endured from all eternity. We must prove design powers: we merely know their effects; we are in a before we can infer a designer. The only idea which state of ignorance with respect to their essences and we can form of causation is derivable from the causes. These Newton calls the phenomena of things; constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent but the pride of philosophy is unwilling to admit its inference of one from the other. In a case where two ignorance of their causes. From the phenomena, propositions are diametrically opposite, the mind which are the objects of our senses, we attempt to believes that which is least incomprehensible-it infer a cause, which we call God, and gratuitously is easier to suppose that the universe has existed from endow it with all negative and contradictory qualities. all eternity, than to conceive a being beyond its limits From this hypothesis we invent this general name, to capable of creating it: if the mind sinks beneath the conceal our ignorance of causes and essences. The weight of one, is it an alleviation to increase the in- being called God by no means answers with the contolerability of the burthen? ditions prescribed by Newton; it bears every mark The other argument, which is founded on a man's of a veil woven by philosophical conceit, to hide the knowledge of his own existence, stands thus. A man ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. knows not only that he now is, but that once he was They borrow the threads of its texture from the annot; consequently there must have been a cause. But thropomorphism of the vulgar. Words have been our idea of causation is alone derivable from the con- used by sophists for the same purposes, from the stant conjunction of objects and the consequent infer- occult qualities of the peripatetics to the effluvium of ence of one from the other; and, reasoning experi- Boyle and the crinities or nebula of Herschel. God is mentally, we can only infer from effects, causes ex- represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible; he actly adequate to those effects. But there certainly is contained under every prædicate in non that the is a generative power which is effected by certain logic of ignorance could fabricate. Even his worinstruments: we cannot prove that it is inherent in shippers allow that it is impossible to form any idea these instruments; nor is the contrary hypothesis ca- of him: they exclaim with the French poet, pable of demonstration: we admit that the generative power is incomprehensible; but to suppose that the same effect is produced by an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, being, leaves the cause in the same obscurity, but renders it more incomprehensible.

3d. Testimony. It is required that testimony should not be contrary to reason. The testimony that the Deity convinces the senses of men of his existence can only be admitted by us, if our mind considers it less probable that these men should have been deceived, than that the Deity should have appeared to them. Our reason can never admit the testimony of men, who not only declare that they were eye-witnesses of miracles, but that the Deity was irrational; for he commanded that he should be believed, he proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments for disbelief. We can only command voluntary actions; belief is not an act of volition; the mind is even passive, or involuntarily active: from this it is evident that we have no sufficient testimony, or rather that testimony is insufficient to prove the being of a God. It has been before shown that it cannot be deduced from reason. They alone, then, who have been convinced by the evidence of the senses, can believe it.

Pour dire ce qu'il est, il faut être lui-même.

Lord Bacon says, that "atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and every thing that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: hence atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, since he sees nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life."-BACON'S Moral Essays.

La première théologie de l'homme lui fit d'abord craindre et adorer les éléments même, des objets materiels et grossiers ; il rendit ensuite ses hommages à des agents présidents aux éléments, à des génies inférieurs, à des héros, ou à des hommes doués de grandes qualites. A force de réfléchir, il crut simplifier les choses en soumettant la nature entière à un seul agent, à un esprit, à une ame universelle, qui mettoit cette nature et ses parties en mouvement. En remontant des causes en causes, les mortels ont fini par ne rien voir; et c'est dans cette obscurité qu'ils ont placé leur Dieu; c'est dans cet abyme ténébreux que leur imagination inquiète travaille toujours à se fabriquer des chimères, qui les affligeront jusqu'à ce que la connoissance de Hence it is evident that, having no proofs from either la nature les détrompe des fantômes qu'ils ont toujours of the three sources of conviction, the mind cannot si vainement adorés.

believe the existence of a creative God: it is also Si nous voulons nous rendre compte de nos idées sur evident, that, as belief is a passion of the mind, no la Divinité, nous serons obligés de convenir que, par le degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief; and that they only are reprehensible who neglect to remove the false medium through which their mind views any subject of discussion. Every reflecting mind must acknowledge that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity.

