out that there is one fupreme agent or intellectual being which we call God; that praife and prayer are his due worship; and the rest of those deducements, which I am confident are the remote effects of revelation, and unattainable by our difcourfe, I mean as fimply confidered, and without the benefit of divine illumination. So that we have not lifted up ourselves to God by the weak pinions of our reafon, but he has been pleafed to defcend to us; and what Socrates faid of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the Heathen philofophers of feveral nations, is all no more than the twilight of revelation, after the fun of it was fet in the race of Neah. That there is fomething above us, fome principle of motion, our reafon can apprehend, though it cannot difcover what it is by its own virtue. And indeed 'tis very improbable, that we, who by the ftrength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any being, not fo much as of our own, fhould be able to find out by them that Supreme Nature, which we cannot otherwife define than by faying it is infinite; as if infinite were definable, or infinity a fubject for our narrow understanding. They who would prove religion by reafon, do but weaken the caufe which they endeavour to fupport. It is to take away the pillars from our faith, and prop it only with a twig; it is to defign a tower like that of Babel, which, if it were poffible, as it is not, to reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confufion of the workmen. For every man is building a feveral way; impotently conceited of his own model, and of his own materials. Reafon is always ftriving, always at a lofs; and of neceffity it muft fo come to pafs, while it is exe.cifed about that which is not its proper object. Let us be content at laft to know God by his own methods; at least fo much of him as he is pleafed to reveal to us in the Sacred Scriptures. To apprehend them to be the Word of God, is all our reafon has to do; for all beyond it is the work of faith, which is the feal of Heaven imprefied upon our human understanding. Dryden.

194. The weakness of Infidels, with the Unbeliever's Creed.

The publication of Lord Bolingbroke's polhumous works has given new life and pirit to free-thinking. We feem at prefut to be endeavouring to unlearn our ca

techifm, with all that we have been taught about religion, in order to model our faith to the fashion of his lordship's system. We have now nothing to do, but to throw away our Bibles, turn the churches into theatres, and rejoice that an act of parlia ment now in force, gives us an opportu nity of getting rid of the clergy by tranf po.cation. I was in hopes the extraordinary price of thofe volumes would have confined their influence to períons of quality. As they are placed above extreme indigence and abfolute want of bread, their loofe notions would have carried them no farther than cheating at cards, or perhaps plundering their country: but if thefe opinions fpread among the vulgar, we shall be knocked down at noon-day in our ftreets, and nothing will go forward but robberies and murders.

The inftances I have lately feen of freethinking in the lower part of the world, make me fear, they are going to be as fafhionable and as wicked as their betters. I went the other night to the Robin Hood, where it is ufual for the advocates against religion to affemble and openly avow their infidelity. One of the questions for the night was-Whether lord Bolingbroke had not done greater fervices to mankind by his writings, than the Apotles or Evange lifts?-As this fociety is chiefly competed of lawyers' clerks, petty tradefmen, and the loweft mechanics, I was at firft furprized at fuch amazing erudition among them. Tolard, Tindal, Collins, Chubb, and Mandeville, they feemed to have got by heart. A fhoe-maker harangued his five minutes upon the excellence of the tenets maintained by lord Bolingbroke; but I foon found that his reading had not been extended beyond the idea of a patriot king, which he had mistaken for a glorious fyftem of free-thinking. I could not help imiling at another of the company, who took pains to fhew his difbelief of the gofpel by unfainting the apo tles, and calling them by no other title than plain Paul or plain Peter. The proceedings of this fociety have indeed almoft induced me to with that (like the Roman Catholics) they were not permit ted to read the Bible, rather than that they fhould read it only to abufe it.

I have frequently heard many wie tradefmen fettling the most important arti cles of our faith over a pint of beer. A baker took occafion from Canning's affair

ΤΟ

to maintain, in oppofition to the Scriptures, that man might live by bread alone, at leaft that woman might; for elfe, faid he, how could the girl have been fupported for a whole month by a few hard crufts? In answer to this, a barber-furgeon fet forth the improbability of that story; and thence inferred, that it was impofible for our Saviour to have falled forty days in the wilderness. I lately heard a midshipman fwear that the Bible was all a lie; for he had failed round the world with lord Anfon, and if there had been any Red Sea he muft Lave met with it. I know a brick-layer, who, while he was working by line and rule, and carefully laying one brick upon another, would argue with a fellow-labourer that the world was made by chance; and a cok, who thought more of his trade, than his Bible, in a difpute concerning the miracles, made a pleasant mistake about the firft, and gravely afked his antagonist what he thought of the fupper at Cana.

