fides with fincerity; that is, that nothing be produced, in the writings of either, contrary to, or beyond, the writer's own knowledge and perfuafion-that objections and difficulties be propofed from no other motive, than an honest and ferious defire to obtain fatisfaction, or to communicate information which may promote the discovery and progrefs of truth-that, in conformity with this defign, every thing be ftated with integrity, with method, precifion and fimplicity; and above all, that whatever is published in oppofition to received and confeffedly beneficial perfuafions, be fet forth under a form which is likely to invite enquiry, and to meet examination. If with these moderate and equitable conditions be compared the manner in which hoftilities have been waged against the Christian religion, not only the votaries of the prevailing faith, but every man who looks forward with anxiety to the destination of his being, will fee much to blame and to complain of, By one unbeliever, all the follies which have adhered, in a long course of dark and fuperftitious ages, to the popular creed, are affumed as fo many doctrines of Chrift and his Apofis, for the purpose of fubverting the whole fyftem by the abfurdities which it is thus reprefented to con

tain. By another, the ignorance and vices of the facerdotal order, their mutual diffenfions and perfecutions, their ufurpations and encroachments upon the intellectual liberty and civil rights of mankind, have been displayed with no small triumph and invective; not fo much to guard the Chriftian laity against a repetition of the fame 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 infinuation, that the religion itself is nothing but a profitable fable, imposed upon the fears and credulity of the multitude, and upheld by the frauds and influence of an interefted and crafty priesthood. And yet how remotely is the character of the clergy connected with the truth of Chriftianity! What, after all, do the most difgraceful pages of ecclefiaftical hiftory prove, but that the paffions of our common nature are not altered or excluded by distinctions of name, and that the characters of men are formed much more by the temptations than the duties of their profeffion? A third finds delight in collecting and repeating accounts of wars and maffacres, of tumults and infurrections, excited in almost every age of the Chriftian æra by religious zeal; as though the vices of Chriftians were parts of Chrif

H 4

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 fome gloomy and virulent fuperftition. By a fourth, the fucceffion and variety of popular religions; the viciffitudes with which fects and tenets have flourished and decayed; the zeal with which they were once fupported, the negligence with which they are now remembered; the little share which reafon and argument appear to have had in framing the creed, or regulating the religious conduct of the multitude; the indifference and fubmiffion with which the religion of the state is generally received by the common people; the caprice and vehemence with which it is fometimes oppofed; the phrenfy with which men have been brought to contend for opinions and ceremonies, of which they knew neither the proof, the meaning, nor the original laftly, the equal and undoubting confidence with which we hear the doctrines of Christ or of Confucius, the law of Mofes or of Mahomet, the Bible, the Koran, or the Shafter, maintained or anathematized, taught or abjured, revered or derided, according as we live on this

or

or on that fide of a river; keep within or ftep over the boundaries of a state; or even in the fame country, and by the fame people, fo often as the event of a battle, or the issue of a negotiation, delivers them to the dominion of a new mafter; points, I fay, of this fort are exhibited to the public attention, as fo many arguments against the truth of the Chriftian religion-and with fuccefs. For thefe topics being brought together, and set off with fome aggravation of circumstances, and with a vivacity of style and defcription familiar enough to the writings and converfation of free-thinkers, infenfibly lead the imagination into a habit of classing Christianity with the delufions that have taken poffeffion, by turns, of the public belief; and of regarding it, as what the fcoffers of our faith reprefent it to be, the fuperftition of the day. But is this to deal honestly by the subject, or with the world? May not the fame things be said, may not the fame prejudices be excited by these representations, whether Chriftianity be true or falfe, or by whatever proofs its truth be attefted? May not truth as well as falfehood be taken upon credit? May not a religion be founded upon evidence acceffible and satisfactory to every mind competent to the enquiry, which yet, by the greatest

part

part of its profeffors, is received upon autho rity?

repre

But if the matter of these objections be henfible, as calculated to produce an effect upon the reader beyond what their real weight and place in the argument deferve, ftill more shall we discover of management and difingenuoufnefs in the form under which they are dispersed among the public. Infidelity is ferved up in every shape that is likely to allure, furprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; in interfperfed and broken hints; remote and oblique furmises; in books of travels, of philofophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form rather than the right one, that of a profeffed and regular difquifition. And because the coarse buffoonery, and broad laugh, of the old and rude adverfaries of the Christian faith, would offend the tafte, perhaps, rather than the virtue, of this cultivated age, a graver irony, a more skilful and delicate banter, is fubftituted in their place. An eloquent hiftorian, beside his more direct, and therefore fairer, attacks upon the credibility of evangelic ftory, has contrived to weave into his narration one continued fneer upon the cause of Christianity, and upon the writings and characters of its an