of things, but believed implicitly all they were told, and when priests were the only repositories of knowledge, and knowledge was derived from any thing but reasoning and experience.Should these opinions be true, they can do no harm; if false, not more than others have which are yet believed; but it is expected, probably, that they should be shewn capable to produce good. First, then, they strike at the root of all The benefit bigotry and superstition, regarding all systems 7 sulert g thes ofsent. of religion as the invention of men, they teach resignation to the events of the world, as the result of an inevitable necessity, but while they enforce resignation, they by no means prevent exertion. We are as much formed to submit to tyranny at one time, as to resist at another; one man is born to create corruptions, and another to remove them; Martin Luther was as much an instrument in the hand of Fate as Gregory the Great, or Innocent II.Finally, these opinions limit the virtues or the exertions of man no farther than they are limited by our nature, and as they teach us that every action of our lives, and every event of the world, is the result of an established order of things, they tend to make us more truly moral than any system of superstition, which, by continually calling the attention to 850 its pretended author or to external ceremonies, withdraws our thoughts from the practice of virtue, and substitutes faith for morality. It is impossible for us to say what we are commanded or what we are forbidden to do by necessity, therefore we have no business to enquire, we have only to enquire how far the general interest agrees with our own. Men who believe in a God, too often take upon them to interpret his will; they say that God hardens men's hearts, that be punishes nations and individuals, and that he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. When considered as the operation of natural causes and effects, these opinions can do no harm; but when pretending to proceed from a knowledge of the divine will, they are convenient instruments for fraud and villainy to work with upon human credulity, and tend to keep mankind in subjection to a gross and degrading superstition. The idea of a God endowed with human passions and feelings, as the God of every religion is, is the most complete bar to human improvement that could have been conceived-because when men make their own minds the standard of the Deity, and imagine that Being all excellent to whom they attribute the lowest of human infirmities, those infirmities will con stantly find an apology in the conduct of a jealous God," a God of vengeance,† and a God that makes the innocent suffer the punishment of the guilty. All ideas of a God derived from human nature are degrading and ridiculous, and my reason will not suffer me for a moment to believe in such a Being. If by a God is meant that vital spirit, that active principle, which moves the whole mass of matter, God is the anima mundi, or soul of the world-that I understand, but if by the term God is meant a spiritual Being, distinct from matter, endowed with human faculties to an infinite extent, that I cannot understand, and therefore cannot believe. * Exod. 20. v. 5.- Deut. 32. Rom. 12. v. 19.- Rom, 5. v. 8. 9. 10. v. Strabo, lib. 7. p. 457. Ed. 1707. Are we to Believe authen 352 REMARKS ON THE BIBLE SOCIETIES. Truth, should public, which contains a direct attack upon fear the divine authority of the scriptures, I feel Scrutiny that I am liable to some small risque of adding another martyr to the cause of truth, and I have a recent example of persecution before my eyes, sufficient to terrify men of stouter nerves than myself; but I cannot, I will not believe that at this enlightened period it can be considered criminal to discuss the merits of a book, by some held sacred, provided the discussion be conducted with decency and moderation. Even were the utmost scurrility, vulgarity, and abuse employed to render it contemptible, surely they who are convinced of its divine origin, can never fear the use of any human means to degrade it in the eyes of the world for if the arguments by which it is assailed are unsound, they may be repelled IN committing this part of my Book to the by sounder arguments, and as to abuse if it ever does harm, it can only be for a season, and will ultimately recoil upon those who employ it. At any rate, if the religion I have proposed to examine, is from God, no effort of mine, nor of any other man can destroy it, for God will defend his own with a power which no human efforts can successfully oppose. Man may be strong, but God must be stronger; and according to the heathen maxim, Fate is strongest of all.-The progress of progress of die maatess toleration within the last fifty years has been toleration, wonderful, all sects are permitted to exercise anticipatio. and to propagate their opinions with impunity, and even infidelity is not wholly proscribed.A less period than fifty years, I trust, will give to infidels of all descriptions the utmost liberty to profess their opinions. Religion may suffer from such a toleration, but morality can never suffer from the utmost freedom of discussion, for morality is founded on the common interest of mankind, which will always prove its best protection; and even Christianity, so far as it is practicable, whatever may become of its doctrines, will maintain itself as a rule of conduct while it is found consistent with general utility; but to give it a fair trial, it must have no external support from fear or interest Y Y |