large portion of civil and religious freedom, others are now taking the lead of us, on the rights of conscience. And it does not appear that we ever can be a thoroughly united and happy people, till every good subject enjoys equal civil privileges, without any regard to religious sects and opinions. If a man be a peaceable, industrious, moral, and religious person, and an obedient subject to the civil government under which he lives, let his religious views of things be what they may, he seems to have a just claim to the enjoyment of every office, privilege, and emolument of that government. And till this is in fact the case, there never can be a settled state of things. There will be an eternal enmity between the governing and the governed; an everlasting struggle for superiority. But when every member of society enjoys equal privileges with his fellow members, the bone of contention is removed, and there is nothing for which they should any longer be at ennity. Equal and impartial liberty, equal privileges and emoluments, are or should be the birth-right of every member of civil society; and it would be the glory of any government to bestow upon its serious and morally-acting citizens, their right without any regard to the sect or party to which they belong. Talents and integrity alone should be the indispensable requisite to recommend any man to the notice of people in power. This would make us an united and happy people."

I will not pretend to deny that any mistakes may have attended the translators of the Bible in their researches: indeed, there are some things mentioned in the Old Testament, which, in my opinion, are mis-translations. And there are other things, perhaps, which savour of the political opinions of the translators. For instance, the men, who with a cringing servility, and fulsome adulation, entitled a poor, proud, petulant worm of the earth, with appellations only applicable to God, surely would flatter royalty with all lowliness, in their translation of the Bible. The men who entitled King James the "most high and mighty prince James," or the most high prince James, or, if you please, the almighty prince James, all of which are synonymous terms, which the translators of the Bible most assuredly did; I say, (or at least, I firmly believe) that such servile mortals would, in order to court the favour and smile of such a prince, make certain parts of

Scripture to savour of absolute monarchy, and preach unconditional submission to the higher powers, on pain of eternal damnation. But leaving every other part of Scripture out of the question, the sermon of our high and mighty, and I would add, glorious and gracious Redeemer, is a sufficient light to direct our wandering feet into the path that leads to everlasting day, and tallies in every punctilio, with the sentiments suggested in the book of creation. Even the famous political writer, Thomas Paine, in his miserable theological work, entitled the "Age of Reason," allows, that the morals inculcated by the gracious Redeemer, (blessed be his most holy name,) exceed any thing of the kind ever written by the pen of man.

The world would have been better, if neither Homer nor Virgil had ever composed a line: the object of the first seems to have been the encouragement of war and blood-shed, and the object of the other, to flatter royalty with a cringing servility, and sycophantic adulation, and for which he was superbly rewarded by the Roman emperor Augustus. Could the Scriptures be read in the languages in which they were written, and by those who were well versed in those languages, their beauty, excellency and impartiality would more fully appear. And as for commentators, they often, instead of elucidating the sacred page, cast a gloom over it, and it is frequently harder to understand their expositions, than the things they attempt to expound. Hence some parts of scripture are involved in such obscurities, that the aid of the Holy Spirit which dictated them, is indispensably necessary. Those therefore, who seek spiritual illumination from commentaries, or the books and sermons of college manufactured clergymen, are often seeking the living among the dead.

The spirit of God never leads a man to do a cruel act: but the spirit of the devil has stimulated men, in the name of God and religion to murder millions of men; at the same time asserting, that Scripture commanded, that reason allowed, and tradition stimulated them to extirpate by fire and sword, so many of their fellow worms from the face of the earth? All this was the consequence of their rejecting the spirit of God, and obeying the evil spirit.

Have not the Pagans persecuted the Papists? the Papists the Protestants? the Protestants the Presbyterians? the Pres

byterians the Baptists? the Baptists the Quakers? andhere delicacy commands me to stop. The fact is, in most of the denominations that I know, there are popes, bishops, and tyrannical dictators. We need not look only to Europe, to view a persecuting intolerant spirit; In America it may also be seen in its dictatorial attitude, and with its arbitrary appendages. I could give a tragical picture of the intolerance of a certain denomination, whom one would think, from their origin, would be the last to stand forward in support of this terrible auxiliary of hell, (I mean, ecclesiastical tyranny) which would cause the philanthropist to melt into tears! Indeed, a persecuting spirit, in whatever form it may be assimilated, whatever name it may assume, or whatever excuse it may plead, whether it is in miniature or magnitude is most assuredly a fatal auxiliary of hell; the curse and disgrace of the human race.

