analogy, and the best lights of nature. He for expectation in favour of whose truth- there is no to proof, but that which the Gospel affords, by settin the promises of God through Christ's atonement.

I have, as I hope, shewn that a state of future ha to be enjoyed by man cannot be inferred from th racter of an all-perfect Ruler; that it would not b cy but cruelty and inconsistency in God to best I will hereafter endeavour to shew that there wher such happiness is promised, or any good grounds pecting it afforded, it is promised on terms far di from those on which the sceptic (if he do expect and the Socinian (who certainly does expect it) their expectations of it.

CHAP. IV.

The Sceptic more credulous than the Believ Holy Writ.

My

Y friends, let us not be imposed on by the sc cant about the dignity, sufficiency, and omnipote reason. Let us keep in mind that if there be one more evidently and more eminently gross than all it is suicide; that to discover this needs only the consideration that God must will to have the disp those creatures whom he chose to make: that no

more is necessary to put us in possession of this truth. (the guilt of suicide) than to account of God as a being consistent enough to make nothing without having an end in view, and powerful enough to carry this end into effect, unless we by abusing our free agency defeat it. Let us consider this, and at the same time that the Grecian and Roman philosophers who carried the powers of reason at least as far as any succeeding men have done, had not only not sufficiently discovered God's nature to apprehend the turpitude of self-murder, but had actually set down this very act as a virtue. Let us remember too that they made their gods, the objects of their worship, adulterers, fornicators, deceivers, ashamed of no cruelty in the gratification of their lusts; and that they could not, to say the least, have much abhorrence of those acts which they ascribed to the beings to whom they directed their prayers; whose favour they sought to gain; whose examples they laboured to imitate.*

* It will be said that some of them had juster notions so far as it relates to the nature of God. Having premised that none of them seem to have had just notions of his consistency, and that some amongst the best of them accounted wanton barbarity, and the indulgence of unnatural lusts not contrary to his will, (see Wilberforce's Practical View, pp. 29, and 30, Milner's Church History, vol. i. pp. 148 and 149, Hall's Sermon on Infidelity, pp. 30, 31 and 32,) let it be granted that some of the heathen philosophers had juster notions of God's purity. I will admit that as many of them had such notions as would serve on any other occasion to form exceptions to a general rule. That they were few, very few, who thought justly even of this one attribute of the Almighty (his purity) is proved by the mere existence of those Greek and Latin poems which represent the gods as carrying on amours with mortal women, deceiving mortal meu, and, in short, committing a thousand silly and wicked acts, which, even with men, are "deeds of darkness."

Thinking of our Maker as we do, my friends, what should we say of a poem which represented Jehovah, "God of Gods." as intriguing with a human being? I trust that by one common impulse we should rush to destroy the blasphemous production; I trust that the only competition amongst us would be, who first should manifest his detestation of the poet and his lie. Yet the Greek and Roman poets, who represent the father of the gods as not only seducing, but employing artifice and fraud to seduce poor womankind, were honoured, courted, loved, caressed.

Let us remember that whilst in mathematics, in eloquence, in poetry, in sculpture (there are who say, and take some pains to prove it, in medicine) they soar

Their names and their works have descended to us with the testimony of philosophers in their favour.

Let it not be thought that I am casting reproach on the poets of old times; for aught we know, they may have formed the justest notions of God, which under their particular circumstances it was possible for them to form. That some of them did so, we have every reason to believe. Can we suppose that the amiable Virgil would have persisted in his ridiculous faith, if the beauty of holiness" had once been laid open to him? If there had been within his reach any religious code, investing the Supreme Being with a character such as alone befits a God; ascribing to him attributes, such as the Christian religion ascribes to that Being whom she calls upon us to adore? Far from feeling disposed to blame the ancients for their inadequate notions of the Godhead, I confess myself unable to perceive how, thinking of man as possessing exactly that nature which his Maker gave him (for so they must think) thus thinking of him, I say, I know not how they could account of God otherwise than as a being who had in him, commixed with better qualities, the seeds of lust, revenge, pride, and so forth. Feeling in themselves propensities to these vices; thinking of the Almighty as the being who had implanted in them these evil propensities, and who could not impartwhat he did not possess ; I cannot possibly see how they could escape such preposterous notions of the Deity as they evidently entertained. But if they used their best endeavours to acquire juster notions and a better practice, they did all that they were called to do; my object is not accuse my fellow creatures of sin, but to shew the impotence of human reason.

