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and they thought they received but a poor recom pence for this disappointment, in seeing every mode of religion attacked in a lively manner, and the foundation of every virtue, and of all government, fapped with great art and much ingenuity. What advantage do we derive from fuch writings? What delight can a man find in employing a capacity which might be usefully exerted for the noblest purposes, in a fort of fullen labour, in which, if the author could fucceed, he is obliged to own, that nothing could be more fatal to mankind than his fuccess?

I cannot conceive how this fort of writers propose to compass the designs they pretend to have in view, by the instruments which they employ. Do they pretend to exalt the mind of man, by proving him no better than a beast? Do they think to enforce the practice of virtue, by denying that vice and virtue are diftinguished by good or ill fortune here, or by happiness or misery hereafter? Do they imagine they shall increase our piety, and our reliance on God, by exploding his providence, and infifting that he is neither just nor good? Such are the doctrines which, fometimes concealed, fometimes openly and fully avowed, are found to prevail throughout the writings of Lord BOLINGBROKE; and fuch are the reasonings which this noble writer and several others have been pleased to dignify with the name of philofophy. If thefe

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are delivered in a specious manner, and in a style above the common, they cannot want a number of admirers of as much docility as can be wished for in difciples. To these the editor of the following little piece has addressed it: there is no reafon to conceal the defign of it any longer.

The defign was, to shew that, without the exertion of any confiderable forces, the same engines which were employed for the destruction of religion, might be employed with equal fuccess for the fubversion of government; and that specious arguments might be used against those things which they, who doubt of every thing else, will never permit to be questioned. It is an observation which I think Ifocrates makes in one of his orations against the fophifts, that it is far more eafy to maintain a wrong cause, and to fupport paradoxical opinions to the fatisfaction of a common auditory, than to establish a doubtful truth by folid and conclusive arguments. When men find that fomething can be faid in favour of what, on the very propofal, they have thought utterly indefensible, they grow doubtful of their own reason; they are thrown into a fort of pleasing furprise; they run along with the speaker, charmed and captivated to find fuch a plentiful harvest of reasoning, where all feemed barren and unpromifing. This is the fairy land of philofophy. And it very frequently happens, that those pleasing impreffions

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pressions on the imagination, subsist and produce their effect, even after the understanding has been fatisfied of their unsubstantial nature. There is a fort of gloss upon ingenious falsehoods, that dazzles the imagination, but which neither belongs to, nor becomes the sober aspect of truth. I have met with a quotation in Lord Coke's reports that pleased me very much, though I do not know from whence he has taken it: "Interdum fucata "falfitas, (fays he) in multis est probabilior, et fæpe " rationibus vincit nudam veritatem." In such cafes, the writer has a certain fire and alacrity inspired into him by a confciousness, that let it fare how it will with the fubject, his ingenuity will be fure of applause; and this alacrity becomes much greater if he acts upon the offensive, by the impetuosity that always accompanies an attack, and the unfortunate propensity which mankind have to the finding and exaggerating faults. The editor is satisfied that a mind, which has no restraint from a sense of its own weakness, of its fubordinate rank in the creation, and of the extreme danger of letting the imagination loose upon some subjects, may very plausibly attack every thing the most excellent and venerable; that it would not be difficult to criticise the creation itself; and that if we were to examine the divine fabricks by our ideas of reason and fitness, and to use the fame method of attack by which some men have assaulted revealed religion religion, we might with as good colour, and with the same success, make the wisdom and power of God in his creation appear to many no better than foolishness There is an air of plausibility which accompanies vulgar reasonings and notions taken from the beaten circle of ordinary experience, that is admirably suited to the narrow capacities of fome, and to the laziness of others. But this advantage is in great measure loft, when a painful, comprehenfive survey of a very complicated matter, and which requires a great variety of confiderations, is to be made; when we must seek in a profound subject, not only for arguments, but for new materials of argument, their measures and their method of arrangement; when we must go out of the sphere of our ordinary ideas, and when we can never walk fure, but by being sensible of our blindness. And this we must do, or we do nothing, whenever we examine the result of a reason which is not our own. Even in matters which are, as it were, just within our reach, what would become of the world, if the practice of all moral duties, and the foundations of society, rested upon having their reasons made clear and demon

strative to every individual?

The editor knows that the subject of this letter is not fo fully handled as obviously it might; it was not his design to say all that could poffibly be

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faid. It had been inexcusable to fill a large volume with the abuse of reafon; nor would fuch an abuse have been tolerable even for a few pages, if fome under-plot of more confequence than the apparent design, had not been carried on.

Some persons have thought that the advantages of the state of nature ought to have been more fully displayed. This had undoubtedly been a very ample subject for declamation; but they do not confider the character of the piece. The writers against religion, whilft they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to fet up any of their own. If fome inaccuracies in calculation, in reasoning, or in method, be found, perhaps these will not be looked upon as faults by the admirers of Lord BOLINGBROKE; who will, the editor is afraid, observe much more of his Lordship's character in fuch particulars of the following letter, than they åre like to find of that rapid torrent of an impetuous and overbearing eloquence, and the variety of rich imagery for which that writer is justly admired.

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