he knows how. They
are painted amiable, benevolent, and forgiving; but it is not too much
to say, that if all the peculiarities of Christianity had never
existed, or had been proved to be false, the circumstance would scarcely
create the necessity of altering a single syllable in any of the most
celebrated of these performances. It is striking to observe the
difference which there is in this respect in similar works of Mahometan
authors, wherein the characters, which they mean to represent in a
favourable light, are drawn vastly more observant of the peculiarities
of their religion[113].

But to make an end of this discussion, concerning the degree in which
the peculiarities of Christianity have fallen into neglect, and
concerning one of the principal of the causes which have produced it: if
this be the state of things even in the case of sermons, and of the
compositions of those, whose sphere of information must be supposed
larger than that of the bulk of mankind; it must excite less wonder,
that in the world in general, though Christianity be not formally
denied, people know little about it; and that in fact you find, when you
come to converse with them, that, admitting in terms the Divine
Revelation of Scripture, they are far from believing the propositions
which it contains.

It has also been a melancholy prognostic of the state to which we are
progressive, that many of the most eminent of the literati of modern
times have been professed unbelievers: and that others of them have
discovered such lukewarmness in the cause of Christ, as to treat with
especial good will, and attention, and respect, those men, who, by their
avowed publications, were openly assailing, or insidiously undermining
the very foundations of the Christian hope; considering themselves as
more closely united to them, by literature, than severed from them by
the widest religious differences[114]. Can it then occasion surprise,
that under all these circumstances, one of the most acute and most
forward of the professed unbelievers[115] should appear to anticipate,
as at no great distance, the more complete triumph of his sceptical
principles; and that another author of distinguished name[116], not so
openly professing those infidel opinions, should declare of the writer
above alluded to, whose great abilities had been systematically
prostituted to the open attack of every principle of Religion