reader, beyond what their real weight and place in the argument deferve, ftill more fhall we difcover of management and difingenuoufnefs in the form under which they are difperfed among the public. Infidelity is ferved up in every shape, that is likely to allure, furprise, or beguile the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem; in interspersed and. broken hints; remote and oblique furmifes; in books of travels, of philofophy, of natural hiftory; in a word, in any form, rather than the right one, that of a profeffed and regular difquifition. And because the coarfe buffoonery, and broad laugh of the old and rude adverfaries of the Chriftian faith, would offend the tafte, perhaps, rather than the virtue of this cultivated age, a graver irony, a more skilful and delicate banter is fubftituted in their place. An eloquent hiftorian, befide his more direct, and therefore fairer attacks upon the credi bility of the evangelic ftory, has contrived to weave into his narration one continued fneer upon the cause of Christianity, and upon the writings and characters of its ancient patrons. The knowledge which this author poffeffes of the frame and conduct of the human mind, must have led him to observe, that fuch attacks do their execution without inquiry. Who can refute a fneer? Who can compute the number, much lefs, one by one, fcrutinize the jus tice of those difparaging infinuations, which crowd the pages of this elaborate hiftory? What reader fufpends his curiofity, or calls off his attention from the principal narrative, to examine references, to search into the foundation, or to weigh the reason, propriety and force of every tranfient farcafm, and fly allufion, by which the Chriftian teftimony is depreciated and traduced? and by which, nevertheless, he may find his perfuafion afterwards unfettled and perplexed.

But the enemies of Chriftianity have purfued her with poisoned arrows. Obfcenity itself is made the

vehicle

vehicle of infidelity. The awful doctrines, if we be not permitted to call them the facred truths, of our religion, together with all the adjuncts and appendages of its worship and external profeflion, have been fometimes impudently profaned by an unnatural conjunction with impure and lafcivious images. The fondnefs for ridicule is almoft univerfal; and ridicule to many minds is never fo irresistible, as when feafoned with obfcenity, and employed upon religion. But in proportion as thefe noxious principles take hold of the imagination, they infatuate the judgment; for trains of ludicrous and unchafte affociations adhering to every fentiment and mention of religion, render the mind indifpofed to receive either conviction from its evidence, or impreffions from its authority. And this effect being exerted upon the fenfitive part of our frame, is altogether independent of argument, proof, or reafon; is as formidable to a true religion, as to a false one; to a well-grounded faith, as to a chimerical mythology, or fabulous tradition. Neither let it be obferved, is the crime or danger lefs, because impure ideas are exhibited under a veil, in covert and chaftized language.

Serioufnefs is not conftraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. Every mind which wishes the advancement of truth and knowledge, in the moft important of all human researches, must abhor this licentioufnefs as violating no lefs the laws of reafoning, than the rights of decency. There is but one defcription of men, to whofe principles it ought to be tolerable, I mean that clafs of reafoners, who can fee little in Chriftianity, even fuppofing it to be true. To fuch adverfaries we addrefs this reflection -Had Jefus Chrift delivered no other declaration than the following: "The hour is coming, in "which all that are in the graves fhall hear his voice, "and fhall come forth; they that have done good, "unto the refurrection of life, and they that have

"done

"done evil, unto the refurrection of damnation ;" he had pronounced a meffage of ineftimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophely and miracles, with which his milion was introduced, and attefted-a meffage, in which the wifeft of mankind would rejoice to find an anfwer to their doubts, and reft to their inquiries. It is idle to fay, that a future ftate had been discovered already-It had been difcovered, as the Copernican fyftem was-it was one guess among many. He alone difcovers, who proves; and no man can prove this point, but the teacher who teftifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God.

MORAL

MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

воок VI.

ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE,

CHAP. I.

OF THE ORIGIN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

G

OVERNMENT, at first, was either patriarchal or military; that of a parent over his family, or of a commander over his fellow warriors. I. Paternal authority, and the order of domestic life, fupplied the foundation of civil government. Did mankind fpring out of the earth mature and independent, it would be found perhaps impoffible, to introduce fubjection and fubordination among them; but the condition of human infancy prepares men for fociety, by combining individuals into fmall communities,

munities, and by placing them from the beginning under direction and control. A family contains the rudiments of an empire. The authority of one over many, and the difpofition to govern and to be governed, are in this way incidental to the very nature, and coeval, no doubt, with the existence of the human species. Moreover, the conftitution of families, not only affifts the formation of civil government, by the difpofitions which it generates, but also furnishes the first steps of the process by which empires have been actually reared. A parent would retain a confiderable part of his authority after his children were grown up, and had formed families of their own. The obedience, of which they remembered not the beginning, would be confidered as natural; and would fcarcely, during the parent's life, be entirely or abruptly withdrawn. Here then we see the second stage in the progress of dominion. The first was, that of a parent over his young children: this that of an ancestor presiding over his adult defcendants.

Although the original progenitor was the centre of union to his pofterity, yet it is not probable that the affociation would be immediately or altogether diffolved by his death. Connected by habits of intercourse and affection, and by fome common rights, neceffities and interefts, they would confider themfelves as allied to each other in a nearer degree than to the rest of the fpecies. Almost all would be fenfible of an inclination to continue in the fociety in which they had been brought up; and experiencing, as they foon would do, many inconveniencies from the absence of that authority which their common ancestor exercised, especially in deciding their dif putes, and directing their operations in matters in which it was neceffary to act in conjunction, they might be induced to fupply his place by a formal choice of a fucceffor, or rather might willingly, and almost imperceptibly, transfer their obedience to

fome