When the world was bewildered, the vulgar by their prejudices, and the learned by refinements, it pleafed God to interpofe in a manner unexpected and furprising. A light from, heaven broke out at once upon the benighted nations. A revelation from God, vouched to the very fenfes of men, held up to view thofe facred truths which had been long overlooked,. or grofsly perverted. The dreams of philofophy, with the fictions of poets, vanished; the temples of the idols were deferted; and all the nations of the then known world devoted themfelves to the worship and obedience of the one true God, thro' the mediation of the only one mediator between God and man. But, alas! the folly of the human heart broke out anew. Not many ages had paffed, when neglecting the plain truths of God, men plunged into infcrutable fubjects. They differed in their judgments; they difputed; they raged; and in the fury of their zeal, different fects denounced anathemas each against other, on account of their different conceptions of incomprehenfible doctrines.' They Many ages of barbarifm fucceeded.-Upon the revival of learning the facred records were confulted. But as the truth had been long disguised, and the understandings of men debafed and diftorted by the influence of falfe learning, they could not all at once attain to just ideas of religion. fplit again into fects, formed different creeds, and different plans of worship and government; and having been much exercised in fubtile and hot disputes with the Romish docors, they entered into contefts of much the fame kind, and in much the fame fpirit, with one another about their peculiar tenets. Mean time a fect arose who called the whole in question ; and believing themfelves equally privileged with others to found unfathomable depths, they employed the fame fubtilty of reafoning against religion, which contending divines had employed against each other. And the friends of religion, not aware of the confequence, did, partly through zeal for the truth, and partly from a habit of difputing, and a confidence of victory, admit the whole to debate. • A controversy of courfe commenced about poffible and impoffible, fit and unfit, right and wrong, in the abstract; about the whole of the divine œconomy, what ought, and what ought not to be the measures of government with regard to free agents, and whether indeed there were any fuch; whether there is any effential difference between virtue and vice, and whence the difference arifes; whether there is any occafion for a divine interpofition in the concerns of religion; and whether H 4 thie the Deity can be fuppofed to favour any age or nation with any fuch interpofition in preference to others. Queftions were moved, and controverfies agitated, from which a pious heart would naturally fhrink, and with which, common sense, if the minds of men had not been previously prepared for the entertainment, would be mightily fhocked. No one had the hardiness to attempt a detection of imposture in the Chriftian revelation; but innuendos, fufpicions, and furmifes in abundance were thrown out; to all which, full and formal anfwers, replete with erudition, philological, philofophical, and theological, were offered to the public. Not only the Chriftian revelation, but the moral perfections and moral government of God, yea, and the very being of virtue, have been made a fubject of difpute. Freethinkers are not afhamed to publish their doubts concerning these realities; divines and philofophers have not difdained to establish them by a multiplicity of arguments. What is yet more to be regretted, the preachers of the gospel, forgetting the dignity of their character, and the defign of their office, have conde-, fcended to plead the caufe of religion in much the fame manner as lawyers maintain a difputed right of property. Inftead of awakening the natural fentiments of the human heart, and giving them a true direction, they have entered into reasonings about piety, juftice, and benevolence, too profound to be fathomed by the multitude, and too fubtile to produce any confiderable effect. Inftead of fetting forth the difplays of divine perfection in thé difpenfation of the gofpel, fo admirably fitted to touch, to penetrate, and fubdue the human mind, they have entertained their audiences with long and laboured proofs of a revelation from God, of which few have any ferious doubt, and which no man can difbelieve in any confiftency with common fenfe. May not this be called, with great propriety, a throwing cold water on religion? and ought it not to be confidered as one of the chief caufes of that infenfibility to all its concerns of which we fo frequently complain? The multitude have been aftonifhed, wife men have been afhamed, and good men grieved, at this treatment of religion, fo much beneath' its dignity.' This is a fevere reflection on the conduct of fome of our theolo gical writers; and in their defence it can only be faid, that by reafoning with fceptics, they were willing to fhew, that Chriftianity is founded on argument. When a variety of objections has been started, it has not always been fufficient to refer the objector to the dictates of common fenfe; and fometimes when primary truths have been attacked, it has been expedient to place place their evidence in a clear and confpicuous point of view, that all the cavils of unbelievers might appear more notoriously frivolous and impertinent, when brought before the bar of common fenfe. In the fecond book the author proceeds to fhew, that by fetting afide the authority of common fenfe, modern philosophy gives great occafion to univerfal fcepticifin. He obferves, that according to the modern hypothefis primary truths must be deduced from the testimony of sense, or the axioms of the schools, by trains of fubtle reasoning; that upon the modern hypothefis it is impoffible to arrive at full fatisfaction concerning truths the most obvious and important; and that, in confequence of the modern hypothefis, writers of diftinguished character have run into the utmoft licentioufnefs of reafoning, in contradiction to evident and important truths. • Monfieur Defcartes and Mr. Locke have, he fays, done eminent service to the intereft of learning, by banishing that jargon which disfigured and difgraced it; but have not done what was incumbent on them to cure and correct that intemperate love of reasoning which may be called the epidemical diftemper of the human mind. They have, on the contrary, employed their authority and uncommon abilities to render it the more powerful and prevalent. One cafts about for a medium to prove his own exiftence; the other denies all practical