Now, in the
formation of these rules, there is no place for discovery, properly so
called, but there is ample room for the exercise of wisdom, judgment,
and prudence.
As I wish to deliver argument rather than panegyric, I shall treat of
the morality of the Gospel in subjection to these observations. And
after all, I think it such a morality as, considering from whom it came,
is most extraordinary; and such as, without allowing some degree of
reality to the character and pretensions of the religion, it is
difficult to account for: or, to place the argument a little lower in
the scale, it is such a morality as completely repels the supposition of
its being the tradition of a barbarous age or of a barbarous people, of
the religion being founded in folly, or of its being the production of
craft; and it repels also, in a great degree, the supposition of its
having been the effusion of an enthusiastic mind.
The division under which the subject may be most conveniently treated is
that of the things taught, and the manner of teaching.
Under the first head, I should willingly, if the limits and nature of my
work admitted of it, transcribe into this chapter the whole of what has
been said upon the morality of the Gospel by the author of The Internal
Evidence of Christianity; because it perfectly agrees with my own
opinion, and because it is impossible to say the same things so well.
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