by the Dairo, the Mufti, and the Pope, if these letters were fubmitted to ecclefiaftical cenfure; for, furely, my lord, the clergy have a better title than the fons of Apollo to be called genus irritabile vatum. What would it be if I went about to fhew, how many of the christian clergy abufe, by misrepresentation and falfe quotation, the hiftory they can no longer corrupt? and yet this task would not be, even to me, an hard one. But as I mean to fpeak in this place of chriftian divines alone, fo I mean to speak of such of them particularly, as may be called divines without any fneer; of fuch of them, for fome fuch I think there are, as believe themselves, and would have mankind believe; not for temporal, but fpiritual intereft, not for the fake of the clergy, but for the fake of mankind. Now it has been long matter of aftonishment to me, how fuch persons as thefe could take fo much filly pains to establish mystery on metaphyfics, revelation on philofophy, and matters of fact on abstract reafoning. A religion founded on the authority of a divine miffion, confirmed by prophecies and miracles, appeals to facts and the facts must be proved, as all other facts that pafs for authentic are proved; for faith, fo reasonable after this proof, is abfurd before it. If they are thus proved, the religion will prevail without the affiftance of fo much profound reafoning: if they are not thus proved, the authority of it will fink in the world even with this affistance. The divines object, in their difputes with atheists, and they object very juftly, that these men require improper proofs; proofs that are not fuited to the nature of the fubject, and then cavil that fuch proofs are not furnished. But what then do they mean, to fall into the fame abfurdity themselves in their difputes with theifts, and to din improper proofs in ears that are open to proper proofs? The matter is of great moment, my lord, and I make no excufe for the zeal which obliges me to dwell a little on it. A serious and honest application to the study of ecclefiaftical history, and every part of prophane history and chronology relative to it, is incumbent on fuch reverend perfons as are here spoken of, on a double account: because history alone can furnish the proper proofs, that the religion they teach is of God; and becaufe the unfair manner in which thefe proofs have been and are daily furnished, creates prejudices, and gives advantages against christianity that require to be removed. No fcholar will dare to deny, that falfe hiftory, as well as fham miracles, has been employed to propagate christianity formerly: and whoever examines

the

the writers of our own age will find the fame abuse of history continued. Many and many inftances of this abuse might be produced. It is grown into cuftom, writers copy one another, and the mistake that was committed, or the falsehood that was invented by one, is adopted by hundreds.

• Abbadie fays, in his famous book, that the gofpel of St. Matthew is cited by Clemens bishop of Rome, difciple of the apoftles; that Barnabas cites it in his epiftle; that Ignatius and Polycarp receive it; and that the fame fathers that give teftimony for Matthew, give it likewife for Mark. Nay your lordship will find, I believe, that the prefent bishop of London in his third pastoral letter speaks to the fame effect. I will not trouble you nor myfelf with any more instances of the fame kind. Let this which occurred to me as I was writing fuffice. It may well fuffice; for I presume the fact advanced by the minister and the bishop is a mistake. If the fathers of the first century do mention fome paffages that are agreeable to what we read in our evangelifts, will it follow that these fathers had the fame gofpels before them? To fay fo is a manifeft abuse of history, and quite inexcufable in writers that knew or fhould have: known, that these fathers made ufe of other gofpels, wherein fuch paffages might be contained, or they might be preserved in unwritten tradition. Befides which I could almost venture to affirm, that these fathers of the first century do not expreflly name the gospels we have of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. To the two reasons that have been given why those who make divinity their profeffion fhould ftudy hiftory, with an honeft and ferious application, in order to fupport christianity against the attacks of unbelievers, and to remove the doubts and prejudices that the unfair proceedings of men of their own order have raifed in minds candid but not implicit, willing to be informed but curious to examine; to these I fay we may add another confideration that seems to me of no small importance. Writers of the Roman religion have attempted to fhew, that the text of the holy writ is on many accounts infufficient to be the fole criterion of orthodoxy: I apprehend too that they have fhewn it. Sure I am that experience, from the first promulgation of chriftianity to this hour, fhews abundantly with how much care and fuccefs the moft oppofite, the moft extravagant, nay the most impious opinions, and the most contradictory faiths, may be founded on the fame text; and plausibly defended by the fame authority. Writers of the reformed religion have erected their batteries against tradition; and the

