that many of them are increased since that period, fo as to exceed what is generally to be found of that nature in fome Roman Catholic countries. In confequence of this, though the funds for the maintenance of the clergy are fufficiently ample, the inequality in the distribution of them is fhameful, and they bear no proportion to the fervices or merit of thofe who receive them. This is an evil that calls loudly for redress, and strikes many perfons who give no attention to articles of faith, or of difcipline in other respects. Probably, however, this evil will be tolerated, till the whole fyftem be reformed, or deftroyed. But without the ferious reformation of this and other crying abuses, the utter deftruction of the present hierarchy must, in the natural course of things, be expected.

THE

GENERAL CONCLUSION.

PART I.

Containing Confiderations addressed to Unbelievers, and especially to Mr. GIBBON.

To confider the system (if it may be

called a system) of christianity a priori, one would think it very little liable to corruption or abuse. The great outline of it is, that the universal parent of mankind commiffioned Jefus Chrift, to invite men to the practice of virtue, by the affurance of his mercy to the penitent, and of his purpose to raise to immortal life and happiness all the virtuous and the good, but to inflict an adequate punishment on the wicked. In proof of this he wrought many miracles, and after a public execution he rofe again from the dead. He alfo directed that profelytes to his religion fhould be admitted by baptism, and that his difciples fhould eat bread and drink wine in commemoration of his death.

Here is nothing that any perfon could imagine would lead to much fubtle fpeculation, at least fuch as could excite much animofity. The doctrine itself is fo plain, that one would think the learned and the unlearned were upon a level with refpect

respect to it. And a person unacquainted with the state of things at the time of its promulgation would look in vain for any probable source of the monftrous corruptions and abufes which crept into the fyftem afterwards. Our Lord, however, and his apostles, foretold that there would be a great departure from the truth, and that fomething would arife in the church altogether unlike the doctrine which they taught, and even fubverfive of it.

In reality, however, the causes of the fucceeding corruptions did then exift; and accordingly, without any thing more than their natural operation, all the abuses rofe to their full height; and what is more wonderful ftill, by the operation of natural causes alfo, without any miraculous interpofition of providence, we fee the abuses gradually corrected, and christianity recovering its primitive beauty and glory.

The causes of the corruptions were almost wholly contained in the established opinions of the heathen world, and efpecially the philofophical part of it; fo that when those heathens embraced christianity they mixed their former tenets and prejudices with it. Alfo, both Jews and heathens were fo much fcandalized at the idea of being the difciples of a man who had been crucified as a common malefactor, that chriftians in general were fufficiently difpofed to adopt any opinion that would most effectually wipe away this reproach.

The

The opinion of the mental faculties of man belonging to a substance distinct from his body or brain, and of this invifible spiritual part, or foul, being capable of fubfifting before and after its union to the body, which had taken the deepest root in all the schools of philosophy, was wonderfully calculated to answer this purpose. For by this means, chriftians were enabled to give to the foul of Chrift what rank they pleased in the heavenly regions before his incarnation. On this principle went the Gnoftics, deriving their doctrine from the received oriental philofophy. Afterwards the philofophizing chriftians went upon another principle, personifying the wisdom, or Aoy of God the Father. But this was mere Platonism, and therefore cannot be faid to have been unnatural in their circumstances, though at length they came, in the natural progrefs of things, to believe that Christ was, in power and glory, equal to God the Father himself.

From the fame opinion of a soul distinct from the body came the practice of praying, first for the dead, and then to them, with a long train of other abfurd opinions, and fuperftitious practices.

The abuses of the pofitive inftitutions of chriftianity, monstrous as they were, naturally arose from the opinion of the purifying and fanctifying virtue of rites and ceremonies, which was the very basis of all the worship of the heathens; and they were also fimilar to the abuses of the Jewish religion,

VOL. II.

Gg

religion. We likewife fee the rudiments of all the monkish aufterities in the opinions and practices of the heathens, who thought to purify and exalt the foul by macerating and mortifying the body.

As to the abuses in the government of the church, they are as eafily accounted for as abuses in civil government; worldly minded men being always ready to lay hold of every opportunity of increafing their power; and in the dark ages too many circumftances concurred to give the chriftian clergy peculiar advantages over the laity in this respect.

Upon the whole, I flatter myself that, to an attentive reader of this work, it will appear, that the corruption of christianity, in every article of faith or practice, was the natural confequence of the circumstances in which it was promulgated; and also that its recovery from these corruptions is the natural confequence of different circumftances. LET UNBELIEVERS, IF THEY CAN, ACCOUNT AS WELL FOR THE FIRST RISE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY ITSELF. This is a problem, which, hiftorians and philofophers (bound to believe that no effect is produced without an adequate caufe) will find to be of more difficult folution the more closely it is attended to.

The circumftances that Mr. Gibbon enumerates as the immediate causes of the spread of christianity were themselves effects, and neceffa