wise, whether you will condescend to interchange a few letters I remain, reverend sir, with great respect, ESSAY I. ON THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, AND OF NATURAL RELIGION. BY THE REV. SAMUEL CAREY, LL.D. FORESEEING that my health will not permit me, for a considerable time, to meet my respected friends at New Cottage, I comply with the request, which several of them have made me, in sending them in writing, my ideas on the two noblest subjects which can occupy the mind of man: the existence of God, and the truth of Christianity. In doing this, I profess not to make new discoveries, but barely to state certain arguments, which I collected in my youth, from the learned Hugo Grotius, our own judicious Clarke, and other advocates of natural and revealed religion. I offer no apology for adopting the words of Scripture, in arguing with persons who are supposed not to admit its authority, when these express my meaning as fully as any others can do. The first argument for the existence of God is thus expressed by the royal prophet: "Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves." Ps. c. 3. In fact, when I ask myself that question, which every reflecting man must sometimes ask himself: How came I into this state of existence ? Who has bestowed upon me the being which I enjoy? I am forced to answer, It is not I that made myself; and each of my forefathers, if asked the same question, must have returned the same answer. In like manner, if I interrogate the several beings with which I am surrounded; the earth, the air, the water, the stars, the moon, the sun, each of them, as an ancient father says, will answer me in its turn: It was not I that made you; I, like you, am a creature of yesterday, as incapable of giving existence to you as I am of giving it to myself. In short, however often each of us repeats the questions: How came I hither? Who has made me what I am? we shall never find a rational answer to them, till we come to acknowledge that there is an eternal, necessary, self-existent Being, the author of all contingent beings, which is no other than GOD. It is this necessity of being, this self-existence, which constitutes_the nature of God, and from which all his other perfections flow. Hence, when he deigned to reveal himself on the flaming mountain of Horeb, to the holy legislator of his chosen people, being asked by this prophet, what was his proper name; he answered: "I AM THAT I AM." Exod. iii. 14. This is as much as to say: I alone exist of myself; all others are created beings, which exist by my will. From this attribute of self-existence, all the other perfections of the Deity, eternity, immensity, omnipotence, omniscience, holiness, justice, mercy, and bounty, each in an infinite degree, necessarily flow; because there is nothing to limit his existence and attributes, and because, whatever perfection is found in any created being, must, like its existence, have been derived from this universal source. This proof of the existence of God, though demonstrative and self-evident to reflecting beings, is, nevertheless, we have reason to fear, lost on a great proportion of our fellow-creatures; because they hardly reflect at all; or, at least, never consider Who made them, or what they were made for. But that other proof, which results from the magnificence, the beauty, and the harmony of the creation, as it falls under the senses, so it cannot be thought to escape the attention of the most stupid or savage of rational beings. The starry heavens, the fulminating clouds, the boundless ocean, the variegated earth, the organized human body; all these, and many other phenomena of nature, must strike the mind of the untutored savage, no less than that of the studious philosopher, with a conviction that there is an infinitely powerful, wise, and bountiful Being, who is the author of these things: though, doubtless, the latter, in proportion as he sees more clearly and extensively than the former, the properties and economy of different parts of the creation, possesses a stronger physical evidence, as it is called, of the existence of the Great Creator. In fact, if the pagan physician, Galen,* from the imperfect knowledge which he possessed of the structure of the human body, found himself compelled to acknowledge the existence of an infinitely wise and beneficent being, to make the body such as it is; what would he not have said, had he been acquainted with the circulation of the blood, and the use and harmony of the arteries, veins, and lacteals? If the philosophical orator, Tully, discovered and enlarged on the same truth, from the little knowledge of astronomy which he possessed,* what strains of eloquence would he not have poured forth upon it, had he been acquainted with the discoveries of Galileo and Newton, relative to the magnitude and distances of the stars, the motions of the planets and the comets? Yes, all nature proclaims that there is a Being who is wise in heart and mighty in strength :who doeth great things and past finding out; yea, wonders without number:—who stretcheth out the north over the empty places, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.-The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.-Lo! these are a part of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him! The thunder of his power who can understand! Job, ix.