Four

Christ and his Apostles, for the purpose of subverting the whole system, by the absurdities, which it is thus represented to contain. By another, the ignorance and vices of the sacerdotal order, their mutual dissentions and persecutions, their usurpations and encroachments upon the intellectual liberty and civil rights of mankind, have been displayed with no small triumph and invective, not so much to guard the Christian laity against a repetition of the same injuries, which is the only proper use to be made of the most flagrant examples of the past, as to prepare the way for an insinuation, that the religion itself is nothing but a profitable fable, imposed upon the fears and eredulity of the multitude, and upheld by the frauds and influence of an interested and crafty priesthood.' And yet how remotely is the character of the clergy connected with the truth of Christianity? What, af ter all, do the most disgraceful pages of ecclesiastical history prove, but that the passions of our common by nature are not altered or excluded by distinctions of name, and that the characters of men formed much more by the temptations than the duties of their profession? A third finds delight in collecting and repeating accounts of wars and massacres, of tumults and insurrections, excited in almost every age of the Christian era by religious zeal; as though the vices of Christians were parts of Christianity; intolerance and extirpation precepts of the gospel or as if its spirit could be judged of, from the councils of princes, the intrigues of statesmen, the pretences of malice and ambition, or the unauthorized cruelties of some gloomy and virulent superstition. By a fourth, the succession and variety of popular religions; the vicissitudes with which sects and tenets have flourished and decayed; the zeal with which they were once supported, the neg ligence with which they are now remembered; the little share which reason and argument appear to have had in framing the creed, or regulating the religious

and sub of the multitude; the indifference

and submission with which the 'religion of the state

is generally received by the common people; the caprice and vehemence with which it is sometimes opposed; the frenzy with which men have been brought to contend for opinions and ceremonies, of which they knew neither the proof, the meaning, nor the original; lastly, the equal and undoubting confidence with which we hear the doctrines of Christ or of Confucius, the law of Moses or of Mahomet, the Bible, the Koran, or the Shaster, maintained or anathematized, taught or abjured, revered or derided, according as we live on this, or on that side of a river; keep within, or step over the boun daries of a state; or even in the same country, and by the same people, so often as the event of a battle, or the issue of a negociation delivers them to the dominion of a new master: Points, I say, of this sort are exhibited to the public attention, as so many arguments against the truth of the Christian religion

and with success. For these topics, being brought together, and set off with some aggravation of cir cumstances, and with a vivacity of style and descrip tion, familiar enough to the writings and conversa tion of free-thinkers, insensibly lead the imagination into a habit of classing Christianity with the de lusions, that have taken possession, by turns, of the public belief; and of regarding it, as what the scoffers of our faith represent it to be, the superstition of the day. But is this to deal honestly by the subject, or with the world? May not the same things be said, may not the same prejudices be excited by these representations, whether Christianity be true or false, or by whatever proofs its truth be attested? May not truth as well as falsehood be taken upon credit? May not a religion be founded upon evidence, accessible and satisfactory to every mind competent to the inquiry, which yet, by the greatest part of its professors, is received upon authority? of

But if the matter of these objections be reprehensible, as calculated to produce an effect upon the reader, beyond what their real weight and place in the argument deserve, still more shall we discover of

management and disingenuousness in the form under which they are dispersed among the public. Infidelity is served up in every shape, that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; in interspersed and broken hints, remote and oblique surmises; in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form, rather than the right one, that of a professed and regular disquisition. And because the coarse buffoonery, and broad laugh of the old and rude adversaries of the Christian faith, would offend the taste, perhaps, rather than the virtue of this cultivated age, a graver irony, a. more skilful and delicate banter is substituted in their place. An eloquent historian, beside his more direct, and therefore fairer attacks upon the credibility of the evangelic story, has contrived to weave into his narration one continued sneer upon the cause of Christianity, and upon the writings and characters of its ancient patrons. The knowledge which this author possesses of the frame and conduct of the human mind, must have led him to observe, that such attacks do their execution without inquiry. Who can refute a sneer? Who can compute the number, much less, one by one, scrutinize the justice of those disparaging insinuations, which croud the pages of this elaborate history? What reader" suspends his curiosity, or calls off his attention from the principal narrative, to examine references, to search into the foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety and force of every transient sarcasm, and sly allusion, by which the Christian testimony is depreciated and traduced? and by which, nevertheless, he may find his persuasion afterwards unsettled and perplexed? But the enemies of Christianity have pursued her with poisoned arrows. Obscenity itself is made the vehicle of infidelity. The awful doctrines, if we be not permitted to call them the sacred truths, of our religion, together with all the adjuncts and appendages of its worship and external profession, have been sometimes impudently profaned by an unnatural conjunction with impure and lascivious images. The fondness for ridicule is almost universal; and ridicule, to many minds, is never so irre PP

sistible, as when seasoned with obscenity, and employed upon religion. But in proportion as these noxious prin ciples take hold of the imagination, they infatuate the judgment; for trains of ludicrous and unchaste associa❤ tions, adhering to every sentiment and mention of religion, render themind indisposed to receive either conviction from its evidence, or impressions from its authority. And this effect, being exerted upon the sensi tive part of our frame, is altogether independent of argument, proof, or reason; is as formidable to a true religion, as to a false one to a well grounded faith, as to a chimerical mythology, or fabulous tradition. Neither, let it be observed, is the crime or danger. less, because impure ideas are exhibited under a veil, in overt and chastised language.

Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the advancement. of truth and knowledge, in the most important of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of reasoning, than the rights of decency. There is but one description of men, to whose principles it ought to be tolerable, I mean that class of reasoners, who can see little in Christianity, even supposing it to be true. To such adversaries we address this reflection--Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the following : “ The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation," he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles, with which his mission was in troduced and attested; a message, in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered already-It had been. discovered, as the Copernican system 'was-it was one guess among many. He alone discovers, who proves and no man can prove this point, but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God,

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J

Elements of Political Knowledge.

CHAPTER K

THE ORIGIN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNMENT, at first, was either patri

archal or military: that of a parent over his family, or of a commander over his fellow warriors,

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F. Paternal authority, and the order of domestic life, supplied the foundation of civil government. Did mankind spring out of the earth mature and inde. pendent, it would be found perhaps impossible to introduce subjection and subordination among them; but the condition of human infancy prepares men for society, by combining individuals into small communities, and by placing them, from the beginning under direction and control. A family contains the rudiments of an empire. The authority of one over many, and the disposition to govern and to be gov erned, , are in this way incidental to the very nature, and coeval, no doubt, with the existence of the human species. Moreover, the constitution of fami lies not only assists the formation of civil government, by the dispositions which it generates, but also fornishes the first steps of the process by which empires have been actually reared. A parent would retain a considerable part of his authority af ter his children had grown up, and had formed families of their own. The obedience, of which they remembered not the beginning, would be considered as natural; and would scarcely, during the parent's life, be entirely or abruptly withdrawn. Here then we see the second stage in the progress of