Transcriber's Note
There is a small amount of Hebrew, e.g. קדש and Greek, e.g. ἅγιος in
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PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
PLAN OF SALVATION.
A Book for the Times.
BY AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.
_A NEW EDITION REVISED._
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56, Paternoster Row;
65, St. Paul's Churchyard, and
164, Piccadilly.
PREFACE.
I. OCCASION OF THE WORK.
During some of the first years of the writer's active life he was a
sceptic; he had a friend who has since become well known as a lawyer
and legislator, who was also sceptical in his opinions. We were both
conversant with the common evidences of Christianity. None of them
convinced our minds of the Divine origin of the Christian religion,
although we both thought ourselves willing to be convinced by
sufficient evidence. Circumstances, which need not be named, led the
writer to examine the Bible, and to search for other evidence than
that which had been commended to his attention by a much-esteemed
clerical friend, who presided in one of our colleges. The result of
the examination was a thorough conviction in the author's mind of the
truth and Divine authority of Christianity. He supposed at that time
that, in his inquiries, he had adopted the only true method to settle
the question, in the minds of all intelligent inquirers, in relation
to the Divine origin of the Christian religion. Subsequent reflection
has confirmed this opinion.
Convinced himself of the Divine origin of the religion of the Bible,
the author commenced a series of letters to convey to his friend the
evidence which had satisfied his own mind beyond the possibility of
doubt. The correspondence was, by the pressure of business
engagements, interrupted. The investigation was continued, however,
when leisure would permit, for a number of years. The results of this
investigation are contained in the following chapters. The epistolary
form in which a portion of the book was first written will account for
some repetitions, and some varieties in the style, which otherwise
might not have been introduced.
II. REASONS FOR PRESENTING THE WORK TO THE PUBLIC.
Book-making is not the author's profession. But after examining his
own private library, and one of the best public libraries in the
country, he could find no treatise in which the course of reasoning
was pursued which will be found in the following pages. Dr. Chalmers,
in closing his Bridgewater Treatise, seems to have had an apprehension
of the plan and importance of such an argument; and had he devoted
himself to the development of the argument suggested, the effort would
have been worth more to the world than all the Bridgewater Treatises
put together, including his own work.
Coleridge has somewhere said that the Levitical economy is an enigma
yet to be solved. To thousands of intelligent minds it is not only an
enigma, but it is an absolute barrier to their belief in the Divine
origin of the Bible. The solution of the enigma was the clue which
aided the writer to escape from the labyrinth of doubt; and now,
standing upon the rock of unshaken faith, he offers the clue that
guided him to others.
A work of this kind is called for by the spirit of the age. Although
the signs of the times are said to be propitious, yet there are
constant developments of undisciplined and unsanctified mind both in
Europe and America, which furnishes matter of regret to the
philanthropist and the Christian. A struggle has commenced--is going
on at present; and the heat of the contest is constantly increasing,
in which the vital interests of man, temporal and spiritual, are
involved. In relation to man's spiritual interests, the central point
of controversy is the 'cross of Christ.' In New England, some of those
who have diverged from the doctrine of the fathers have wandered into
a wilderness of speculation which, were it not for the evil
experienced by themselves and others, ought, perhaps, to be pitied as
the erratic aberrations of an unsettled reason, rather than blamed as
the manifestations of minds determinately wicked. The most painful
indication connected with this subject is, that these guilty dreamers
are not waked from their reveries by the rebuke of men whose position
and relations in society demand it at their hands.
The west, likewise, is overrun by sects whose teachers, under the
name of Reformers, or some other inviting appellation, are using every
effort to seduce men from the spiritual doctrines and duties of the
gospel, or to organize them into absolute hostility against Christ.
These men are not wanting in intellect, or in acquired knowledge, and
their labours have prejudiced the minds of great numbers against the
spiritual truths of the gospel, and rendered their hearts callous to
religious influence. These facts, in the author's opinion, render such
a volume as he has endeavoured to write necessary, in order to meet
the exigencies of the times.
