with this view that the following re- | clusively attributed to the violence of marks are presented to the readers of his prejudices. Hence, in a letter to the Imperial Magazine; and though the Rev. Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen, the writer entertains no sanguine whose masterly refutation of his sohopes that they will reclaim the estab-phistry on miracles does him so much lished deist, yet he would fondly per- credit, Hume requests, as a particular suade himself that they may in some favour, that in their future communiinstances guard the young and inex- cations he would no more approach the perienced against those errors, which subject of the Christian religion, addare so industriously disseminated by ing, that he "had made up his mind, the votaries of infidelity. and was determined to receive no further information on the subject." In attempting so desirable an end, he will first enumerate some of the principal causes which lead to infidelity; and secondly, shew their insufficiency to justify the conduct of those who submit to their influence. Among the causes which have induced many to become infidels, one is, the want of an intimate acquaintance with the great truths of revelation. The justness of this observation may be gathered from references to the writings and confessions of infidel authors. Even Hume himself, when pressed with the question, was compelled to own that he had never read the whole of the New Testament; and consequently, he must have been but partially acquainted with its doctrines. No individual can be competent to form a correct judgment of the truth or falsehood of any system of religion, until he is thoroughly acquainted with it. The religion of Jesus particularly requires this, because it is so distributed throughout the New Testament, that no man can form an accurate judgment of its excellencies or defects, until, by reading every verse, he comprehends its leading doctrines. "Parts, like balf sentences, confound; the whole Conveys the sense, and God is understood." What, it might be asked, would be thought of the man who should have the hardihood boldly to attack an established truth of any particular science, while he openly confessed, or unhappily betrayed, his ignorance of its fundamental principles? He would be treated with contempt by every enlightened and unprejudiced individual. Now, as Hume, who may be justly considered the great leader of modern infidels, candidly confessed that he was but superficially acquainted with the doctrines of the Christian religion, his opposition to its truths can be accounted for on no reasonable or honourable principle, but must be ex | We have here only mentioned the name of Hume, but in every other case, the opinions of a man formed under similar circumstances, would be entitled to no degree of consideration. Though I am far from meaning to disparage those excellent treatises which have been written in vindication of Christianity, by such eminent men as Doddridge, Watson, Chalmers, Paley, and others, I would above all recommend to the man who is in the anxious pursuit of truth, an attentive and dispassionate perusal of the sacred scriptures; and I have not the smallest doubt, that he will, through the blessing of Heaven, be as firmly convinced of their divine inspiration, as he is of any moral truth in existence. The refinements of false science are represented in the third volume of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, as having a most powerful tendency to lead to infidelity; and to the truth of the remark, an impartial mind can have no hesitation to subscribe. To those philosophers who derive their infidel creed from the study of scientific subjects, the lines of Pope may be justly applied. "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain; But drinking largely sobers us again." Dr. Isaac Watts, in his excellent Treatise on the Improvement of the Mind, says, that "a slight acquaintance with the arts and sciences has a strong tendency to lead to infidelity;" and the great Lord Bacon accounts for this, by observing, that, "in the threshold of philosophy, the mind, dwelling on secondary causes, is apt to overlook the first cause; but that by proceeding a little farther, and marking the dependence and concatenation of the great series of causes, it would be brought to see and believe that the highest link is fixed in the Supreme Being.' Were those who have formed their infidel principles from the study of the sciences, more intimately acquainted with primary causes, they would be led to abandon their atheistical creed, by looking 'through nature up to nature's God." It would be easy to produce a long catalogue of eminent philosophers, who have been cured of their infidel sentiments by a more thorough acquaintance with scientific philosophy; but the name of Galen, one of the most celebrated physicians among the ancients, shall suffice. This man, by contemplating the anatomy of the human frame, was so struck with the wonderful mechanism and harmony of its various parts, that he was converted from his atheistical opinions, and brought to acknowledge the absolute necessity of a first intelligent Cause, and also to believe in the divine origin of the holy scriptures. It appears morally impossible, that any rational being, whose mind is not shackled by the most obstinate prejudices, can possess an intimate acquaintance with scientific philosophy, without seeing in all around him the most visible and convincing traces of a primary intelligent Cause. The sciences of astronomy and