This affectation of free-thinking among the lower clafs of people, is at prefent happly confined to the men. On Sundays, We the huthands are toping at the ale teafe, the good women, their wives, think their duty to go to chimich, fay their prayers, bring home the text, and hear the Cadren their catechifin. But our polite lalies are, 1 fear, in their lives and converations little better than free-thinkers. Going to church, fince it is now no longer the falion to carry on intrigues there, is almoft wholly laid ande: and I verily believe, that nothing but another earthquake can fill the churches with people of quality. The fair fex in general are too thoughtlefs to concern themfelves in deep enquiries into matters of religion. It is fufficient that they are taught to believe themfeives angels. It would therefore be an ill compliment, while we talk of the heaven they beflow, to perfuade them into the Mahometan notion, that they have no foils; though, perhaps, our fine gentlethen may imagine, that by convincing a lady that he has no foul, fhe will be le's fcrupulous about the difpoful of her body.

The ridiculous notions maintained by free-thinkers in their writings, fearce deferve a serious refutation; and perhaps the best method of anfwering them would be to flet from their works all the abfard and impracticable notions, which they fo ftily maintain in order to evade the belief of the Chriflian religion. I fhall here

throw together a few of their principal tenets, under the contradictory title of The Unbeliever's Creed.

I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God, and God is matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or no.

I believe alfo, that the world was not made; that the world made itself; that it had no beginning; that it will last for ever, world without end,

I believe that a man is a beaft, that the foul is the body, and the body is the foul; and that after death there is neither body nor foul.

I believe that there is no religion; that natural religion is the only religion; and that all religion is unnatural. I believe not in Mofes; I believe in the first philofophy; I believe not the Evangelifts; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, Morgan, Mandeville, Woolton, Hobbes, Shaftesbury; I believe in lord Bolingbroke; I believe not St. Paul.

I believe not revelation; I believe in tradition; I believe in the Talmud; I believe in the Alcoran; I believe not the Bible; I believe in Socrates; I believe in Confucius; I believe in Sanconiathan; I believe in Mahomet; I believe not in Chrift.

Laftly, I believe in all unbelief.
Anonymous.

$195. A moral demonftration of the truth of the Chriflian religion.

This difcourfe of all the difputables in the world, fhall require the fewest things to be granted; even nothing but what was evident; even nothing but the very fubject of the question, viz. That there was fuch a man as Jefus Chrift; that he pretended fuch things, and taught fuch doctrines: for he that will prove thefe things to be from God, must be allowed that they were from fomething or other.

But this poftulate I do not afk for need, but for order's fake and art; for what the hiftories of that age reported as a public affair, as one of the most eminent tranfactions of the world, that which made fo much noife, which caufed fo many changes, which occafioned fo many wars, which divided fo many hearts, which altered fo many families, which procured fo many deaths, which obtained fo many laws in favour, and fuffered fo many refcripts in the disfavour, of itfelf; that which was

not

not done in a corner, but was thirty-three years and more in acting; which caufed fo many fects, and was oppofed by fo much art, and fo much power that it might not grow, which filled the world with noife, which effected fuch great changes in the bodies of men by curing the difeafed, and fmiting the contumacious or the hypocrites, which drew fo many eyes, and filled fo many tongues, and employed fo many pens, and was the care and the question of the whole world at that time, and immediately after; that which was configned by public acts and records of courts, which was in the books of friends and enemies, which came accompanied and remarked with eclipfes and ftars and prodigies of heaven and earth; that which the Jews even in fpite and against their wills confeffed, and which the witty adverfaries intending to overthrow, could never fo much as challenge of want of truth in the matter of fact and story; that which they who are infinitely concerned that it fhould not be believed, or more, that it had never been, do yet only labour to make it appear not to have been divine: certainly, this thing is fo certain that it was, that the defenders of it need not account it a kindnefs to have it presupposed; for never was there any flory in the world that had fo many degrees of credibility, as the ftory of the perfon, life, and death, of Jefus Christ and if he had not been a true prophet, yet that he was in the world, and faid and did fuch things, cannot be denied; for even concerning Mahomet we make no question but he was in the world, and led a great part of mankind after him, and what was lefs proved we infinitely believe: and what all men fay, and no man denies, and was notorious in itfelf, of this we may make further inquiries whether it was all that which it pretended; for that it did make pretences and was in the world, needs no more probation.

