Excerpt from The History of the Acts of the Holy Apostles Confirmed From Other Authors, and Considered as Full Evidence of the Truth of Christianity: With a Prefatory Discourse Upon the Nature of That Evidence

Shall a man grudge his pains, and spare himself the thought and study, to be satisfied of the truth of the religion he pro fesses? Can he be too solicitous, too diligent, in an affair of the utmost consequence? No, certainly; his labour and fatigue in the inquiry ought to bear some proportion to the great moment of the truth he is seeking; till he is firmly persuaded that he has the justest reason to give his assent to it, and is fully determined to be governed by it. For should we he never so strongly convinced of the truth of religion, but at the same time will not form our lives agreeably thereto, we might as well have omitted the pains we were at in examining its evidence, and confirming ourselves in the belief of it, because it cannot be of any service to us to see our way to happiness, if we refuse to walk in it.

Forasmuch as the religion we have been educated in is that delivered down to us by Christ and his disciples as revealed from heaven, it is our concern most certainly well to consider and duly to weigh its pretensions that if the proofs there are for its being true and genuine are substantial, and carry conviction with them, we may with all cheerfulness per form the things thereby enjoined, and with pleasure wait for the glory and felicity therein promised.

The first thing that offers itself to our thoughts, in the trial of a revelation pretending to come from above, is, whether it be worthy of God and suited to the condition of man. If it teaches doctrines contradictory to the nature of God, or to that reason with which he has endued us; if it recommends examples or enjoins precepts inconsistent with the moral attributes of the divine Being, or the eternal rule of right reason; if it insist on the practice of such things as tend manifestly to the hurt and detriment of man, and to the preventing his happiness; we may justly and warrantably conclude that it is not from heaven. But the more fully we examine, and the more thoroughly we comprehend the Christian scheme, the more firmly shall we be persuaded that it was fitting to be revealed by God, and received by men.

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