The Remains of the REV. Charles Wharton, D.D; With a Memoir of His Life Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1834 edition. Excerpt: ... leaves its other doctrines hardly worth contendingfor. And truly, why may not the moral lessons of Socrates, the sublime speculations of Plato, the splendid maxims of Seneca, the refined casuistry of Cicero, and the rigid precepts of Epictetus, answer all the purposes for regulating the moral eonduct of mankind, if once we deny the reality of a divine atonement, and propitiation for the sins of the whole world, the restoration of our guilty race, by the merits and death of a divine person, to the means of grace, and to the hope of glory, and the influences of a divine Spirit, to render these means effectual to our sanctification, and to realize these hopes of a glorious immortality? Let us then contend earnestly for this vital principle of our holy religion; and without making its proofs the constant subject of our discourses, let us interweave it always into their texture, and endeavour to convince our hearers that Christianity without it is a lifeless system, or rather no system at all; holding out to man no placability in the Deity, no assurance of forgiveness, no path to holiness, no prospect of happiness. The absurdities of atheism have had their day, and I trust the hateful monster has nearly sunk under the enormities of its own destructive progeny. Deism, after retreating before the light of evidence, and abandoning most of its fortresses, ceases to show itself openly to the world, and is compelled to seek shelter under the mantle of Socinus. Priestly has passed under the strong hand of Bishop Horsley, and Paine of Bishop Watson, while Godwin, with all the numerous retailers of his mischievous follies, has been scouted from decent company, by the unknown author of " Pursuits of Literature." But still, the great enemy of our race...