be guided by the rectitude which it communicates to public opinion. Their confciences may fuggeft their duty truly, and they may afcribe thefe fuggeftions to a moral sense, or to the native capacity of the human intellect, when in fact they are nothing more than the public opinion, reflected from their own minds; an opinion, in a confiderable degree, modified by the leffons of Christianity. "Certain it is, and this is a great deal to fay, that the generality, even of the meaneft and most vulgar and ignorant people, have truer and worthier notions of God, more just and right apprehensions concerning his attributes and perfections, a deeper fenfe of the difference of good and evil, a greater regard to moral obligations and to the plain and moft necessary duties of life, and a more firm and univerfal expectation of a future flate of rewards and punishments, than, in any heathen country, any confiderable number of men were found to have had * ”

* Clark, Ev. Nat. Rev. p. 208. ed. v.

After

After all, the value of Chriftianity is not to be appreciated by its temporal effects. The object of revelation is to influence human conduct in this life; but what is gained to happiness by that influence, can only be estimated by taking in the whole of human existence. Then, as hath already been obferved, there may be alfo great confequences of Christianity, which do not belong to it as a revelation. The effects The effects upon human falvation, of the miffion, of the death, of the prefent, of the future agency of Chrift, may be univerfal, though the religion be not univerfally known.

Secondly, I affert that Chriftianity is charged with many confequences for which it is not refponfible. I believe that religious motives have had no more to do in the formation of nine-tenths of the intolerant and perfecuting laws, which in different countries have been established upon the fubject of religion, than they have had to do in England with the making of the gamelaws. Thefe measures, although they have

the

the Chriftian religion for their fubject, are refolvable into a principle which Chriftianity certainly did not plant (and which Christianity could not univerfally condemn, because it is not univerfally wrong), which principle is no other than this, that they who are in poffeffion of power do what they can to keep it. Chriftianity is answerable for no part of the mifchief which has been brought upon the world by perfecution, except that which has arifen from confcientious perfecutors. Now these perhaps have never been, either numerous, or powerful. Nor is it to Chriftianity that even their mistake can fairly be imputed. They have been misled by an error not properly Christian or religious, but by an error in their moral philofophy. They pursued the particular, without adverting to the general confequence. Believing certain articles of faith, or a certain mode of worship, to be highly conducive, or perhaps effential, to falvation, they thought themselves bound to bring all they could, by every means, into them. And this they thought, with

VOL. II.

C c

out

out confidering what would be the effect of fuch a conclufion, when adopted amongst mankind as a general rule of conduct. Had there been in the New Teftament, what there are in the Koran, precepts authorizing coercion in the propagation of the religion, and the ufe of violence towards unbelievers, the cafe would have been different. diftinction could not have been taken, or this defence made.

This

I apologize for no fpecies nor deg degree of perfecution, but I think that even the fact has been exaggerated. The flave trade deftroys more in a year, than the inquifition does in a hundred, or perhaps hath done fince its foundation.

t

If it be objected, as I apprehend it will be, that Christianity is chargeable with every mischief, of which it has been the occafion, though not the motive; I answer, that, if the malevolent paffions be there, the world will never want occafions. The noxious element will always find a conductor. Any

f

point will produce an explosion. Did the applauded intercommunity of the Pagan theology preferve the peace of the Roman world? Did it prevent oppreffions, profcriptions, maffacres, devaftations? Was it bigotry that carried Alexander into the Eaft, or brought Cæfar into Gaul? Are the nations of the world, into which Chriftianity hath not found its way, or from which it hath been banished, free from contentions? Are their contentions less ruinous and fanguinary? Is it owing to Christianity, or to the want of it, that the finest regions of the Eaft, the countries inter quatuor maria, the peninfula of Greece, together with a great part of the Mediterranean coaft, are at this day a defert? or that the banks of the Nile, whose constantly renewed fertility is not to be impaired by neglect, or deftroyed by the ravages of war, ferve only for the fcene of a ferocious anarchy, or the fupply of unceasing hoftilities? Europe itself has known no religious wars for fome centuries, yet has hardly ever been without war. Are the calamities, which at this day afflict