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less dexterous use of the faculty of reason than modern metaphysicians have attained?

May we not now appeal from the silver goddess of Ephesus, to the rude images of Africa: from the sensual paradise of Mahomed, to the bloody procession of Jaggurnaut, for a proof of the incapability of man to discover the Deity. The gods and goddesses of reason are either talking, or pursuing, or in a journey, or peradventure, they sleep.

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Nor has the light of philosophic truth" been able to show more clearly the advantage of that system, which is to supersede the necessity of revealed religion. In two stupendous instances, it has been tried in modern times. That people who have no national religion are the most gross in their immoralities; and although boasting that freedom is naturalized on their soil, through the action of this light, are the most cruel and inhuman slave-masters. neighbouring nation also, under the mania of this philosophy, violently shook off all religious restraints, asserted their rational independence, and became a liberal people. But what is the lesson we learn from this teaching? They murdered their king, and basely submitted to a tyrant! They exiled their nobles, and created a new order from among those ranks which were the farthest removed from nobility! They abased their church, removed their priests, and

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gave themselves up to licentiousness; but, after an unparalleled effusion of human blood, in less than thirty years, having destroyed more than two millions of people, they called back their hereditary monarch, their nobles, and their priests, and attempted to restore the worship of the altar!

Again I would ask, if any process of reasoning, either rational or metaphysical, has proved to a demonstration the existence of a Deity? And I contend, that it has not. Were we, therefore, without this revelation, we should be without the knowledge of a God.

I am, &c.

LETTER III.

MAN NATURALLY COULD NEITHER DISCOVER THE DEITY, NOR RECEIVE NOR RETAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM.

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LETTER III.

DEAR SIR,

In this letter I wish to ask your attention to a brief history of the mind of man, regarding its reception of the light of revelation: in which we shall see, that so far from man being able to discover the Deity, it was with difficulty that he could be brought to receive the knowledge of such a wonderful Being.

Although Noah builded an altar, and thereon did sacrifice to the living God: although God himself made a covenant with Abraham, and renewed it with his descendants, so that the children of Israel must have been familiar with its promises, Moses said to God, "They shall say to me, What is His name? What shall I say unto them?" They also had seen the miracles through which they were delivered from the Egyptians, and had been to the time of the delivery of the law, the constant objects of His miraculous care. Their conduct, therefore, at Mount Sinai is a memorable proof of the natural inability of man, both to seek, and at that time even to understand the nature of the Most High. Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God,

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