quire them by the habitual and conftant profeffion of a falfhood.

Setting afide the great dignitaries in the church of Rome or of England, many clergymen, in the latter of these establishments especially, who have had no great preferment in the church, men of reading and understanding, have written very able defences of christianity.

If it be faid, that these men, though but poorly provided for at the time in which they wrote, might have confiderable expectations, and that feveral of them did, in fact, attain to great preferment in the church, in confequence of their defences of chriftianity, this cannot be said of thofe diffenting minifters who have defended the fame caufe with equal zeal, and not lefs ability. What advantage did Fofter, Leland, or Lardner gain by the important fervices which they rendered the chriftian cause? The two former, if I have been rightly informed, died poor, and the laft, befides almost the whole of a very long life, spent a confiderable part of his own independent fortune in the publication of his works.

If the evidence of fuch men as thefe must be set afide, nothing, furely, worth replying to, can be objected to the belief and defence of chriftianity by fuch men as Locke, Newton, or Hartley; all men. of fober minds, in no other refpect the dupes of vulgar prejudice, least of all thofe of education; all

of

of them men of strict virtue and integrity, all of them men of the first-rate abilities, the two latter of them especially, infinitely fuperior to any of the advocates for infidelity. Thefe men gave the closest attention to the fubject, and they were mafters of all the previous knowledge that is requifite to form a competent judgment in the cafe. They certainly could have no views of intereft in their profeffion or defences of christianity ; and, as men of letters, would probably have gained, rather than have loft any thing, in point of general estimation, by efpousing the cause of infidelity. For it can hardly be denied, that the works of fuch men as Mr. Hume and Voltaire, have been much more read and admired in confequence of their being unbelievers, than they would other wife have been

It is not eafy, for want of a fufficient knowledge of antient and diftant countries, to compare the ftate of the belief of Judaism and of christianity. with that of any fyftem of heathenism or Moham medanism, which are deemed to be falfe both by believers and unbelievers of chriftianity;. but as far as we are able to make this comparifon, all the conclufion that can be drawn from it is certainly in favour of the Jewish and chriftian religions. It will not be pretended that fo much as one philofopher, or man of letters, was a ferious believer of any pagan fyftem, notwithstanding their oppofition

to christianity at its firft promulgation. In Mohammedan countries there is at prefent very little reading or ftudy, and if we be not mifinformed by fome late travellers, those who are addicted to ftudy, or who have any thing of a speculative turn, are generally fuppofed to be unbelievers. However, nothing written against their religion was ever read or heard of in any Mohammedan country.

Upon the whole, I think we may conclude, at leaft fairly prefume, that no impofture has ever ftood fuch a teft as chriftianity has already flood, without being exploded; and notwithstanding the fpread of infidelity at prefent, yet, considering among whom it spreads, and who they are that oppose the spread of it, it can hardly be doubted, by an indifferent spectator, but that the belief of ehriftianity, fo far from being in any danger of becoming extinct, will maintain its ground, and continue to be the ferious belief of the virtuous, the fober-minded, and the learned of the prefent and future ages; and this will be an omen of its finally triumphing over all oppofition, and of the belief of its coming at length to be univerfal, and undifputed.

Sincere chriftians have no more reason to be fhocked at the prevalence of infidelity in the prefent age, than at the prevalence of evils in general, or of vice in particular. There can be no doubt

but

but that evils of every kind answer the best of purposes in the fyftem of God's moral government, and that they are a very important part of that most admirable difcipline, by which mankind are training up to the knowledge of truth and the practice of virtue. Nor do I think that it requires any great depth of judgment, or knowledge of human ́nature, to perceive this.

Suppofing it to be the intention of any person to form a proper number of truly great, excellent, and generous minds, he must place them in a world not lefs abounding with calamity, and even with vice, than this. There could be no dependence either upon the genuineness, or the ftability of that virtue which had not been formed, and exercifed, in fuch circumstances.

In like manner, the moft rational and the most fteady believer in chriftianity, is the man who has heard and confidered all the ferious objections that unbelievers can make to it, and who has also been expofed to the ridicule with which it is treated by thofe who have the reputation of men of fenfe, and of being free from vulgar prejudices. The man who has paffed through this trial, whofe faith has not been fhaken, but has been more firmly establifhed by the reafonings of unbelievers; who has not been made afhamed of his profeffion by the ridicule and contempt to which it has expofed him, but who can be content to be ranked among the

fools and narrow minded by the celebrated freethinkers of the age, in a firm belief of, and patient waiting for that day, which shall confound the wifdom of the now reputed wife, is a chriftian of a higher rank, and greater value, and is more to be depended upon for acting a truly chriftian part (which requires fuperiority of mind to this world, and to the vain pursuits and transitory emoluments of it) than the man who has only been taught to take the fyftem for granted, and who is unacquainted with the proper evidence on which his faith refts.

Moreover, as thofe who believe in the perfect moral government of God entertain no doubt, but that all calamity and vice will be made to ceafe, when they have anfwered the purposes for which they were permitted to exift; fo the chriftian looks. forward with joy to that time, when the religion of Chrift fhall triumph over all oppofition, when the firm belief of it will be univerfal, and when, in confequence of this, being more deeply rooted in men's hearts, it will bring forth the proper fruits of it in their lives and conversation.

When these things are duly confidered, I hope that the present ftate of the belief of chriftianity will afford no juft foundation for any objection to it, but that it will rather fupply an argument in favour of it.

SEC.