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ftopped it with the dread of an ecclefiaftical cenfure.

You perceive, with what ease a little attention will remove a great difficulty; but had we been able to fay nothing, in explanation of this phænomenon, we should not have acted a very rational part, in making our ignorance the foundation of our infidelity, or fuffering a minute philosopher to rob us of our religion.

Your objections to revelation, may be numerous; you may find fault with the account, which Mofes has given of the creation and the fall; you may not be able to get water enough for an univerfal deluge; nor room enough in the ark of Noah, for all the different

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ferent kinds of aerial and terreftrial animals; you may be diffatisfied with the command for facrificing of Ifaac, for plundering the Egyptians, and for extirpating the Canaanites; you may find fault with the Jewish ceconomy, for it's ceremonies, it's facrifices, and it's multiplicity of priests; you may object to the imprecations in the pfalms, and think the immoralities of David, a fit fubject for dramatic ridicule;+ you may look upon the partial promulgation of Chriftianity, as an infuperable objection to it's truth; and waywardly reject the

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See, Saül et David Hyperdrame. Whatever cenfure the author of this compofition may deferve for his intention, the work itself deferves none; it's ridicule is too grofs, to mislead even the ignorant,

goodness of God toward yourselves, because you do not comprehend, how you have deferved it more than others; you may know nothing of the entrance of fin and death into the world, by one man's tranfgreffion; nor be able to comprehend the doctrine of the crofs and of redemption by Jefus Chrift; in fhort, if your mind is fo difpofed, you may find food for your fcepticism in every page of the Bible, as well as in every appearance of nature; and it is not in the power of any perfon, but yourselves, to clear up your doubts; you must read, and you must think for yourselves; and you must do both with temper, with candour, and with care.

In

fidelity is a rank weed; it is nur

tured

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tured by our vices, and cannot be plucked up as easily as it may planted your difficulties, with respect to revelation, may have first arifen, from your own reflection on the religious indifference of those, whom from your earliest infancy, you have been accustomed to revere and imitate; domeftic irreligion may have made you a willing hearer of libertine converfation; and the uniform prejudices of the world, may have finished the bufinefs at a very early age; and left you to wander through life, without a principle to direct your conduct, and to die without hope. We are far from wishing you to trust the word of the Clergy for the truth of your religion; we beg of

you

you to examine it to the bottom, to try it, to prove it, and not to hold it fast unless you find it good. Till you are disposed to undertake this task, it becomes you to confider with great seriousness and attention, whether it can be for your intereft to esteem a few witty farcafms, or metaphyfic fubtleties, or ignorant mifrepresentations, or unwarranted affertions, as unanswerable arguments against revelation; and a very flight reflection will convince you, that it will certainly be for your reputation, to employ the flippancy of your rhetoric, and the poignancy of your ridicule, upon any fubject, rather than upon the fubject of Religion.

I take my leave with recommending

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