This is vulgar defamation, mere mendacious calumny. But it is also something infinitely worse. It was well known that there were men with minds prepared to believe the odious tale, men with whom it would stand in the place of all argument: men who would be sure to consider the opinions of wicked persons, as wicked opinions; not requiring to be repelled by the arguments of the divine, but stifled by the hands of the gaoler, or hangmen.

The fact is, that many of the writers unfavourable to Christianity have been men of eminent virtue, and distinguished by their ardent endeavours to strengthen the ties of morality among man. kind. We mention this as a matter of history merely, without founding upon it any inference with regard to the tendency of the religious opinions, either of them or their opponents. Hobbes in this country and Bayle on the continent, not to speak of others, will stand a comparison with the best and greatest men that have ever lived: and if infidel writers, as a class, be compared with other classes, of what class, not even excepting the clerical, can it be affirmed with truth, that its characrer for morality stands higher than theirs? Nothing, therefore, can exceed the baseness of the clergy in taking the advantage which the prepossessions of the vulgar afford them, by assuming that it is a vicious life which engenders reasonings and conclusions unfavourable to religion. To bear down an adversary, not by refuting his bad arguments, but defaming his good life, is a course worthy not of the best, but the worst of causes; and all sincere Christians ought to unite as one man, to clear themselves of so deep a stain.

Berkeley does not stop short till he has told the world that the employment of infidels is, to recommend even the most atrocious crimes. "An unlucky accident now and then befals an ingenious man. The minute philosopher Magirus, being desirous to benefit the public, by calculating an estate possessed by a near relation who had not the heart to spend it, soon convinced himself upon these principles, that it would be a very worthy ac tion to dispatch out of the way such a useless fellow, to whom he was next heir. But for this laudable attempt, he had the misfortune to be hanged by an under-bred judge and jury.”

He would have forgotten a most important weapon against the infidels if he had not imputed to them political as well as moral wickedness. Their representative is thus made to boast: "We have cleared the land of all prejudices towards government or constitution, and made them fly like other phantasms before the light of reason and good sense. Men who think deeply cannot see any reason why power should not change hands as well as property; or why the fashion of a government should not be changed as easy as that of a garment. The perpetual circulating and revolving of wealth and power, no matter through what or whose hands, is that which keeps up life and

spirit in a State. Those who are even slightly read in our philosophy, know that of all prejudices, the silliest is an attachment to forms. CRITO. To say no more upon so clear a point, the overturning a government may be justified upon the same principles as the burning a town, would produce parallel effects, and equally contribute to the public good." And after a few sentences: Lysicles affirms, "Laws and regulations to right and wrong, crimes and duties, serve to bind weak minds, and keep the vulgar in awe; but no sooner doth a true genius arise, but he breaks his way to greatness through all the trammels of duty, conscience, religion, law; to all which he sheweth himself infinitely superior.'

And this is given as a true representation of the speculative opinions, and practical principles, in morals and politics, of all who question the divine origin of Christianity!

We had intended to have exhibited specimens of the same spirit of honest representation and fair dealing, on the part of other divines of the greatest eminence, but Berkeley's passages have tempted us so far, that we must now content ourselves with a reference to what we intended to insert from Archbishop Tillotson, and Drs. Barrow and Clarke. In Tillotson the reader may find what will suffice for evidence in the sermons lxxxviii. and lxxxix., intituled, "Honesty the best Preservative against dangerous Mistakes in Religion;" in serinon ccxlv. intituled, "The Excellency and Universality of the Christian Religion;" and sermon ccxlvi., intituled, "The Ground of Bad Men's Enmity to the Truth.". For the same purpose we refer him, in Barrow, to the sermon "On Infidelity," towards the end, and to the second sermon "On Faith." The only specimen which we think it necessary to adduce of the spirit in the writings of Dr. Clarke, is near the beginning of his work on "The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion," where, immediately following the statement of the fifteen propositions, which he undertakes to establish, he gives an account of the several sorts of Deists.

When men, not only of such powers of reasoning, but of so much true virtue and moderation, make assumptions thus groundless and indignant, they afford evidence against the body, by the spirit of which they are carried so directly against the current of their own nature, infinitely stronger than what is furnished by the railings of such a man as Warburton, who proceeds upon it as a legitimate postulatum, that if there be any man who holds one opinion different from any opinion of Warburton, such man is a wretch, and has no one good quality, either moral or intellectual, about him.

The following, which is a small touch of his hand, will exemplify his mode of dealing with the infidels. It is Cardan, the mention of whom produces the following decent effusion :-"The charming picture he (Cardan) draws of himself, and which he excuses no otherwise than by laying the fault on his stars, will

hardly prejudice any one in favour of his opinions." Warburton, we see, knew the effect produced upon the credit of doctrines by the opinion which might be spread of the character of him who maintained them; and with this knowledge, he gives out the following as the character of the infidel."How far it (Cardan's picture of himself) resembles any other of the brotherhood, they best know who have examined the genius of modern infidelity. However, thus he speaks of his own amiable turn of mind:- In diem viventem, nugacem, religionis contemptorem, injuriæ illatæ memorem, invidum, tristem, insidiatorem, proditorem, magum, incantatorem, suorum osorem, turpi libidini deditum, 'solitarium inamonum, austerum, sponte etiam divinantem, zelotypum, obscænum, lascivum, maledicum, varium, ancipitem, impurum, calumniatorem,' &c. We have had many free-thinkers, but few such free-speakers. But though these sort of writers are not used to give us so direct a picture of themselves, yet it hath been observed, that they have unawares copied from their own tempers, in the ungracious drawings they have made of human nature and religion."*

