every part of their existence, so much depends on their religion, that is, on their entertaining right notions of God and his attributes, of their duty to him, and their behaviour to each other; most wonderful, I say, and astonishing it must appear, that a wise and benevolent Creator should so far have deserted his creatures on this important occasion, as to have suffered them, through all generations, to have wandered amidst such perilous precipices in the dark; or if at any time he has vouchsafed them any supernatural light, that it should have been so faint and glimmering that it has rather served to terrify them with the gloomy prospect of their danger, than to enable them to avoid it.

If we look back as far as history will carry us, we shall find all ages and nations practising, under the name of religion, such inhuman, obscene, stupid and execrable idolatries, that it would disgrace human nature but to enumerate them: we shall see the wisest men of the wisest countries. consulting oracles of wood and stone, and confiding in the foolish superstition of the flight of birds, the entrails of beasts, and the pecking of chickens; we shall see them butchering their innocent herds and flocks as an atonement for their vices, and sacrificing their enemies, their slaves, their children, and sometimes themselves, to appease the wrath of their imaginary deities, of whose worship no eruelty was too horrid to be made a part; and by whose infamous examples no wickedness was too execrable to be patronised.* At length chris

* Our author goes perhaps too far, in saying, “That the wisest men of the wisest countries consulted oracles, and confided in the flight of birds," &c. We presume that Socrates, Plato, and Marcus T. Cicero had no faith in the foolish superstitions of their time. It is however a serious fact, that men of understanding and learning, from sinister motives, have in all ages too generally given encouragement to superstition among the mass of the people. The wickedness

fianity appeared, which, if ever God condescended to reveal his will to man, undoubtedly makes the fairest pretensions to be that revelation: far from answering that idea of perfection which we might expect from the divine interposition, it was but a sketch, whose out-lines indeed appear the work of a

and eruelties caused by fostering this destructive demon, is shocking to humanity. Those who are infected with its deleterious influence, can see no impropriety in Abraham's attempt to sacrifice his son Isaac, as related in the 22d chapter. of Genesis; nor in the rash vow of Jephthah to sacrifice the first person who came out of his house on his return from a predatory warfare against the Ammonites; upon condition that the Lord should without fail deliver the children of Ammon into his hands." This, as the story states, was done, and he accordingly offered up his only daughter for a burnt offering unto the Lord. See the 11th chapter of Judges. There is nothing in the life and character of Jephthah to justify the supposition of a divine interference in his favour. "He was the son of a harlot," and having no legal claims to inherit any portion of his father's estate, he fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: " and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him." There can be no doubt but this was a band of choice spirits, and that they went out to plunder. Jephthah like the rest of his nation, considered every thing gained by warfare as the gift of God. For, to the messenger sent from the Ammonites, demanding a peaceable restoration of the lands they had been despoiled of by the Israelites, he said, “ Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." Judges, chapter xi.

With regard to those devoted to the Lord, by the Jewish law there was no redemption. No man shall be redeemed but shall surely be put to death. Lev. 27. 28.

*

consummate master, but filled up from time to time by unequal and injudicious hands. It had many defects in its institution, and was attended with many and great evils in its consequences; in its institution it wanted universality, authenticity, perspicuity, and policy, and in its consequences it was soon corrupted, and from that corruption productive of the most mischievous effects. Its great author designed it not to be exempted from any of these imperfections. He revealed it only to a small and obscure corner of the world in parables and mysteries: He guarded not its original purity, which seems to have died with himself, by committing it to any written records, but left it in the hands of illiterate men, who, though they were honest enough to die for it, were never wise enough perfectly to understand it. All policy he disclaims in express words, saying, My kingdom is not of this world; that is, I meddle not with the political affairs of mankind; I teach men to despise the world, but not to govern it. Nor did he expect any better consequences from its progress than those which actually followed: he was by no means ignorant of its future corruption, and that, though his primitive institution breathed nothing but peace, and forbearance, good-will and benevolence: yet that in mixing with the policies and interests of mankind, it would be productive of tyranny and oppression, of martyrdoms and massacres, of na

*The want of perspicuity in this revelation needs surely no other testimony, than the millions of writers, who for se venteen centuries have laboured to demonstratè, harmonise, systemise, illustrate, and explain every one of its doctrines; and the no less numberless, and various opinions, that remain to this day concerning them all: much indeed of this obscurity has proceeded from men's endeavours to make it what they fancied it should have been, but for which it was never intended: that is, a regular, clear, and explicit body of moral and political institutes.

tional wars and family dissentions. Think not, says he, I come to send peace on earth, I come not to send peace but a sword: for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughterin-law against her mother-in-law. A Prophecy too fatally fulfilled!

From what inscrutable source can all these imperfections, and all these consequent evils, derive their existence? On what incomprehensible plan must the wise disposer of all things proceed, to suffer men thus to bewilder themselves in the labyrinths of error, and from thence to plunge into the gulphs of wickedness and misery, when the least direction from his omnipotent hand would lead them through the flowery paths of truth, to virtue and felicity? Strange! that he has not given them reason sufficient to perform this important office! Stranger! that, if ever he condescended to assist that reason with his infinite wisdom, even the religion that results from that supernatural assistance should be still deficient in almost every one of the principal requisites necessary towards accomplishing the great and beneficent ends it was designed for! that it should want universality to render it impartial, authenticity to make it demonstrable, perspicuity to make it intelligible, and policy to make it useful to mankind: that it should immediately have been corrupted, and from that corruption been productive of all the misery and wickedness it seemed calculated to prevent. But on examination we shall find, that these evils, like all those of which we have before treated, owe their existence to no defect of goodness or power in God, but to the imperfection of man and their own necessity: that is, to the impracticability of giving a perfect religion to an imperfect creature.

Were God to reveal a religion to mankind, though the revealer was divine, the religion must be human, or it could be of no use to those for whose sake it was revealed: and therefore, like them, it must be liable to numberless imperfec

tions, amongst which all those deficiencies before-mentioned are absolutely unavoidable, and impossible to be prevented by any power whatever: these are the want of universality, authenticity, perspicuity and policy; its certain corruption, with all that inundation of wickedness and misery which must flow from that corruption. Great and numerous evils! from which it is not difficult to shew, that no revelation communicated to man can be exempted by an omnipotent revealer.

First then, it must want universality: that is, however conducive it may be to the virtue and happiness of mankind in general, it cannot be alike communicated to all men in all ages and all nations of the world; because, from the nature of things, it must have a beginning and a progression: it must at first be revealed at some time, and in some place; and whenever and whereever that is, there must have been times and places in which it was not revealed; and therefore it is impossible it can be universal; and this not proceeding from any impotence or partiality in the revealer; but from the modes of existence of all human affairs.

It must likewise want authenticity; that is, though its divine authority may be more or less credible according to the circumstances of the evidence, yet it can never be capable of a direct or demonstrative proof; because God must communicate this revelation to mankind either by a general or a particular inspiration; that is, either by inspiring all men, or by inspiring a few to teach it to others: the first of these methods, or a universal inspiration, is impossible in nature, and absurd even in imagination, and would be the total alteration of human nature: the other must ever be liable to infinite uncertainty, because though a man may possibly know when he himself is inspired, (though that, I think, may be very well questioned) yet, that he should ever produce indubitable credentials of a divine commission to others, who are uninspired, seems utterly impracticable, there being ne marks by which the fact can be ascertained, nor any facul