Various

“ Christian—True, gentlemen. Fancy, or imagination, does, in active moments, bring for our amusement some fantastic pictures. Her work, however, is never simple, but always complex. This that we are in search of is the idea of a simple being—a being that is single, and not duplex. I will now illustrate the extent of the power of the imagination. Taking a walk through nature's flower garden, we gather one of every variety, and examining them closely, one by one, we notice their difference in form, color and size by the eye. ”

“ So all the writers and teachers of the New Testament, with one consent, proclaim the necessity of obeying the commandments of the gospel. What a vain whim it is to think that sorrow and mere intention without reformation of life will admit you into heaven. This golden dream of heaven has sent thousands out of this world unpardoned and unsaved.
A great many persons satisfy themselves with a mere confession and acknowledgement of their sins. They seem to think they have done enough, if to confession of sins they add some sorrow for it. ”

“ It is the unwritten law of nature that one race must die that another may live, this other, in its turn, subserving the same end. Without this law nature would be a chaotic impossibility. If natural selection were a real agency, we ought to meet with frequent, if not constant, evidences of transition, and a slow and gradual, but perceptible improvement in species, especially marked in those whose generations succeed each other rapidly. ”

“ Paul says, "Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." And Peter says, "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity"—and finally says, if ye do these things ye shall never fall, for so an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ”

“ There is an incessant attempt to instill into the minds of the young principles in opposition to, and destructive of Christianity. Many have split upon the rocks of infidelity, and stranded upon the quicksands of doubt and skepticism, in spite of the fact that Christianity presented them an example, which is the light and life of men—a character without a blot! ”

“ Insane men might say such a thing. Infidels don't like to say that; they just say you can't prove your religion, nor show that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote those books. Will any sensible man affirm that they are the wrong names? How do we judge and believe respecting the authorship of other ancient books? Why do we believe that Cæsar wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War? And why do we believe that Virgil wrote the Æneid? No sane man ever doubted the authorship of those writings. Preoccupancy during the ages past is considered by infidels themselves a sufficient ground for belief. ”

“ Mere pretense, or, as Paul termed it, a guise of godliness, for such is the meaning of the original term, is so common that we meet with it almost daily. Men have learned to tamper with the word of God until the world is full of theorists. How many talk about religion who set aside a great portion of the word of God as worse than useless? And that which they profess to believe they do not believe with half the simplicity which they manifest in believing the words of their earthly parents. ”

“ And no other ever set out such beautiful, lively and glorious pictures of heavenly-mindedness, along with the joys of a future world, nor such pictures of victory over death and the grave, nor of the last judgment, nor of the triumphs of the redeemed in that tremendous day. The personal character of the great author, Christ, is as new and peculiar to this religion as anything else that we can possibly name—"He spake as never man spake." ”

“ That the present existence is one of trial with reference to another state of being, is confirmed by all that we know in what is termed the course of nature. Probation is the only key that unfolds to us the designs of God in the history of human affairs, the only clue that guides us through the pathless wilderness, and the only plan upon which this world could possibly have been formed, or upon which its history can be explained. ”

“ Are Christian rulers more tyrannical and their Christian subjects more ungovernable? Are the rich more insolent when Christianized? Are poor Christians most insolent and disorderly? Does Christianity make worse parents and worse children? Does it make husbands and wives, friends and neighbors less trustworthy? Does it not make men and women more virtuous and happy in every situation [Pg 300] in life? If Christianity is a fable, it is one the belief of which retains men and women in a regular and uniform life of virtue, piety and devotion to truth. ”

“ Of course, all its points are not new, but old objections have been skillfully refurbished and new ones brought into play.
To mourn for the dead, is to mourn for the lost casket when you still retain the jewel it held. The memories of the dead one's virtues are the jewels, and the cold clay but the casket. ”

“ Is the trouble a low degree of faith, approximating unbelief? The shadows are always the longest when the sun is lowest. Is the sun of righteousness low in your spiritual heavens? Or have you given him the uppermost seat in your affections? What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?
When I tell you that thousands received the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, even before the Holy Spirit was given, and were [Pg 284] clean through the words spoken unto them, many are ready to cry out, "These are hard and strange sayings—who can hear them?" ”

“ And John says, speaking of the Christian's hope, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure;" then the impure may flatter themselves, and presume upon the favor of God without "purifying their souls in obeying the truth," but they are without hope in the world. And again he says, "Little children let no man deceive you, he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." ”

“ He is the only founder of a religion which is "unconnected with all human policy and government," and, as such, should not be prostituted to any mere worldly purposes whatever. Numa, Mohammed, and even Moses, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by such means controlled their adherents. Christ neither exercised nor accepted such power. He rejected every motive which controlled other leaders, and chose those which others avoided. Power, honor, riches and pleasure were alike disregarded. He seemed to court poverty, sufferings and death. ”