* * * * *
*** The present edition has been carefully revised; and has been
slightly modified on one or two minor points, to which exception had
been taken, or which appeared obscure in expression.--1881.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Man will worship--he will become assimilated to
the character of the object that he worships--
Character of heathen deities defective and
unholy--From this corrupting worship man has
no power to extricate himself 9
II. The design and necessity of the bondage in Egypt 21
III. Miracles--particularly the miracles which
accompanied the deliverance of the Israelites
from bondage in Egypt 25
IV. What was necessary as the first step in the
process of revelation 34
V. The necessity of affectionate obedience to God;
and the manner of producing that obedience in
the hearts of the Israelites 36
VI. The design and necessity of the Moral Law 41
VII. The development of the idea of holiness, and its
transfer to Jehovah as an attribute 45
VIII. The origin of the ideas of justice and mercy, and
their transfer to the character of Jehovah 53
IX. The transition from the material system, by which
religious ideas were conveyed through the senses,
to the spiritual system, in which abstract ideas
were conveyed by words and parables 61
X. The medium of conveying to men perfect instruction
in doctrine and duty 66
XI. Some of the peculiar proofs of the Messiahship of
Christ 70
XII. The condition in life which it was necessary the
Messiah should assume in order to benefit the
human family in the greatest degree, by his
example and instructions 75
XIII. The essential principles which must, according to
the nature of things, lie at the foundation of
the instruction of Christ 81
XIV. Faith, the exercise through which truth reaches
and affects the soul 82
XV. The manifestations of God which would be necessary,
under the new and spiritual dispensation, to
produce in the soul of man affectionate obedience 89
XVI. The influence of faith in Christ upon the moral
disposition and moral powers of the soul 117
XVII. The design and the importance of the means of
grace--prayer--praise--preaching 133
XVIII. The agency of God in carrying on the work of
redemption, and the manner in which that agency
is exerted 146
XIX. The practical effects of the system as exemplified
in individual cases 150
PHILOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
MAN WILL WORSHIP--HE WILL BECOME ASSIMILATED TO THE CHARACTER OF THE
OBJECT THAT HE WORSHIPS--CHARACTER OF HEATHEN DEITIES DEFECTIVE AND
UNHOLY--FROM THIS CORRUPTING WORSHIP MAN HAS NO POWER TO EXTRICATE
HIMSELF.
There are three facts, each of them fully developed in the experience
of the human family, a consideration of which will prepare the mind
for the investigation which follows. When considered in their relation
to each other, and in their bearing upon the moral interests of
mankind, they will be seen to be of exceeding importance. We will
adduce these facts, in connection with the statements and principles
upon which they rest, and show how vital are the interests which
depend upon them.
THE FIRST FACT STATED.
There is in the nature of man, or in the circumstances in which he is
conditioned, something which leads him to recognise and worship a
superior being. What that _something_ is, is not important in our
present inquiry:--whether it be a constitutional instinct inwrought by
the Maker--whether it be a deduction of universal reason, inferring a
first cause from the things that are made--whether it be the effect of
tradition, descending from the first worshippers, through all the
tribes of the human family--whether any or all of these be the cause,
the fact is the same--_Man is a religious being: HE WILL WORSHIP._
In view of this propension of human nature, philosophers, in seeking a
generic appellation for man, have denominated him a "religious
animal." The characteristic is true of him in whatever part of the
world he may be found, and in whatever condition; and it has been true
of him in all ages of which we have any record, either fabulous or
authentic.
Navigators have, in a few instances, reported that isolated tribes of
men, whom they visited, recognised the existence of no superior being:
subsequent researches, however, have generally corrected the error;
and, in all cases, when it has been supposed that a tribe of men was
found believing in no god, the fact has been stated as an evidence of
their degradation below the mass of their species, and of their
approximation to the confines of brute nature. Of the whole family of
man, existing in all ages, and scattered over the four quarters of the
globe, and in the isles of the sea, there is scarcely one
well-authenticated exception to the fact, that, moved by an impulse of
nature, or the force of circumstances, man worships something which he
believes to be endowed with the attributes of a superior being.
THE SECOND FACT STATED.