But now, whether Jefus Chrift was fent from God and delivered the will of God, we are to take accounts from all the things of the world which were on him, or about him, or from him.

this perfon: he was defcribed by infal lible characterisms, which did fit him, and did never fit any but him; for, when he was born, then was the fulness of time, and the Meffias was expected at the time when Jefus did appear, which gave occafion to many of the godly then to wait for him, and to hope to live till the time of his revelation: and they did fo, and with a fpirit of prophecy, which their own nation did confefs and honour, glorified God at the revelation: and the moft excellent and devout perfons that were confpicuous for their piety did then rejoice in him, and confess him; and the expectation of him at that time was fo public and famous, that it gave occafion to divers impoftors to abuse the credulity of the peo ple, in pretending to be the Meffias; but not only the predictions of the time, and the perfect Synchronisms, did point him out, but at his birth a strange star appeared, which guided certain Levantine princes and fages to the inquiry after him; ftrange ftar, which had an irregular place and an irregular motion, that came by defign, and acted by counfel, the counfel of the Almighty Guide, it moved from place to place, till it ftood juft over the house where the babe did fleep; a star, of which the Heathen knew much, who knew nothing of him; a ftar, which Calcidius affirmed to have fignified the descent of God for the falvation of man; a star, that guided the wife Chaldees to worship him with gifts (as the fame difciples of Plato does affirm, and) as the holy Scriptures deliver; and this ftar could be no fecret; it troubled all the country; it put Herod upon ftrange arts of fecurity for his kingdom; it effected a fad tragedy accidentally, for it occafioned the death of all the little babes in the city, and voifinage of Bethlehem: but the birth of this young child, which was thus glorified by a star, was alfo fignified by an angel, and was effected by the holy Spirit of God, in a manner which was in itself supernatural; a virgin was his mother, and God was his father, and his beginning was miraculous; and this matter of his birth of a virgin was proved to an interested and jealous perfon, even to Jofeph, the fuppofed father of Jefus; it was affirmed publicly by all his family, and by all his difciples, and published in the midst of all his enemies, who by no artifice could reprove it; a matter fo famous, that when it was urged as an argument to prove Jefus to

be

be the Meffias, by the force of a prophecy in Ifaiah, "A Virgin fhall conceive a Son," they who obftinately refused to admit him, did not deny the matter of fact, but denied that it was fo meant by the prophet, which, if it were true, can only prove that Jefus was more excellent than was foretold by the prophets, but that there was nothing lefs in him than was to be in the Meffias; it was a matter fo famous, that the Arabian phyficians, who can affirm no fuch things of their Mahomet, and yet not being able to deny it to be true of the holy Jefus, endeavour to alleviate and leffen the thing, by faying, It is not wholly beyond the force of nature, that a virgin fhould conceive; fo that it was on all hands undeniable, that the mother of Jefus was a virgin, a mother without a man.

This is that Jefus, at whofe prefence, before he was born, a babe in his mother's belly alfo did leap for joy, who was alfo a perfon extraordinary himself, conceived in his mother's old age, after a long barrennefs, fignified by an angel in the temple, to his father officiating his prieftly ofite, who was also struck dumb for his not prefent believing; all the people faw it, and all his kindred were witneffes of his reftitution, and he was named by the angel, and his office declared to be the forerunner of the holy Jefus; and this alfo was foretold by one of the old prophets; for the whole ftory of this divine perfon is a chain of providence and wonder, every link of which is a verification of a prophecy, and all of it is that thing which, from Adam to the birth of Jefus, was pointed at and hinted by all the prophets, whofe words in him paffed perfectly into

the event.

This is that Jefus, who, as he was born without a father, fo he was learned without a mafter he was a man without age, a doctor in a child's garment, difputing in the fanctuary at twelve years old. He was a fojourner in Egypt, because the poor babe, born of an indigent mother, was a formidable rival to a potent King; and this fear could not come from the defign of the infant, but muft needs arife from the illuftrioufnels of the birth, and the prophecies of the child, and the fayings of the learned, and the journey of the wife men, and the decrees of God: this journey and the return were both managed by the conduct of an angel and a divine dream, for

to the Son of God all the angels did rejoice to minifter.

This bleffed perfon, made thus excellent by his Father, and glorious by miraculous confignations, and illuftrious by the miniftry of heavenly spirits, and proclaimed to Mary and to Jofeph by two angels, to the shepherds by a multitude of the heavenly hoft, to the wife men by a prophecy and by a ftar, to the Jews by the fhepherds, to the Gentiles by the three wife men, to Herod by the doctors of the law, and to himself perfectly known by the inchafing his human nature in the bofom and heart of God, and by the fulness of the Spirit of God, was yet pleafed for thirty years together, to live an humble, a laborious, a chafte and a devout, a regular and an even, a wife and an exemplar, a pious and an obfcure life, without complaint, without fin, without defign of fame, or grandeur of fpirit, till the time came that the clefts of the rock were to open, and the diamond give its luftre, and be worn in the diadems of kings, and then this perfon was wholly admirable; for he was ushered into the world by the voice of a loud crier in the wilderness, a perfon auftere and wife, of a strange life, full of holiness, and full of hardness, and a great preacher of righteoufnefs, a man believed by all the people that he came from God, one who in his own nation gathered difciples publicly, and (which amongst them was a great matter) he was the doctor of a new inftitution, and bap, tized all the country; yet this man, fo great, fo revered, fo followed, fo listened to by king and people, by doctors and by idiots, by Pharifees and Sadducees, this man preached Jefus to the people, pointed out the Lamb of God, told that he muft increase, and himself from all that fame must retire to give him place; he received him to baptifm, after having with duty and modefly declared his own unworthinefs to give, but rather a worthiness to receive baptifm from the holy hands of Jefus; but at the folemnity God fent down the Holy Spirit upon his holy Son, and by a voice from heaven, a voice of thunder (and God was in that voice) declared that this was his Son, and that he was delighted in him.

