« back to search

Infidels "could hardly refuse the invitation, when we told them, our religion was the eternal law of reason and of God restored, with a few excellently useful additions"

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Author

The Life of John Buncle, Esq.

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for J. Noon

Date

1756, 1766

Metaphor

Infidels "could hardly refuse the invitation, when we told them, our religion was the eternal law of reason and of God restored, with a few excellently useful additions"

Metaphor in Context

If this representation of Christianity was as much the doctrine of the church as it is of the Ivonites I have mentioned, we might then, with hopes of success, call upon the rational infidels to come in. They could hardly refuse the invitation, when we told them, our religion was the eternal law of reason and of God restored, with a few excellently useful additions: that the gospel makes the very religion of nature, a main part of what it requires, and submits all that it reveals to the test of the law of reason: that the splendor of God's original light, the light of nature, and the revelation of Jesus, are the same; both made to deliver mankind from evils and madness of superstition, and make their religion worthy of God, and worthy of men; to enable them, by the voice of reason in conjunction with the words of the gospel, to know and worship One God, the Maker, the Governor, the Judge, of the world; and to practise all that is good and praise-worthy: that we may be blessed as we turn from iniquity to virtue; and by entring cordially into the spirit of the meritorious example or exemplary merits of Christ, be determined dead to sin, and alive to righteousness: in short, my brethren, in the suffering and death of Jesus, his patient, pious and meek, his benevolent and compassionate behaviour, under the most shocking insult, indignity, and torture, we have what we could not learn from the religion of nature, a deportment that well deserves both our admiration and imitation. We learn from the perfect example of Jesus, recommended in his gospel, to bear patiently ill-usage, and to desire the welfare of our most unreasonable and malicious enemies. This is improving by religion to the best purpose; and as we resemble the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus, in patience, piety, andbenevolence, we become the approved children of the Most High, who is kind and good to the unthankful and to the evil. In this view of the gospel, all is fine, reasonable, and heavenly. The gentile can have nothing to object. We have the religion of nature in its original perfection, in the doctrine of the New Testament, enforced by pains and pleasures everlasting; and we learn from the death of the Mediator, not only an unprecedented patience, in bearing our sins in his own body on the tree; but the divine compassion and piety with which he bore them. We have in this the noblest example to follow, whenever called to suffer for well-doing, or for righteousness-sake; and by the imitation, we manifest such a command of temper and spirit, as can only be the result of the greatest piety and virtue. This added to keeping the commandments must render men the blessed of the Father, and entitle them to the kingdom prepared for the wise, the honest, and the excellent.
(pp. 75-7)