How is it that fo much is made of the falls of Noah, Lot, David, Jonah, Peter, and others? The fame things in heathen philofophers, or modern unbelievers, would be paffed over without notice. All the declamations of our adverfaries on these subjects plainly prove that such inftances with us are more fingular than with them. With us they are occafional, and afford matter for deep repentance; with them they are habitual, and furnish employment in the work of palliation. The fpots on the garments of a child attract attention; but the filthy condition of the animal that wallows in the mire is difregarded, as being a thing of course.

The morality, fuch as it is, which is found among deists, amounts to nothing more than a little exterior decorum. The criminality of intention is exprefsly difowned.* The great body of these writers pretend to no higher motives than a regard to their fafety, intereft, or reputation. Actions proceeding from these principles must not only be deftitute of virtue, but wretchedly defective as to their influence on the well-being of fociety. If the heart be towards God, a fober, righteous, and godly life becomes a matter of choice: but that which is performed, not for its own fake, but from fear, inter

gious but illiterate countryman. This gentleman, afterwards becoming a ferious Chriftian, was concerned for the countryman, left his faith in the Christian Religion fhould have been fhaken. One day he took the liberty to ask him Whether what had fo frequently been advanced in his hearing had not produced this effect upon him? By no means, answered the countryman, it never made the leaft impreffion upon me. No impreffion upon you, faid the gentleman! Why, you must know that we had read and thought on these things much more than you had any opportunity of doing. O yes, faid the other, but I knew alfo your manner of living: I knew that to maintain fuch a course of conduct, you found it neceffary to renounce Christianity.

eft, or ambition, will extend no farther than the eye of man can follow it. In domestic life it will be but little regarded; and in retirement not at all. Such in fact is the character of infidels. " Will you ❝ dare to affert," fays Linguet, a French writer, in an address to Voltaire," that it is in philofophic "families we are to look for models of filial ref"pect, conjugal love, fincerity in friendship, or "fidelity among domeftics? Were you disposed to "do fo, would not your own confcience, your own "experience, fupprefs the falfehood, even before your lips could utter it ?*

"Wherever fociety is established there it is neceffary to have religion: for religion, which "watches over the crimes that are fecret, is, in "fact, the only law which a man carries about with "him; the only one which places the punishment << at the fide of the guilt; and which operates as "forcibly in folitude and darkness as in the broad "and open face of day." Would the reader have thought it? Thefe are the words of Voltaire !+

Nothing is more common than for deistical writers to level their artillery against the chriftian miniftry. Under the appellation of priests, they feem to think themselves at liberty to load them with every species of abuse. That there are great numbers of worldly men who have engaged in the christian ministry, as other worldly men engage in other employments, for the fake of profit, is true; and where this is the cafe, it may be expected that hunting, gaming, and fuch kind of amufements,

Linguet was an admirer of Voltaire; but difapproved of his op pofition to Christianity. See his Review of that author's Works, p. 264.

+In Sullivan's Survey of Nature.
H

will be their favourite purfuits, while religious exercifes will be performed as a piece of neceffary drudgery. Where this is the cafe, "their devo❝tion must be feigned, and their seriousness mere "hypocrify and grimace." But that this should be represented as a general cafe, and that the ministry itself should be reproached on account of the hypocrify of worldly men who intrude themselves into it, can only be owing to malignity. Let the fullest fubtraction be made of characters of the above description, and I appeal to impartial observation, Whether there will not still remain in only this particular order of Chriftians, and at almost any period, a greater number of ferious, upright, difinterested, and benevolent perfons, than could be found amongst the whole body of deifts in a fucceffion of centuries.

It is worthy of notice that Mr. Hume, in attempting to plunge chriftian minifters into the mire of reproach, is obliged to defcend himself, and to drag all mankind with him, into the fame fituation. He represents minifters as "drawn from the common "mafs of mankind, as "ments by the views of profit ;" and suggests that "therefore they are obliged on many occafions to "feign more devotion than they poffefs," which is friendly to hypocrify.* The leading motives of all public officers, it seems, is to aggrandize themselves. If Mr. Hume had accepted of a station under government, we can be at no loss, therefore, in judging what would have been his predominant principle. How weak as well as wicked must that man have been, who, in order to wound the reputation

people are to other employ

* Effy on National Characters, Note.

of one defcription of men, could point his arrows against the integrity of all! But the world muft forgive him. He had no ill defign against them, any more than against himself. It was for the purpose of deftroying thefe Philistines, that he has aimed to demolish the temple of human virtue.

Nor is his antipathy, or that of his brethren, at all to be wondered at: Thefe are the men who in every age have expofed the fophiftry of deifts, and vindicated Chriftianity from their malicious afperfions. It is reafonable to fuppofe, therefore, that they will always be confidered as their natural enemies. It is no more a matter of furprise that they fhould be the objects of their invective, than that the weapons of nightly depredators fhould be pointed against the watchmen, whofe bufinefs it is to detect them, and expofe their nefarious practices.

43

After all, Mr. Hume pretends to refpect " Cler gymen, who are fet apart by the laws to the care "of facred matters ;" and wishes to be understood as directing his cenfures only against priests, or those who pretend to power and dominion, and to a fuperior fanctity of character, diftinct from virtue and good morals.* It fhould feem then that they are diffenting minifters only that incur Mr. Hume's difpleafure; but if, as he reprefents them, they be "drawn to their employment by the views of profit," they certainly cannot poffefs the common understanding of men, fince they could fcarcely purfue an occupation lefs likely to accomplish their defign. The truth is, Mr. Hume did not mean to cenfure diffenting minifters only; nor did he feel any respect to clergymen fet apart by the laws. Thofe

Effays Mor. and Polit. Ef. XII. p. 107, 108. Note.

whom he meant to spare were fuch clergymen as were men after his own heart; and the objects of his diflike were truly evangelical minifters, whether churchmen or diffenters, who were not fatisfied with his kind of morality, but were men of holy lives, and confequently were respected by the people. These are the men against whom the enmity of deifts has ever been directed. As to other priests, they have no other difference with them than that of rivalship, wifhing to poffefs their wealth and influence, which the others are not always the most willing to relinquifh. In profeffing, however, to "refpect" such clergymen, Mr. Hume only means to flatter them, and draw them on to a little nearer alliance with his views. Refpect is excited only by confiftency of character, and is frequently involuntary. A clergyman of loofe morals may be preferred, and his company courted, but refpected he cannot be.

As to thofe minifters against whom Mr. Hume levels his artillery, and against whom the real enmity of his party has always been directed, there is not a body of men in the world, of equal talents and industry, who receive lefs, if fo little, for their labours. If thofe who have fo liberally accused them of interested motives gained no more by their exertions than the accufed, they would not be fo wealthy as many of them are.

Compare the conduct of the leading men among deifts with that of the body of ferious chriftian divines. Amidft their declamations against prieftly hypocrify, are they honeft men? Where is their ingenuoufnefs in continually confounding Chriftianity and popery? Have thefe workers of iniquity no knowledge? No,' fay fome, they do not underftand the difference between genuine and cor