Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 18.djvu/403

Rh and enthusiasts. I thought it necessary, because in the way that the controversy has been hitherto managed against such people, the truth has been rather puzzled and perplexed than cleared, christianity has been betrayed, and all true religion lost in the world. I have advanced no one new opinion of my own: what I have set forth is what was clearly set forth in the Scriptures from the beginning. I mean in the original Scriptures of the Old Testament, so interpreted as to make them every where consistent with themselves; and to show that the interpretations I have given are not only the true interpretations, but that the Scriptures so interpreted are the revealed word of God. I have demonstrated the truth of them by natural evidence, or by the works of God, and that the works bear evidence to nothing but the truth; that these revealed truths so demonstrated are unquestionable and undeniable; and that they are the only powerful motives by which men are not only moved but enlightened and enabled to mortify all their lusts, which blind and deceive them here, and will be their everlasting tormentors hereafter, but to work the works of charity, and of that perfect righteousness which is of faith: so that the whole of all true religion, which has been one and the same in all ages, will appear to consist in the mortifications of our bodily and spiritual lusts, which withhold men from the works of righteousness; and in the belief of those demonstrative truths, by which alone we are enlightened, enabled, and moved to subdue them; and in observing those natural memorials, which God has set before us, and in partaking of those reverential ordinances which he has instituted to put us in mind of what we ought to Rh