buried alive, or burnt on account of religion.

1

These are all crying and most deplorable enormities, such as Christianity may well blush at; and had they continued, it might too justly have been said, it had been better that Christianity had never existed. But may we not, in some respects, say the same of society in general? For, because governments have at times caused the blood of man to flow, and that too on slight provocations, should we be warranted in saying, that it would be better for the world were it unfettered by government altogether? The abuses of authority are not to be confounded with the wholesomeness of necessary legislation. Because there has been abun dance of folly and falsehood in the world, we are not to say that there is neither truth nor wisdom in the world." Ancient frauds, or modern extravagancies, have no reference to genuine Christianity, nor any connection with the simplicity and purity of its doctrines. It is, therefore, uncandid to turn against Christianity the evils, which the ambitious and wicked have brought upon mankind, but which the systein itself deplores, and in the fulness of its charity opposes.

Kaim's Sketches of the Hist, of Man,

When,

When, a few centuries after the Apostolic age, partly by the craft of man, and partly by circumstances peculiar to times of ignorance and trouble, this religion came to be almost effaced by superstition, it then lost its sanctifying influence; and furious passions, unjustifiable wars, and horrid massacres, disgraced Europe. was this owing to Christianity? On the contrary, it was owing to the want of Christianity. Refer to the New Testament; produce from it,"

if

2

But,

you can, a single passage that gives countenance to persecution or massacre. If you cannot; if, on the contrary, you find, that our Saviour and his Apostles invariably recommend, and by the most awful sanctions enjoin, compassion, justice, forbearance, forgiveness, meekness, mercy, and charity, declaring, that without these virtues men are not Christians, be their professions what they may; surely candour ought to impute the evils complained of, not to the religion itself, but to the depravity or folly of those wretched men, who have corrupted or disguised it by unwarrantable additions and misrepresentations, or who, knowing the power of religion over the human heart, have made use of its venerable name for the more effectual accomplish

ment of their own ambitious, sensual, and ava- ' ritious purposes.*

I have always thought it one of the glories of Christianity, that the piety it teaches is solid and rational, remote from all superstitious extremes, worthy of a God of infinite wisdom and goodness to require, and becoming the true dignity of the reasonable nature to put in practice. It comprehends, not only immediate acts of devotion towards God, but a diligent performance of all relative duties, and the faithful discharge of the va rious offices incumbent upon us in civil and social life. It requires us, to bear with a noble fortitude, the greatest evils; but not rashly to expose ourselves to them, to inflict them upon others, or to bring them unnecessarily upon our own heads.

Were there but one man upon earth, he would not, it is allowed, stand in need of any prescribed form of worship. His would be an inward devotion. But, as a social animal, the surest bond to hold the different members of society to their respective duties, is the sacred bond of religion. Even the Heathens found, government and society could not subsist without it. Plutarch stiles

Bishop Porteus.

stiles it "the cement of all community, and the chief basis of all legislative power." Had it not been for this,, together with our natural impressions concerning justice and probity, instead of those well ordered governments and cities, which are now in the world, mankind must have lived either wild and solitary in caves, or else in troops of robbers, subsisting upon the spoil and rapine of such as were weaker than themselves. "Pietate sublatâ, fides etiam, et societas humani generis, et unà excellentissima virtus justitia tollitur." And hence, And hence, in addition to such unavoidable eradication of good faith and justice, the civil law made the abuse of religion a common injury. "Religio contaminata ad omnium pertinet injuriam."

!

If, then, to inform the understanding, and to regulate the will, be lasting and diffufive bene fits, what do we not owe to unadulterate Christianity? Its respectable ministers are the philosophers, their churches are their schools, and their sermons are their lectures. How would the hearts of Socrates and Tully have rejoiced, had they lived in a nation, where the law had made provision for philosophers to read lectures of morality and theology, every seventh day, in several

Cicero..

veral thousands of schools, erected at the public charge, throughout the whole country; at which lectures, all ranks and sexes, without distinction, were called upon to be present for their general improvement! And how culpable towards the best interests of society, would they not have held those men, who should have endeavoured to defeat the purpose of so divine an institution! You cannot but remember the remarkable words of Alexander: "You have not done well," says he to Aristotle, in one of his letters, during his Persian conquests, "to publish your books of Select Knowledge; for what is there now, in which I can surpass others, if those things which I have been instructed in are communicated to every body? For my own part, I declare to I would rather excel others in knowledge than in power."*

you,

"The church has been in every age,” says Bolingbroke," an hydra; such a monster as the poets feign with many heads. All these heads have hissed and barked, and tore one another with fury. As fast as some were cut off others have sprouted out; and all the art and all the violence employed to create an apparent, could never create a real, uniformity. The

*Plutarch, Aulus Gellius.

scene