mot Dieu, les hommes n'ont jamais pu désigner que la cause la plus cachée, la plus éloignée, la plus inconnue des effets qu'ils voyoient: ils ne font usage de ce mot, que lorsque le jeu des causes naturelles et connues cesse d'être visible pour eux; dès qu'ils perdent le fil de ces causes, ou dès que leur esprit ne peut God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need plus en suivre la chaîne, ils tranchent leur difficulté, of proof: the onus probandi rests on the theist. Sir et terminent leur recherches en appellant Dieu la Isaac Newton says: "Hypotheses non fingo, quicquid dernière des causes, c'est-à-dire celle qui est au-delà enim ex phænomenis non deducitur, hypothesis vo- de toutes les causes qu'ils connoissent; ainsi ils ne font canda est, et hypothesis vel meta physicæ, vel physicæ, qu'assigner une dénomination vague à une cause vel qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicæ, in philo-ignorée, à laquelle leur paresse ou les bornes de leurs sophia locum non habent." To all proofs of the connoissances les forcent de s'arrêter. Toutes les fois existence of a creative God apply this valuable rule. qu'on nous dit que Dieu est l'auteur de quelque phéWe see a variety of bodies possessing a variety of nomène, cela signifie qu'on ignore comment un tel

phénoméne a pu s'opérer par le secours des forces ou de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la des causes que nous connoissons dans la nature. C'est theologie s'est partout remplie dans quelques pays, ainsi que le commun des hommes, dont l'ignorance ces inventions si ingénieuses, imaginées par des penest le partage, attribue à la Divinité non seulement seurs qui se sont succédés depuis tant de siècles, les effets inusités qui les frappent, mais encore les n'ont fait, hélas ! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais événemens les plus simples, dont les causes sont les la science la plus nécessaire aux hommes n'a jusplus faciles à connoître pour quiconque a pu les mé- qu'ici pu acquérir la moindre fixité. Depuis des mil diter. En un mot, l'homme a toujours respecté les liers d'années, ces réveurs oisifs se sont perpétuellecauses inconnues des effets surprenans, que son igno- ment relayés pour méditer la Divinité, pour devinerses rance l'empêchoit de démêler. Ce fut sur les débuts voies cachées, pour inventer des hypothèses propres de la nature que les hommes élevèrent le colosse à développer cette énigme importante. Leur peu de imaginaire de la Divinité. succès n'a point découragé la vanité théologique; toujours on a parlé de Dieu: on s'est égorgé pour lui, et cet être sublime demeure toujours le plus ignoré et le plus discuté.

Si l'ignorance de la nature donna la naissance aux dieux, la connoissance de la nature est faite pour les détruire. A mesure que l'homme s'instruit, ses forces et ses ressources augmentent avec ses lumières; les Les hommes auroient été trop heureux, si, se borsciences, les arts conservateurs, l'industrie, lui four- nant aux objets visibles qui les intéressent, ils eus nissent des secours; l'expérience le rassure ou lui sent employé à perfectionner leurs sciences réelles, procure des moyens de résister aux efforts de bien leurs lois, leur morale, leur éducation, la moitié des des causes qui cessent de l'alarmer dès qu'il les a efforts qu'ils ont mis dans leurs recherches sur la Diconnues. En un mot, ses terreurs se dissipent dans vinité. Ils auroient été bien plus sages encore, et la même proportion que son esprit s'éclaire. L'homme plus fortunés, s'ils eussent pu consentir à laisser leurs instruit cesse d'être superstitieux. guides désœuvrés se quéreller entre eux, et sonder Ce n'est jamais que sur parole que des peuples des profondeurs capables de les étourdir, sans se mêentiers adorent le Dieu de leurs pères et de leurs ler de leurs disputes insensées. Mais il est de l'esprêtres; l'autorité, la confiance, la soumission, et sence de l'ignorance d'attacher de l'importance à ce l'habitude, leur tiennent lieu de conviction et de preu- qu'elle ne comprends pas. La vanité humaine fait que ves; ils se prosternent et prient, parce que leurs pères l'esprit se roidit contre les diflicultés. Plus un obleur ont appris à se prosterner et prier: mais pourquoi jet se dérobe à nos yeux, plus nous faisons d'efforts ceux-ci se sont-ils mis à genoux? C'est que dans les pour le saisir, parceque des-lors il aiguillonne notre temps eloignés leurs législateurs et leurs guides leur orgueil, il excite notre curiosité, il nous paroît intéren ont fait un devoir. Adorez et croyez," ont-ils essant. En combattant pour son Dieu chacun ne dit, des dieux que vous ne pouvez comprendre; rap-combattit en effet que pour les intérêts de sa propre portez-vous en à notre sagesse profonde; nous en sa- vanité, qui de toutes les passions produits par la mal vons plus que vous sur la Divinité." Mais pourquoi organisation de la société, est la plus prompte à s'alarm en rapporterois-je à vous? C'est que Dieu le veut mer, et la plus propre à produire de très grandes folies. ainsi, c'est que Dieu vous punira si vous osez résister. Mais ce Dieu n'est-il donc pas la chose en question? Cependant les hommes se sont toujours payés de ce cercle vicieux; la paresse de leur esprit leur fit trouver plus court de s'en rapporter au jugement des autres. Toutes les notions religieuses sont fondées uniquement sur l'autorité; toutes les religions du monde défendent l'examen et ne veulent pas que l'on raisonne; c'est l'autorité qui veut qu'on croye en Dieu; ce Dieu n'est lui-même fondé que sur l'autorité, de quelques hommes qui prétendent le connoître, et venir de sa part pour l'annoncer à la terre. Un Dieu fait par les hommes, a sans doute besoin des hommes pour se faire connoître aux hommes.

