a religious ceremony. Thucydides fays, that both Greek: and Barbarians thought robbery and plunder glorious. The whole ancient heroifm was indeed little elfe. And it was chiefly by violence and brutal fury, that the Macedonian, Roman, and other ftates acquired such an extent of dominion. From Homer, and other writers, down to the Roman hiftorians, we fee how the manners of ancient times allowed to treat captives in war. Princes and Princeffes were dragged in triumph after the chariot of the conqueror; and they, and the inferior people, by thoufands, butchered in cold blood, or condemned to flavery: The beautiful part of the female captives fhared among the heroes, and condemned to prostitution, and infamy. The laws of Lycurgus were founded in war and favage heroifm, and allowed ftealing, unlefs the perfon was caught in the fact. Adultery was alfo in certain cafes eftabiifhed by law. Expofing of children was, among the Romans, according to Lactantius, a daily practice. Gladiators butchering one another by thoufands, was the reigning diverfion among thofe lords of the world for ages. And it was common, when one had got the other down, for the conqueror to look at the people for their orders, whether to spare or kill him, which they often gave for the latter; and even the ladies, if we may believe their own writers, would often give the fignal to defpatch a poor, conquered, helpless victim, that they might feaft their savage and unwomanly hearts with fcenes of cruelty and blood. The authors of the Grecian wifdom were almoft all addicted to one vice or other, fome more, fome less fcandalous. Their fnarling, and impudence, got them the appellation of Cynics; and difputes about words run through all their writings. Too many of both Greek and Roman philofophers, or wife men, flattered the vices of princes. Socrates himself, the father of wisdom, and oppofer of polytheism, encouraged to confult the oracles, and to offer facrifice to idols. Plato's morals were so obscure, that it required a life-time to understand them. Cicero excufes and countenances lewdness in fome parts of his writings. And thofe of Seneca are not without their poifon. What were the manners of the polite court of Auguftus (to fay nothing of the fea of blood, through

which he swam to the imperial throne) is pretty evident from the abominable and unnatural filthinefs fcattered through the writings of the wits of that elegant age. Which of the ancient fages did not too far temporize, and conform to the national fuperftition, contrary to their better knowledge, and even make that worft fpecies of diffimulation a part of the duty of a good citizen; the confequence of which was the effectual rivetting of error, and prevention of reasonable inquiry and reformation. It is certain, that whole nations have placed virtue on directly oppofite fides; and that the wife ancients differed in their notions of what the chief good of man confifted in, to fuch a degree, that one author reckons up feveral hundred different opinions on the fubject. This fhews that the understanding, or moral fenfe, though fufficient, when illuminated by Divine Revelation, to judge of truth, is not, for all that, capable of ftriking out of itfelf fufficient light, fafely to guide itself, especially overwhelmed and oppreffed as it is by vice and prejudice. The moft fublime of the Heathen philofophers never put the immortality of the foul (the foundation of all religion) out of doubt. On the contrary, they reprefent it as at best only a very defirable scheme. Of a general resurrection of the body, an univerfal public judgment, and final happiness of the whole Human Nature, foul and body, in a state of everlafting glory, it does not appear that they had any clear notions; or that they carried their views beyond the Elyfan ftate. None of them could fatisfy a thinking mind about the proper means for propitiating the Deity, or whether guilt was likely to be pardoned at all; nor could any of them prescribe an acceptable method of addreffing the Object of worfhip. On the contrary, Plato reprefents the wife Socrates as at a full ftop, and advifing not to worship at all, till fuch time as it fhould pleafe God to inform mankind, by an exprefs revelation, how they might addrefs him acceptably. Nor did any of them fufficiently inculcate humility, the foundation of all virtues. On the contrary, the very fchemes of fome of the fects were rather founded in pride and obftinacy. Nor did

any of them go fo far as to fhew that forgiving injuries; loving enemies, and fetting the affections upon the future heavenly state, were abfolutely neceffary. The utmost that any of them did, was to recommend the more fublime virtues to the practice of fuch perfons as could reach them. So much for the Heathen doctrines and morals.

1

Mahomet is known to have abandoned himfelf to luft all his life long. His impoftures were fo grofs, that when he first broached them, his best friends were afhamed of both him and them. His religion fets up on the foot of direct violence and force of arms, and makes fenfual gratifications, to the most exceffive degree of beaftlinefs, the final reward of a ftrict attachment to it. The Koran, so far as it is an original, is a heap of abfurd doctrines, and trifling or bad laws. The few miracles which Mahomet pretends to have performed, are either things within the reach of human power, or are hideous and incredible abfurdities, or are wholly unattefted.

