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prediction, yet there may be, in the quantity of what the prophets predicted; and, agreeably to this, we find them denominated, from the number of their predictions, and the magnitude of the works they have left behind. Is not Voltaire a greater historian than Thomas Paine? One wrote the Age of Louis XIV, and the other the Age of Reason. Voltaire wrote the Life of Charles XII, of Sweden; Paine, the Destruction of the Bastile. The comparison arose not from the truth or falsehood of what either asserted, but from their works being more or less voluminous. Besides, these terms are not to be found in the Bible, but are added for the sake of perspicuity. Notwithstanding this, you add, in the same page, The axe goes to the root at once: "the meaning of the word has been mistaken; and, "consequently, all the inferences, which have been "drawn from thence, are not worth differing about." If poetry were forbidden to tell the truth, then your "axe” would go, indeed, "to the root at once;" but the absurdity of your conclusion, needs only to be seen, to be despised. In plain terms, it amounts to this:-Certain men are said to have written certain things, said to be predictions; but these men were poets; therefore, what they wrote must be false: -the axe goes to the root at once. Can you find any thing so absurd in all the Bible? No man, think, can doubt, that the characters are perfectly compatible with one another: there is nothing that

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hinders. Therefore, "the axe goes to the root at once ;" and your premises and conclusion are both proved to be false.

You then assert that, "the word of God cannot “exist in any human or written language." How does this agree with what you say in page 5, namely, "No one will deny or dispute the power of the Al"mighty, to make such a communication if he please"? Which of these two expressions are we to believe ? I cannot credit both. I shall, therefore, adhere to what you have said in page 5, and pass the other by.

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You finish your remarks upon the Old Testament, with utterly disclaiming the Bible as a rule of faith, if it were to excel, in purity of ideas and expression, all the books now extant in the world." This is, surely, paying a great compliment to your own abilities; while it discovers an obstinacy of disposition, which bids defiance to conviction; even if brought rationally to your view.

With a mind thus influenced by prejudice, you begin your attack on the New Testament; not like an impartial inquirer after truth, but with a disposition as easily conceived as mentioned. You seem to prowl through the sacred writings, under the direction of that mental ferocity, which the gospel you despise was designed to expel; and, tearing from

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their connexion, the passages which fall under your observations, and misrepresenting the principles on which you animadvert, you triumph in the dexterity of your own exploits, and upbraid the sacred authors with the distortions of your own ingenuity. Even the apparent advantages, which they seem to afford you, furnish no contemptible evidence, in favour of their authenticity. A design to impose upon mankind, would have taught their authors to shut those avenues, through which you have entered; and have obliged you to look deeper than the surface, to discover the fraud.

The Bible, like many of the works of nature, appears to the greatest disadvantage to the most superficial beholder. But, when we exclude such secular principles as are apt to bewilder and deceive; -when we examine its essential doctrines,-the proportion of all its parts, the pleasing harmony arising from the whole,—and the general benefit resulting therefrom; there is such a coincidence with human reason, abstracted from all its grossness, that nothing can justify even you, from withholding your admiration and assent, but your ignorance of those doctrines, which are, at present, the objects of your contempt and scorn. So benign are its precepts, so disinterested its offers, and so extensive its benefits, that, even in the arcana of Deism, there is not a virtue or moral duty, which Christianity does

not recommend and enforce. Instead of discarding reason, as you insinuate, it encourages its operations; and it appeals to reason, as the arbiter of its fate. It is by reason that we discover, where reason is incompetent to the task assigned; and it is by reason that we understand, when it must be suspended, and when called into action.

"They tell us," you say, " of the NEW Testa"ment; as if there could be two wills of the Creator.” Christianity, sir, no where asserts any such thing; and all that can, or ought to be understood by the expression, is, that it is a new manifestation of that will which was known hundreds of years before. This no more charges God with mutability, than the alternate succession of day and night. What absolute immutability is, as it respects God, we know not. Mutability, undoubtedly, implies imperfection; and, therefore, in that sense, God cannot change. Nevertheless, if every minute alteration in the Divine economy, charges him with mutability, we must, necessarily, omit attributing to God any kind of action; and, then, he cannot be the Creator. But, if God be the Creator, there must have been a period when he did not create; and the transition, from a pure negation of things to a positive creation, would, with us, charge any finite being with mutability, and, consequently, with imperfection. But, as neither mutability nor imperfection can be charged

apon God, it must follow, that such transitions as are inseparable from his actions, are not the denominators of mutability. I am inclined to think, that a succession of action, is perfectly compatible with immutability, in God. We behold much of this, among the things with which we are acquainted; and, if these apparent contradictions are reconcileable by our limited capacities, how much more so must they be, to the Creator of these capacities.

Unless you contend, that every thing is eternal, you must admit, that there was a period when things were not, and when God willed not their existence ; but the human race exists; therefore God willed it. The immutability of his nature, may be in the promotion--- as it respects us--of human happiness, consistent with intellectual freedom. Now, admitting this to be the case, it follows, that God has a right to elect his own means, for the accomplishment of that end; and, provided that end be kept in view, every action, which tends to that point, however various these actions may appear, cannot affect the permanent principles of his immutability. It must be admitted, that God is unchangeably just, perfect, and good; but it does not follow from hence, that God must be invariably attached to the same identical place, person, means, or thing. No: it follows, that God must, invariably, be a lover of justice, perfection, and goodness, wherever these principles are