46

Si écartant pour un moment les idées fâcheuses que la théologie nous donne d'un Dieu capricieux, dont les décrets partiaux et despotiques décident du sort des humains, nous ne voulons fixer nos yeux que sur la bonté prétendue, que tous les hommes, même en tremblant devant ce Dieu, s'accordent à lui donner; si nous lui supposons le projet qu'on lui prête, de n'avoir travaillé que pour sa propre gloire; d'exiger les hommages des êtres intelligens; de ne chercher dans ses œuvres que le bien-être du genre humain; comment concilier ses vues et ses dispositions avec l'ignorance vraiment invincible dans laquelle ee Dieu, si glorieux et si bon, laisse la plupart des hommes sur son compte? Si Dieu veut être connu, Ne seroit-ce donc que pour des prêtres, des inspirés, chéri, remercié, que ne se montre-t-il sous des traits des métaphysiciens que seroit réservée la conviction favorables à tous ces êtres intelligens dont il veut de l'existence d'un Dieu, que l'on dit néanmoins si être aimé et adoré ? Pourquoi ne point se manifester nécessaire à tout le genre humain? Mais trouvons à toute la terre d'une façon non équivoque, bien plus nous de l'harmonie entre les opinions théologiques capable de nous convaincre, que ces révélations purdes différens inspirés, ou des penseurs répandus sur ticulières qui semblent accuser la Divinité d'une parla terre Ceux mêmes qui font profession d'adorer le tialité fâcheuse pour quelques unes de ses créatures? même Dieu, sont-ils d'accord sur son compte? Sont- Le Tout-Puissant n'auroit-il donc pas des moyens ils contents des preuves que leurs collègues apportent plus convainquans de se montrer aux hommes que de son existence? Souscrivent-ils unanimement aux ces métamorphoses ridicules, ces incarnations préidées qui'ils présentent sur sa nature, sur sa conduite, tendues, qui nous sont attestées par des écrivains si sur la façon d'entendre ses prétendus oracles? Est-il peu d'accord entre eux dans les récits qu'ils en font? une contrée sur la terre, où la science de Dieu se Au lieu de tant de miracles inventés pour prouver soit réellement perfectionnée? A-t-elle pris quelque la mission divine de tant de législateurs révérés par part la consistance et l'uniformité que nous voyons les differens peuples du monde, le souverain des esprendre aux connoissances humaines, aux arts les plus prits ne pouvoit-il pas convaincre tout d'un coup l'esfutiles, aux métiers les plus méprisés ? Des mots d'esprit humain des choses qu'il a voulu lui faire connoîprit, d'immatérialité, de création, de prédestination, tre? Au lieu de suspendre un soleil dans la voûte du