“ He does not say they who have done such things shall not be saved, but just the contrary, for he adds: "Such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified;" but he teaches the doctrine that those who do such things and do not amend their lives shall not be excused by any pretense of sorrow and good purposes; they "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature"—a creature living by a faith, which worketh by love. It is not simply wishing you were a new creature ”

“ Having rather conceded that atheists are fools, and turned deists, are you really any better off? Can you give a reason for your present infidelity? Out of your own mouths you stand condemned as unreasonable and foolish. You pretend to venerate [Pg 292] reason, while you discard her first principles. You need not try to evade me at this point by an appeal to nature. Here you can find no aid, for nature tells us of no first cause. ”

“ How could men be persuaded that adultery should be punished when they were taught from infancy that it was a virtue among the gods? Lucian gives his experience thus, "When I was yet a boy, and heard out of Homer and Hesiod of the adulteries, fornications, rapes and seditions of the gods, truly I thought that those things were very excellent, and began even then to be greatly affected towards them, for I could not imagine that the gods themselves would ever have committed adultery if they had not esteemed the same lawful and good." ”

“ AUTHORSHIPS OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
I have a few questions to put to every man who says Christianity is not true. They are these: If Christianity is not true, where did it come from? How came it into the world? What is its origin? These questions are not trifling ones. Infidels have given as many different answers to them as there are days in the week. There is no agreement among them that amounts to a settlement of the questions among themselves. The Scriptures are ancient. ”

“ This is a grand argument in favor of the reading of the Geneva text, which reads, "Amend your lives and turn, that your sins may be blotted out." But if heaven may be gained at an easier and cheaper rate, how is it that we are so frequently and so plainly assured that without actual newness of life, holiness and sanctification unto obedience, there is no hope, no possibility of salvation? John the Baptist, preaching repentance, said: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." ”

“ On the first principle, present utility, we may have mere moralists, men practicing simple justice, temperance and sobriety. On the second, we must add to those graces of moral nature faith in God, resignation to his will, and habitual piety. The first will make us very good citizens in a civil government, but will never be sufficient to make us Christians. So the religion of Christ insists upon purity of heart and benevolence, or charity, because these are essential to the end proposed. ”

“ Survey the lives of many of these men, of all conditions, and then deny, if you can, that the profits, honors and pleasures of the world are the gods they worship. Their daily and constant employment is either a violent pursuit of the vain pomp and glory of the world, or of its power, riches and profits ”

“ There is also a grand argument in favor of the genuineness of our religion, which is in the fact that it was in deathly opposition to both Judaism and Paganism, its success being the destruction of both. If Christianity was an imposition, its success during the first three centuries of our era is utterly inexplicable. ”

“ Statistics concerning the sufferings of the first Christians show that they were in great earnest. Eternity alone will reveal the true number of the martyrs. They all suffered and died just as we would expect, in case they knew the facts of our religion. Twenty-two books of the New Testament were written before the martyrdom of the Apostles Paul and Peter. Infidels often boast, in their ignorance, that the books of the gospels were not written by those whose names they bear.
If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write those books which bear their names, then are they false in fact? ”

“ Such persons live, not knowing or regarding the fact that the baptism which now saves us is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." There are many such who live but little in advance of pagans in a commonwealth of Christians, and know but little more of God or of Christ than if they had been brought up in India. A great many are taught to act over this play in the name of religion, and learned to say, "Our Father who art in heaven," and "I believe in God the Father Almighty;" ”

“ Since this confession was uttered, whatever discoveries may have been made, there has not been the faintest indication of the development of any new species by artificial selection, the individuals of which are fertile among themselves and infertile with the parent stock. It may properly be alleged that there has not been time enough for such a slow process, but it yet remains as true as ever that there is no direct evidence in nature of what the Darwinians call favorable variation. ”

“ This world was not formed upon a plan of unconditioned happiness, because it is overspread with miseries. Neither was it formed upon a plan of unconditioned misery, for there are many joys interspersed throughout the whole. ”

“ Was it because they had discovered in the person of Christ an impostor, a mere cheat? No; this alone would have caused them to utterly disregard the prediction of his resurrection. Those priests saw something in the character of Christ which caused them to fear the fulfillment of his prediction. What other person ever created such a concern about such an event? There is not a similar case in the world's history. What other dead person was ever known to create such a feeling as that which moved his enemies to confront him, if possible, in his rising power. ”

“ All the Gentile nations were wrapped up in the very worst idolatry, having little or no connection whatever with morality, except to corrupt it with the infamous examples of their gods. "They all worshiped a multitude of gods and demons, whose favor they sought by obscene and ridiculous ceremonies, and whose anger they tried to appease with the most abominable cruelties." With them, heaven was open only to legislators and conquerors, the civilizers and destroyers of mankind. ”

“ There is a great contrast between adhering to morality from the motive of present profit, in expectation of future reward, and living such a life as to qualify us for the realization of future happiness. ”