The second fact, connected as it is, by the nature of things, with the
preceding, assumes the highest degree of importance. It may be stated
in the following terms:--_Man_, by worshipping, _becomes assimilated
to the moral character of the object which he worships_. This is an
invariable principle, operating with the certainty of cause and
effect. The worshipper looks upon the character of the object which he
worships as the standard of perfection. He therefore condemns
everything in himself which is unlike, and approves of everything
which is like that character. The tendency of this is to lead him to
abandon everything in himself, and in his course of life, which is
condemned by the character and precepts of his god, and to conform
himself to that standard which is approved by the same criterion. The
worshipper desires the favour of the object worshipped, and this,
reason dictates, can be obtained only by conformity to the will and
the character of that object. To become assimilated to the image of
the object worshipped must be the end of desire with the worshipper.
His aspirations, therefore, every time he worships, do, from the
nature of the case, assimilate his character more and more to the
model of the object that receives his homage.
To this fact the whole history of the idolatrous world bears
testimony. Without an exception, the character of every nation and
tribe of the human family has been formed and modified, in a great
degree, by the character attributed to their gods.
From the history of idolatrous nations we will cite a number of
familiar cases, confirmatory of the foregoing statement, that man
becomes like the object of his worship.
A most striking instance is that of the Scythians, and other tribes of
the Northmen, who subdued and finally annihilated the Roman power.
Odin, Thor, and others of their supposed deities, were ideas of
hero-kings, bloodthirsty and cruel, clothed with the attributes of
deity, and worshipped. Their worship turned the milk of human kindness
into gall in the bosoms of their votaries, and they seemed, like
bloodhounds, to be possessed of a horrid delight when they were
revelling in scenes of blood and slaughter. It being believed that one
of their hero-gods, after destroying great numbers of the human race,
destroyed himself, it hence became disreputable to die in bed, and
those who did not meet death in battle frequently committed suicide,
supposing that to die a natural death might exclude them from favour
in the hall of Valhalla.
Among the gods of the Greeks and Romans there were some names, in the
early ages of their history, to which some virtuous attributes were
attached; but the conduct and character generally attributed to their
gods were marked deeply with such traits as heroism, vengeance,
caprice, and lust. In the later history of these nations, their
idolatry degenerated in character, and became a system of most
debasing tendency.
The heroism fostered by idolatry was its least injurious influence.
Pope's couplet, had he thrown a ray or two of light across the
background of the dark picture, would have been a correct delineation
of the character of pagan idols--
'Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust;
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and lust.'
In some cases the most corrupt attributes of human nature, and even of
brute nature, were attributed to objects of worship, and while men
bowed down to them, they sank themselves to the lowest depths of vice.
The Egyptians might be named as an instance. The first patrons of the
arts and sciences were brute-worshippers; and it is testified of them
that bestiality, the lowest vice to which human nature can descend,
was common amongst them. The paintings and sculpture of their
divinities, in the mummy catacombs, are for the most part clusters of
beasts, birds, reptiles, and flies, grouped together in the most
disgusting and unnatural relations; a true indication that the minds
of the worshippers were filled with ideas the most vile and unnatural.
The ancient Venus, as worshipped by almost all the elder nations of
antiquity, was a personification of lust. The deeds required to be
done at her polluting fane, as acts of homage, ought not to be named.
In the best days of Corinth--'Corinth, the eye of Greece'--the most
sacred persons in the city were prostitutes, consecrated to the
worship of Venus. From this source she derived a large portion of her
revenues. The consequence was, that her inhabitants became proverbial
for dissoluteness and treachery.
To the heathen divinities, especially those placed at the head of the
catalogue as the superior gods, what theologians have called the
physical attributes of deity--omnipotent and omnipresent power--were
generally ascribed; but their moral character was always defective,
and generally criminal. As one of the best instances in the whole
mythology of the ancients, the Roman Jupiter might be cited. Had a
medal been struck delineating the character of this best of the gods,
on one side might have been engraved _Almightiness_, _Omnipresence_,
_Justice_; and on the reverse, _Caprice_, _Vengeance_, _Lust_. Thus
men clothed depraved or bestial deities with almighty power, and they
became cruel, or corrupt, or bestial in their affections, by the
reaction of the character worshipped upon the character of the
worshipper. In the strong language of a recent writer, 'They clothed
beasts and depraved beings with the attribute of almightiness, and in
effect they worshipped almighty beasts and devils.' And the more they
worshipped, the more they resembled them.