principles; and both infift on the neceffity of tracing the most obvious and indubitable truths to external or internal feeling, by the exercise of our difcurfive faculty.... ⚫ As matters now ftand, every truth of every kind must be traced by a chain of reasoning, to the testimony of our senses, or to the axioms of the schools. Hence all pretenders to philofophy call for a proof or demonftration of all truths without exception. None are admitted as felf-evident befides thofe authorized by the fchools, under the denominations of axioms. People ftare at the great truths of religion and virtue being called the objects of fimple perception; and instead of being admitted upon their owu inherent evidence, their friends have` been put to the hard task of tracing them to the standard of the schools by trains of logical deduction. In thofe fciences on which the right government of our lives depends, one may maintain an endless wrangling without the danger of confutation. Nay many do actually maintain the wildest paradoxes on all these subjects, and in contradiction to the plaineft and most important truths, without the imputation of folly or the hazard of being put to the blush; because the fundamental truths of those sciences cannot be traced with abfolute abfolute certainty to the teftimony of fenfe. They may indeed, with infinite labour, and manifold dangers of mistake, be traced to a few abftract principles, by thofe who have been trained to purfue truth through the pathlefs fields of metaphyfics; and they have been fo traced in different ages, but with finall fuccefs, and with no probability of ever coming to a final decifion. We have abundant proof of the impropriety of inveftigating primary truths by reafoning, from the unfuccefsful attempts of able divines and philosophers, to establish the belief of truths the moft interefting and important. Let any man, learned or unlearned, take a view of the demonftration of the being and perfections of God made by Dr. Clarke, and he will fee the infufficiency of all fuch methods of reafoning to give the fatisfaction expected and required. If he is unlearned, he will find himself incapable of taking a steady view, and forming a true judgment, of the principles on which thefe learned men proceed. If he is accustomed to the language and ways of thinking common to the learned, he may admit the principles, and allow the juftness of the conclufion, but will not be one whit more convinced of the truth in queftion than he was without the demonstration. There is fomething fo odd, fantastical, I had almost said nonsensical, in allowing a power of action to nothing, in fuppofing that a being could give itself exiftence, or that an incogitative being could be the fource of thought and cogitation, that one is stunned and confounded with fuch ideas, and knows not how to reafon about them. A man of fenfe will grant at once, that fuch talk is flagrant nonsense, and that the oppofite truth is good fenfe; for that he fees intuitively; and nothing but the inve terate dregs of falfe fcience could have led great and good men to authorize or allow of any fuch reasoning on a subject fo plain and important. Mr. Locke, with justice, refolves, the fource of moral obligation into the will of God; but, revelation apart, hath left us no criterion to be depended on for difcovering the divine will.... A divine of great fubtilty and compass of thought, taking offence at the representations of the divine will gone into by the current of theological writers, difcovered reafons, relations, and fitneffes of things, eternal, immutable, and independent on the will of any being, as the rule of conduct to all intelligent agents, fupreme and fubordinate. Another, of deep erudition, and manly fenfe, diffatisfied, as would feem, with the boldness of this discovery, refolves all duty into an obligation to conform to the truth of things. Another had recourfe to utility; and another to fympathy. One refolves all moral moral agency into felf-love; another into benevolence. One invents a new fenfe, to be the ftandard of moral action; and another points out a multiplicity of perceptions, feelings, and inftinctive emotions belonging to the human mind. Each con tradicts, and endeavours to confute another; but all were animated with an unfeigned zeal of difcovering, if poffible, a proper medium to demonftrate-what?-that we ought to WO: fhip God, to do justice to men, and to keep our affections and appetites within juft and proper bounds. Lay this account of things before one of true judgment, unacquainted with the way of the learned, and he will fcarce believe it. Affure him of its reality, and he will be much amazed. Try to account for this conduct of the learned to one of his way of thinking, and you fhall find you have undertaken a difficult task. To what purpofe, he will fay, attempt to demonstrate truths of which none but fools are ignorant, and which none but madmen will deny? Are not the obligations of morality obvious at first fight, more easily apprehended, and more readily affented to, than the fubtile reafoning of philofophers? You may tell him, that fhrewd furmifes had been thrown out against the reality of moral obligation, which made it fit, and in fome degree neceffary, to attempt a demonftration. But he will stop you fhort, by afferting, in a high tone perhaps, that no demonftration is of equal force with common fenfe; and no confutation can ferve the intereft of truth fo effectually as a plain conviction of nonfenfe ; and therefore that it was the bufinefs of divines and philofophers to have had recourfe to the fimple decifion of common fenfe on a fubject so plain and important.→→→→ Doctor Berkeley, late bishop of Cloyne, hath, with plaufibility enough, demonftrated, that this fyftem of matter which we inhabit, is a mere non entity; that thofe houfes, fields, rivers, trees, which we feem to fee, and those very bo dies we are fuppofed to animate, have no existence, or no other than an ideal exiftence. Mr. Hume hath, with great power of argumentation and eloquence, proved, that we cannot, by reafoning, reach the connection between cause and effect; and from hence concludes, dogmatically, that we have no evidence at all of any fuch connection. The author of the Effays upon the prin-. ciples of morality and natural religion, published at Edinburgh 1751, affirms, that the being and perfections of God are not capable of proof from reafon, or not of fuch proof as gives permanent conviction. The two last mentioned authors, with feveral others of diftinguished ability, have offered a chain of ftrict reafoning, in proof that man hath, in no cafe, a power |