causes, which every cool, unprejudiced mind? perceives to have long ago lost their influence upon mankind. We have nothing to do but to make this malicious anachronism more general, and we shall say, that natural philosophy is conjecture, the medical art empiricism, and law a system of ingenious depredation, because there have been periods in which these sciences were all exposed to; such imputations.

The fact is (and such I believe to be the opinion of every man who loves truth. more than party, let his religious opinions be what they may,) that a disbelief, not only in Christianity, but in a superintending Providence, is travelling down from the metaphysician to the common haunts, and ordinary scenes of life; that men are giving up the practical morality of the gospel, and the true, and wholesome terror of a God, who have no beautiful, and classical theory of morals to substitute in its place, but who, if they are not Christians, must be wild beasts: These are the dangers which now threaten us; we have not, in the present state of the world, to fear that we

shall be manacled again by superstition, but that the golden chain which reaches from heaven to earth, should be broken asunder, and not one link of it again be found.

If philosophy be a love of knowledge, evinced by an ardent, and able pursuit of it, there can surely be nothing to exclude the firm believer in Christianity from every honourable distinction which this appellation can convey: The subject which engages his attention, is unquestionably superior in importance to every other which can occupy the wit of man; the prosecution of it involves wide historical research, much curious, and delicate examination of evi-9 dence, much labour, and many vigils of the mind; and he who gets up from theses studies a sincere Christian, is, for ought I know, as much a philosopher, as the atheist who has studied away his soul, elaborated & his theory of annihilation from whole libra ries, and given up one life, to discover there is no other.

A great many human beings must take

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their religion upon trust; few have leisure, and few talents, for speculative inquiries; but let me ask, which is the more commendable, and noble to believe in Christianity without proof, or to disbelieve in it without proof? A modest coincidence with received opinions above our faculties, or an affected contempt of them? Whether there is a more disgusting spectacle than arrogant mediocrity? Whether we cannot more easily allow for that inclination which bends towards a religion of comfortable promise, than that which leans to a system of cold despondency? Whether there is not something pleasant in seeing our fellow-creatures cling to a faith which arranges the world, and cheers it? And if it is not afflicting to behold that depraved appetite for misery, and despair, which induces men to yield up their assent to a system of incredulity, without being acquainted in the smallest degree with the reasons on which it is founded?

Those who are so fond of preferring the charge of bigotry against Christians, should remember how intimately this attachment to our opinions is interwoven in

our constitution, and how much more likely it is to display itself upon subjects of such extreme importance as that of religion: whoever has made Christianity his rule of action in this world, and his hope in the next, whose original conviction has been strengthened by habit, and warmed by devotion, and can bear in this tenor of mind, to hear that he has been believing in a fable, that his labour is lost, and his hope illusive; whoever can bear to hear these assertions, and to discuss them without transgressing the rules of candour, possesses the love of truth in a degree truly inimitable, for he risks all his happiness in pursuit of it. But if, in spite of this plea of mitigation, the want of candour be so offensive in a Christian, what shall we say to that most extraordinary of all characters, a bigotted sceptic? who resists the force of proof where he has every temptation to be convinced, who ought to pant for refutation, and to bless the man who has reasoned him to silence? Bigotry in him is the pure unadulterated vice; it is not the fear of losing an opinion on which his happiness depends, but the fear of losing an opinion, merely because it

is an opinion; and this is the very essence of obstinacy, and pride.

Where men pretend to nothing, the world are indulgent to their faults; but it well behoves those who lord it in word, and thought over the rest of mankind, that they be consistent in their conduct, and perfectly free from those faults which they so liberally impute to others. Ignorance, bigotry, and illiberality, are bad enough in their simple state; but when men of slender information, narrow views, and obstinate dispositions insult the feelings, and despise the understandings of such of their fellow-creatures who have fixed their faith in an amiable, and benevolent religion, we are called upon by common sense, and by common spirit, to resist, and to extinguish this dynasty of fools.

To those great men on whom God has breathed a larger portion of his spirit, whom he has sent into the world to enlarge the empire of talent, and of truth, mankind will ever pay a loyal obedience; they are

our natural leaders, they are the pillars of