These testimonies concerning the influence of idolatrous worship, and
the character of the idols worshipped, are maintained by authorities
which render doubt in relation to their credibility impossible. Upon
this subject the wiser men among the Greeks and Romans have borne
unequivocal testimony. Plato, in the second book of the Republic,
speaks of the pernicious influence of the conduct attributed to the
gods, and suggests that such histories should not be rehearsed in
public, lest they should influence the youth to the commission of
crimes. Aristotle advises that statues and paintings of the gods
should exhibit no indecent scenes, except in the temples of such
divinities as, according to common opinion, preside over
sensuality.[1] What an affecting testimony of the most discriminating
mind among the heathen, asserting not only the turpitude of the
prevailing idolatry, but sanctioning the sensuality of their debauched
worship!
[1] Aristot. Politica, vii. 18, ed. Schneider.
As Rome and Greece grew older, the infection of idolatry festered,
until the body politic became one mass of moral disease. The state of
things, in the later ages of these nations, is well stated by a late
writer of the first authority.[2] 'We should naturally suppose,' says
this writer, 'that among so great a variety of gods, of religious
actions, of sacred vows, at least some better feeling of the heart
must have been excited; that at least some truly pious sentiment would
have been awakened. But when we consider the character of this
superstition, and the testimony of contemporaneous writers, such does
not appear to have been the fact. Petronius' history of that period
furnishes evidence that temples were frequented, altars crowned, and
prayers offered to the gods, in order that they might render nights of
unnatural lust agreeable; that they might favour acts of poisoning;
that they might cause robberies and other crimes to prosper.' In view
of the abominations prevailing at this period, the moral Seneca
exclaimed--'How great now is the madness of men! they lisp the most
abominable prayers; and if a man is found listening they are silent.
What a man ought not to hear, they do not blush to relate to the
gods.' Again, says he, 'If any one considers what things they do, and
to what things they subject themselves, instead of decency he will
find indecency; instead of the honourable, the unworthy; instead of
the rational, the insane.' Such was heathenism and its influence in
the most enlightened ages, according to the testimony of the best men
of those times.
[2] Tholuck on the Influence of Heathenism.
In relation to modern idolatry, the world is full of living witnesses
of its corrupting tendency. We will cite, in illustration, a single
case or two. The following is extracted from a public document, laid
before Parliament by H. Oakley, Esq., a magistrate in Lower Bengal.
Speaking of the influence of idolatry in India, he says of the worship
of Kalé, one of the most popular idols, 'The murderer, the robber, and
the prostitute, all aim to propitiate a being whose worship is
obscenity, and who delights in the blood of man and beast; and without
imploring whose aid no act of wickedness is committed. The worship of
Kalé must harden the hearts of her followers; and to them scenes of
blood and crime must become familiar.'
In China, according to Medhurst, the priests of Buddha understand and
teach the doctrine of the assimilation of the worshipper to the object
worshipped. They say--'Think of Buddha and you will be transformed
into Buddha. If men pray to Buddha and do not become Buddha, it is
because the mouth prays, and not the mind.'[3]
[3] For a succinct statement of the universal prevalence of false
religions, and their corrupting influence, see Ryan on the Effect
of Religion upon Mankind, _passim_.
Two facts, then, are philosophically and historically true: First--Man
is a religious animal, and will worship something as a superior being.
Second--By worshipping he becomes assimilated to the moral character
of the object which he worships. And (the God of the Bible out of view
for the present) those objects have always had a defective and unholy
character.
Here, then, is one great source which has developed the corruption of
the family of man. We inquire not in this place concerning the origin
of idolatry; whatever or wherever was its origin, its influence has
been uniformly the same. As no object of idolatrous worship was ever
conceived to be perfectly just and benevolent, but most of them no
better than the apotheosis of heroes, or the deification of the
imperfect faculties and impure passions of human or brute nature, the
result followed, with a certainty as unerring as cause and effect,
that man, by following his instinct to worship, would becloud his
intellect and corrupt his heart. Notice how inevitable, from the
circumstances of the case, was the corruption of man's powers:--He was
led to worship by an instinct over which he had no control:--The
objects of his worship were, whether he originated them or not, all
of them of a character that corrupted his heart; thus the
gratification of his instinctive propensities inevitably strengthened
the corruption of his nature.