firmament; au lieu de répandre sans ordre les étoiles preconceptions of the simob. Had this author, instead et les constellations qui remplissent l'espace, n'eut-il of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of athepas été plus conforme aux vues d'un Dieu jaloux de ism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would sa gloire et si bien intentionné pour l'homme, d'écrire have been more suited to the modesty of the sceptic d'une façon non sujette à dispute, son nom, ses attri- and the toleration of the philosopher. buts, ses volontés permanentes en caractères ineffaça- Omnia enim per Dei potentiam facta sunt: imo, bles et lisible également pour tous les habitans de la quia natura potentia nulla est nisi ipsa Dei potentia, terre? Personne alors n'auroit pu douter de l'exis- artem est nos catemus Dei potentiam non intelligere, tence d'un Dieu, de ses volontés claires, de ses in- quatenus causas naturales ignoramus; adeoque stulte tentions visibles. Sous les yeux de ce Dieu si terri- ad eandem Dei potentiam recurritur, quando rei ali ble personne n'auroit eu l'audace de violer ses or- cujus, causam naturalem, sive est, ipsam Dei potendonnances; nul mortel n'eût ose se mettre dans le tiam ignoramus.-SPINOSA, Tract. Theologico-Pol cas d'attirer sa colère; enfin nul homme n'eût eu le chap. i. page 14. front d'en imposer en son nom, ou d'interpréter ses volontés suivant ses propres fantaisies.

Note 14, page 117, col. 2.
Ahasuerus, rise!

En effet, quand même on admettroit l'existence du Dieu théologique, et la réalité des attributs si discordans qu'on lui donne, l'on ne peut en rien conclure, "Ahasuerus the Jew crept forth from the dark pour autoriser la conduite ou les cultes qu'on prescrit cave of Mount Carmel. Near two thousand years de lui rendre. La théologie est vraiment le tonneau have elapsed since he was first goaded by never-enddes Danaïdes. A force de qualités contradictoires et ing restlessness to rove the globe from pole to pole. d'assertions hasardées, elle a, pour ainsi dire, telle- When our Lord was wearied with the burthen of ment garoté son Dieu qu'elle l'a mis dans l'impossi- his ponderous cross, and wanted to rest before the bilité d'agir. S'il est infiniment bon, qu'elle raison door of Ahasuerus, the unfeeling wretch drove him aurions nous de le craindre? S'il est infiniment sage, away with brutality. The Savior of mankind stagde quoi nous inquiéter sur notre sort? S'il sait tout, gered, sinking under the heavy load, but uttered no pourquoi l'avertir de nos besoins, et le fatiguer de nos complaint. An angel of death appeared before Ahaprières? S'il est partout, pourquoi lui élever des tem-suerus, and exclaimed indignantly, Barbarian! thou ples? S'il est maître de tout, pourquoi lui faire des hast denied rest to the Son of Man: be it denied thee sacrifices et des offrandes? S'il est juste, comment also, until he comes to judge the world.' croire qu'il punisse des créatures qu'il a remplies de foiblesses? Si la grace fait tout en elles, quelle raison auroit-il de les récompenser? S'il est tout-puissant, comment l'offenser, comment lui résister? S'il est raisonnable, comment se mettroit-il en colère contre des aven- Ahasuerus crept forth from the dark cave of gles, à qui il a laissé la liberté de déraisonner! S'il Mount Carmel-he shook the dust from his beardest immuable, de quel droit prétendrions-nous faire and taking up one of the skulls heaped there, hurled changer ses décrets? S'il est inconcevable, pourquoi it down the eminence: it rebounded from the earth nous en occuper? S'IL A PARLE, POURQUOI L'UNI- in shivered atoms. This was my father! roared Aba VERS N'EST-IL PAS CONVAINCU? Si la connoissance suerus. Seven more skulls rolled down from rock to d'un Dieu est la plus nécessaire, pourquoi n'est-elle rock; while the infuriate Jew, following them with pas la plus évidente, et la plus claire ?-Système de ghastly looks, exclaimed-And these were my wives! la Nature. London, 1781. He still continued to hurl down skull after skull, roar

"A black demon, let loose from hell upon Ahasu erus, goads him now from country to country: he denied the consolation which death affords, and pre cluded from the rest of the peaceful grave.

