THE

RELIGION OF JESUS CHRIST

DEFENDED FROM THE ASSAULTS

OF

OWENISM.

IN NINE LECTURES.

BY J. R. BEARD.

LONDON:

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND COMPANY;

AND

SMALLFIELD AND SON.

MANCHESTER: FORREST AND FOGG.

1839.

ΤΟ

HIS RESPECTED FRIEND,

THE REV. JOSEPH HUTTON, L.L.D.

THESE LECTURES

ARE INSCRIBED

BY

JOHN R. BEARD.

ADVERTISEMENT.

OWENISM is the form in which the broken and scattered forces of Infidelity, not long since marshalled under the leadership of Taylor and Carlile, have rallied and found a temporary refuge and support. The degree of success which has attended on the efforts of its advocates, is owing, not more to the zeal they employ, than to the appeal they make to the deep dissatisfaction which exists among some of the working classes, against the religious opinions and institutions which prevail in society; a dissatisfaction which, arising in the main from actual religious corruptions, is nurtured and sustained by materials supplied from the works of Voltaire and Paine. Unhappily, such is the want of information in the mass of the people, that a self-confident and daring appeal to their passions and prejudices, their discontent and social discomforts, is sure of meeting with acceptance; and can, in many cases, hardly fail of divesting the mind of its religious impressions.

The following Lectures were prepared and delivered by the writer, in the hope of contributing some, however small, a means of checking the career of a system which, of all others, is, both in principle and in spirit, most hostile to religion. The aim has been, not merely to repel the attacks which Owenism has made, but to follow out one or two lines of the evidence on which the