This voice from heaven was such, fo evident, fo certain a conviction of what it did intend to prove, so known and accepted as the way of divine revelation

under

under the second temple, that at that time every man that defired a fign honeftly, would have been fatisfied with such a voice; it being the teftimony, by which God made all extraordinaries to be credible to his people, from the days of Ezra, to the death of the nation; and that there was fuch a voice, not only then, but divers times after, was as certain, and made as evident, as things of that nature can or dinarily be made. For it being a matter of fact, cannot be fuppofed infinite, but limited to time and place, heard by a certain number of perions, and was as a clap of thunder upon ordinary accounts, which could be heard but by thofe who were within the fphere of its own activity; and reported by thofe to others, who are to give teftimony, as teftimonics are required, which are credible under the teft of two or three difinterefted, honeft, and true men; and, though this was done in the prefence of more, and oftener than once, yet it was a divine teftimony but at firft, but is to be conveyed by the means of men; and, as God thundered from heaven at the giving of the law (though that he did fo, we have notice only from the books of Mofes, received from the Jewish nation,) fo he did in the days of the Baptift, and fo he did to Peter, James, and John, and fo he did in the prefence of the Pharifees and many of the common people; and, as it is not to be fuppofed that all thefe would join their divided interefts, for and against themfelves, for the verification of a lie; fo, if they would have done it, they could not have done it without reproof of their own parties, who would have been glad by the difcovery only to difgrace the whole ftory, But, if the report of honest and juft men fo reputed, may be queftioned for matter of fact, or may not be accounted fufficient to make faith, when there is no pretence of men to the contrary, befides, that we can have no flory tranfmitted to us, no records kept, no ads of courts, no narratives of the days of old, no traditions of our fathers; fo there could not be left in nature any usual instrument, whereby God could after the manner of man declare his own will to us, but either we should never know the will of Heaven upon earth, or it muft be, that God must not only tell it once but always, and not only always to fome men, but always to all men; and then, as there would be no ufe of history, or the honefty

of men, and their faithfulness in telling any act of God in declaration of his will, fo there would be perpetual neceffity of miracles, and we could not ferve God directly with our underflanding; for there would be no fuch thing as faith, that is, of affent without conviction of understanding, and we could not please God with believing, because there would be in it nothing of the will, nothing of love and choice; and that faith which is, would be like that of Thomas, to believe what we fee or hear, and God fhould not at all govern upon earth, unless he did continually come himfelf; for thus, all government, all teachers, all apoftles, all meffengers would be needlefs, because they could not fhew to the eye what they told to the ears of men ; and it might as well be disbelieved in all courts and by all princes, that this was not the letter of a prince, or the act of a man, or the writing of his hand, and fo all human intercourfe must ceafe, and all fenfes, but the eye, be ufelefs as to this affair, or elfe to the ear all voices must be ftrangers, but the principal, if, I fay, no reports fhall make faith. But it is certain, that when these voices were fent from heaven and heard upon earth, they prevailed amongst many that heard them not, and difciples were multiplied upon fuch accounts; or elfe it must be that none, that did hear them, could be believed by any of their friends and neighbours; for, if they were, the voice was as effective at the reflex and rebound, as in the direct emiffion, and could prevail with them that believed their brother or their friend, as certainly as with them that believed their own ears and eyes.

I need not speak of the vast numbers of miracles which he wrought; miracles, which were not more demonftrations of his power, than of his mercy; for they had nothing of pompoufnefs and oftentation, but infinitely of charity and mercy, and that permanent and lafling and often: he opened the eyes of the blind, he made the crooked ftraight, he made the weak ftrong, he cured fevers with the touch of his hand, and an iffue of blood with the hem of his garment, and fore eyes with the spittle of his mouth, and the clay of the earth; he multiplied the loaves and fishes, he raised the dead to life, a young maiden, the widow's fen of Naim, and Lazarus, and caft out devils by the word of his mouth, which he could never do,