The enlightened and benevolent Pliny thus pub-ing in dreadful accents--And these, and these, and licly professes himself an atheist :-Quapropter effi- these were my children! They could die; but I! giem Dei, formamque quærere, imbecillitatis humanæ reprobate wreich, alas! I cannot die! Dreadful bereor. Quisquis est Deus (si modo es: alius) et qua-yond conception is the judgment that hangs over me. cunque in parte, totus est sensus, totus est visus, totus Jerusalem fell-I crushed the sucking babe, and preauditus, totus animæ, totus animi, totus sui. *cipitated myself into the destructive flames. I cursed Imperfectæ vero in homine naturæ præcipua solatia the Romans-but, alas! alas! the restless curse held ne deum quidem posse omnia. Namque nec sibi po- me by the hair,-and I could not die! test mortem consciscere, si velit, quod homini dedit Rome the giantess fell-I placed myself before optimum in tantis vita pœnis: nec mortales æternitate the falling statue-she fell, and did not crush me. donare, aut revocare defunctos; me facere ut qui Nations sprung up and disappeared before me;-but vixit non vixerit, qui honores gessit non gesserit, nul- I remained and did not die. From cloud-encircled lumque habere in præteritum jus, præterquam oblivi- cliffs did I precipitate myself into the ocean; but the onis, atque ut facetis quoque argumentis societas hæc cum deo copuletur, ut bis dena viginta non sint, et multa similiter efficere non posse.-Per quæ, declaratur haud dubie, naturæ potentiam id quoque esse, quod Deum vocamus.-PLIN. Nat. Hist. cap. de Deo. The consistent Newtonian is necessarily an atheist. See Sir W. DRUMMOND'S Academical Questions, chap. iii.-Sir W. seems to consider the atheism to which it leads, as a sufficient presumption of the falsehood of the system of gravitation: but surely it is more on wings of fury and despair into the crackling wood. consistent with the good faith of philosophy to admit Fire dropped upon me from the trees, but the flames a deduction from facts than an hypothesis incapable only singed my limbs; alas! it could not consunie of proof, although it might militate with the obstinate them.-I now mixed with the butchers of mankind

foaming billows cast me upon the shore, and the burning arrow of existence pierced my cold heart again. I leaped into Etna's flaming abyss, and roared with the giants for ten long months, polluting with my groans the Mount's sulphureous mouth-ah! ten long months. The volcano fermented, and in a fey stream of lava cast me up. I lay torn by the torture snakes of hell amid the glowing cinders, and yet continued to exist.-A forest was on fire: 1 darted

and plunged in the tempest of the raging battle. I that Jesus Christ, so far from being a God, was only roared defiance to the infuriate Gaul, defiance to the a man like themselves. But a numerous set of men, victorious German; but arrows and spears rebounded who derived and still derive immense emoluments in shivers from my body. The Saracen's flaming from this opinion, in the shape of a popular belief, sword broke upon my skull: balls in vain hissed told the vulgar, that, if they did not believe in the upon me the lightnings of battle glared harmless Bible, they would be damned to all eternity; and around my loins: in vain did the elephant trample burned, imprisoned, and poisoned all the unbiassed on me, in vain the iron hoof of the wrathful steed! and unconnected inquirers who occasionally arose. The mine, big with destructive power, burst upon They still oppress them, so far as the people, now me, and hurled me high in the air-I fell on heaps become more enlightened, will allow. of smoking limbs, but was only singed. The giant's The belief in all that the Bible contains, is called steel club rebounded from my body; the executioner's Christianity. A Roman governor of Judea, at the inhand could not strangle me, the tiger's tooth could stances of a priest-led mob, crucified a man called not pierce me, nor would the hungry lion in the cir- Jesus, eighteen centuries ago. He was a man of pure cus devour me. I cohabitated with poisonous snakes, life, who desired to rescue his countrymen from the and pinched the red crest of the dragon. The ser- tyranny of their barbarous and degrading superstitions. pent stung, but could not destroy me.-The dragon The common fate of all who desire to benefit mantormented, but dared not to devour me.-I now pro- kind awaited him. The rabble, at the instigation of voked the fury of tyrants: I said to Nero, Thou art the priests, demanded his death, although his very a bloodhound! I said to Christiern, Thou art a blood- judge made public acknowledgment of his innocence. hound! I said to Muley Ismail, Thou art a blood- Jesus was sacrificed to the honor of that God with hound! The tyrants invented cruel torments, but whom he was afterwards confounded. It is of imdid not kill me.-Ha! not to be able to portance, therefore, to distinguish between the predie-not to be able to die-not to be permitted to tended character of this being as the Son of God rest after the toils of life-to be doomed to be im- and the Savior of the world, and his real character prisoned for ever in the clay-formed dungeon-to be as a man, who, for a vain attempt to reform the world, for ever clogged with this worthless body, its load of paid the forfeit of his life to that overbearing tyranny diseases and infirmities-to be condemned to hold for which has since so long desolated the universe in his millenniums that yawning monster Sameness, and name. Whilst the one is a hypocritical demon, who Time, that hungry hyena, ever bearing children, and announces himself as the God of compassion and ever devouring again her offspring!-Ha! not to be peace, even whilst he stretches forth his blood-red permitted to die! Awful avenger in Heaven, hast hand with the sword of discord to waste the earth, thou in thine armory of wrath a punishment more having confessedly devised this scheme of desolation dreadful? then let it thunder upon me, command a from eternity; the other stands in the foremost list of hurricane to sweep me down to the foot of Carmel, those true heroes, who have died in the glorious that I there may lie extended; may pant, and writhe, martyrdom of liberty, and have braved torture, conand die!" tempt, and poverty, in the cause of suffering hu manity.*