T 3

only

only difficulty they had to encounter in this enterprise lay in levelling and pointing their cannon fo as to avoid demolifhing, in one common ruin, the traditions they retain, and those they reject. Each fide has been employed to weaken the cause and explode the system of his adversary and whilft they have been fo employed, they have jointly laid their axes to the root of christianity: for thus men will be apt to reafon upon what they have advanced, if the text has not that authenticity, clearness, and precifion, which are neceffary to establish it as a divine and certain rule of faith and practice; and if the tradition of the church, from the firft ages of it till the days of Luther and Calvin, has been corrupted itself, and has ferved to corrupt the faith and practice of chriftians; there remains at this time no ftandard at all of chriftianity. By confequence, either this religion was not originally of divine inftitution, or elfe God has not provided effectually for preferving the genuine purity of it, and the gates of hell have actually prevailed, in contradiction to his promise, against the church. The best effect of this reafoning that can be hoped for is, that men fhould fall into theifm, and fubfcribe to the firft propofition: he must be worse than an atheist who can affirm the laft. The dilemma is terrible, my lord. Party zeal and private interest have formed it: the common interest of christianity is deeply concerned to folve it. Now I prefume it can never be folved without a more accurate examination, not only of the chriftian but of the Jewish fyftem, than learned men have been hitherto impartial enough and fagacious enough to take, or honeft enough to communicate. Whilft the authenticity and fenfe of the text of the bible remain as difputable, and whilft the tradition of the church remains as problematical, to fay no worse, as the immenfe labours of the chriftian divines in feveral communions have made them appear to be; chriftianity may lean on the civil and ecclefiaftical power, and be supported by the forcible influence of education: but the proper force of religion, that force which fubdues the mind, and awes the confcience by conviction, will be wanting.

• I had reason therefore to produce divinity, as one inftance of those profeffions that require a particular application to the study of fome particular parts of hiftory and fince I have faid fo much on the fubject in my zeal for christianity, I will add this further. The refurrection of letters was a fatal period: the christian system has been attacked and wounded too, very feverely, fince that time.

The

The defence has been better made indeed by modern divines, than it had been by ancient fathers and apologifts. The moderns have invented new methods of defence, and have abandoned some posts that were not tenible: but still there are others, in defending which they lie under great disadvantages. Such are various facts pioufly believed in former times, but on which the truth of chriftianity has been rested very imprudently in more enlightened ages! because the falfity of fome, and the grofs improbability of others are fo evident, that instead of answering the purpose for which they were invented, they have rendered the whole tenor of ecclefiaftical hiftory and tradition precarious, ever fince a ftrict but just application of the rules of criticism has been made to them. I touch these things lightly; but if your lordship reflects upon them, you will find reafon, perhaps, to think as I do, that it is high time the clergy in all chriftian communions fhould join their forces, and establish those historical facts which are the foundations of the whole fyftem, on clear and unquestionable historical authority, fuch as they require in all cafes of moment from others; reject candidly what cannot be thus established; and purfue their enquiries in the fame spirit of truth through all the ages of the church, without any regard to hiftorians, fathers or councils, more than they are ftrictly intitled to on the face of what they have tranfmitted to us on their own conftency, and on the concurrence of other authority. Our paftors would be thus, I prefume, much better employed than they generally are. Thofe of the clergy who make religion merely a trade, who regard nothing more than the fubfiftence it affords them, or in higher life the wealth and power they enjoy by the means of it, may say to themselves that it will last their time, or that policy and reasons of state will preferve the form of a church when the spirit of religion is extinct. But thofe whom I mentioned above, those who act for fpiritual not temporal ends, and are defirous that men should believe and practice the doctrines of christianity, as well as go to church and pay tithes, -will feel and own the weight of fuch confiderations as these ; and agree that however the people have been and may be ftill amufed, yet christianity has been in decay ever fince the -refurrection of letters: and that it cannot be supported as it was fupported before that æra, nor by any other way thạn that which I propofe, and which a due application to the ftudy of hiftory, chronology, and criticism, would enable our divines to pursue, no doubt with success.'

S 4

His

His lordship now comes to speak of the study of history, as a neceflary mean to prepare men for the discharge of that duty which they owe to their country, and which is common to all the members of every fociety that is constituted according to the rules of right reason, and with a due regard to the common good. The fum of what he fays is, that in free governments it is incumbent on every man to instruct himself, as well as the means and opportunities he has permit, concerning the nature and interefts of the government, and those rights and duties that belong to him, or to his fu periors, or to his inferiors; and that the obligations under which we lie to ferve our country, increase in proportion to the ranks we hold, and the other circumftances of birth, fortune, and fituation that call us to this fervice, and above all to the talents which God has given us to perform it.

In the fixth letter his lordship confiders fuch hiftory as has immediate relation to the great duty and business of those who are, by birth, by the nature of our government, and by the talents God has given them, attached for life to the service of their country, aud the method to be observed in the study of it. He introduces what he has to fay on this head with obferving, that however closely affairs are linked together in the progreffion of governments, and how much foever events that follow are dependant on thofe that precede, the whole connexion diminishes to fight as the chain lengthens, till at last it seems to be broken, and the links that are continued from that point bear no proportion nor any fimilitude to the former. "I would not be understood, fays he, to speak only of those great changes, that are wrought by a concurrence of extraordinary events; for inftance, the expulfion of one nation, the deftruction of one government, and the establishment of another: but even of those that are wrought in the fame governments and among the fame people, flowly, and almost imperceptibly, by the neceflary effects of time, and flux condition of human affairs. When fuch changes as thefe happen in several states about the fame time, and confequently affect other states by their vicinity, and by many different relations which they frequent ly bear to one another; then is one of thofe periods formed, at which the chain spoken of is so broken as to have little or no real or visible connexion with that which we fee continue. A new fituation, different from the former, begets new interests in the fame proportion of difference, not in this or that particular state alone, but in all those that are concerned by vicinity or any other relations, as I faid just

now,