or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon, or be turned into parables by this influence.  Luther knew not well how to reconcile the epistle of St. James to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine.  The Papists bring all their Apocrypha into their Bible, and stamp divinity upon it, for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the dead.  But they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the worship of images.  Others suppose the Mosaic history of the creation, and the full of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory, because the literal sense of those three chapters of Genesis do not agree with their theories.

These remarks are certainly not calculated to make ‘considering men’ put their trust in Scripture.  Coming from a Protestant Divine of such high talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in ‘considering men’ very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity as the genuineness of both Testaments, and a strong suspicion that Chillingworth was joking when he talked about their “sufficient certainty.”  The author has searched Scripture in vain for ’sufficient certainty,’ with respect to the long catalogue of religious beliefs which agitate and distract society.  Laying claim to the character of a ‘considering man,’ he requires that Scripture to be proved the word of a God before appealed to, as His Revelation; a feat no man has yet accomplished.  Priests, the cleverest, most industrious, and least scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all have failed.  Notwithstanding the mighty labours of our Lardner’s and Tillemont’s and Mosheim’s, no case is made out for the divinity of either the Old or New Testament.  ‘Infidels’ have shown the monstrous absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about it than any other book.  These ‘brutes’ have completely succeeded in proving that Christianity is a superstition no less absurd than Mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous.

Christian practice is after all, the best answer to Christian theory.  Men who think wisely, do not, it is true, always act wisely; but generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the followers of Jesus planted.  Notwithstanding their talk about the pure and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining ground, that Bishop Kidder was right, when he said, were a wise man to judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, Christianity is the last he would choose.

He who agrees with Milton that

          To know what every day before us lies
          Is the prime wisdom,