reasonable and deluded persons? and that yourselves are the only men upon earth, who have found out true wisdom? Is it probable, that men of your description, who, in general, have never turned your thoughts seriously and conscientiously that way, and who are neither more moral, more sensible, more learned, more philosophical, nor more inquisitive than large numbers of Christians are found to be, should have made the wonderful discovery, that religion is all a cheat, and the Bible a ridiculous tale, trumpt up by the priests, to delude and amuse mankind, while many of our great philosophical characters of all professions, make it the study of their lives to comply with the former, and spend a considerable proportion of their time in the investigation of the latter? And it is of no little importance to ask, does your unbelief make you more moral, pure, chaste, temperate, humble, modest, thankful, happy? Are you more amiable in your manners than Christians usually are, better masters, servants, husbands, wives, children, friends, neighbours?

Besides, are you not the most ungrateful of all human beings, in that you have derived the whole of your present peculiar light, information or philosophy, from the writings of the Old and New Testaments, and then make use of that light, information or philosophy, to discredit those writing and to make them ridiculous among mankind? If we want to know what pure nature can teach, we must divest ourselves of all our present ideas, collected from the writings of the Sacred code, and learn our religion from the pagan page alone. The most eminent of them saw and lamented their want of what you now so fastidiously reject.

"Pure Plato! how had thy chaste spirit hal'd
A faith so fitted to thy moral sense!

What hadst thou felt, to see the fair romance
Of high imagination, the bright dream

Of thy pure fancy more than realized!

O sweet enthusiast! thou hadst bless'd a scheme
Fair, good, and perfect. How had thy rapt soul
Caught fire, and burnt with a diviner flame!
For even thy fair idea ne'er conceiv'd

Such plenitude of love, such boundless bliss,
As Deity made visible to sense."

Should you not, as men of sense, review the his tory of the several ancient nations of the world, and compare their religion and morals with the religion and morals of your own country, where the gospel has been preached for so many years? Common sense, and common equity seem to require this of you, before you commence apostates from the religion in which you have been educated. I shall here call to your remembrance a few facts culled out of the history of mankind. Make what use of them you please. Only give them a patient consideration, and a fair comparison with the religion of Jesus, as exhibited in the New Testament, and then act as you judge

meet.

The Babylonians introduced the unnatural custom of human sacrifices. The Sepharvites, probably burnt their children in fire, to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

Among the Phoenicians, a father did not scruple to immolate his only child; a husband to plunge his knife into a heart as dear to him as his own, to avert some public misfortune.

In Carthage, the children of the nobility were sacrificed to Saturn. The calamities, which Agathocles brought upon that city, were believed by the inhabitants to be a punishment for the substitution of ignoble blood; and, to appease the wrath of God, they immolated 200 children of noble blood in one sacrifice.

The ancient Germans also sacrificed human victims Their priestesses opened the veins of the sufferers, and drew omens from the rapidity of the stream of blood.

The ancient Britons likewise were equally cruel and superstitious.

The sacrifice of strangers and prisoners of war seems to have been general, even among the ancient nations which were more civilized.

Achilles immolated twelve Trojans to the manes of Patroclus.

And in the 532 year of Rome, two Greeks and two Gauls were buried alive in a public place of the city, to satisfy the superstitious prejudices of the populace.

Though the Greeks do not appear to have offered human sacrifices, yet whole states were at times reduced to slavery, and their lands confiscated, and their prisoners of war massacred in cold blood.

Conjugal infidelity among the Athenians was become so common in the time of Pericles, that almost 5000 of their citizens were illegitimate.

If at any time a man became eminent among them for virtue, he was generally sentenced to some kind of punishment, either to imprisonment, banishment, or death.