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It seems that societies are as prone to degenerate as individuals, and from the same cause, prosperity. Men can see their fellow-creatures oppressed, and applaud and justify the oppressor. But if happily they participate the same oppression, they sometimes do get their intellectual eyes opened thereby and then, and not till then, they will seek refuge in God, and see the absurdity and servility of apologizing for, or vindicating the cause of the oppressor, to the destruction of the oppressed, and the mist of ignorance once dissipated, can never be collected again. Let any impartial man read the Book of Martyrs, and he will see on the one hand, the cruelty of ecclesiastical tyrants, and on the other, the cringing servility of their adherents and flatterers; and that cruel spirit by which they were influenced, I am sorry to say, is far from being extirpated from this land of political liberty. I know many high professors of religion who are devoid of mercy and common humanity; they cannot therefore, be led or influenced by the Spirit of truth. I will allow, a man may be a good man, and nurture that good spirit, and yet, by weakness, unwatchfulness, or infirmity, deviate from the paths of moral rectitude; but if he errs one moment, he will repent with heart-felt sorrow the next, not for fear of hell, but from pure love to God; but to be destitute of mercy, is to be a stranger to the experimental knowledge of the truth altogether. Is not therefore, a humane barbarian more estimable and amia

ble in the sight of heaven, than a hard hearted and inhuman preacher of the gospel? without doubt.

St. Peter, was inclined to believe, as millions of professing Christians now do, that God was partial to the Jews, in undue preference to all other nations, whom he considered as rejected by him. But God, in order to prove his impartiality as clear as a ray of light, convinced this good man, by a miraculous manifestation, that such sentiments were not agreeable to truth. As the narrative of Cornelius is so much to the point, and such a positive proof of the force of my arguments, I will humbly take the liberty to entreat the reader, to peruse the said narrative at his leisure, in Acts x, 1-35.

Nothing can be more plain, than that this good man was led by the spirit of Christ, and participated the merits of his death; although a heathen, and of course, a stranger to the Jewish, as well as Christian theology. And the same might be said of righteous Job, who feared God, and eschewed evil; and was of course, led by the spirit of Christ; for, without that good spirit, he could do no good, negatively or positively. St. Paul is explicit on this subject. "For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing one another.' Romans ii, 12-15 Many of the heathen philosophers, were sincere admirers of the Sovereign beauty.

I would beg leave, in illustration, to transcribe a few sen. timents of three heathen philosophers, relative to the Supreme Being; the first of whom is Cicero.

"The great law imprinted in the hearts of all men, is to love the public good, and the members of the common society as themselves. This love of order is supreme justice, and this justice is amiable for its own sake. To love it only for the advantages it produces us, may be politic, but there is little of goodness in it. "Tis the highest injustice, to love

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justice only for the sake of recompense. In a word, the universal, immutable and eternal law of all intelligent beings is to promote the happiness of one another, like children of the same Father." He next represents God to us a sovereign wisdom, from whose authority it is still more impracticable for intelligent natures to withdraw themselves, than it is for corporeal ones. 'According to the opinion of the wisest and greatest men, (says this philosopher) the law is not an invention of human understanding, or the arbitrary constitution of men, but flows from the eternal reason that governs the universe. The rape which Tarquin committed upon Lu. cretia, was not less criminal in its nature, because there was not at that time any written law at Rome against such sort of violences. The tyrant was guilty of a breach of the eternal law, the obligation whereof did not commence from the time it was written, but from the moment it was made. Now its origin is as ancient as the divine intellect: for the true, the primitive, and the supreme law is nothing else, but the sovereign reason of the great Jove. This law (says he, in another place) is universal, eternal, immutable. It does not vary according to times and places. It is not different now from what it was formerly. The same immortal law is a rule to all nations, because it has no author but the one only God, who brought it forth and promulged it.". Such were the reasonings of Cicero when he consulted natural light, and was not carried away by a fondness of showing his wit, in defending the doctrine of the Sceptics.

The next is Seneca, the Stoic. He was Nero's tutor, and lived in an age when Christianity was not in credit enough, to engage the heathens to borrow any philosophical principles from that source. ""Tis of very little consequence, (says he) by what name you call the first nature, and the divine reason that presides over the universe and fills all the parts of it. He is still the same God. He is called Jupiter Stator, not as historians say, because he stopped the Roman armies as they were flying, but because he is the constant support of all beings. They may call him Fate, because he is the first cause on which all others depend. We Stoics sometimes call him Father Bacchus, because he is the universal light that animates nature: Hercules, because his power is invin cible; Mercury, because he is the eternal reason, order and