9 “person must be poor, and void of all recommenda66tions but that of virtue alone; that a wicked world “would not bear his instructions and reproof; and - therefore within three or four years after he began “ to preach, he should be persecuted, imprisoned, “ scourged, and at last put to death." . I have now, my dear friend, presented you with a summary of the most striking opinions of the ancient Legislators, Poets, and Philosophers, with regard to Superior Beings, to human conduct, and a future state; if it be asked what is the tendency of the sentiments of any one philosopher, or of the aggregate of them, to elevate the conceptions in respect of Deity, to purify the affections, to humanise the heart, to amend the conduct; the reply is lamentably obvious nothing. What principle in theology, or what rule in morals, has any one of them, or have all of them, indubitably established ? How many of the doctrines of what is now called Natural Religion did any of them hold ? The four great propositions which the moderns almost universally concede to Natural Religion, as integral parts of it, are “ 1st. That there is one God. 2dly. That God is nothing of those things which we “ see. 3dly. That God takes care of all things below, “ and governs all the world. Athly. That he alone is “ the great Creator of all things out of himself.” Now they are incontrovertible facts, which cannot be too deeply engraven upon the mind, that none of the greatest and wisest men among the Greeks and Romans held all these propositions, and that very few held any of them firmly ; that before the Christian æra no people 66 a in the world believed these propositions but the Jews; and that they did not discover them, but received them by divine Revelation, in the basis of the first four precepts of the decalogue. Let also the idolizers of the powers of reason in the development of religious truths have it equally impressed upon their minds, that none of the heathen philosophers attempted a solution of the question, “ How shall a sinner appear before the God 66 whose laws he has broken ?” and that none of them made even a remote approximation to that simple, comprehensive and admirable rule of moral conduct, “ Do “ unto others as you would they should do unto you;” and then, I trust, they will be constrained to acknowledge that the Apostle of the Gentiles was not indulging a flight of enthusiasm, but was simply impelled by the force of truth, when he broke out into the triumphant exclamation—" Where is the wise ? where is " the scribe? where is the disputer of this world ? “ Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this 66 world ? For after that in the wisdom of God the 66 world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by “ the foolishness of preaching, to save them that be6 lieve !" (a) I remain, Yours truly, P.S. You will, perhaps, be surprised that I have not in this letter taken any notice of Zoroaster, of (a) 1 Corinthians, i. 20, 21. whom many Deists have so much to tell. I have omitted all recital of his supposed opinions for two reasons : 1st, Dr. Hyde has shown, in his treatise De Religione veterum Persarum, that Zoroaster had been a disciple of one of the Jewish prophets : and 2dly, all the writings that are ascribed to this philosopher are unquestionably spurious. 55 LETTER IV. On the Probability that there should be Mysteries in a Revealed Religion. Your deistical friends, my dear sir, seem determined to contend zealously for every inch of ground before they yield it. But this is not to be regretted; for our future progress will be facilitated in proportion to the number of obstacles that are completely removed at the outset of our inquiry. When they tell you they will believe nothing that they cannot comprehend, and that the Scriptures are unworthy of credit, because they abound in mysteries, they adopt the language of unbelievers in all ages. But these declarations prove that they have never correctly investigated the power and office of reason in matters of religion, and at the same time run counter to their whole plan of conduct in relation to all except religious subjects; for who is there that does not believe numerous facts which are utterly incomprehensible; and reduce principles into practice, which are beyond, though not repugnant to, reason? It is, indeed, in a 'neglect of the essential distinction between what is above reason and what is contrary to it, that the objection now under consideration is founded. Yet surely nothing can be more obvious than that many things, beyond the scope of our intellectual powers, may nevertheless be perfectly true. When we were children, several matters were to us entirely incomprehensible, which have now sunk into the simplest, and lowest, and plainest elements of our knowledge. We were then learners ; docility became us; and we were highly reprehensible if we opposed our puny understandings to that of our tutors. Now, in the bestowal of a revelation, the principle is assumed that men are in a state of pupilage. The God of infinite wisdom condescends to be their teacher, and it therefore behoves them, on such an occasion, to employ their reason solely for the purpose of ascertaining whether what is presented to them be really the word of God, and then to resign their understandings wholly to the adoption of the truths with which they are favoured. This is consistent with what is prescribed by that great philosopher Lord Bacon, who directs that reason be employed in studying Holy mysteries, with this 66 caution, that the mind for its module be dilated to “ the amplitude of the mysteries ; and not the myste“ ries be straitened and girt into the narrow compass “ of the mind." He says again, in his Advancement of Learning, “ We ought not to attempt to draw down, or submit the mysteries of God to our reason; “but, on the contrary, to raise and advance our reason 66 to the divine truth. In this part of knowledge, touching divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any deficiency, that I rather note an excess whereto “ I have digressed, because of the extreme prejudice “ which both religion and philosophy have received “ from being commixed together, as that which will “ undoubtedly make an heretical religion and a fabu 66 66 66 |