-xxvi. The proofs, however, of God's existence, which can least be evaded, are those which come immediately home to a man's own heart; convincing him, with the same evidence which he has of his own existence, that there is an all-seeing, infinitely just, and infinitely bountiful Master above, who is witness of all his actions and words, and of his very thoughts. For whence arises the heartfelt pleasure which the good man feels on resisting a secret temptation to sin, or in performing an act of beneficence, though in the utmost secrecy? Why does he raise his countenance to heaven with devotion, and why is he prepared to meet death with cheerful hope, unless it be, that his conscience tells him of a munificent rewarder of virtue, the spectator of what he does? And why does the most hardened sinner tremble and falter in his limbs and at his heart, when he commits his most secret sins of theft, vengeance, or impurity? Why, especially, does he sink into agonies of horror and despair at the approach of death, unless it be, that he is deeply convinced of the constant presence of an all-seeing witness, and of an infinitely holy, powerful, and just judge, into whose hands it is a terrible thing to fall! In vain does he say: Dark ness encompasseth me and the walls cover me; no one seeth: of whom am I afraid?-for his conscience tells him that, "The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men. Ecclus. xxiii. 26, 28. This last argument in particular, is so obvious and convincing, that I cannot bring myself to believe there ever was a human being, of sound sense, who was really an atheist. Those persons who have tried to work themselves into a persuasion that there is no God, will generally be found, both in ancient and modern times, to be of the most profligate manners; who, dreading to meet him as their judge, try to persuade themselves that he does not exist. This has been observed by St. Augustin, who says: "No man denies the existence of God, but such a one whose interest it is that there should be no God." Yet even they who, in the broad daylight, and among their profligate companions, pretend to disbelieve the existence of a Supreme Being; in the darkness of the night, and still more, under the apprehension of death, fail not to confess it, as Seneca, I think, has somewhere observed.* "A son heareth his father, and a servant his master," says the prophet Malachi. "If then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of Hosts," i. 6. In a word, it is impossible to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, our Creator, our Lord, and our Judge, without being conscious, at the same time, of our obligation to worship him interiorly and exteriorly; to fear him, to love him, and to obey him. This constitutes natural religion; by the observance of which the ancient patriarchs, together with Mechisedec, Job, and, we trust, very many other virtuous and religious persons of different ages and countries, have been acceptable to God in this life, and have attained to everlasting bliss in the other: still we must confess, with deep sorrow, that the number of such persons has been small, compared with those of every age and nation, who, as St. Paul says: "When they knew God, glorified him not as God; neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations; and their foolish hearts were darkened: they changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore.' Rom. i. 21, 25. SAMUEL CAREY. * It is proper here to observe, that a large proportion of the boasting atheists who signalized themselves by their impiety during the French Revolution, or a few years previous to its eruption, acknowledged when they came to die, that their irreligion had been affected, and that they never doubted in their hearts of the existence of God and the truths of Christianity. Among these were the Marquis d'Argens, Boulanger, La Metrie, Collot d'Herbois, Egalitié, Duke of Orleans, &c. ESSAY II. ON THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. BY THE REV. SAMUEL CAREY, LL.D. THOUGH the light of nature is abundantly sufficient, as I trust I have shown in my former essay, to prove the existence of God, and the duty of worshipping and serving him, yet this was not the only light that was communicated to mankind in the first ages of the world, concerning these matters, since many things relating to them were revealed by God to the patriarchs, and, through them, to their contemporaries and descendants. At length, however, this knowledge was almost universally obliterated from the minds of men, and the light of reason itself was so clouded by the boundless indulgence of their passions, that they seemed, everywhere, sunk almost to a level with the brute creation. Even the most polished nations, the Greeks and the Romans, blushed not at unnatural lusts, and boasted of the most horrid cruelties. Plutarch describes the celebrated Grecian sages, Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Cebes, &c., as indulging freely in the former ;* and every one knows that the chief amusement of the Roman people, was to behold their fellow-creatures murdering one another in the amphitheatres, sometimes by hundreds and thousands at a time. But the depravity and impiety of the ancient pagans, and I may say the same of those of modern times, appear chiefly in their religious doctrines and worship. What an absurd and disgusting rabble of pretended deities, marked with every crime that disgraces the worst of mortals, lust, envy, hatred, and cruelty, did not the above-named refined nations worship; and that, in several instances, by the imitation of their crimes! Plato allows of drunkenness in honor of the gods; Aristotle admits of indecent representations of them. How many temples were everywhere erected, and prostitutes consecrated to the worship of Venus! And how generally were human sacrifices offered up in honor of Moloch, Saturn, Thor, Diana, Woden, and other pretended gods, or rather real demons, by almost every pagan nation, Greek and barbarian, and among the rest, by the ancient Britons, inhabitants of this island! It is true; some few sages of antiquity, by listening to the dictates of nature and reason, saw into the absurdity of the popular religion, and dis * De Isid, et Osirid. Even the refined Cicero and Virgil did not blush at these infamies. + Strabo tells us, that there were 1,000 prostitutes attached to the temple of Venus, at Corinth. The Athenians attributed the preservation of their city to the prayers of its prostitutes. |