too apt to forget, ought, in fuch books, chiefly to be folicited. The academic reclufe, the theo logift by profeffion, may perhaps read them as a talk or as an amusement. He may confider them as works of erudition and exercifes of ingenuity, claiming great praife as the product of literary leifure, and affording models for imitation to himfelf, who is in purfuit of fimilar praife. In the mean time the PEOPLE are erring and fraying like loft sheep, and cannot in these calls recognize the voice of the good fhepherd. Such works indeed feldom reach the people; and while they are celebrated in academic cloifters, their very existence is unknown among the haunts of men, in the busy hum of cities; where it is moft defirable that they fhould be known, becaufe there the great majority of human creatures is affembled, and there alfo the poifon of temptation chiefly requires the antidote of religion. What avails it that defences of Chriftianity are very learned and very fubtle, if they are fo dry and unaffecting as to be confined in their effects to fequeftered scholars, far removed from the active world, and fome of them probably fo firmly fettled in the faith, as to require no new perfuafives, no additional proofs to render them faithful followers of Jefus Chrift?

Apologies and defences of this kind have very little effect in filencing infidel writers or changing their opinions. They frequently furnish fresh mat ter for difpute, and put polithed arms into the hands of the enemy. By provoking difcuffion on points which were at reft, they raise fophiftry from its flumbers, and blow the trumpet of controverfial wars, which do great mischief before the re-establishment of peace. In the iffue, the contending parties are filenced rather from wearinefs in the conteft, and inattention of the spectators, than from

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from conviction; and Te Deum, as in other wars, is fung by thofe who are faid to be vanquished, no less than by those who claim the honour of a complete victory.

Thus it has often happened that the writings of men, fometimes no lefs benevolent in their intentions than able in their exertions, have not only done no good to the caufe of religion, but great injury. They have revived old cavils and objections, or invented new, in order to difplay ingenuity in refuting them; cavils and objections which have frequently been answered, or which might never have occurred; but which, when once they have occurred, produce fufpicion and unfettled notions on topics never doubted *, and among honest men whofe faith was firmly established. Such conduct is like that of a phyfician, who fhould adminifter dofes of arfenic to his patients, in order to prove to them, at their risk, the fovereign power of his noftrum. The venom, finding a conftitution favourable to its operation, triumphantly prevails over the antidote, and the preventive remedy cannot rescue the sufferer from his hapless fate.

I am perfuaded, that even a fenfible, thinking, and learned man might live his whole life in piety and peace, without ever dreaming of thofe objections to Christianity, which fome of its moft celebrated defenders have collected, together from all ages and a great variety of neglected books, and then combined in a fingle portable volume, fo

"The laboured productions," faid a very popular deist," of "Dr. Clarke himself, on the existence of a Deity, have rather con"tributed to make for the other fide of the question, and raised a thousand new doubts on the reader's mind." Wherever a very. laborious effort feems to be made to defend a doctrine, the appearance of a great ftruggle in its defence leaves a fufpicion that it is scarcely defentible.

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as to render it a convenient manual or SYNOPSIS of infidelity. What must be the confequence? It muft at least disturb the repofe of the fenfible, thinking, and learned man; and if it fhould be read and understood by the fimple, the unlearned, the unthinking, and the ill-difpofed, I am of opinion that its objections would be ftudied, its folutions neglected; and thus a very large number of recruits enlifted by defenders of the faith, as volunteers in the army of unbelievers.

As one exemplification of what I have here advanced, I mention, in this place, Bishop Warburton's View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philofophy. There the unbeliever fees the fcattered arguments of fcepticism and unbelief all picked and culled for him, without any trouble of his own, and marked with inverted commas, fo as to direct the eye, without lofs of time, to their immediate perufal. The book becomes an anthologia of infidelity. The full-blown flowers are gathered from the ftalks, and conveniently tied up in a nofegay. The effence is extracted and put into a phial commodious for the pocket, and fitted for hourly use. The late bishop Horne alfo, in his facetious Letters on Infidelity, has collected paffages from obfcure books and one wretched anonymous pamphlet, and fent them abroad in fuch a manner as muft of neceffity cause them to be read and received, where they never would have found their way by their native force. Such ingenious and well-meaning divines refufcitate the dead, and give life to the ftill-born or abortive offspring of dullness and malignity. I might mention many more inftances

* A very remarkable one is that of. Dr. John Leland, who employs nearly fix hundred pages in viewing Lord Bolingbroke's Deiftical Opinions, quoting the most friking paffages on almost every page. This conduct is like preferving vipers or moniters in fpirits for an exhibition.

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of fimilar imprudence, in men of the deepest erudition and, I believe, the fincereft piety; but I am unwilling to follow their example, in pointing out to unbelievers compendiums, abridgments, and manuals of fceptical cavil. To fay in their excufe that they refute thofe arguments which they infert fo liberally from the writings of the unbeliever, may prove our candour, but not our judgment or knowledge of human nature. Evil is learned fooner and remembered longer than good; and it would be better to let the books and pamphlets of the deifts fink into oblivion, than to preferve and extend them, by extracting their most noxious parts, and then mixing them with the productions of found learning and unaffected piety. The refutations are often long, laboured, and tedious, while the objections are fhort and lively. The refutations are therefore either not read or foon forgotten, while the flippant farcafm of the fceptic attracts attention and fixes itfelf in the memory. It must alfo be allowed, that the refutations are too often unfatisfactory; and that the weakness of the defence invites new attacks, and gives fresh courage to the restless enemy.

The ftyle alfo and manner of fome among the celebrated defenders of Chriftianity is extremely improper. It is not refpectful. It treats Jefus Chrift as if he were an inferior to the perfon who takes upon him to examine, as he phrafes it, the pretenfions of Jefus Chrift. To fpeak in authoritative, inquifitorial language of the author of that religion by which the author himself profeffes to hope for falvation, is inconfiftent with such profeffions,

* Some of them talk much and magifterially about the claims of Jefus (without adding the appellation of Chrift, or any respectfulepithet); they talk also, with a familiar air, of the carpenter's fon, the Galilean, and even, as will be prefently noticed more particularly, the cafant of Galilee.

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and with a reverence for Christianity. Think of a poor, frail, finful, mortal fitting a self-appointed judge, and like a lawyer in a human court of judicature, arraigning Jefus Chrift, the Lord of life. A venal folicitor might thus have queftioned the two thieves that were crucified with him, had they been accused at a modern police-office. The cold yet authoritative ftyle of the tribunal has been much ufed by poor finful mortals in examining, as it is called, that religion which brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. You would think the learned theologift, who affumes the office of an examiner, another Pontius Pilate. He places himself in the feat of judgment, and with an air of judicial importance decifively pronounces his opinion on the words and actions of that perfon, whom he owns, at the same time, to be the great Captain of salvation.

In fuch defences or examinations, Jefus Chrift, as I have just now intimated, is spoken of in terms that must diveft him of his glory, and therefore vilify him in the eyes of the gainfayers, and all unthinking people. But how, on the contrary, do the prophets reprefent him? Language has no terms of magnificence adequate to his dignity.

The prophets defcribe JESUS CHRIST as the most auguft perfonage which it is poffible to conceive. They speak of him indeed as the feed of the woman and the Son of man; but at the fame time describe: him of celestial race. They announce him as a being exalted above men and angels; above "all principality and power; as the Word and "the Wisdom of God; as the eternal Son of "the Father; as the Heir of all things, by "whom God made the worlds; as the bright"nefs of God's glory, and the exprefs image of ❝his perfon."

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Thus