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fancy; but its errors at once delude the judgment, degrade the spirit, and pollute the affections. How can the follower of Mahomet, therefore, feel any enlargement given to his understanding from representations of a Deity who, though sometimes eloquently or magnificently described, is yet familiarized to his apprehension in the character of an impure or capricious being? How can he be excited to the exercise or improvement of the higher powers of his nature, by the views which his religion affords him of a futurity in which these powers seem to be unemployed; in which the enjoyments of animal pleasure form a great part of the reward assigned to virtue; and to the relish of which no other preparation seems necessary, than to assimilate the mind to an ambition as limited, and to desires as impure?

Though the existence of a Deity has been admitted as well in the darkest as the most enlightened ages; and though it is equally supported by the testimony of tradition and the authority of reason, yet the ideas entertained of his attributes have been much diversified by vari. ous causes in the constitution of men's minds, or in the circumstances of their situation. The northern nations, fierce and unpolished in their manners, assailed by the severities of an inclement sky, and habituated to the contemplation of dreary wastes or rugged mountains, have arrayed their deities in every terrible quality. Among the inhabitants of the east, whose tempers seem to be cast in a softer mould, and whose senses are accustomed to more delicate and more beautiful prospects of nature, the characters of their gods

wear a lovelier aspect. The same propensity in the worshipper to assimilate the object of his worship to his own ruling passions, or his own favourite tenets, may be traced through individuals and sects. The God of the benevolent man is, in his contemplation, surrounded with the mild lustre of benevolence; the God of the malignant is seen only with frowns of displeasure, and armed with the thunderbolt of vengeance. In the deity of Zeno, we perceive much of the sullen dignity and harsh inflexibility in which the philosopher himself placed the supreme good; and upon the same principle Epicurus ascribed to his gods that exemption from the solicitude of care, and the bustle of activity, which he represented as essential to happiness, both human and divine. But in the God whom Christians are commanded to adore, none of those imperfections can be discerned which are usually and justly imputed to the peculiar sentiments of individuals, or the general habits of nations. Without the jargon of science, and without the rant of enthusiasm, he is presented to us with all the perfections which were ever assigned to the divinity by the reason of the contemplative philosopher or the fancy of the enraptured poet.

DR. J. WHITE.

THE

Divine Origin of the Christian Religion

INFERRED FROM

THE CONDUCT OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES.

HERE then is an effect proceeding from a cause, according to human estimation, inadequate to produce it. Nothing similar, as far as we are informed, ever took place before or since. Can any one believe that an obscure peasant, in an obscure country, with no better assistance than twelve poor fishermen, could have brought about so great and extraordinary a change by any possible mode of human exertion? or is it credible that, without cooperation and support, they would have taken the steps they did to accomplish their object? If they had no surer method of advancing their cause, than that with which their own efforts could have supplied them, they would have had recourse to those things which are commonly successful on similar occasions; they would have attempted to impose on the understandings of mankind by conciliation and flattery: they would have dazzled their imaginations by visionary prospects of future advantage; and would have moved every engine, which is usually directed by the artful and designing, against human weakness. But these things, so often practised by others, could not be turned to advantage by them. They possessed neither influence, wealth, nor power; they had (with few exceptions) neither abilities, learning, address, nor eloquence; so

far indeed were they from aiming at allurement, that the method which they took of making converts to their cause was likely to operate as an effectual discouragement. They attacked the obstinate and rooted prejudices universally entertained for the established forms of religion; and loudly condemned those darling follies, vices, and superstitions to which mankind had shown so long and fond an attachment; they exhorted their hearers to embrace a cause which could not fail to involve them in the most serious evils; and to acknowledge the divine mission of one, whom, far from clothing with supernatural splendour, they represented as terminating a miserable life with an ignominious death. All they had to put into the opposite scale was the promise of a recompense, invisible and distant; and of such a nature as preconceived opinions must reasonably regard as chimerical and delusive. This address was not made in a dark age, or to a savage people, but to the wisest and most enlightened nations of the earth, at a time when human learning and philosophy were at their greatest height; thus every motive that usually influences the mind of man, religion, custom, law, policy, pride, interest, vice, and even philosophy, were united against the gospel. These are enemies at all times formidable and difficult to be subdued, even when attacked upon equal ground; but now entrenched and rendered inaccessible by the strongest bulwarks of civil power; yet against all these obstacles Christianity struggled, and completely triumphed. It overturned the temples and altars of the gods; it silenced the oracles;

it humbled the pride of emperors; it confounded the wisdom of the philosophers; and introduced into the most civilized nations of the world a new principle of virtue and religion. This extraordinary influence and authority it has maintained for nearly eighteen hundred years; it has been looked up to as the certain and unerring road, not only to present, but future happiness; and is still regarded by the wise and good as a system founded by the gracious Saviour and Deliverer of mankind.

REV. T. ROBINSON.

SUPERSTITION AND ATHEISM CONTRASTED.

WHAT, I would ask, are the general effects of superstition and atheism upon the happiness and the conduct of mankind? Superstition, it is granted, has many direct sorrows, but atheism has no direct joys. Superstition admits fear mingled with hope, but atheism, while it excludes hope, affords a very imperfect security against fear. Superstition is never exposed to the dreary vacuities in the soul over which atheism is wont to brood in solitude and silence; but atheism is sometimes haunted by forebodings scarcely less confused, or less unquiet, than those by which superstition is annoyed. Superstition stands aghast at the punishments reserved for wicked men in another state; but atheism cannot disprove the possibility of such a state to all men, accompanied by consciousness, and fraught with evils equally dreadful in degree, and even in duration, with

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