And yet, so unlucky is the Doctor, that no words can give a higher proof, that _Adam_ had not only an articulate speech, but in such a degree of perfection, as none of his natural sons, not the whole tribe of linguists, critics, and grammarians, ever had, or can possibly have. For if it could be supposed, that any man was a hundred times more knowing than the Doctor is, in what he calls his _enigmatic_, _curiologic_, _hierogliphic_, _emblematic_, _symbolic_ profundities, yet if all the beasts of the field, and all the fowls of the air, were to be brought before him to be distinguished from one another, by articulate sounds of his voice, even such a man would be as unequal to the task, as a _Tom Thumb_. And of all the absurdities, _that_ ever were heard of, surely none can equal that, of supposing, that _Adam_ had not articulate speech, but had it to learn at a time, when he was called to the exercise of the highest perfection of language, namely, to distinguish such an infinite number of creatures, by different articulate sounds of his voice. It is like supposing, that a man whose eyes had no natural power of distinguishing one thing from another, should on that account, have all the creatures in the world, brought before him, that he might describe every difference in form, and figure, that belonged to them.
The Doctor has by strength of genius, and great industry, amassed together no small heap of learned decisions of points, doctrines, as well Heathenish, as Christian, much the greatest part of which, the Christian reader will find himself obliged to drive out of his thoughts, as soon as he can in good earnest say, _What must I do to be saved?_――This collection of decisions, he calls his _projected defence of Christianity_, which if it was such, Christianity must have been but poorly provided for its support by the four gospels. I shall make no doubt of his intending, what he says by them. But a project in defence of Christianity, is not more promising, than a trap to catch humility. The nature of things allows no more of the one, than of the other. To be a defender of Christianity, is to be a defender of Christ, but none can defend him in any other degree, than so far as he is his follower. To be with Christ, is _to walk as he walked_, and he _that_ is not so with him, is _against him_.
There are two ways of embracing Christianity, the one is as a _sinner_, the other as a _scholar_; the former is the way taught by Christ and his apostles, the latter is the invention of men, fallen from the Christian life under the power of natural reason, and verbal learning.――Now these two ways are not to be considered, as only the one better than the other, but in such a difference, as right and wrong, true and false, bear to one another. For there is no possibility of taking one step in Christianity, but as a sinner, for it has no errand but to the sinner, has no relief but for sin, and nothing can receive it, but the heart wounded, and wearied with the burden of its own sin. All the gospel is but a foreign tale, a dead letter to the most logically learned man in the world, who does not feel in the depth of his soul, that all the reasonableness, and excellency of gospel truth, lies in that fund of sin, impurity, and corrupt tempers, which are inseparable from him, till he is born again. And if the Doctor, in his application to the Deists, had pressed home this affecting truth, which stands at the door of every man’s heart, and is the only ground of Christian redemption, he had shewn a better care and concern for their souls, and had done more to awaken them out of their infidelity, than by all that wit and satyr in his dedication of his book to them. For like begets like; love and seriousness in the speaker, beget love and seriousness in the hearer; and he that has no earnestness towards unbelievers, but that of perswading them not to lose their share of the love and mercy of God in Christ Jesus, towards helpless fallen men, can only do it, in the spirit and language of that love and goodness, in whose arms, he longs to see them embraced.
But as no man ever came to Christ, but because he was weary, and heavy laden with the burden of his own natural disorder, and wanted rest to his soul, so nothing can help men to find the necessity of coming to Christ, but that which helps him to find and feel a misery of sin and corruption, which in some, the care and pleasures of this life, and in others the happiness of finding themselves wits, and polite scholars, never suffered them to feel before.