Now it is not our design to inquire whether, or how far, man was
guilty in producing this evil condition of things. In considering the
facts in the case, the inquiry which forces itself upon the mind
is--Were there any resources in human nature, or any means of any
kind, of which man could avail himself, by which he might save himself
from the debasing influence of idolatrous worship? In reply,
THE THIRD FACT IS STATED.
_There were no means within the reach of human power or wisdom, by
which man could extricate himself from the evil of idolatry, either by
an immediate or by a progressive series of efforts._
This fact is maintained from the history of idolatry, the testimony of
the heathen philosophers, and the nature of man.
1. Instead of man acquiring the power or the disposition, as the race
became older, to destroy idolatry--idolatry, from its first entrance
into the world, gained power to destroy him. Amid all the mutations of
society, from barbarous to civilised, and amid all the conflicts of
nations, and the changes of dynasties and forms of government, from
the first historic notices which we have of the human family down to
the era of Christ, idolatry constantly became more evil in its
character and more extended in its influence. It is well ascertained
that the first objects of idolatrous homage were few and simple, and
the worship of the earliest ages comparatively pure. Man fell into
this moral debasement but one step at a time. The sun, moon, stars,
and other conspicuous objects of creative power and wisdom received
the first idolatrous homage. Afterwards a divinity was supposed to
reside in other objects, especially in those men, and beasts, and
things which were instrumental in conferring particular benefits on
tribes or nations of men. And finally, images of those objects were
formed and worshipped. Images, which subsequently became innumerable,
were not so in the earliest historic ages. In some nations, they were
not allowed until after the era of the foundation of Rome.[4] As the
nations grew older, images, which were at the first but few and
clothed with drapery, became more numerous, and were presented before
the worshippers in a state of nudity, and in most obscene attitudes.
And, as has been before stated, their character, from being
comparatively innoxious, became, without exception, demoralising in
the extreme.
[4] Plutarch says that Numa forbade the Romans to make statues of
their gods.
2. During the Augustan age of Rome, and the age of Pericles and
Alcibiades in Greece--those periods when the mind had attained the
highest elevation ever known among heathen nations--the mass of the
people were more idolatrous in their habits, and consequently more
corrupt in their hearts, than ever before. The abominations of
idol-worship, of the mysteries, and of lewdness, in forms too vile to
name, were rife throughout the country and the villages, and had their
foci in the capitals of Greece and Rome. Jahn says, in relation to
this period, 'Deities increased in number, and the apotheosis of
vicious emperors was not unfrequent. Their philosophers, indeed,
disputed with much subtlety respecting the architect of the universe,
but they knew nothing about the Creator, the holy and almighty Judge
of men.'
Some of the more intelligent of the philosophers, perceiving the evil
of the prevailing idolatry, desired to refine the grossness of the
popular faith. They taught that the facts believed concerning the gods
were allegories. Some endeavoured to identify the character of some of
their deities with the natural virtues; while many of them became
sceptical concerning the existence of the gods and of a future state.
Those were, however, but isolated exceptions to the mass of mankind;
and had their views been adopted by others, they would only have
modified, not remedied the evil. But a contemporary writer shows how
entirely unavailing, even to modify the evil, was the teaching of the
philosophers. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says, 'There are only a few
who have become masters of this philosophy. On the other hand, the
great and unphilosophic mass are accustomed to receive these
narratives rather in their worst sense, and to learn one of these two
things, either to despise the gods as beings who wallow in the
grossest licentiousness, or not to restrain themselves even from what
is most abominable and abandoned, when they see that the gods do the
same.' Cicero, in one sentence, as given by Tholuck, notices both the
evil and its cause; confirming, in direct language, the preceding
views. 'Instead,' says he, 'of the transfer to man of that which is
divine, they transferred human sins to the gods, and then experienced
again the necessary reaction.' Such, then, is the testimony of the
philosophers in relation to the idolatry of their times. A few gifted
individuals obtained sufficient light to see the moral evil in which
men were involved, but they had neither wisdom to devise a remedy, nor
power to arrest the progress of the moral pestilence that was
corrupting the noble faculties of the human soul.
