It hath been my care in the preceding work to preserve the separation
between evidences and doctrines as inviolable as I could; to remove from
the primary question all considerations which have been unnecessarily
joined with it; and to offer a defence to Christianity which every
Christian might read without seeing the tenets in which he had been
brought up attacked or decried: and it always afforded a satisfaction to
my mind to observe that this was practicable; that few or none of our
many controversies with one another affect or relate to the proofs of
our religion; that the rent never descends to the foundation.
The truth of Christianity depends upon its leading facts, and upon them
alone. Now of these we have evidence which ought to satisfy us, at least
until it appear that mankind have ever been deceived by the same. We
have some uncontested and incontestable points, to which the history of
the human species hath nothing similar to offer. A Jewish peasant
changed the religion of the world, and that without force, without
power, without support; without one natural source or circumstance of
attraction, influence, or success.
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