easons for it to
any who might question me on the subject.

I afterwards got Watson's Theological Institutes, which amplified some
of the arguments of Grotius, and added fresh ones. Here too I found
large quotations from Howe's LIVING TEMPLE, an argument for the
existence of God drawn from the wonderful structure of the human body,
and considerable portions of Paley's work on NATURAL THEOLOGY.
About the same time I read the Lectures of Doddridge, which gave me a
more comprehensive view than either Grotius or Watson, both of the
evidences of the existence of God, and those of the truth of
Christianity. I afterwards met with Dwight's Theology, in which I found
a number of things which interested me, though some of his reasonings
seemed mere metaphysical fallacies.

I next read Adam Clarke's Commentary, where I found, besides his
arguments for the existence of God, abundance of quotations from Paley,
Lardner, Michaelis, and others, on the credibility of the New Testament
history, and the truth of Christianity. His _a priori_ argument for the
existence of God seemed only a play on words. His other arguments were
much the same as Watson's.

About this time I read Mosheim's History of the Church. This did me
harm. It is a bad book. It is, in truth, no real history of the Church
at all, but a miserable chronicle of the heresies, inconsistencies and
crimes of the worldly and priestly party in the Church, who perverted
the religion of Christ to worldly, selfish purposes. The whole tendency
of the book is to put the sweet image of Christ and the glories of His
religion, out of sight, and to present to you in their place, a
distressing picture of human weakness and human wickedness. It is a
great pity that this wretched pretence to a church history was not long
ago displaced by a work calculated to do some justice, and to render
some service, to the cause of Christ.

I afterwards read works in favor of Christianity and against infidelity,
by Robert Hall, Olinthus Gregory, Dr. Chalmers, Le Clerc, Hartwell
Horne, S. Thompson, Bishop Watson, Bishop Pearson, Bishop Porteus. I
also read Leland's View of Deistical Writers, Leslie's Short and Easy
Method with Deists, Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity, Fuller's Gospel
its Own Witness, Butler's Analogy, Baxter's Unreasonableness of
Infidelity, and his Evidences of Christianity, Simpson's Plea for
Religion and the Sacred Writings, Ryan on the Beneficial Effects of
Christianity, Cave o