counterpoife which they receive from the thumb, the foftness and fleshy parts of the infide of his hand, with all the other circumstances, which render that member fit for the ufe, to which it was deftined. To these he has been long accustomed; and he beholds them with liftleffness and unconcern. He will tell you of the fudden and unexpected death of fuch a one: The fall and bruife of fuch another: The exceffive drought of this feafon; The cold and rains of another. These he afcribes to the immediate operation of providence: And fuch events, as, with good reafoners, are the chief difficulties in admitting a fupreme intelligence, are with him the fole arguments for it.

Many theifts, even the most zealous and refined, have denied a particular providence, and have afferted, that the Sovereign mind or firft principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterupted course to these laws, and disturbs not, at every turn, the fettled order of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connexion, fay they, and rigid obfervance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theism; and from the fame principles are enabled to anfwer the principal objections against it. But fo little is this understood by the generality of mankind, that, wherever they obferve any one to afcribe all events to natural causes, and to remove the particular interpofition of a deity, they are apt to fufpect him of the groffeft infidelity. A little philofophy, fays my lord BACON, makes men atheifts: A great deal reconciles them to religion. For men, being taught, by fuperftitious prejudices, to lay the ftrefs on a wrong place; when that fails them, and they discover, by a little reflection, that the courfe of nature is regular and uniform, their whole faith totters, and falls to ruin. But being taught, by more reflection, that this very regularity and unifor

mity is the strongest proof of design and of a supreme intelligence, they return to that belief, which they had deferted; and they are now able to establish it on a firmer and more durable foundation.

Convulfions in nature, diforders, prodigies, miracles, tho' the most oppofite to the plan of a wife fuperintendent, imprefs mankind with the ftrongeft fentiments of religion; the causes of events seeming then the most unknown and unaccountable. Madness, fury, rage, and an inflamed imagination, tho' they fink men neareft the level of beafts, are, for a like reafon, often fuppofed to be the only difpofitions, in which we can have any immediate communication with the Deity.

We may conclude, therefore, upon the whole, that fince the vulgar, in nations, which have embraced the doctrine of theism, ftill build it upon irrational and faperftitious opinions, they are never led into that opinion by any procefs of argument, but by a certain train of thinking, more fuitable to their genius and capacity.

It may readily happen, in an idolatrous nation, that, tho' men admit the existence of feveral limited deities, yet may there be fome one God, whom, in a particular manner, they make the object of their worship and adoration. They may either suppose, that, in the diftribution of power and territory among the gods, their nation was fubjected to the jurifdiction of that particular deity; or reducing heavenly objects to the model of things below, they may represent one god as the prince or fupreme magiftrate of the rest, who, tho' of the same nature, rules them with an authority, like that which an earthly fovereign exercises over his fubjects and vaffals. Whether this god, therefore, be confidered as their peculiar patron, or as the general fovereign of heaven, his votaries will endea vour, by every art, to infinuate themselves into his favour; and fuppofing him to be pleafed, like themfelves, with praise and flattery, there is no eulogy or exaggera

tion, which will be fpared in their addreffes to him. In proportion as men's fears or diftreffes become more urgent, they fill invent new ftrains of adulation; and even he who out-does his predeceffors in fwelling up the titles of his divinity, is fure to be out-done by his fucceffors in newer and more pompous epithets of praise. Thus they proceed; till at laft they arrive at infinity itfelf, beyond which there is no farther progress: And it is well, if, in ftriving to get farther, and to represent a magnificent fimplicity, they run not into inexplicable mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of their deity, on which alone any rational worship or adoration can be founded. While they confine themselves to the notion of a perfect being, the creator of the world, they coincide, by chance, with the principles of reafon and true philofophy; tho' they are guided to that notion, not by reafon, of which they are in a great meafure incapable, but by the adulation and fears of the most vulgar fuperftition.

