ties, to the adoption of certain truth. Does he feel the least doubt, perdition is the necessary consequence. He is not allowed to use his reason, for that would probably ensure his damnation, by undermining his faith, Besides allthis, the simple believer is not sure that bis belief will procure his salvation, for in another part of the gospels he is told that if a man be not born again of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, so that without being made a new creature his belief, about which so much is said, and upon which so great a stress is laid, is of no use to him. How can a religion like this tend to produce any good, when the salvation of mankind is made to depend on an incomprehensible creed, and a feeling made up of passion and enthusiasm? We will now turn to the example exhibited by some of the men, who are represented in the scriptures as favourites of the deity of the Jews and Christians. What is there to admire in the conduct of Abraham, who was twice guilty of a deliberate falsehood and behaved in a most cruel manner to Hagar and Ishmael, the one his concubine and the other his oldest son? The great act, which is held up to us for our reverential admiration, is what no sane man would be foolish enough to imitate. He believed that the deity required a sacrifice of a beloved child, and, had he not been restrained, he would actually have cut Isaac's throat; and this was counted to him for righteousness. Can there be a stronger proof of the debasement of man, than that one could be found to attempt, and the votaries of religion to applaud, such an act? on a similar occasion, repeated the falsehood of Isaac his father, and his son Jacob, who was an especial favourite of the deity, was a liar to his father and a swindler to his brother. The task would be endless to mark with reprobation the actions of the select worthies mentioned in the sacred volume. What can be more revolting than the deeds of Moses who (instructed by a deity who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and destroyed all the first born of the Egyptians in a single night for the sins of Pharaoh,) murdered so many thousands of men, women and children of different nations; because they did not worship a god of whom they knew nothing, but by his people's cruelties? Joshua's actions

were worthy a pupil of the meek Moses. Samuel is a precious specimen of the priesthood, and David of pious kings. It would be difficult to point out one single praiseworthy deed, of this "man after God's own heart," in the whole course of the history wherein he is mentioned, but many of them deserve the severest censure though none but his con

duct to Uriah seems to have been marked by the displeasure of Jehovah; and what is the punishment appropriated to it? a pestilence among his subjects who were not culpable! Such is the morality enforced by the examples of holy men! How can it be possible that virtue should grow out of a belief in a religion where the precepts are of such a mixt nature, good, bad, contradictory, absurd and indecent. What can be more 66 favourable to the growth of vice," than to represent, as the chosen of the Deity, men whose conduct has been fraught with deceit, rapine, cruelty, debauchery and murder? Having treated this part of the subject at much greater length than I intended, I shall shortly dismiss it, and shall say nothing of the apparent contradictions and incredible stories contained in the books of the Old and New Testaments, as my business is merely with its tendency to produce virtue or vice. The vices of the unbeliever will only happen in consequence of his ignorance; for if he were perfectly aware, that misery is the sure attendant of vice; he would not practice vice therefore, as I before observed, knowledge would be a certain remedy for the evil; but knowledge would be little of a corrective to the evil propensities of the believer, whose notions of the deity lead him to infer that an assent to certain mysterious dogmas are absolutely requisite to ensure his future happiness and that such assent will alone be sufficient, though he may have been a scourge to society. There is another absurd contradictory and evidently mischievous tenet held by Christians and fortified by an example, namely, that by repentance, a sinner, be he ever so vile, may be saved at the last hour, of which the thief on the cross is an instance, so that the most infamous scoundrel that ever adorned a gibbet, may, without a single solitary good deed, secure an eternity of happiness. Of how many enormities has not this last mentioned doctrine, (which is equivalent to offering a premium for vice) been the parent? I come to the sixth paragraph.

Mr. H. here produces two latin quotations from Cicero's "treatise concerning the God's," the meaning of which is as follows: "For there have been philosophers, who have thought in their mind that the Gods had no management of human affairs. Of whom, if that opinion be true, what piety can there be? what sanctity? what religion? Piety towards the gods being removed, I know not if even fidelity, and the society of mankind, and the excellent virtue justice would not be altogether taken away," and to Velleius, I do not think that you, Velleius, are like other epicu

reans; (who are ashamed of the words of Epicurus), to whom he declares that he does not truly understand any good which can be separated from the delicate and obscene pleasures; all of which he indeed, (without a blush*) expressly discourses of. Though Epicurus, as well as other ancient philosophers, was ignorant of the sciences which are the most important in our times; yet it seems to me, notwithstanding Cicero's censure of his doctrines, which I suspect he has not represented fairly, that Epicurus had as much knowledge as made him an honour to the times in which he lived. By some he is said to have taught that pleasure was the chief good, and by others it is said that he placed the sum mumbonum in the tranquility of the mind. I believe both accounts, and that when fairly understood, they both have the same meaning. His life, which was that of a moralist, was an excellent commentary on the doctrine he taught, and proved him a true philosopher. I am surprized that any man who is a Christian Monotheist and advocates the necessary of a belief in future rewards and punishments should quote Cicero in his favor, who though an unquestionably great orator, knew little (almost nothing) of the science of astronomy, was completely ignorant of geology and chemistry, and consequently of physics in general, and was himself really a sceptic as will be seen by the following passage quoted from his epistles, book 6, when writing to Zorquatus he says, "Sed hec consolatio levis est; illa gravior, qua te uti spero; ego certe utor. Nec enim dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni vacem culpa; et si non ero, sensu omnino carebo," in English, "but there is another and a far higher consolation, which I hope is your support, as it is certainly mine. For so long as I shall preserve my innocence, I will never, whilst I exist, be anxiously disturbed at any event that may happen; and if I shall cease to exist, all sensibility must cease with me." What could Epicurus have said that would have been more Epicurean?