chemistry appear to be admirably calculated for producing this end. The former cannot fail to impress on the mind of an unprejudiced student, the necessity of some all-wise and almighty Cause, to call into existence, place in their various situations, propel into motion, and preserve in their orbits, those innumer able worlds, which, with such amazing rapidity and invariable regularity, revolve through the regions of space; and, at the same time, the contemplation must fill the mind with the most exalted conceptions of that glorious Being who is capable of performing such mighty actions. The science of chemistry too, which develops the nature of those unalterable laws which regulate our material world, is most admirably adapted to prove the necessity of an all-wise, intelligent, and omnipotent Author. In short, the whole circle of scientific philosophy, if studied with suitable feelings, has an irresistible tendency to impress the unbiassed mind with a conviction of the necessity of some intelligent Being; and when this primary truth is ad mitted, it is not irrational to conceive, that this Being should have adopted some means to reveal his will to man. The above remarks can be fully borne out by an appeal to facts. While the names of individuals are produced, who pretend to have derived their atheistical opinions from scientific studies, it would be easy to enumerate a goodly number of the most distinguished philosophers which any age or country has produced, who have not only been speculative, but likewise practical, believers in the great truths of Christianity; and until the names of Boyle, Bacon, Locke, M‘Laurin, and Newton, shall be forgotten, Christianity may enjoy her triumphs. It may be urged, in opposition to this reasoning, that some of those who have been the greatest adepts in scientific philosophy, have embraced an atheistical creed; and in support of this assertion, Bayle, Voltaire, D'Alembert, and others, have been brought forward. But their adoption of infidel principles may be traced to grounds that have no connexion with their scientific researches. Dissolute and depraved habits generate prejudices against that religion which so severely condemns them. These, and an anxious wish, arising from vanity, to distinguish themselves from the rest of their species, by an affectation of superior talents and learning, may sufficiently account for their rejection of divine revelation. The apparent inequalities observable in the moral government of the world, has been another cause of infidelity. It will be readily admitted, that this objection wears an imposing aspect. Every day of our existence it comes under our actual observation; and when we behold the wicked rioting in abundance, and the righteous frequently languishing in adversity, we are not much disposed to wonder, that the human mind, especially when stimulated by an evil agency, should well nigh doubt the existence of a benevolent, intelligent, and omnipotent Governor of the world. Such considerations as these have often nearly staggered the faith even of the Christian believer himself. But it should be seriously impressed on the minds of such objectors, that it is not for limited faculties like ours, to penetrate the skies, and fathom the designs of Heaven. Those dispensa tions of Providence which to us are, direct variance with their principles, for the present, dark and mysterious, that therefore the principles of the are, no doubt, intended to accomplish whole body of professing Christians purposes which shall redound to the must also necessarily be bad. It should glory of God, and prove in the highest ever be recollected, that they are not degree beneficial to the immortal_in- | all Israel which are of Israel; in the terests of man. We have more reason purest society of Christians which to suspect our own powers, than to have ever existed, there have been a question the economy of God; and it greater or less number of hypocrites. should ever satisfy the inquiring mind, There was in the company of our Sathat what we know not now, we shall viour, while in this world, a Judas in know hereafter, when the light of the number of his few chosen apostles; eternity shall dispel the shadows of and we have reason to apprehend, time, and the attributes of Deity shall that it will continue so to be until the shine forth in all their splendour. end of time. But, besides this, it is to be feared, that there are belonging to every denomination of Christians, and even invested with the ministerial character, some masked infidels, who have assumed the name, and who sustain the profession, for no other purpose than to forward their sinister views. It should also be remembered, that as a state of absolute perfection is not attainable by man, many of those imperfections which characterize the lives of individuals, are to be attributed to the force of temptation, operating on the weakness of human nature; they should not therefore be brought forward to impugn those principles which constitute the Christian creed. The dissolute manners of professing Christians, and especially of the ministers of the gospel, have contributed much to advance the cause of infidelity. Modern infidels have triumphantly exhibited to the gaze of the world, the names and conduct of religious professors, particularly such as have filled the important office of the Christian ministry, and, by the profligacy of their behaviour, have belied their professions. They have presented the world with a catalogue of the names and crimes of ministers belonging to the churches