stances of it with an appearance of complacency and satisfaction, and seems even to exult in it as a just retribution for the crime of the wretched sufferer. At tu Dictis Albane Maneres, Æn. viii. 642. It would be endless to enumerate instances of the same kind, which occur perpetually in the most distinguished writers of antiquity, and which incontestably prove that neither the brightest talents, nor the most successful cultivation of philosophy, of history, of eloquence, of poetry, of all those branches of literature which are properly called the literæ humaniores, and which are supposed to soften and humanize and meliorate the heart, could in any degree subdue the unyielding stubborness of Pagan cruelty. On the contrary, it would be no difficult task to show that the more the ancients advanced in letters and the fine arts, and the more their communication and commerce with the different parts of the then known world was extended and enlarged, the more savage, oppressive, and tyrannical they became. And it is a fact no less remarkable, as well as a proof no less decisive of the doctrine I have been endeavouring to establish, that, on the discovery of the new world, the same astonishing phenomenon presented itself, that we have just been noticing in the old. In the very heart of South America an empire appeared which had made advances in government, in policy, in many useful and many ornamental arts, far beyond what could have been expected without the use of letters, and infinitely beyond all the surrounding nations of that country. And it appeared, also, that these polished Mexicans (for it is to

those I allude) exceeded their neighbours the Peruvians, and all the other Indian kingdoms, in fierceness and in cruelty, as much as they surpassed them in all the conveniences and improvements of social and civilized life.

What shall we now say to the philosophy of the present age, which assumes to itself the exclusive merit of all the humanity and benevolence which are to be found in the world; and how shall we account for the striking contrast between the insensibility and hardheartedness of the ancient philosophers and those professions of gentleness and philanthropy which their brethren in our own times so ostentatiously display in their writings and in their discourses? The only adequate and assignable reason of the difference is, that the latter have a source to draw from which was unknown to the former; that to the Gospel they are indebted for all their fine sentiments and declamations on the subject of benevolence; which, however, seem never to reach their hearts, or influence their conduct; for (as fatal experience has shown) the moment they are possessed of power, they become the most inhuman of tyrants,

BISHOP PORTEUS.

AN ADDRESS TO DEISTS.

SUPPOSE the mighty work accomplished, the cross trampled upon, Christianity every where proscribed, and the religion of nature once more become the religion of Europe; what advantage will you have derived for your country, or to

VOL. I.

E

yourselves, from the exchange? I know your answer-you will have freed the world from the hypocrisy of priests and the tyranny of superstition.-No; you forget that Lycurgus, and Numa, and Odin, and Manco Capac, and all the great legislators of ancient and modern story, have been of opinion that the affairs of civil society could not be well conducted without some religion; you must of necessity introduce a priesthood, with probably as much hypocrisy; a religion, with assuredly more superstition than that which you now reprobate with such indecent and ill grounded contempt. But I will tell you from what you will have freed the world: you will have freed it from its abhorrence of vice, and from every powerful incentive to virtue; you will, with the religion, have brought back the depraved morality of Paganism; you will have robbed mankind of their firm assurance of another life; and thereby you will have despoiled them of their patience, of their humility, of their charity, of their chastity, of all those mild and silent virtues which, (however despicable they may appear in your eyes), are the only ones which meliorate and sublime our nature; which Paganism never knew, which spring from Christianity alone, which do or might constitute our comfort in this life, and without the possession of which, another life, if after all there should happen to be one, must, (unless a miracle be exerted in the alteration of our disposition), be more vicious and more miserable than this is.

Perhaps you will contend that the universal light of reason, that the truth and fitness of things

are of themselves sufficient to exalt the nature and regulate the manners of mankind. Shall we never have done with this groundless commendation of natural law? Look into the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and you will see the extent of its influence over the Gentiles of those days; or, if you dislike Paul's authority and the manners of antiquity, look into the more admired accounts of modern voyagers, and examine its influence over the Pagans of our own times, over the sensual inhabitants of Otaheite, over the cannibals of New Zealand, or the remorseless savages of America.-But these men are barbarians. Your law of nature, notwithstanding, extends even to them. But they have misused their reason: they have then the more need of, and would be the more thankful for, that revelation which you, with an ignorant and fastidious self sufficiency, deem useless.But these, however, you will think, are extraordinary instances; and that we ought not from these to take our measure of the excellency of the law of nature, but rather from the civilized states of China or Japan, or from the nations which flourished in learning and in arts before Christianity was heard of in the world.

You

mean to say, that by the law of nature, which you are desirous of substituting in the room of the Gospel, you do not understand those rules of conduct which an individual, abstracted from the community, and deprived of the institutions of mankind, could excogitate for himself; but such a system of precepts as the most enlightened men of the most enlightened ages have recom

mended to our observance. Where do you find this system? We cannot meet with it in the works of Stobæus, or the Scythian Anacharsis, nor in those of Plato or of Cicero, nor in those of the Emperor Antoninus or the slave Epictetus, for we are persuaded that the most animated considerations of the geπov and the honestum, of the beauty of virtue and the fitness of things, are not able to furnish even a Brutus himself with permanent principles of action; much less are they able to purify the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to curb the irregularity of appetite, or restrain the impetuosity of passion in common men. If you order us to examine the works of Grotius, of Puffendorff, or Burlamaqui, or Hutcheson, for what you understand by the law of nature, we apprehend that you are in a great error in taking your notions of natural law, as discoverable by natural reason, from the elegant systems of it which have been drawn up by Christian philosophers, since they have all laid their foundations, either tacitly or expressly, upon a principle derived from revelation-a thorough knowledge of the being and attributes of God: and even those amongst ourselves, who, rejecting Christianity, still continue Theists, are indebted to revelation for those sublime speculations concerning the Deity which you have fondly attributed to the excellency of your own unassisted reason.

BISHOP WATSON.