of wisdom. During the dark ages, when every corrupt form of Christianity was predominant in Europe, pious fraud and imposture almost set no limits to their practices, and under the tuition of the Romish hierarchy enjoyed astonishing success. It is difficult to determine whether the impudence of imposition or the facility of belief was greatest. It is, however, a happy reflection that there is a boundary which corruption cannot pass, and that when this is reached, its direful effects, which have long been experienced, lead to its detection and its remedy. Some things are too gross for human stupidity to admit, and too grievous for human patience to endure. Divine providence, which purifies the atmosphere by tempests and hurricanes, also defecates human corruption by its excesses; and it is in the nature of corruption, long predominant, to run to every species of excess. Unexpected light often breaks on the night of ignorance, and new vigour is infused into lethargic submission. This was gloriously exemplified by the blessed Reformation of religion, which shook the papal throne, dissolved the magical bonds of priestcraft, and restored to spiritual freedom so considerable a portion of Europe. The only wonder is, that so large a part of Christendom should, considering the general diffusion of knowledge, still remain under the most degrading and demoralizing of all thraldoms.

But hypocrisy is as ready to conform to a fanatical as to a superstitious spirit, when its purposes can be served by it. Mohammed and Cromwell were such hypocrites, and fanaticism was the engine which they chiefly employed to advance their schemes. This is, however, to the religious impostor, a more dangerous experiment than the other. For, he frequently runs great risk of catching the contagion which he approaches, in order to direct it to his policy or interest. He who has secretly laughed at the fanatical spirit which he only affected, has often been seized by it, and hurried into the wildest raptures. It is evident that Mohammed and Cromwell were occasionally influenced by the delusion which the former hypocritically excited, and the latter artfully pretended to approve and encourage. The fact is, that no man can on all occasions act a hypocritical part. This is repugnant to the whole system of the human mind, and particularly to the dictates of conscience, which never can be entirely suppressed. Sympathy is also one of the strongest principles of our nature. Association, therefore, with others who are under the influence of strong affections, those especially of a more exalted kind, as all religious affections are, in some shape or other, will soon communicate them to the breast even of the person who at first holds them in contempt.

Nor is the hypocrite less scrupulous in assuming the appearance of bigotry, than that of any other perversion of religion. The only question with him is, how far any form can serve his selfish or political views. Orthodoxy or heterodoxy is equally indifferent to him as a disguise; but whichsoever of them he assumes, he will be unrelenting in support of it, as long as its profession can be conducive to the object which engrosses his attention and his pursuit.

Every religious hypocrite must at bottom be an atheist, or, at least, not far removed from that character. If he believes in a Deity, and has any just conception of his nature, he cannot suppose that a compliance with gross superstition, or wild fanaticism, or intolerant bigotry, all known to be such when the appearance of them is assumed, must not be an object of the vengeance of a pure and all-perfect Being, in whose hands his present and eternal condition are placed. Convinced, therefore, of the existence of God, and entertaining just notions of his character, he must be placed in a state of absolute despair. To deliver himself from this, he will probably be driven to atheism. He may, indeed, endeavour to find some salvo for his conscience, or to make some absurd compensation to the offended Deity. He may say, with the Syrian courtier Naaman, who wished, in order to avoid his master's displeasure, to join the service of the one true God

his servant."9a

with that of the idols which his master worshipped, "In this thing let the Lord pardon But, in this case, the hypocrite degrades the Supreme Being as much as the most superstitious, fanatical, or bigoted of the human race, with this important difference, that these last are under the influence of delusion, while he acts with calm deliberation of mind. I suspect that this was the case with the statesmen and philosophers of antiquity, and is still the case with all who render religion subservient to political or privately selfish purposes. They consider it as a mere profession, or entertain no real belief of a Deity.

In fine, it may be observed of all the corrupt forms of religion now considered, that superstition is favourable to priest-craft and despotic power; fanaticism, to licentiousness; bigotry, to the permanence of any creed, however absurd, already adopted; hypocrisy, to every species of corruption, as far as any one is consistent with the vile purpose which it has in view. All false forms of religion have a tendency to persecution, one of their most horrible results; but, most of all, hypocrisy, in the exact proportion of its indifference to all genuine religious principle, and to every regard for integrity.

;.

Having thus considered the four different classes to which all false and corrupt religion may be reduced, I shall now endeavour to fix the 2 Kings v. 18.

a

proper notion of that which has been termed natural, to evince its reality, to ascertain its extent, and to point out its insufficiency.

CHAP. HI.

OF NATURAL RELIGION.

NATURAL RELIGION is justly considered as the foundation of revealed: for, all revelation supposes a Deity as its author; and unless the existence of God is antecedently acknowledged, it is absurd to attempt to prove his existence by an appeal to revelation. This is evidently to argue in a circle. It is first to suppose that revelation derives its authority from God, and then to prove that existence by the very thing which implies it. To attempt to convert an atheist by an appeal to the scriptures, is as absurd as to endeavour to convince a person of the genuineness of a writing which he maintains to be spurious, and never to have proceeded from him whose name it bears, because no such person exists, by telling him that the writing positively professes to be his, the very point which the opponent contests. The only mode of proof must, in this