Dark, however, as the picture of the Athenians is exhibited, it is sunshine when compared to that of the Lacedemonians. By the laws of Sparta, a parent was permitted to destroy a weak or deformed child. The Romans, though great and successful, were equally far from being a virtuous nation. They were the murderers and plunderers of the world. Julius Cæsar boasted he had taken 800 towns, vanquished 300 states, fought three millions of men, of whom one million had been either slaughtered or reduced to slavery.

The number of men slain at different periods, even for their diversion and entertainment, was immense!

A creditor could, at the expiration of thirty days, seize an insolvent debtor, who could not find bail,

and keep him sixty days in chains. During this time, he was allowed to expose him three market days at public sale, for the amount of his debt, and, at the expiration of a third, to put him to death. If there were many creditors, they were permitted to tear and divide his body among them. It was customary, however, to sell the debtor, and divide the money.

A father had the right of life and death over his children, and, by the laws of Rome, was permitted to expose his child to perish.

The husband was the only judge and arbiter of his wife's fate. If a wife was convicted of committing adultery, or of drinking wine, her husband had a right to put her to death without the formality of a public trial; while she was not permitted, on any provocation, to raise her finger against him.

To these several facts, add a careful perusal of the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and you will have had a view of the religion and morals of the heathen world before the advent of Christ. If there be a difference between us and them, it is what the gospel has made. The heathens excelled greatly in the arts and sciences. Excellence of composition may be produced from their writings, in rich abundance; but shew us any thing fit to be compared with various of the compositions contained in the Bible. You have no history so ancient, so important, so instructive, so entertaining, so well written; (2) no

(2) The finest and most important passage in Heathen Antiquity, is that of Plato, where he introduces Socrates speaking of some divine teacher of whom he was in expectation, and of the mist which is naturally upon the mind of man, which was to be removed by that teacher. "He is one," says Socrates, "who has now a concern for us. He is a person that has a wonderful readiness and willingness to take away the mist from the mind of man, and to enable us to distinguish rightly between good and

evil."

Hall says, "I durst appeal to the judgment of a carnal reader, that there is no history; pleasant as the Sacred; for should we

poetry so sublime; no eloquence so noble and persuasive: no proverbs so laconic, so divine, so useful; no morality so pure and perfective of human nature; no system of the intellectual world so rational.-We challenge you, we dare you to come forward, and shew us any thing of equal excellence, in all the authors of antiquity, or among all the stores of modern refinement.(3) You ought then to be ashamed of your conduct, in treating with such indignity and contempt, writings which were never excelled, never equalled; and which you have never given yourselves time thoroughly to understand. Your conduct is extremely culpable, and cannot be justified, either on the principles of religion or philosophy. Any man possessed of one grain of modesty, and gratitude to heaven, could not help seeing the impropriety of it.

A timely attention to one of Solomon's" jests,(4) might do all such persons everlasting good:-" Judg

even set aside the majesty of the inditer, none can compare with it for magnificence, and the antiquity of the matter; the sweetness of compiling; and the strange variety of memorable occur

rences."

"I am very confident," saith Steel, "whoever reads the gospels, with a heart as much prepared in favour of them, as when he sits down to Virgil or Homer, will find no passage there which is not told with more natural force, than any episode in either of those wits, who were the chief of mere mankind."

Locke observes that morality becomes a gentleman, not barely as a man, but in order to do his business as a gentleman; and the morality of the gospel "doth so excel that of all other books, that to give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I should send him to no other book but the New Testament."

(3) If any person wish to be informed where he may find the literary beauties of the Holy Scriptures pointed out to him; Boyle on the Stile of Scripture-Blackwall's Sacred Classics-and Lowth's Prælectiones, are all very valuable in this way.-Hervey's Works contain many beautiful specimens of Sacred criticism.Smith's Longinus-Blair's Lectures-Rollin's Belles LettresWeald's Christian Orator-and the second volume of the Adventurer-all contain several good illustrations. Some instances of the same kind will be met with in the Spectator and Guardian. (4) Paine, to shew his wit, calls Solomon's Proverbs a jestbook.