I intended, and almost lost sight of the principal purport of my letter, which is; that having just now come to the knowledge, that you and our common friends, the last long vacation, had passed some weeks together, and during the time had fallen upon the discussion of a very curious and interesting question, and come to an unanimous resolution upon it, viz that there is nothing really and ultimately ill in the state of man, but every thing ordered for the best for all: I cannot find words to express the satisfaction I should receive in being made acquainted with the steps by which you have been led to this conclusion, and with all that passed relating to it. I would not give you, I should be ashamed of giving you, so much trouble merely to gratify curiosity: but it might perhaps contribute to free me from a host of anxious thoughts that beset me continually, and oftentimes make life a burden.

VOLUSIAN TO VICTORIN.

For one so much loved and valued as yourself, I can think no trouble too great, whereby I may give you pleasure or profit, nor can I have any reserves with you; and therefore without further preface I sit down to tell you, that the old party of your friends being met together, and lamenting not a little that you alone were prevented joining us, after talking over for a while the astonishing events of the times we lived in, we fell into consideration of the very low repute in which the religion of Christ was every where

held, at home and abroad; being rejected by many as entirely fabulous; and little regarded by the greater part of those who would not be thought to give it up altogether.

One, who was present, mentioned, from his own knowledge, that a short time before the French Revolution, a person lately filling a very high station, of great worth and discernment, who lived very much at Paris, and in the first circles; and was sometimes in Holland, and other parts of the continent, where he conversed with the most eminent men of different ranks and professions, found it to be a general persuasion among them all, though it was not his own, that the Christian religion would soon be at an end; being experienced, as exhibited and enforced by public authority in all states, to be so irrational a system, and hostile to the true interests and happiness of society, as to be incapable of maintaining its ground any longer. What followed soon after in France is well known.

Nor was this the case of those called catholic countries only, where the state-religion was so offensive to every mind in any degree enlightened. He would appeal to them all, as they were not ignorant of what passed among ourselves, whether they had not long observed, that our established articles of faith, and the worship grounded upon them, passing for the very gospel of Christ, had not caused many silently to withdraw themselves, and take refuge in the religion of nature's teaching: and this indisposition

to

to Christianity had much prevailed within these last twenty years, and was rapidly increasing.

Here Photinus, interposing, replied; that he did not like to hear them descant in so desponding a strain on a subject which seemed to him by no means to call for it; because the prostrate appearance of Christianity in our own and the neighbouring countries, and the hostility of many to it, might be shown to arise, not from any newly discovered weakness or deficiency in its proofs, but from other causes which might be assigned; but principally, perhaps, from the interference of the civil power, in requiring this religion, exactly as modelled and taught by them, to be believed and practised by all, under the severest penalties and loss; thereby creating prejudices against it; and also hindering all free inquiry into it, by which alone it could maintain its pre-eminence in the world, if it were the truth; and thus turning it almost in all places into an engine of state, to keep mankind in slavery and darkness.

This it was which so much excited the philosophers of France, as they called themselves, to oppose the Bible, and filled them with a most unreasonable antipathy to it; being prepossessed with an idea, that the religion built upon it, which they found professed in their own country, was a fanaticism so hurtful, and sanguinary, and adverse to every thing virtuous and friendly to mankind, that it was meritorious to destroy it by any means; so that they made no scruple

of using the most unfair arts, and adopting known falsehoods, to effect their purpose.

Of this dishonest dealing, to give it its true name, you have continual examples in the writings of Mons. de Voltaire, where he touches on the subject; but his unworthy artifice and disingenuousness in this respect áre detailed at length in * Letters said to be of several Portuguese, German, and Polish Jews to M. de Voltaire, in 3 vols. 8vo.; but really written by a learned priest and doctor of the Sorbonne. Mr. Findlay also in 1770, formerly the learned president of Glasgowcollege, has well exposed these practices, by which this eminent writer has stained his great abilities, and lessened his character.

As the best things have ever been liable to be perverted, we must frankly acknowledge, for no one acquainted with history can deny, that great corruptions have arisen from the Gospel, and abuses to the worst purposes have been made of it, and caused many to think ill of and condemn it. A fair inquirer, however, will confess that it has always been of considerable benefit to mankind; and that it is in itself most friendly to the peace and happiness of society, as was testified by a candid Heathen historian of the fourth century, upon seeing the disturbances to which it innocently

1

* Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonois, à M. de Voltaire. A Paris, 1776.

† Ammianus Marcellinus. Lib. xxii. c. 11.

Quæ nihil nisi justum suadet et lene.

gave occasion, and the murders, and cruelties towards each other, which the Christians were guilty of at that early period. And notwithstanding the present indifference, and desertion of many, and the assaults made upon the Gospel by its various adversaries even from the first, (none more fierce and subtle than those of the present day,) we may not be afraid boldly to maintain, that it stands upon a rock that cannot be shaken; viz. upon the truth of this single fact, of Jesus, its author, being a divinely authorized teacher, a prophet of God; which was evinced and confirmed by the miracles wrought by him, to which he appealed; and, principally, by his being raised from the dead in three days, in conformity to his own predictions.

The divine authority likewise of Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, his predecessor, was built on the like immoveable foundation of a divine interference, signified by mighty miracles, publicly wrought, and recognized by their effects at the time, in the reception of such a religion, at first, so burdensome and irksome, by the Israelites, not otherwise to be accounted for but on the footing of real miracles; effects, which, if we may so speak, have continued to the present hour, in the rigorous adherence of that people and their descen→ dants to their religion, under the temptations which they have continually had to desert it; scattered, moreover, as they have been, and are, over the face of the whole earth, and most unworthily and unceasingly vilified and ill treated as Jews, wherever they go its

truth