of Scotland and England, the Methodists, the Independents, the Baptists, and, in short, to every body of professing Christians who have been guilty of impieties. "We see," they abserve, "some new instances of their shocking immorality and dissolute manners, in the every-day occurrences of the professedly religious world. We see them perpetrating the most atrocious crimes crimes which disgrace humanity, and which merit the severest punishment which it is possible for human ingenuity to devise." From facts like these they infer, that because the practices of such professing tians have been base, their professed principles cannot be true. | The harsh and gloomy sentiments which some Christians have entertained, and zealously defended, have furnished another powerful reason with many for adopting an atheistical creed. There are many well-meaning Christians, who think that there can be no genuine religion, where the professor of it does not evince a melancholy disposition, and practise austerity in the whole of his conduct. Pointed as Christianity is against all sinful amuseChris-ments, the religion of Jesus does by no means prohibit us from indulging in innocent cheerfulness, or even from amusing ourselves with such employments as, from their very nature, can have no manifest tendency to injure the morals. On the contrary, nothing can be better calculated to exhilarate the spirits and rejoice the heart, than those exercises, which it allows and sanctions. It is therefore an entire stranger to that sullen moroseness which is so discernible in the deportment of many professing and sincere Christians; and the rejecters of divine revelation would do well to consider, that the forbidding gloom which they despise, is not to be attributed to the That these charges brought against nominal Christians are true with regard to many, is a fact which cannot be denied; and we are fully persuaded it has contributed more to promote the cause of infidelity than the sarcastic sneers of Gibbon, the refined sophistry of Hume, or the coarse ribaldry of Paine. But while we admit the truth of the premises, we must decidedly protest against the validity of the conclusion. It is repugnant to every known rule of logic, and just principle of reasoning, to infer, because the conduct of a few individuals has been at nature or spirit of the Christian religion, but to the mistaken views of its disciples. But, perhaps, the harsh opinions which many Christians have entertained, and zealously laboured to vindicate, have done more for the cause of infidelity, than even their melancholy deportment. So far as harsh opinion may be inferred from practice, the church of Rome has, by her persecuting spirit, proved herself the enemy of Christ. But those deeds of darkness by which that community is distinguished, can never be considered as the offspring of gospel light. The torturing rack, the bloody scaffold, and the flaming stake, have not originated in the religion of Jesus, and its principles are no more chargeable with these enormities, than they are accountable for the robberies and murders which some of its nominal professors commit. It must also be confessed, that the spirit of persecution has sometimes been manifested by those who have been most warmly attached to the interests of the Protestant religion. This ought to cause the deepest humiliation in such as are the true disciples of Jesus, who should use every lawful exertion in their power, to crush the rising symptoms of such a spirit. But this disposition is not to be attributed to religion, but to the frenzied feelings of misguided zealots, whose fierce and enthusiastic notions have left both reason and revelation far behind them; nor can the most acute infidel, by searching the pages of the New Testament, find, either in the precepts or example of Christ or his apostles, a single sentence which authorizes Christians to cherish a persecuting spirit. Another species of harshness which has promoted the cause of infidelity, is, the appalling views which are maintained by high Calvinists, regarding the nature and attributes of the Deity. Those who are acquainted with these opinions must be well aware, that Calvin, and many of his modern followers, have propagated doctrines, relative to the eternal decrees of God, which have not only made many turn away from divine revelation with disgust, but have even shocked the feelings of multitudes whose Christianity has never been doubted. By their notions of uncon ditional reprobation, they have represented the Deity as cruel and vindictive-delighting in the everlasting torments of those whom he has created and preserved, thus directly contradicting that passage of scripture, and a thousand others of the same nature, wherein he has declared, that "he hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but would rather that all should turn and live." On these speculative points, and their tendency to anti-christianism, the writer would simply observe, that in order to become a Christian, it is by no means necessary to subscribe to the absurd and unscriptural dogmas of any sect; and if infidels would but attentively search the scriptures for themselves, they would be convinced, that those harsh doctrines are not to be found within the whole compass of divine revelation. The diversity of opinion which exists among the various sects of professing Christians, into which the Christian world is divided, has likewise contributed, in no small degree, to increase the votaries of infidelity. It is a cause of unfeigned sorrow, that there should