I come next to the 7th paragraph and my reply to it will comprize also the 8th, 9th, and 10th paragraphs. I think it completely unphilosophical to infer more than experience and analogy in the works of nature, or any other works, warrant and I will again take the watch which has suited Mr. H.'s purpose so well. I infer from its construction, that it had a maker. This I gather from experience and analogy; not because I saw that particular watch go through the process of making; but, because I have been in workshops * Wanting in the M. S.

where I have seen different sorts of machinery preparing and applied to purposes similar to those of the movements in a watch; and though I have never beheld the process of preparing every individual part; yet having observed the result, when the whole was completed, I feel no hesitation in believing the fact of its making. I might go to China and there see a sort of machinery completely new to me; yet, from what I had seen and known of machinery at home; I should directly infer it to be the work of a machinist. In the case of living animals, the case is extremely different; we have not the slightest knowledge of the making of any single being, and had watches derived their existence from generation or vegetation, we should have had no more right to conclude that the first watch was made by an unknown incomprehensible being, than we have that such a being made the first man and woman. The savage, who found the watch, was not so unphilosophical in his reasoning, as Mr. H. wishes to infer. Until experience or analogy had taught him that its movements were caused by some being foreign to and distinct from itself, he had no right to conclude otherwise than he did. Had an oyster and a watch been placed before him at once, and both equally new objects to him, how would it be possible for him to determine that the oyster exhibited greater ingenuity in its contrivance, than the watch? If he referred the cause of either of them to a being superior to himself, he would doubtless choose the watch as exhibiting marks of greater skill. For though a man perfectly acquainted with the mechanism of a watch can easily account for its movements, yet it is rather hard to charge the poor savage with stupidity; because he cannot draw the same inference, when he has not a single item of the requisite knowledge: In the case of man, I will, for the sake of argument, admit that there may be beings who have witnessed the creation or making of man; and to these the process may appear quite easy, and the proof of the commencement of his existence as evident to them as that of a watch to a watch maker; but without such information, from such a witness, as may satisfy my mind, why must I, like the poor savage, be ridiculed and derided for my scepticism, by beings who do not possess an atom of intelligence on the subject more than myself? In the 9th paragraph Mr. H. has been very liberal of his sarcasms upon the Atomic philosopher, whom, on my having assumed as a signature, the name of the founder of that philosophy, he supposes me to represent. But as sarcasm is uo part of

argument, I shall not notice it at present, any further than to remind Mr. H. of a very homely proverb, which recommends no one to throw stones who possesses glass windows. Though he disputes that matter and motion can produce the appearance in nature, yet it will be beyond Mr. H.'s power to point out one single fact, wherein matter and motion' are unconcerned, or where they are not the sole agents; and as to asserting, that matter and motion are only instruments in the hands of an almighty incomprehensible being, it is assuming the point in dispute. Something must be eternal. Why may not matter in motion be this self-existent eternal being? Many divines embarrassed with the theory of the creation of matter out of nothing, have admitted their belief in its eternal existence, but contend for the necessity of an intelligent being to account for its orderly arrangement. Did nothing but order, harmony and beauty pervade the universe, there would then be no proof of the existence of such a being; for the whole might arise from a principle of order in matter itself, but when disorder, discord and deformity make up so great a portion of the works of nature, it seems a far more probable hypothesis to refer the whole to the operation of a general unintelligent principle pervading and directing it. It has frequently been laid. down as the height of absurdity to suppose an infinite succession of finite causes and effects, but the absurdity will diminish considerably on a close examination of the proposition couched in the supposition. Every thing which is finite or limited in its duration, we have been told, has a beginning and an end; and in the case of man, we will suppose every succeeding man to follow the birth of the preceding at an interval of thirty years; but as thirty years is only a finite portion of duration, it will follow they say, that no number of finite portions will ever amount to an infinity of duration, and that, let whatever number of men, we choose, to have successively existed, yet as the portion of time the life of one would occupy, would be finite, the duration of the existence of the whole would also be finite, for no number of finites. can make an infinite. This argument has had considerable reliance placed upon it from the apparent dilemma in which it involves the hypothesis of an infinite succession of causes and effects; but we shall, I trust, get clear of both the horns. No one will deny that the possibility of men and women being generated from this time to eternity, because we can easily suppose that it may happen for 100 years forwards, and there is as little difficulty in extending the period to