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book." It is not to censure the beautiful paraphrase of Addison, when I say, that his versification of the 19th. Psalm, is not faithful enough to be made a subject of reference, for the establishment of religious doctrines. The apology of Mr. Paine, that he had not an opportunity of consulting the original, may explain away his errors, but can hardly excuse his presumption.

In the 19th. Psalm it is said, that "the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:" a remarkable passage! Is this no reference to any other book? Again, "the sta tutes of the Lord are right." Is this no reference? And, if these be rejected, what will the Deist say to the following passages? "The commandment of the Lord is pure "the judgments of the Lord are true-and in keeping of them there is great reward;" and finally this appeal, "O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer." So far from "no reference" to be found in the 19th. Psalm to "any other book than the creation," here we have references to a revealed law, converting the soul; to revealed statutes; to revealed commandments; to an actual experience (which is no where else recorded except in the sacred volume) that the judgments of the Lord brought to them that kept them, 'great reward." Are these deistical? Is it deistical to hope for redemption? If it be, Deism and Christianity are the same.

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But, Mr. Paine, exulting in his illusive authority, exclaims "what more does man want to know than that the hand, or power, that made these things is divine, is omnipotent." Omnipotent, what then? all good? a moral governor? A nobleman, whose talents would have adorned the highest station, and whose principles degrade the lowest, has asked the same question in a book which I blush to confess I have read, and for having written which, eternal infamy will cover its author.

"Because he is all-powerful must all-good, too, follow?" From a belief that the works of nature are a display of the hand of omnipotency, Mr. Paine says, the "rule of moral life will follow of course." What rule? but this indefinite assertion which he has not attempted to explain by

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reason, or exemplify by facts, I have, already, exploded again and again. See page 10-12, 33, 159, 171, &c.

"The allusions in Job have all of them the same tendency with this truth that would otherwise be

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psalm: that of deducing or proving a

unknown, from truths already known.

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them correctly; but there is one occurs to me that is applicable to the subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"

I know not how the printers have printed this passage, for I keep no Bible; but it contains two distinct questions, that admit of distinct an

swers.

First, Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes. Because, in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence; and by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist; therefore it is that I know, by positive conclusion, resulting from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things, and that power is God.

Secondly, Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No. Not only because the power and wisdom he has manifested in the structure of the creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible; but because even this manifestation, great as it is, is probably but a small display of that immensity of power and wisdom by which millions of other worlds, to me invisible by their distance, were created, and continued to exist.

It is evident that both these questions were put to the reason of the person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed, and it is only by admitting the first question to be answered affirmatively, that the second could follow. It would have been unnecessary, and even absurd, to have put a second question more difficult than the first, if the first question had been answered negatively. The two questions have different objects, the first refers to the existence of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering the whole of the other."

In these paragraphs there is displayed much scriptural mistake, or what is worse, what is less, excusable, much

disingenuous perversion. Mr. Paine should have premised, that Job was a believer in a God from Revelation, and therefore, that he was under no necessity of proving his existence, as an unknown truth," by “truths already known. His afflictions gave, as they always do, a deistical turn to expression. The religious mind when suffering under the pressure of calamity, seeks alleviation from the almighty Governor of the world. When man can no longer help, he turns for assistance to his God. Hence our blessed Lord himself addressed his disciples in the language of Job, and the genuine language of Deism, to discourage their "distrustful care", of his all-watchful providence. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies lot the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field, shall he not much more clothe you?" What is this but deistical reasoning? Is it not inducing an inference of God's superintendence of man, from his evident and acknowledged superintendence of his works? But how futile would it be to employ such passages to invalidate the truth of Revealed Religion! If Job employed deistical expressions, which I acknowledge he did; so the questions which Mr. Paine has quoted, and quite mistaken, were put to him by his Friend, in order to moderate that deistical self-sufficiency, which pretended to deduce the moral conduct of God from a contemplation of his works. They were questions proposed for the purpose of humiliation, and not with the expectation of their being answered. They evidently had this negative meaning. Thou canst not by searching find out God, though you seem to think you can, much less can you find out the Almighty to perfection. But, that it may not be imputed to me, that I have corrupted the meaning of the sacred text, I will transcribe it, and let it speak for itself. "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out

the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"

Having thus proved, that the questions were not propounded for solution, but in the very same spirit that I would propound them to the Deist now, it would be a waste of time to expose afresh the errors into which Mr. Paine has fallen, in his answers to them: for which, see page 5-12 and 172–174.

These paragraphs contain the memorable confession of Mr. Paine, that he "kept no Bible" It is to be feared, that many Deists follow his example too closely; or, if they depart from it nominally, they do not virtually. They keep their Bibles, but never read them. In this they do worse than the heathen philosopher Athenagoras. Were they, like him, to search diligently into the subject they condemn, I should not despair, but that, like him, they would find it to be true.

"I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the men called Apostles, that convey any idea of what God is. Those writings are chiefly controversial; and the gloominess of the subject, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to the gloomy genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible they were written, than to any man breathing the open air of the creation. The only passage that occurs to me, that has any reference to the works of God, by which only his pow. er and wisdom can be known, is related to have been spoken by Jesus Christ as a remedy against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This however is far inferior to the allusions in Job, and the nineteenth Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of the man."

Why the writers of the New Testament do not dwell on the attributes of God, admits of an easy explanation. The Evangelists addressed themselves to a people who had already a knowledge of one God from Revelation; to whom, therefore, it would have been a piece of imperti

nence, to offer any evidence of his existence; particularly an evidence drawn from nature.

The Epistles were all written to persons who, before they were written, had, by the preaching of the Apostles, been converted to, and instructed in the belief of a God, and the doctrine of a Saviour; and those Letters were written to explain that doctrine. Bnt, where an ignorance of God prevailed, and it prevailed in the refined city of Athens, although philosophy had there flourished, and arts originated, the Apostle addressed them in a language, that gave them a more correct "idea of God" than all their schools had taught, or their philosophy had discovered. 66 As I passed by, (said Saint Paul,) and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you. God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with mens' hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." If every scrap of philosophy taught in the portico of Zeno, or the academy of Plato, were gathered into a system, they would fall as far short of this description of the almighty Architect and Governor of the universe, as the glimmerings of a wax taper, fall short of the solar blaze of day.

"As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism, as twilight is to darkness. It introduces hetween man and his Maker an opaque body which it calls a redeemer; as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning every thing