Free-thinkers are a " class, who never cultivate a truth, but in order to graft a lie upon it."+

And this is the style in which Warburton indulges himself, as often as his discourse brings an infidel before him, from the beginning to the end of his very vulgar volumes, vulgar in every thing, vulgar in language, vulgar in tone and temper, vulgar even in learning, for which he has got a most undue reputation, but most of all vulgar in reasoning, of which he understands not even the elements; for we doubt if an aggregate of bad reasonings, a match for his, exists in the writings of any other man, that ever put pen to paper.

We have now exceeded the limits to which an article ought to run, and yet have only reached two of the evils to which the fatal measure of incorporating a body of clergy gives birth: persecution on account of religion, and hostility to the liberty of the press. The developement of its further effects in depraving both religion and morality, in corrupting education and government, in retarding the progress of the human mind, and in degrading the character, intellectual and moral, of the clergy, we shall undertake on some future occasion.

• Divine Legation, b. i. § 3.

+ Ib. b. iii. § 6..

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The Republican.

No. 20, Vol. 14.] LONDON, Friday, Nov. 24, 1826. [Price 6d.

ON MIRACLES.

IT has been a frequent and positive assertion among the advocates of Christianity, that the performance of miracles proves the authority, and the divine origin of the religion of Jesus; and that the superhuman and extraordinary deviations from the usual course of nature, which are related in the writings of the New Testament, could have been effected by nothing less than by the almighty power of God, thereby showing that Christianity must be true because God himself is the author of it. The propagators of this unqualified and dogmatical assumption must consent to be ranked among the most wilful deceivers of mankind, or otherwise they must admit their extreme ignorance of the subject upon which they treat; in either case they are totally unworthy of belief. The design of the following pages is to show that all the religions which have ever been established, and have made any figure in the world from the most remote ages to the present time, have laid claim to the performance of miracles, and all with the same pretensions to belief, and all equally deserving of credi bility; because they all depend upon the same evidence; that of historical record-and no other. If it be affirmed that the narration of events which happened in far distant ages is enveloped in obscurity and fable, modern history cannot be said to be entirely free from the same defeets. Much of what is related to have been performed during the reigns of the early Kings of England is extremely mysterious and equivocal. The account of the reigh of Richard the Third is notoriously distorted by partial and venal writers, and the numerous murders and atrocities ascribed to him are at best very problematical. Still later in Scotland, the very existence of the individual known by the name of the "Admirable Crichton" is extremely doubtful, and destitute of certifying evidence; and even in our own times the actions ascribed to Buonaparte are differently related according to the opinions or the bias. of the minds of the several authors. Whether that illustrious individual headed the troops when the celebrated charge was

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made over the Bridge of Lodi, or whether Augereau performed the exploit, is not satisfactorily known. The same doubt hangs over the charge of the French cavalry at Waterloo.. Some writers mention that a garrison which had capitulated was inhumanly slaughtered by the command of Buonaparte, while others as stoutly deny the fact. Hundreds of other instances might be mentioned, but these are sufficient for illustration. The inference which is fairly drawn from these contradictory and dubious statements is, that in our argumentation, we may apply with equal propriety the records which are handed down to us by the ancient historians as well as those of more modern date; and we must admit that a miracle is not rendered more true by being said to have been performed in comparatively modern times. The accounts of some of the miraculous events connected with the different systems of religion are inserted in their respective places as admitted historical facts without any objection being raised against the validity even of the most remote legends; because if it be opposed to them that their origin is so fabulous and uncertain, and their relations so unnatural, absurd, and improbable, the same admission must likewise be made against Christianity, which is not in the smallest possible degree more established upon a true basis than the wonderful narrations contained in the Hindoo or Egyptian mythologies. Those who are well versed in theological and political history are fully satisfied and convinced that the writings of the New Testament are as utterly destitute of certainty in a chronological point of view as is the account of the Argonautic expedition, or the siege of Troy. It is, therefore, obvious, that if a logical deduction is to be made of the comparative genuineness of the various systems of religious faith which have at sundry times laid claim to belief and observance, it must be allowed as the grand principle of the argument, that the evidence by which each is supported is substantially and altogether correct, because if not all given the same degree of credibility at the outset, the question is prejudged, and all reasoning and approach towards truth is completely precluded. If all historical relations whatever are supposed to be doubtful or false, away, then, goes all the diversities of religions, and Christianity among them.

RELIGION AND MIRACLES OF THE EGYPTIANS.

In the examination of the Egyptian religion we have before us the most ancient mode of worship with which history furnishes us with the detail; and although the Chinese and the Hindoo mythologies are of extremely remote antiquity, yet it is most generally admitted, by all conversant with chronology, that the Egyptian bears away the palm of priority. Whether it be so or not is