heory. Even the contrarieties of nature, by difcovering themfelves every where, become proofs of fome confiftent plan, and establifh one fingle purpose or intention, however inexplicable and incomprehenfible.

GooD and ill are univerfally intermingled and confounded; happiness and mifery, wisdom and folly, virtue and vice. Nothing is pure and entirely of a piece. All advantages are attended with difadvantages. An univerfal compenfation prevails in all conditions of being and exiftence. And it is fcarce poffible for us, by our moft chimerical wifhes, to form the idea of a ftation or fituation altogether defirable. The draughts of life, according to the poet's fiction, are always mixed from the veffels on each hand of JPITER: Or if any cup be prefented altogether pure, it is drawn only, as the fame poet tells us, from the left-handed veffel.

THE more exquifite any good is, of which a small ípecimen is afforded us, the fharper is the evil, allied to it; and few exceptions are found to this uniform law of nature. The moft fprightly wit borders on madnefs; the higheft effufions of joy produce the decpeft melancholy; the moft ravifhing pleafures are attended with the most cruel laffitude and difguft; the moit flattering hopes make way for the feverest disappointments. And in general, no course of lite has fuch fafety (for happiness is not to be dreamed of) as the temperate and moderate, which maintains, as far as poffible, a mediocrity, and a kind of infenfibility, in every thing. As the good, the great, the fublime, the ravishing are found eminently in the genuine principles of theifm; it may be expected, from the analogy of nature, that the bafe, the abfurd, the mean, the terrifying will be discovered equally in religious fictions and chimeras.

THE univerfal propenfity to believe in invifible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be confidered as a kind of mark or ftamp, which the divine workman has fet upon his work; and nothing furely can more dignify mankind, than to be thus felected from all the other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impreffion of the univerfal Creator. But confult this image, as it commonly appears in the popular religions of the world. How is the deity disfigured in our reprefentations of him! What caprice, abfurdity, and immorality are attributed to him! How much is he degraded even below the character which we should naturally, in common life, afcribe to a man of fenfe and virtue!

WHAT a noble privilege is it of human reafon to attain the knowlege of the fupreme Being; and, from the vifible works of nature, be enabled to infer fo fublime a principle as its fupreme Creator? But turn the reverfe of the medal. Survey moft nations and moft ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will fcarcely be perfuaded, that they are other than fick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playfome whimsies of monkeys in human shape, than the ferious, pofitive, dogmatical affeverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the name of rational.

HEAR the verbal proteftations of all men: Nothing they are fo certain of as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will fcarcely think that they repofe the fmalleft confidence in them.

THE greateft and trueft zeal gives us no fecurity against hypocrify: The most open impiety is attended with a fecret dread and compunction.

No

No theological abfurdities fo glaring as have not, fometimes, been embraced
by men of the greatest and most cultivated understanding. No religious pre-
cepts fo rigorous as have not been adopted by the moft voluptuous and moft
abandoned of men.

IGNORANCE is the mother of Devotion: A maxim, that is proverbial, and con-
firmed by general experience. Look out for a people, entirely void of religion:
If you find them at all, be affured, that they are but few degrees removed from
brutes.

WHAT fo pure as some of the morals, included in fome theological systems?
What fo corrupt as fome of the practices, to which thefe fyftems give rife?

THE Comfortable views, exhibited by the belief of futurity, are ravishing and
delightful. But how quickly vanifh, on the appearance of its terrors, which keep
a more firm and durable pofieffion of the human mind?

THE whole is a riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, un-
certainty, fufpence of judgment appear the only refult of our moft accurate fcru-
tiny, concerning this fubject. But fuch is the frailty of human reafon, and fuch
the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could fcarce
be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and oppofing one fpecies of fuperfti-
tion to another, fet them a quarrelling; while we ourfelves, during their fury
and contention, happily make our efcape, into the calm, tho' obfcure, regions
of philofophy.

INDE X.

Auguftus, his Age compared with that of Ca- Catholics, Roman, Genius of their Reli-
millus, 152.