3. It was impossible, from the nature of man, that he should extricate
himself from the corrupting influence of idolatry. In this place we
wish to state a principle which should be kept in view throughout the
following discussion: _If man were ever redeemed from idolatrous
worship, his redemption would have to be accomplished by means and
instrumentalities adapted to his nature and the circumstances in which
he existed._ If the faculties of his nature were changed, he would not
be man. If his temporal condition were changed, different means would
be necessary; if, therefore, man, as man, in his present condition,
were to be recovered, the means of recovery, whether instituted by God
or man, must be adapted to his nature and his circumstances.
The only way, then, in which relief was possible for man was, that an
object of worship should be placed before the mind directly opposite
in moral character to those he had before adored. If his heart was
ever purified, it must be by tearing his affections from his gods, and
fixing them upon a righteous and holy being as the proper object of
his homage. But for man to form such an object was plainly impossible.
He could not transfer a better character to his gods than he himself
possessed. Man could not 'bring a pure thing out of an impure.' The
effect could not rise higher in moral purity than the cause. Human
nature, in the maturity of its faculties, all agree, is imperfect and
selfish; and, for an imperfect and selfish being to originate a
perfect and holy character, deify it, and worship it, is to suppose
what is contrary to the nature of things. The thought of the eloquent
and philosophic Cicero expresses all that man could do. He could
transfer his own imperfect attributes to the gods, and, by worshipping
a being characterized by these imperfections, he would receive in
himself the reaction of his own depravity.
But if some men had had the power and the disposition to form for the
world a perfectly holy object of worship, still the great difficulty,
as we have seen in the case of the philosophers, would have remained,
that is, a want of the necessary power to arrest the progress of
idolatry and substitute the better worship. To doubt the truth of the
prevailing idolatry was all that men, at the highest intellectual
attainment ever acquired in heathen countries, could do. And if they
had had power to convey their doubts to all minds in all the world, it
would only have been to place mankind in the chaotic darkness of
atheism, and leave them to be led again by their instincts into the
abominations of imperfect and impure worship.
The testimony, then, is conclusive, from the history of idolatry, that
the evil became greater every age--from the statement of the wisest of
the heathen, that they had no power to arrest its progress--and from
the nature of man, that it was not possible for him to relieve
himself from the corrupting influence of idolatry, in which he had
become involved.
From the foregoing facts and reasonings it is plain that the high-born
faculties of the human soul must have been blighted for ever, by a
corrupting worship, unless two things were accomplished, neither of
which it was in the power of human nature to effect; and yet both of
which were essentially necessary to accomplish the elevation of man
from the pit into which he had fallen.
The first thing necessary to be accomplished was, that _a pure object
of worship should be placed before the eye of the soul_. Purity of
heart and conscience would be necessary in the object of worship,
otherwise the heart and conscience of the worshipper would not be
purified. But if an object were presented, whose nature was infinitely
opposed to sin--to all defilement, both physical and spiritual--and
who revealed, in his example, and by his precepts, a perfect standard
to govern the life of man under the circumstances in which he was
placed, then man's mind would be enlightened, his conscience
rectified, and the hard and corrupt feelings of his heart softened and
purified, by assimilation to the object of his worship.--As, according
to the nature of things, an unholy object of worship would necessarily
degrade and corrupt the human soul; so, on the contrary, a holy object
worshipped would necessarily elevate and purify the nature of man.
The second necessary thing in order to man's redemption was, _that
when a holy object of worship was revealed, the revelation should be
accompanied with sufficient power to influence men to forsake their
former worship, and to worship the holy object made known to them_.
The presentation of a new and pure object would not cause men to turn
from their former opinions and practices, and become directly opposed
in heart to what they had formerly loved. A display of power would be
necessary, sufficient to overcome their former faith and their present
fears, and to detach their affections from idols, and fix them upon
the proper object of human homage.
It follows, then, that man must remain a corrupt idolater for ever,
unless God interpose in his behalf. The question whether he would thus
interpose, in the only way possible, to save the race from moral
death, depends entirely upon the benevolence of his nature. The
question whether he has done so may be answered by inquiring whether
any system of means has been instituted in this world, characterized
by sufficient power to destroy idolatry--revealing at the same time a
holy object of worship--and this revelation being accompanied by means
and influences so adapted to man's nature as to secure the result.
To this inquiry the future pages of this volume will be devoted. The
inquiry is not primarily concerning the truth of the Bible; but
concerning the only religion possible for mankind, and the only means
by which such religion could be given consistently with man's nature
and circumstances.