This fragment is the translation of part of some German work, whose title I have vainly endeavored to discover. I picked up, dirty and torn, some years ago, in Lincoln's-Inn Fields.

Note 15, page 118, col. 1.

I will beget a Son, and he shall bear
The sins of all the world.

The vulgar, ever in extremes, became persuaded that the crucifixion of Jesus was a supernatural event. Testimonies of miracles, so frequent in unenlightened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something divine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, met with the reveries of Plato and the reasonings of Aristotle, and acquired force and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute was death, which to doubt was infamy.

A book is put into our hands when children, called the Bible, the purport of whose history is briefly this: That God made the earth in six days, and there planted Christianity is now the established religion: he a delightful garden, in which he placed the first pair who attempts to impugn it, must be contented to beof human beings. In the midst of the garden he hold murderers and traitors take precedence of him planted a tree, whose fruit, although within their in public opinion: though, if his genius be equal to reach, they were forbidden to touch. That the Devil, his courage, and assisted by a peculiar coalition of in the shape of a snake, persuaded them to eat of circumstances, future ages may exalt him to a dithis fruit; in consequence of which God condemned vinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was both them and their posterity yet unborn, to satisfy persecuted in the name of his predecessor in the his justice by their eternal misery. That, four thou- homage of the world. sand years after these events (the human race in the The same means that have supported every other meanwhile having gone unredeemed to perdition), popular belief, have supported Christianity. War, God engendered with the betrothed wife of a car- imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood; deeds of penter in Judea (whose virginity was nevertheless unexampled and incomparable atrocity, have made it uninjured), and begat a Son, whose name was Jesus what it is. The blood shed by the votaries of the Christ; and who was crucified and died, in order God of mercy and peace, since the establishment of that no more men might be devoted to hell-fire, he his religion, would probably suffice to drown all other bearing the burthen of his Father's displeasure by sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive proxy. The book states, in addition, that the soul of from our ancestors a faith thus fostered and supportwhoever disbelieves this sacrifice will be burned with ed: we quarrel, persecute, and hate for its mainteeverlasting fire

During many ages of misery and darkness, this story gained implicit belief; but at length men arose who suspected that it was a fable and imposture, and

*Since writing this note, I have seen reason to suspert that Jesus was an ambitious man, who aspired to the throne of Judea.

nance. Even under a government which, whilst it only believe that which it thinks true. A human infringes the very right of thought and speech, boasts being can only be supposed accountable for those of permitting the liberty of the press, a man is pil- actions which are influenced by his will. But belief loried and imprisoned because he is a deist, and no is utterly distinct from and unconnected with volition: one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged it is the apprehension of the agreement or disagree. humanity. But it is ever a proof that the falsehood ment of the ideas that compose any proposition. Beof a proposition is felt by those who use coercion, lief is a passion, or involuntary operation of the mind, not reasoning, to procure its admission; and a dis- and, like other passions, its intensity is precisely propassionate observer would feel himself more power-portionate to the degrees of excitement. Volition is fully interested in favor of a man, who, depending essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian relion the truth of his opinions, simply stated his reasons gion attaches the highest possible degrees of merit for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor, and demerit to that which is worthy of neither, and who daringly avowing his unwillingness or incapacity which is totally unconnected with the peculiar to answer them by argument, proceeded to repress faculty of the mind, whose presence is essential to the energies and break the spirit of their promulgator their being. by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he could command.

