fain obtrude on the ignorant, as a martyr to truth and the original religion of nature, acknowledges in his defence, that he worshipped the Gods of his city, and was feen on public feftivals facrificing at their altars. His wrestling naked with his pupil, Alcibiades, was an attitude illfuited to the character of a man, entitled to a place in the calendar of faints. What fhall I fay of the Cynics, who laid afide all the natural restraints of shame and modesty ? Of Chryfippus, the advocate of inter-marriages between fathers and daughters? Of the Persian Magi, who married their mothers? Of Seneca, playing the moralift in public, debauching his fovereign's wife in private, and preferring his pretended wife man to God himself? What shall I fay of the divine Plato, who annihilates the inftitution of connubial ties? who by introducing a community of women, and refusing the husband any exclufive property in the marriage bed, would fain introduce a horrid confusion amongst men; confound all paternal rights, which nature itself refpected, and people his republic with inhabitants, uncertain of their origin; without tenderness, affection, or humanity: Whereas in fuch a state it would have been impoffible for the fon to know his father.

Such is the boafted reafon you take for your guide, and lo, the great luminaries it has pro

duced!

duced! A fet of proud men, bewildered in a labyrinth of the most monftrous errors. If our modern philofophers are more refined than those antient fages, it is to the Christian religion, which they would fain overthrow, to the writings of its doctors, whom they deride, and to the firft principles of a Chriftian education, which they cannot entirely forget, that they are indebted for their fuperiority.

Before revealed religion difpelled the mist, reason was overspread with error, in the breasts of the greatest men. It is no more than a bare capacity to be inftructed; an engine veering at every breath; equally difpofed to minister to vice as well as to virtue, according to the variety and cuftoms of different climates. It did not hinder the Egyptian from worshipping leeks and onions, nor the Athenian, Socrates, from offering a cock to Efculapius.

But is man to be debarred the ufe of his reafon? or has he any thing to dread for not believing myfteries he cannot comprehend? Make full ufe of your reason, not with a design to fall into scepticism, but with a fincere desire to come at the knowledge of the truth. Reafon is never better employed than in difcovering the will of its author: and when once we discover that it is his will we should believe; reason itself sug

gefts

gests that it is our duty to fubmit; otherwife we are guilty of rebellion against the first of fovereigns and to deny his power to punish the difobedience of his creatures, is more than you have attempted.

This important enquiry fhould be attended with a pure heart and fervent prayer. However a philofopher may laugh at the hint, as Cato would laugh if he met a priest. It was after a fervent prayer Solomon received his wifdom: after a fervent prayer Cornelius the Centurion obtained the privilege of becoming the firft convert from amongst the Gentiles. Even the heathen, Democritus, who figured fo much amongst the literati of his time, conftantly prayed the Gods to fend him good images. Religion would not feem fo abfurd, the number of Free-thinkers would not be fo great, if we made it our businefs to purify the heart, and earneftly to beg of the Divinity to enlighten our understandings. For the paffions of the heart, and too much confidence in ourselves, pave the way for the errors of the mind. Solomon became diffolute and voluptuous before he fell into Idolatry. We ever and always lofe our innocence before we laugh at our catechism.

But a philofopher requires argument, and leaves prayer to the vulgar. Reafon is too pre

cious a gift to be offered at the shrine of religion: yet from St. Paul, to whom the Roman governor faid that too much learning had turned his head, down to John Locke, the great hiftorian of the human understanding, the greateft men the world ever produced, have believed myfteries beyond their comprehenfion, They all knew that God cannot lie, nor deceive mortals, but that man is liable to error. If then my reafon difcovers, that the motives of credibility are fufficient to induce me to believe, that God has propofed fuch and fuch a doc-: trine; the fame reafon immediately whispers, believe your God, for he can do more than you can comprebend.

In denying myfteries, because we cannot comprehend them, we may as well deny our exiftence. For our very existence is a mystery we can never comprehend. How many valves and fprings, how many veins and arteries, what an affemblage of bones, mufcles, canals, juices, nerves, fluids, tubes, veffels, requifite to make that frail being called man? Great partizans of nature and reafon (words often used to veil your ignorance), take a handful of duft and hape it into the figure of a man, bore the veins and arteries, lay the finews and tendons, fit the joints and blow into its noftrils your philofophical

philofophical breath, make it move, walk, speak, concert plans, form fchemes; make it fufcep tible of love, fear, joy, hope, defire, &c. then we will recognize your comprehensive knowledge of the imperceptible progrefs, and divine mechanism of the human frame. For the formation of each of us is as wonderful as the formation of the firft. Your very bodies of which you are so fond, are myfteries in which your reafon is loft, and you would fain have a religion which proposes nothing but what your reafon comprehends. Thousands of years elapsed before Hervey discovered the circulation of the blood. Thousands will elapfe before the delicate texture of the human frame is known.

Difengage yourselves, if you can, from the impenetrable folds and darkneffes of your own frames. Take a furvey of all the objects that furround you, you plunge into an abyss overfpread with darkness and obfcurity. Explain to us how one and the fame water paints and dyes the different flowers into various colours, the pink, the lily, the tulip, the rofe; or how from an inodorous earth they draw their fweet perfumes! The cell of the bee, which that little infect makes according to the niceft rules of geometry, without ftudying the mathematics, and in the construction whereof, the curious have obferved all the advantages which geometers de

rive