not done all the good that might have been desired or expected, yet it has already accomplished great things for the world. To the Bible we owe all our best laws in our civil institutions. To the Bible, Europe is indebted for much of the liberty which it now enjoys; and little as we may think of it, the Bible too was the means of preserving the small share of learning which was cultivated during the dark ages. We may close these observations in the words of Montesquieu-"To assert that religion has no restraining power, because it does not always restrain, is to assert, that civil laws, have likewise no restraining power. He reasons falsely against religion, who enumerates at great lengths the evils which it has produced, and overlooks the advantages. Were I to recount all the evils which civil laws, monarchical and republican governments have produced in the world, I might exhibit a dreadful picture. Let us set before our eyes the continual massacres of Greek and Roman kings and generals on the one end, and on the other the destruction of cities and nations by those very kings and generals; a Timur and a Jencizkan ravaging Asia: and we shall see, that we owe to religion a certain political law in government, and in war a certain law of nations; advantages which human nature cannot sufficiently acknowledge."

"If the gospel is such a blessing to mankind, why, in all these ages, has it not been published in every nation?"

God giveth account to none of his matters, and every man shall be judged according to the privileges which he hath enjoyed, and not according to those with which he has not been favoured. No nation hath any right to the blessing. God is a sovereign, and may

it appears, that vain glorious philosophers have been, and are now, at least as bloody, illiberal, and intolerant, as the most bloody, illiberal, and intollerant of us parsons!

dispense his favours as his own wisdom shall direct. Moreover, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed with it, in the due course of Divine Providence.

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;

His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till suns shall wax and wane no more."

"But if God was the original author of the Jewish and Christian dispensations, why were they permitted to contract such a mass of ceremonial corruptions?"

The fault lay not in either of the institutions, but in the low and superstitious state of human nature. The institutions were good, but the folly of men hath perverted them to unworthy purposes. Is the fountain to be blamed, because the streams have been polluted by the feet of men?

"Be it so; but why was man created in so low and degraded a state? or rather, why was he permitted, by the benevolent and all-powerful Creator, to sink down into such an idolatrous and superstitious condition?"

This is a difficulty which affects natural as well as revealed religion, deism as well as christianity.There is no end to questions of this nature.* With equal propriety may we ask why man was not created an angel, a seraph, a God?

"Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder, reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less."

* These and the like questions affect the very being of a God, and terminate only in atheism.-Why God did, or did not do so, is impossible for us at present to tell. We here see things darkly, as in a glass, or as an enigma. But when the whole plan of Providence shall be developed, as it will certainly be, some time or other, the rectitude, wisdom, and perfection of all God's dispensations will then fully appear.-Phil. editor.

"Can you say that Thomas Paine (9) has not brought many very heavy charges against the writings both of the Old and New Testaments, and such as cannot easily be answered?"

We grant this objection. He is a man of shrewd abilities, and has a method of setting difficulties in a

strong point of view. But, you cannot help seeing, that he discovers great pride of understanding, much rancour and malignity of heart, and most invincible ignorance of the subject upon which he writes. In his Age of Reason, he meant no other than to convert the common people of England to a state of infidelity, and so to overturn the religion of the country. To men of sense, moderation, and information, there is no danger, from his religious efforts; but there is danger to every reader of his writings, who is not possessed of these qualifications. Watson's Apology may perfectly satisfy any man that Thomas Paine is by no means qualified to write against the Bible.— Any fool may sneer, revile, abuse, and ridicule the most valuable objects in nature. The late atheistical King of Prussia has had the impudence to treat the Deity himself in this manner. But what shall the end be of them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ?

If the audacity of this infidel were not equal to his ignorance, he never would have attacked the clergy on the score of literature. Where does he find, in any period or country of the world, men of more deep, various, and extensive learning, than are large

(9) Paine's books against the Bible can never stagger the faith of any man, who is well informed upon the subject of religion; yet they will have great effect upon all our immoral and lukewarm professors of the gospel. But where is the difference between a wicked infidel and a wicked Christian? Immoral men are incapable of happiness under any dispensation of religion whatever. They must be changed or perish. And it is of little consequence whether a man goes to hell as a deist or a Christian; only, the lost Christian will perish under greater aggravations.

numbers of the clergy, among the several denominations of Christians? Abundance of names are to be found, with whom he is no more fit to be compared, than a dwarf with a giant. One does not wonder, indeed, to hear him explode an acquaintance with languages, when, according to his own confession, he is a stranger to all but the English. To hear him prate about the science of astronomy, and the properties of triangles, is enough to sicken any man of a small smattering of knowledge. Let this empty and vain-glorious boaster call to mind a small number even of priests, who have been an honour to human nature, in point of mathematical, philosophical, and literary attainments, at least-and then let him blush, if he is capable of blushing, at his own vile perversions of Scripture, and misrepresentations of the characters of the friends of religion. Whatever faults some of the clergy may have been guilty of, or whatever defects there may be in the ecclesiastical constitution of this, or any other country, a large number of clerical names will be handed down with honour, as the benefactors of mankind, while his shall be damned to fame, as a base calumniator of the Sacred Writings, and the characters of men much better than himself. What shall we say, when such scholars as Barrow, Cudworth, Wilkins, Pearson, Derham, Flamstead, Hales, Bentley, Bochart, Desaguliers, Mede, Baxter, Chillingworth, Clarke, Berkeley, Butler, Warburton, Watts, Doddridge, Lowman, Jortin, Lardner, Witherspoon, Robertson, and a thousand others, both living and dead, are involved in the censure of this Sciolist?-It is true, the church has had a very long and dark eclipse. Priests have been highly to blame on many occasions. But no age can be produced when they have not been, at least, as learned and religious as any other body of men. There was a time, indeed, when Vigilius was condemned to be burnt for asserting the existence of the

antipodes; and even so late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, Galileo, who discovered and introduced the use of telescopes, instead of being rewarded for his pains, was imprisoned and compelled to renounce his opinions resulting from such discoveries, as damnable heresies. These are lamentable facts, and the priests, concerned in the persecution, deserved to be hanged. But I will take upon me to aver, that even in this enlightened, literary, and philosophical age, at the very close of the eighteenth century, Thomas Paine himself hath submitted to the view of the world a number of as palpable instances of ignorance, or maliciousness, or both, as ever an insulted public was cursed with, in any one person, who pretended to write for the improvement of mankind. The Age of Reason, as applied to this man's pamphlets, is a burlesque; it is an insult upon common sense; it ought rather to be called, the Age of Falsehood-The Age of Infidelity-The Age of Ignorance The Age of Calumny-The Age of Manianism-or, in short, the Age of any Thing, but that of Reason.*

sense.

He is violent and

* Paine has generally been a time server. dogmatic in his writings, and would write any thing for popularity. But few, if any of his writings will stand the test of strict investigation. Even his Common Sense, is in some places perfect nonWhen he came to America, about the year 1774, he seemed rather inclined to favour the British. Popularity being on the other side, he soon became zealous for America. At that time he pretended to be an advocate for religion. He quoted Scripture largely in Common Sense; and in defending that work against the late rev. Dr. Smith, attacked him for burlesquing the Bible. In a copy of verses addressed to the rev. Jacob Duché, then a popular character, he began thus;

"Could all like him the Sacred gospel preach,

And heav'nly truths in heavenly language teach." But when he went to France, finding infidelity triumphant, he eagerly engaged in her cause, and wrote his Age of Reason, in which there is nothing new, but its barefaced scurrility. He was once the panegyrist, then the defamer of Gen. Washington. His character and religion are now equally despised.-Phil. editor.