Christianity was intended to reform the world: had an all-wise Being planned it, nothing is more improbable than that it should have failed: omniscience would infallibly have foreseen the inutility of a scheme which experience demonstrates, to this age to have been utterly unsuccessful.

Analogy seems to favor the opinion, that as, like other systems, Christianity has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and perish; that, as violence, darkness, and deceit, not reasoning and persuasion, have procured its admission among mankind, Christianity inculcates the necessity of supplicating so, when enthusiasm has subsided, and time, that in- the Deity. Prayer may be considered under two fallible controverter of false opinions, has involved points of view;-as an endeavor to change the inits pretended evidences in the darkness of antiquity, tentions of God, or as a formal testimony of our obeit will become obsolete; that Milton's poem alone will give permanency to the remembrance of its absurdities; and that men will laugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they now do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints, the efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits.

dience. But the former case supposes that the caprices of a limited intelligence can occasionally instruct the Creator of the world how to regulate the universe; and the latter, a certain degree of servility analogous to the loyalty demanded by earthly tyrants. Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason.

Christianity, like all other religions, rests upon miracles, prophecies, and martyrdoms. No religion ever existed, which had not its prophets, its attested

Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of reasoning and persuasion, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible. We should never speculate on the future obsoleteness of a system perfectly conformable to nature and reason: miracles, and, above all, crowds of devotees who it would endure so long as they endured; it would would bear patiently the most horrible tortures to be a truth as indisputable as the light of the sun, the prove its authenticity. It should appear that in no criminality of murder, and other facts, whose evi- case can a discriminating mind subscribe to the genudence, depending on our organization and relative ineness of a miracle. A miracle is an infraction of situations, must remain acknowledged as satisfactory nature's law, by a supernatural cause; by a cause so long as man is man. It is an incontrovertible fact, acting beyond that eternal circle within which all the consideration of which ought to repress the hasty things are included. God breaks through the law of conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in nature, that he may convince mankind of the truth maintaining them, that, had the Jews not been a of that revelation which, in spite of his precautions, fanatical race of men, had even the resolution of has been, since its introduction, the subject of unPontius Pilate been equal to his candor, the Christian ceasing schism and cavil. religion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed on so feeble a thread hangs the most questions:*-Whether it is more probable the laws cherished opinion of a sixth of the human race! When will the vulgar learn humility? When will the pride of ignorance blush at having believed before it could comprehend?

Miracles resolve themselves into the following

of nature, hitherto so immutably harmonious, should have undergone violation, or that a man should have told a lie? Whether it is more probable that we are ignorant of the natural cause of an event, or that we Either the Christian religion is true, or it is false: know the supernatural one? That, in old times, if true, it comes from God, and its authenticity can when the powers of nature were less known than admit of doubt and dispute no further than its om- at present, a certain set of men were themselves denipotent author is willing to allow. Either the power ceived, or had some hidden motive for deceiving or the goodness of God is called in question, if he others; or that God begat a son, who, in his legisla leaves those doctrines most essential to the well-being tion, measuring merit by belief, evidenced himself of man in doubt and dispute; the only ones which, to be totally ignorant of the powers of the human since their promulgation, have been the subject of mind-of what is voluntary, and what is the conunceasing cavil, the cause of irreconcilable hatred. trary?

If God has spoken, why is the universe not convinced? We have many instances of men telling lies;— There is this passage in the Christian Scriptures: none of an infraction of nature's laws, those laws of "Those who obey not God, and believe not the Gos- whose government alone we have any knowledge pel of his Son, shall be punished with everlasting or experience. The records of all nations afford indestruction." This is the pivot upon which all re- numerable instances of men deceiving others, either ligions turn they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to believe; whereas the mind can

* See Hume's Essays, vol. ii. page 121.