qualities, however nominally disguised, we may univerfally obferve, form the ruling character of the deity in popular religions. Even priests, inftead of correcting these depraved ideas of mankind, have often been found ready to fofter and encourage them. The more tremendous the divinity is represented, the more tame and fubmiffive do men become to his minifters: And the more unaccountable the measures of acceptance required by him, the more neceffary does it become to abandon our natural reason, and yield to their ghoftly guidance and direction. Thus it may be allowed, that the artifices of men aggravate our natural infirmities and follies of this kind, but never originally beget them. Their root strikes deeper into the mind, and fprings from the effential and univerfal properties of human nature.

SECT. XV. General Corollary.

Though the ftupidity of men, barbarous and uninftructed, be fo great, that they may not fee a fovereign author in the more obvious works of nature, to which they are fo much familiarized; yet it scarcely feems poffible, that any one of good understanding should reject that idea, when once it is fuggefted to him. A purpose, an intention, a defign is evident in every thing; and when our comprehenfion is fo far enlarged as to contemplate the first rife of this visible fyftem, we must adopt, with the ftrongest conviction, the idea of fome intelligent caufe or author. The uniform maxims too, which prevail throughout the whole frame of the univerfe, naturally, if not neceffarily, lead us to conceive this intelligence as fingle and undivided, where the prejudices of education oppose not fo reasonable. a theory. Even the contrarieties of nature, by difcovering themselves every where, become proofs of fome confiftent plan,

t

and

and establish 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 disadvantages. An univerfal compenfation prevails in all conditions of being and existence. And it is not poffible for us, by our most chimerical wishes, to form the idea of a station or fituation altogether defirable. The draughts of life, according to the poet's fiction, are always mixed from veffels on each hand of Jupiter: 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 fmall fpecimen is afforded us, the fharper is the evil, allied to it; and few exceptions are found to this uniform law of nature. The most sprightly wit borders on madness; the highest effufions of joy produce the deepest melancholy; the most ravishing pleasures are attended with the most cruel laffitude and difguft; the most flattering hopes make way for the feverest disappointments. And, in general, no courfe of life 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 ravifhing 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 equally difcovered in religious fictions and chimeras.

The univerfal propenfity to believe in invifible, intelligent power, if not an original inftinct, 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 other parts of the creation, and to bear the image or impreffion of the univerfal Creator. But confult this image, as it 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 fhould naturally, in common life, afcribe to a man of fenfe and virtue !

What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the knowledge of the fupreme Being; and, from the visible works of nature, be enabled to infer fo fublime a principle as its fupreme Creator? But turn the reverse of the medal. Survey most nations and moft ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will fcarcely be perfuaded, that they are any thing but fick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playfome whimsies of monkies in human fhape, 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 fo certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will fcarcely think that they repose the smallest confidence in them.

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

No theological abfurdities so glaring that they have not, fometimes, been embraced by men of the greatest and moft cultivated understanding. No religious precepts fo rigorous that they have not been adopted by the most voluptuous and most abandoned of men.

Ignorance

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

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

The comfortable views, exhibited by the belief of futurity, are ravishing and delightful. But how quickly vanish on the appearance of its terrors, which keep a more firm and durable poffeffion of the human mind?

The whole is a riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, fufpence of judgment appear the only refult of our moft accurate fcrutiny, concerning this fubject. But fuch is the frailty of human reafon, and fuch the irrefiftible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and oppofing one fpecies of fuperftition to another, fet them a quarrelling; while we ourfelves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape, into the calm, though obfcure, regions of philofophy.

NOTES