be such diversified sentiments entertained by those who profess to follow the same Master, and to derive their faith from the doctrines of the same sacred volume. But while we participate in the sorrow which such a circumstance is calculated to produce in the mind, we must endeavour to vindicate the records of truth from those aspersions, which, on that account, have been unjustly thrown upon them. Infidels, availing themselves of these diversities, have strenuously argued, that the Bible cannot be a divine revelation, because so many different sentiments, some of them diametrically opposite in their nature, are collected from it, and supported by it, To this objection it must be replied, that those various and opposite tenets are by no means to be attributed to the Bible, but to the erring judgments and prejudiced minds of those who have perused and studied it. It will readily be acknowledged, that there are many passages contained in holy-writ, difficult to be understood; and these passages have, no doubt, a tendency to generate conflicting opinions; but the general tenor of divine revelation, and especially of those doctrines which are more essen tially necessary to be known, is so plain and obvious, "that he may run that readeth it;" so that the different opinions which have been formed, regarding some of the doctrines of the Christian religion, only prove the weakness and imperfection of the human mind. sided within the city of Athens, laid it down as an incontrovertible axiom, that nothing could proceed from nothing; and hence they endeavoured to prove, that the pre-existence of a material cause was not less necessary to the formation of the world, than the preexistence of an omnipotent mind ; thus representing the supreme Being as possessed of a material form; or rather, confounding God and nature, and making them the same. The opinion of Thales cannot now be ascertained; but his immediate disciples rejected the doctrine, that mind was the primary principle of material creation, and insisted on the | eternity of matter. Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, with a great many others, adopted the atomical hypothesis of the crea|tion of the world; and Epicurus, after having represented atoms as the elements of which all things are composed, tells us, that a finite number of atoms tumbling through the vacuum that there had been nothing but atoms and vacuum-were collected, in consequence of their sluggish motion, into an indigested mass, which constitutes the world as it exists at the present day. But as those individuals, who are the most ready to bring forward this objection against the religion of Jesus, generally make the greatest pretensions to superior judgment and learning, why do they not pursue the same plan against those literary and scientific subjects on which they bestow the most intense and incessant study, and reject them altogether ? Are there not impenetrable mysteries and phenomena in astronomy, chemistry, electricity, the mathematics, and, in short, in almost every science which has ever engaged the attention of philosophers? Upon the same principle, therefore, these objectors ought to reject every science as false, which is attended with a sin--for previous to this it would appear gle difficulty, or on which a diversity of opinion has obtained. In the mean while they may rest assured, that, as soon as they have satisfactorily accounted for every mystery and difficulty in scientific philosophy, they shall obtain from the advocates of As it respects the existence of a Christianity a clear solution of all God, the opinions of the ancient infithose sublime mysteries attendant on dels were not less various. Zeno and the doctrine of the Trinity, the incar | his followers, indeed, acknowledged a nation of Christ, and indeed on every supreme Being; but they maintained, subject within the compass of divine that God, in creating the world, was revelation. not influenced by his own free will, but by an invincible necessity of nature. Some there were, who admitted the existence of a supreme Being; but they likewise believed in a great number of inferior divinities. Others insisted, that those substances which they had themselves formed according to their fancies, were gods. A third class deified the various vegetable productions of nature. class represented Night and Chaos as the sole creators of all things; while a fifth, among whom may be numbered Thales and his followers, maintained` the opinion, that if there were gods, they must either be air, or the progeny of air. In short, so various and numerous were the deities that figured in the mythology of the ancients, that upwards of thirty thousand have been enumerated! But there is, perhaps, a still more effectual method of answering the objection thus brought against the Christian religion, and that is, by urging their diversity of opinion against what they call natural theology. Will infidels have the hardihood to deny, that they are not as far from being agreed among themselves, with regard to their natural theology, as Christians are respecting the religion of Jesus! Let the following short statement of the absurd opinions that have been entertained on the leading points of natural religion, answer the question. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, some sentiments were embraced, regarding the creation of the world, which the inmates of Bedlam might be ashamed to own. Plato, Anaxagoras, and Aristotle, three of the greatest philosophers whicheverre A fourth Nor have modern infidels been less |