6. Without some system of religion
society cannot exist; for a sanction stronger than human laws is
necessary to restrain the violence of passion and ardent desires. The
innate feeling that our existence is not dependent on our mortal
frame, disposes men to search for some information respecting a future
state; the heathen system was at once obscure and absurd; the
philosophers avowedly spoke from conjecture; but by the Gospel, "life
and immortality were brought to light." 7. The influence of a purer
faith was discernible in the lives and actions of the first
Christians; they lived in an age of unparalleled iniquity and
debauchery, yet they kept themselves "unspotted from the world;" those
who were once conspicuous for violence, licentiousness, and crime,
became, when they joined the new sect, humble, temperate, chaste, and
virtuous; the persons who witnessed such instances of reformation were
naturally anxious to learn something of the means by which so great a
change had been effected. 8. A fourth cause was, that Christianity
offered the blessings of salvation to men of every class; it was its
most marked feature, that "to the poor the gospel was preached," and
the wretch who dared not come into the pagan temple, because he had no
rich offering to lay upon the altar, was ready to obey the call of him
who offered pardon and love "without money and without price.
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