But what, if for a moment we suppose that of those modern philosophers who, insisting on what they call the omnipotence of reason, deny the necessity of a revelation, some might unassisted have discovered those important truths in religion and morality, which the Gospel has made known to us (which by the way, initiated as they have been into them from their infancy, they can never know that they should have discovered) yet what would the bulk of men less intellectual, less disposed to inquire, or less furnished with the means of inquiring, have done? What must the great body of mankind have done, if these truths could have been deduced only by a long train of abstract reasoning? If none but philosophers might discover or apprehend them, alas! how little might we hope that that immense body of men who at present form the unchristianized part of the world, should ever continuing such, know the truth as it is in Jesus! How little might we hope that peace and goodwill should be ever universally established amongst men; that those

*See "The State of Physick, ancient and modern, by Francis Clifton, M. D."

པ་ Jཡཔ་་.

tions, but the opinions of their wisest philosophers were not so just and consistent with the character of an allperfect God, as are those of our lowest mechanics. Allow what we will for the improvement of reason, and the polish of time, we cannot ascribe to them alone such a marvellous difference in the religious state of Heathens and Christians, nor suppose that whilst these causes have carried us so very little farther in most sciences, and not so far in some, they should have carried us to such an immense distance in the science of theology. How is it, that whilst the Egyptians after having lived so much in peace, with a great share of native acuteness, and in so high a state of refinement and civilization, sat down with worshipping leeks and onions, lizards and birds whilst the ancient Persianst offered their adorations to the sun,

blessed times foretold in the Gospel should ever arrive, when every man' shall be safe under his own vine, and under his own fig tree! Christ ians, all men, the most unlettered, the most ignorant may become, but when shall we see a world of philosophers? What inconceivable combination of circumstances shall produce this unheard of effect? And, supposing even that all men should at some future period acquire, by dint of philosophy, a perfect knowledge of moral and religious good and evil, the present advantages of one, and the present disadvantages of the other, what, short of the doctrine of future rewards and punishments as declared immediately by the mouth of God, could ensure the practice of one and forbearance from the other? What engine powerful enough to effect these great ends, in any degree worth our consideration, when even Scripture threats and promises are unable wholly to effect them?

*The modern Persians it is true, in common with all other Mahometans, have juster notions on this head; but let us remember that Mahometanism has Christianity for its basis. The Chinese too worship the one true God, but as a French Jesuit who lived long amongst them says, there is so strict a resemblance between the religious opinions of the Jews, and those of the above-mentioned people, that it is almost impossible not to ascribe to their religious faith the same origin; in other words, it is impossible not to believe the Chinese religión and Christi

we to a man have attained notions of God so consonant with infinite perfection, and purity? Surely something more must have been done for us than for them; some superhuman assistance I mean afforded, for by nature we have no advantage over them. On the contrary

the acuteness of the Egyptians is proverbial, and we know also that the Asiatics are for the most part not at all behind us on the score of natural intellect, and that their mode of living is much more favourable to religious and philosophic research than ours,

Let us set the religious codes of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or ancient Persians, at their highest pitch of refinement, against our own, eight huudred years ago, when we were certainly any thing but refined. They gain no more by the comparison than they would do if we set them against our present religious code. And what if we go back and say that we borrowed this rational religious faith of ours from another people who lived as a nation 1800 years ago; and that we have been in possession of it at least 1600 years, without improving it, or finding it capable of improvement. The question now becomes, what then were these people from whom we borrowed it? A nation of philosophers? Did schools. of learning abound with them? Did they give their days and nights to the study of theology? Confessedly not; they were at the time when their religious notions thus perfect (so far I mean as relates to the nature and attributes of the one true God) were first recorded, but just emerged from slavery, wanderers in a desert, husbandmen, and shepherds. Nor had they at any previous

anity to have the same root. That the Jews have not borrowed from the Chinese however is evident from this, that in the time of Confucius, 479 B. C. the Chinese worshipped a plurality of Gods. How far the abovementioned account may be depended on I know not-thus much however is certain, that the Chinese, still far from the purity of Christi◄ anity, admit into their Temples visible representations of the Deity, which they call Josses.