of Arabia *; his appeal, in alliance with their most cherished prepossessions, to the Ishmaelitish descentt, and patriarchal religion ‡, of the Arabs; the artful accommodation of his creed to the diverse classes of his countrymen, by which he contrived to draw Jew, Christian, and Idolater equally within its sphere; its skilful adaptation at once to the most deeply-rooted prejudices, and the most powerful passions; the general plainness and simplicity of the doctrines inculcated; the gross ignorance of the people to whom these doctrines were addressed; the cogent and opposite motives by which the mission of Mahomet was enforced, the most awful penalties present and future being denounced against infidels, while the most seductive pleasures were promised to the true believers, both in the present world and in the life to come; and, lastly, his conclusive appeal to the sword, made to the raised enthusiasm of a warlike people, — enthusiasm doubly fortified, by the constraining tenet of fatalism, and by the most animating hopes and the most alarming fears that religion could hold out, to the uncultivated minds, and the undisciplined imaginations, of the migratory Bedoweens. § * See Koran passim, especially as cited apud Appendix, No. I. § White, pp. 49-69. and pp. 78, 79.: compare Paley, Evidences of Christianity, part iii. sect. iii. In the joint agency of these various and diversified means, the advocates of Christianity discern the principal causes which conduced to the success of Mahometanism: especially when taken in connection with certain collateral causes, growing out of the state and circumstances of the times wherein Mahomet appeared. The miserable and distracted state of the Christian church in the seventh century, is placed foremost among these concurring causes.* The heresies which divided, and the corruptions which disgraced Christianity, are represented, at this period, to have risen to the height; and to have presented an open and inviting field to the aspiring views of Mahomet. 19 Ignorance and immorality, the ascertained and unfailing accompaniments of an unsound state of religion, by their universal prevalence, conspired with heresy and schism to prepare the way for any gross and novel imposture. The collateral provisions for the triumphant ascendancy of Mahometanism were completed by the contrast which obtained, between the political and religious state of Arabia, and the internal condition of the rival empires of Rome and Persia. "The condition of Arabia," it is urged," occupied by small independent tribes, exposed it to the progress of a firm and * White, p. 49, &c.; Hotting. Hist. Orient. pp. 222–224. resolute army. And as its political divisions facilitated the establishment of a new government, so its religious divisions made the way easy for the introduction of a new faith. It already numbered among its inhabitants, Jews, Christians, and several denominations of idolaterst; and thus familiarised with an almost endless variety of religious opinions, it was incapable of combined or systematic resistance to the pretensions of a conquering creed. At the period, too, when Mahomet arose, while the once formidable empires of Rome and Persia were crumbling in the last stages of decay, Arabia, it is alleged, notwithstanding her internal dissensions, was in an eminently prosperous and flourishing condition. The inference is, that, at home, he found every inducement and encouragement to enter on a career of conquest; and, "after the reduction of his native peninsula, the weakness of the Roman provinces on the north and the west, as well as the distracted state of the Persian empire on the east, facilitated the * Paley, Evidences, p. 550. ed. Dublin, 1794. But see Oelsner, Effets de la Religion de Mohammed, pp. 48, 49. The diversity of religions in Arabia, with the facilities thereby afforded to Mahomet, is accurately noted by Roderic Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, in the 13th century:-" Cum Arabia et Africa, inter fidem Catholicam, et hæresin Arianam, et perfidiam Judaicam, et idololatriam, diversis studiis traheretur," &c. - Hist. Arab. cap. i. p. 2. successful invasion of neighbouring countries."* The proselyting zeal and the relaxed morality of the Koran, the joys of the Moslem paradise and the terrors of the Moslem sword, appealed, with irresistible force, to the imaginations and the passions, to the hopes and to the fears, of mankind. Before a religion thus constituted, in the fervour of its first enthusiasm, all opposition was vain; while the ground once gained, was kept by a creed, which united empire with religion. Such is the account given, by some of the ablest vindicators of revealed truth, of the success of Mahomet, and the propagation of his superstitiont: an account which certainly contains much important fact, and some convincing argument; though not, it may be feared, without a serious admixture of alloy.20 For, on those arguments which constitute the main strength of their opponents, on the permanency of Mahometanism, its inviolable maintenance of the grand doctrine originally impressed, and its absolute dominion over the minds of its adherents, Christian writers, it must be owned, have been either silent altogether, or have touched upon the difficulties slightly, and without offering any adequate solution of them. * Paley, Evidences, p. 550. In the whole of the above statements, is there not too frequent a substitution of consequences for causes? Between the opposed views and statements of the infidel and the believer in Christianity, respecting the rise and progress of Mahomet, and the causes of his success, it is difficult to adjust the real merits of the case. On the one side, the jaundiced spirit of a sceptical philosophy, and on the other, the pardonable prejudices of an honest zeal, combine to embarrass and obscure the original question. The insidious attempts of infidelity to lower and depreciate the Gospel evidences, by affecting to discover, in Mahometanism, a perfect or proximate parallel for the case of Christianity, are not more notorious, than they are unfounded and gratuitous. It is well, however, that they have been made: for the existence of such attempts, on the part of the unbeliever, is a virtual impeachment of his motives. Dishonest and disingenuous motives only, it will reasonably be supposed, could lead men to compare, as on the same footing, a religion without miracles, or the least accredited pretensions to miraculous evidences, with a religion founding itself upon miracles the most varied and stupendous, and whose claim to a miraculous origin is attested and authenticated in the amplest extent, and by the best and fullest conceivable authorities 21: a religion without prophecy, with a religion sustained by a chain of |