Safe in the hand of one difpofing Pow'r, All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction, which thou can't not fee; All partial Evil, univerfal Good: And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, I am happy at laft to acquiefce in the fame general conclufion with Mr. Pope, though I cannot but think that he has deduced this grand truth from very weak and inadequate premifes. It were an easy, but invidious task, to expose in a much greater variety of examples, the pernicious and dangerous tendency of the general arguments offered in this famous Effay, for the laudable purpose of vindicating the honour and rectitude of God's moral government. Mr. Pope, as a moral philofopher, is juftly blameable for excluding that great principle of religion from his general fystem, upon which the highest ftrefs ought ever to be laid; and, without which, there is no effential or practical difference between Deism and Atheism -I mean the doctrine of a future ftate. At the fame time I muft do him the juftice to acknow, ledge, that his Poem abounds with striking and elevated reflections, admirably calculated to excite a spirit of rational and philofophical devotion; and I entertain fo favourable an opinion of his general character as to believe, with a firm affurance, that that if he had really conceived this Effay to be injurious to the cause of religion and virtue, he would have difdained to court any increafe of poetical fame by its publication; and, as on a former occafion, with a noble indignation, would have exclaimed Oh teach me, Heaven! to fcorn the guilty bays; ESSAY XXII. REFLECTIONS on the GENIUS and SPIRIT of CHRISTIANITY. N% O one who is actuated by a fincere regard for truth, or love of virtue, can confider Christianity as an uninteresting fubject of fpeculation or enquiry. The evidence upon which this religion rests I have already ftated, and the objections to which it is liable I have endeavoured to obviate. I now propofe to make a few general remarks upon the Genius and Spirit of this religion, with refpect to which it differs moft effentially from all other religions which have ever appeared in the world. I fhall inftance in the following particulars-its philanthropy, its fimplicity, and its rationality. First, It breathes a spirit of ardent, of universal, of unlimited benevolence. This spirit is, indeed, not so properly a part, or a distinguishing feature of Christianity, as the fum and fubftance of it. To this great end, the facred writings, both apoftolical and evangelical, evidently tend; and upon this plain and exprefs command, "Thou fhalt love the Lord "thy God with all thy foul, and thy neighbour 66 as thyfelf," depend both the law and the prophets. In fhort, Chriflianity alone, of all religions, has for its object the happiness, present and future, of all mankind. So intimately blended is this fpirit of benevolence, with the fpirit of Christianity, and fo impracticable is it to eradicate from the mind the idea of this union, that, in the darkest ages of Popery, when Chriftendom was funk in the lowest abyffes of ignorance and error, when the demon of fanaticism seemed to prefide over the affairs of men, and the moft malignant and diabolical paffions were confecrated to the fervice of religion, and were supposed moft effectually to recommend mankind to the divine favour, the ultimate advancement of human happinefs was still the avowed motive of thofe actions, which were, in fact, moft directly fubverfive of that end. When the horrid notion was univerfally prevalent, that everlafling mifery must be the inevitable lot of those who were not within the pale of the Catholic Church, it is no wonder that the moft inhuman barbarities fhould be practifed, even by men of tempers naturally mild and gentle, in order to enforce the profeffion of that fyftem of faith, which promifed, and which could alone enfure, future and eternal felicity. If the divine favour be infeparably connected with the belief of certain fpeculative opinions, and not with the practife of certain moral and religious duties, it is doubtlefs a proof of the higheft regard for the true interefts of our fellow-creatures, to take every poffible t poffible method of diffufing the knowledge and belief of those tenets, and of deterring, by wholefome feverities, any attempts to innovate upon that fyftem, an entire and implicit acquiefcence in which is pronounced, by infallible authority, to be the fole means of attaining to happiness in a future state. All virtue is founded on the bafis of utility; if, then, the torture, or even the deftruction of the body, be neceffary to the falvation of the foul, this difcipline, though fharp and rigorous, is just and laudable; and the rack, the stake, and the wheel, are all converted into the benign inftruments of 'Chriftian compaffion. If thefe are genuine deductions, with what horror fhould we regard the prin ciple from which they flow! I mean, that faith, unconnected with right temper and conduct, can, in the remoteft degree, tend to render us acceptable in the fight of God. It is, indeed, true, and the Romish church has, in a manner peculiarly ftriking, demonftrated this truth, that faith, or right fentiments, have a ftrict and infeparable connection with virtue, or right conduct; but ftill it must be acknowledged, that faith is no farther valuable, than as it guides us to the love and practife of virtue; and that, to limit the divine favour to the belief of any set of fpeculative principles, is to fubvert the foundation of morality, and to counteract the obvious defign of the Chriftian revelation. Happily, the great end and object of that revelation begins to be better understood, and more gene. rally acknowledged; and we fhall, at laft, perhaps, Ee 2 become |