We often find, amongst barbarous nations, and even fometimes amongst civilized, that, when every strain of flattery has been exhaufted towards arbitrary princes, when every human quality has been applauded to the utmoft; their fervile courtiers reprefent: them, at last, as real divinities, and point them out to the people as objects of adoration. How much more natural, therefore, is it, that a limited deity, who at first is supposed only the immediate author of the particular goods and ills in life, fhould in the end be represented as fovereign maker and modifier of the universe?

Even where this notion of a fupreme deity is already eftablifhed; tho' it ought naturally to leffen every other worship, and abafe every object of reverence, yet if a nation has entertained the opinion of a fubordinate tutelar divinity, faint, or angel; their addreffes to that being gradually rife upon them, and encroach on the adora

tion

1

tion due to their fupreme deity. The Virgin Mary, ere checked by the reformation, had proceeded, from being merely a good woman, to ufurp many attributes of the Almighty God and St. NICHOLAS go hand in hand, in all the prayers and petitions of the MUSCOVITES, DIA£)

Thus the deity, who, from love, converted himself into a bull, in order to carry off EUROPA; and who, from ambition, dethroned his father, SATURN, became the OPTIMUS MAXIMUS of the heathens. Thus, the God of ABRAHAM, ISAAC, and JACOB, became the fupreme deity or JEHOVAH of the JEWS.

Rather than relinquifh this propenfity to adulation, religionists, in all ages, have involved themfelves in the greatest abfurdities and contradictions.

HOMER, in one paffage, calls OCEANUS and TETHYS the original parents of all things, conformable to the established mythology and tradition of the GREEKS: Yet, in other paffages, he could not forbear complimenting JUPITER, the reigning deity, with that magnificent appellation; and accordingly denominates him the father of gods and men. He forgets, that every temple, every ftreet was full of the ancestors, uncles, brothers and fifters of this JUPITER; who was in reality nothing but an upstart parricide and ufurper. A like contradiction is

The JACOBINS, who denied the immaculate conception, have ever been very unhappy in their doctrine, even tho' political reafons have kept the ROMISH church from condemning it. The CORDELIERS bave run away with all the popularity. But in the fifteenth century, as we learn from BOULAINVILLIERS, an ITALIAN Cordelier maintained, that, dir ing the three days, when CHRIST was interred, the hypoftatic union washi diffolved, and that his human nature was not a proper object of adoration, during that period. Without the art of divination, one might foretel, that so grofs and impious a blasphemy would not fail to be anathematized by the people. It was the occafion of great infults on the part of the JACOBINS who now got fome recompence for their misfortunes in the war about the? immaculate conception, See Hiftoire abregée, pag. 499.

ob

obfervable in HESIOD; and is fo much the lefs excufable, as his profeffed intention was to deliver a true genealogy of the gods.

F

Were there a religion (and we may fufpect Mahometanism of this inconfiftence) which fometimes painted. the Deity in the moft fublime colours, as the creator of heaven and earth; fometimes degraded him nearly to a level with human creatures in his powers and faculties; while at the fame time it afcribed to him fuitable infirmities, paffions, and partialities of the moral kind: That religion, after it was extinct, would alfo be cited as an inftance of thofe contradictions, which arife from the grofs, vulgar, natural conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propenfity towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more ftrongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and happily this is the cafe with Chriftianity) that it is free from a contradiction, fo incident to human nature.

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SECT. VII. Confirmation of this Doctrine.

It appears certain, that, tho' the original notions of the vulgar represent the Divinity as a very limited being, and confider him only as the particular cause of health or fickness; plenty or want; profperity or adverfity; yet when more magnificent ideas are urged upon them, they efteem it dangerous to refufe their affent. Will you fay, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may be overcome by a greater force; is fubject to human paffions, pains, and infirmities; has a beginning, and may have an end? This they dare not affirm; but thinking it fafeft to comply with the higher encomiums, they endeavour, by an affected ravishment and devotion, to ingratiate themselves with him. As a confirmation of