LETTER XCIV.

PAGANISM, we are told, was rapidly wearing out in theory, if not in practice, when Christianity appeared. Its impostures were detected; its absurd doctrines and rites were exposed to ridicule. The priests could not defend it; and philosophers explained it away. It, in short, lay exposed, like an unfortified country, and open to every incursion. On the contrary, Christianity was fresh and vigorous: and by being declared to be the religion of mankind, in contradistinction to the code of the Jews, as well as being composed of more sublime and humane doctrines, it was rapidly embraced. And no sooner had it taken possession of the court and the cities, than heathenism became so generally the religion of peasants only, that the appellation of Paganism most probably took its rise from that circumstance.*

Bolingbroke.

This

This is such a concession on the part of Bolingbroke, and of such an age as the Aug stan, that he would not have made it, could it in any manner have been avoided: it was irresistibly forced upon him by truth. But was it likely that so many beams of light should have issued from the chambers of heaven, for no other purpose than to lead man into error? The parent of modern deism, the formidable Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, himself, confesses that the knowledge which the Gentiles had of the one supreme God, was lame and imperfect; and thence, says he, it came to pass, that the rays of the divine perfections being intercepted, a wonderful darkness overspread the minds of the vulgar. He also observes, that from what was added by priests, poets, and philosophers, the whole fabric of truth was in danger of falling to the ground. "Tota inclinata, in casumque prona, mutavit veri.is fabrica."*.

A plain man, on inquiring into the principles. of his religion, may not perhaps at once be able to say what pure Christianity is, divested of its ornaments, appendages, and corruption; but, what it is not, I think he will boldly venture to affirm; which is, that it is not the offspring of fraud

* De Veritate.

fraud or fiction. Such, indeed, on a superficial view, he knows it may have appeared to men even of good understandings, whose lot it unluckily had been to take in too circumscribed a field of observation, or to have been employed on matters of more immediate worldly concern. But a closer inspection, an examination with accuracy and candour, he knows must dispel the illusion, or at least satisfactorily evince, that, however fraud and fiction may have grown up with it, it never could have been grafted on the same stock, nor have been planted by the same hand. Arrogance, and the high tone of authority, assumed by mortals like himself, will indeed provoke his indignation. But on further reflection he will perceive, that, however altered from its primitive simplicity, the religion of Christ is not a mass of presumption, which would oppose itself to right reason; but on the contrary, that the firm and rational belief of God, even on philosophical grounds, lies at the foundation of Christianity.

The undertaking of Christ was a glorious and a mighty one. It was the reforming, and the enlightening the world. And here, permit me again to demand, what were the instruments he

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put into action, for the success of this great and momentous enterprize? Or what were the rewards which he gave in expectation? In the first place, his ministers were indigent, humble men, αγράμματοι και ιδιώται, and daily forced to labour for the means even of daily subsistence. Of men of such low estate he made choice, for the spreading abroad his doctrines. In regard to their rewards, he assured them of none in this life; on the contrary, the only remuneration for the agonizing sufferings they were to undergo, was, as he expressly declared to them, joy and happiness in another state of existence. Was this an usual or an alluring way of commencing reformation? That which is invisible, is to him, who has no hopes of a futurity, both imaginary and ridiculous. Nor are ignorant men, in general, to be tempted to surrender themselves cheerfully to misery and torment, on the bare. promise of blessings to be heaped on them, when as men, they shall be no longer capable of enjoying them! On what, then, was he to depend for success, while acting in every respect repugnant to the received opinions of the refined, as well as to the instinctive movements of the uncultivated understanding, but on the soundness and truth of his doctrine ?

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Christ's

Christ's commission, you will tell me, while he was living and acting in the flesh, extended only to the Jewish nation, and that beyond this he was not to exercise his ministry, either by himself or his disciples. Thus, when he chose the twelve, and the seventy, and sent them out to preach among the Jews, it was with a particular injunction, not to go among the Gentiles or proselytes of the gate, nor to enter into any of the cities of the Samaritans; but to preach repentance, for the remission of sins, in his name, to the Jews only, and to declare, that "he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel:" and accordingly, that the ministry of Christ and the Apostles was confined entirely to the three provinces of Palestine, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, where the Jerusalem Hebrew was understood.

You do not, however, certainly mean by this to insinuate that Christ's design extended no further than to the Jewish nation. While he lived, he himself undoubtedly never opened his commission further. But his general and repeated expressions take in the whole circle of the human race. The phrenzy of his bitterest enemies, indeed, never ventured to accuse him of blasphemously circumscribing the favour of Almighty

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