The papifts, who pretend to be Chriftians; but have in fact forged a religion of their own; have they done any honour to the opinion of the all-fufficiency of reafon in matters of religion? Let every one of their peculiar doctrines be examined, and let it be confidered what advantage it is of to mankind for regulating their belief, and practice. Their invocation of faints, who ought to be omniprefent, to hear their prayers; which, according to their own account of the matter, they are not. Their purgatory, out of which the prieft can pray a foul at any time for money, which muft defeat the very defign of a purgatory. Their penances, pilgrimages, fines, abfolutions, and indulgences; whofe direct tendency is to lead the deluded vo-. taries of that curfed fuperftition into a total neglect of the obligations of virtue, defeating the very end of religion. The infallibility of their popes, while one thunders out bulls and decrees directly contrary to those of another. And, laft and worst (for it is endless to enunerate the abfurdities of Popery) that most hideous

nd m anful

ous of all productions of the human brain, ion, which at once confounds all fenfe,

overturns all reasoning, and renders all truth precarious and uncertain. These are the triumphs of reafon; these the productions of human invention, when applied to making of religions.

Upon the whole, from this brief and imperfect reprefentation of the state of those parts of the world which have enjoyed but a very little of the light of genuine Divine Revelation, (for it is to be doubted, whether any was ever wholly without it) and of those which have wickedly extinguifhed, or foolishly forfaken it, from this very brief reprefentation, I fay, human reason, unaffifted from above, fhews itself fo far from fufficient for leading mankind in general into a completely right belief and practice, that in almoft every point, beyond mere fimple right and wrong, it mifleads into error, or falls fhort of truth. As the naked eye, though very fit for directing our way on earth, yet mifrepresents, through its weakness, every celeftial object; fhews the fun no bigger than a chariot-wheel, the moon flat like a plate of filver, and the planets like lucid points. The fame eye ftrengthened by a telescope fees the fun, and moon, and planets, large, and globular, as they really are. Revelation is that to reason, which a telescope is to the eye; an advantage and improvement. As he, who would fee the wonders of the heavens, arms his eye with a telescope, fo does the judicious inquirer into religious truth, apply to revelation for thofe informations, which reafon alone would never have given, though it judges of, and approves them, when given. And as the aftronomer does not think of putting out his eye, in order to fee better with a telescope; fo neither does the judicious advocate for revelation defire to oppose it to reason, but to examine it by reason, and to improve his reafon by it.

The abominable prieft craft, and horrid perfecution and bloodshed, which have been the difgrace of a religion, whofe diftinguishing characteristic is benevolence, is no confutation of what I have been advancing in fupport of the natural tendency and actual good effects upon a great number of mankind, of pure religion; and only fhews that even a Divine appointment may be per

verted to the purpose of establishing the kingdom of Satan. At any rate, the abuse of revelation, is no better objection against revelation, than that of reason (of which every hour prefents us various inftances) is against reafon; which no body ever thought of urging, as an argument that it was not of Divine original.

The difputes among the many different fects of Chriftians, which have rendered it very difficult for thofe, who search for the doctrines of revealed religion, any where, but in the Bible itself, to fettle their judgment upon many points; thofe difputes are no juft objection against revelation, any more than againft every branch of human fcience whatever; upon every one of which, not excepting even the pure mathematics, controverfies have been raised. A revelation, upon which it fhould be impoffible for defigning, fubtle men to raise difputes, is hardly conceivable; or, however, is altogether inconfiftent with the idea of a contrivance intended for the improvement of a set of free, moral agents; who must be expected to treat revelation, as well as every other kind of information, according to their respective capacities, and tempers of mind.

If it has been alleged, that for God to have recourse to a direct meffage, or revelation, for reforming or improving mankind, or fupplying the deficiencies of reafon, looks like a defect in the make of the creature; and that reafon ought alone to have been made originally equal to the purpose of enabling mankind to fecure their final happiness; the answer is eafy, to wit, That if human reafon were fuppofed more equal to the purpofe for which it was given than it is, a revelation might itill be of great advantage. And that to fuppofe an exprefs contrivance for mending the moral world neceffary, or ufeful, is no more unphilofophical, or to fpeak properly, more unworthy of God, than one for the fame purpose, in the natural world. And this latter is by our great philofopher allowed to be probable.

Suppofing it reasonable to believe that the Divine Power, either immediately, or by means of the intervention or inftrumentality of inferior agents and caufes, does continually actuate the natural world, and conduct