Transcriber's Note
There is a small amount of Hebrew, e.g. קדשand Greek, e.g. ἅγιος in this book. If this text doesnot display correctly, you may wish to adjust your font or browser settings.
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 activelife he was a sceptic; he had a friend who has sincebecome well known as a lawyer and legislator, who wasalso sceptical in his opinions. We were both conversantwith the common evidences of Christianity. None ofthem convinced our minds of the Divine origin of theChristian religion, although we both thought ourselveswilling to be convinced by sufficient evidence. Circumstances,which need not be named, led the writer toexamine the Bible, and to search for other evidence thanthat which had been commended to his attention by amuch-esteemed clerical friend, who presided in one ofour colleges. The result of the examination was athorough conviction in the author’s mind of the truthand Divine authority of Christianity. He supposed atthat time that, in his inquiries, he had adopted the onlytrue method to settle the question, in the minds of allintelligent inquirers, in relation to the Divine origin of[Pg iv]the Christian religion. Subsequent reflection has confirmedthis opinion.
Convinced himself of the Divine origin of the religionof the Bible, the author commenced a series of letters toconvey to his friend the evidence which had satisfied hisown mind beyond the possibility of doubt. The correspondencewas, by the pressure of business engagements,interrupted. The investigation was continued, however,when leisure would permit, for a number of years. Theresults of this investigation are contained in the followingchapters. The epistolary form in which a portion ofthe book was first written will account for some repetitions,and some varieties in the style, which otherwisemight not have been introduced.
II. REASONS FOR PRESENTING THE WORK TO THEPUBLIC.
Book-making is not the author’s profession. Butafter examining his own private library, and one of thebest public libraries in the country, he could find notreatise in which the course of reasoning was pursuedwhich will be found in the following pages. Dr. Chalmers,in closing his Bridgewater Treatise, seems to havehad an apprehension of the plan and importance ofsuch an argument; and had he devoted himself to thedevelopment of the argument suggested, the effort wouldhave been worth more to the world than all the BridgewaterTreatises put together, including his own work.
Coleridge has somewhere said that the Levitical[Pg v]economy is an enigma yet to be solved. To thousandsof intelligent minds it is not only an enigma, but it is anabsolute barrier to their belief in the Divine origin ofthe Bible. The solution of the enigma was the cluewhich