COMPARATIVE VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY AND OF THE OTHER FORMS OF RELIGION WHICH HAVE EXISTED, AND STILL EXIST, IN THE WORLD, PARTICULARLY WITH REGARD TO THEIR MORAL TENDENCY. BY WILLIAM LAURENCE BROWN, D. D. VOL. I. EDINBURGH: Printed by A. Balfour and Co.; for WILLIAM TAIT, 78, PRINCE'S STREET; AND CHARLES TAIT, 63, FLEET STREET, LONDON. M.DCCC.XXVI. ΤΟ THE MOST NOBLE GEORGE GORDON, MARQUIS OF HUNTLY, BARON GORDON OF HUNTLY, PEER OF GREAT BRITAIN, KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE MOST HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE BATH, GENERAL OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, AND CHANCELLOR OF MARISCHAL COLLEGE, ABERDEEN, As a public declaration of his Lordship's unwearied attention, in his official capacity, to the interests of that Seminary, of his active and successful exertions for their advancement, and of his engaging benignity to all its members, as well as a small testimony of the most sincere private esteem, of the warmest gratitude for kindness and favour long experienced, and of the strongest attachment, this Work is most respectfully inscribed, by his Lordship's most obedient, faithful, and highly obliged humble servant, THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. WHOEVER has acquired any adequate notion of Christianity, as delivered in the New Testament, will, without hesitation, acknowledge that it furnishes a complete rule of faith and manners. Its doctrines are simple, perspicuous, and sublime. Its precepts are comprehensive, and adapted to every situation and circumstance of life. Its examples are supremely venerable, amiable, and attractive. Its promises are adapted to move the nobler principles of human nature. Its denunciations are calculated to arrest folly, to intimidate vice, and to superinduce sobriety of reflection. sanctioned, by divine of Natural Religion. It hath confirmed and authority, every precept It hath corrected a multiplicity of errors, relative to religious subjects, which had uniformly and extensively prevailed in the world, before its introduction. It hath B |