not be his God*. Well then: He has his God to make. And who would not expect to find him, when made by such a Workman, a God of infinite goodness and justice? No such matter: These qualities come not out of his Lordship's hands; so, cannot enter into the composition of his God: They are barely MAMES that men give to various manifestations of the infinite wisdom of one simple uncompounded Being. The pretended want of them in the God of the Jews afforded his Lordship a commodious cavil; for he had RELIGION to remove out of his way: But when he came to erect NATURALISM in it's stead, it had been very inconvenient to give them to his own Idol.

Honest Plutarch, though a Priest, was as warm an enemy to PRIESTCRAFT as his Lordship. He derives all the evils of Superstition from men's not acquiring the idea of a God infinitely good and just. And proposes this knowledge as the only cure for Superstition. This is consistent. But what would the ancient 'World have thought of their Philosopher, had his remedy, after hunting for it through a hundred volumes, been a God without any goodness and justice at all?

NATURE tells us, that the thing most desirable is the knowledge of a God whose goodness and justice gives to every man according to his works. His LORDSHIP tells us, that REASON or NATURAL RELIGION discovers to us no such God. Now, if both speak truth, How much are we indebted to REVELATION! Which, when natural Religion failed us, brings us to the knowledge of a God infinitely good and just; and gives us an adequate idea of those attributes! I

• "Can any man presume to say, that the God of Moses or the God of Paul is the true God?" &c. Vol. V. p. 567.

say

say no more than his Lordship has confessed.--Christianity, says he, DISCOVERS the love of God to man; his infinite JUSTICE and GOODNESS*.

Is this a blessing to be rejected? His Lordship has no room to say so, since the discovery is made in that very way, in which, upon his own Principles, it only could be made. He pretends, "We have no other natural way of coming to the knowledge of God, but from his works. By these, he says, we gain the idea of his physical attributes; and if there be any thing in his works which seems to contradict those attributes, 'tis only seeming: For as men advance in the knowledge of nature, the difficulties vanish. It is not so, he says, with regard to the moral attributes. There are so many phænomena which contradict these, and occasion difficulties never to be cleared up, that they hinder us from acquiring an adequate idea of the moral attributes." Now admitting all this to be true (for generally, his Lordship's assertions are so extravagant, that they will not even admit a supposition of their truth, though it be only for argument's sake), What does it effect but this, the giving additional credit to Revelation? The physical difficulties clear up as we advance in our knowledge of Nature, and we advance in proportion to our diligence and application. But the moral difficulties never clear up, because they rise out of the Whole System of God's moral dispensation; which is involved in clouds and darkness, impenetrable to mortal sight: and all the force of human wit alone will never be able to draw the veil. The assistance must come from another quarter. It must come, if it comes at all, from the Author of the Dispensation.

Well; Revelation hath drawn this veil, and so, removed
the darkness which obstructed our attaining an adequate
idea of the moral attributes. Shall we yet stand out?
And, when we are brought hither upon his Lordship's
own principles, still withhold our assent? Undoubtedly
you must.
Beware (says he) of a pretended Reve-
lation. Why so? "Because the Religion of nature is
"perfect and absolute: and therefore Revelation can
"teach nothing but what Religion hath already
taught." Strange; Why, Revelation teaches those
moral attributes! which you, my Lord, own, natural
Religion does not teach-Here we stick.

"Dic aliquem sodes, dic, Quintiliane, colorem:
Hæremus-

And here, we are like to stick. His Lordship leaves. us in a Riddle. Will you have the solution? It is foolish enough; as the solution of such kind of things generally are. But if the Reader hath kept his good humour, which, I confess, is difficult amidst all these provocations of impiety, it is enough to make him laugh. I said before, that his Lordship borrowed all his reasoning against Revelation, from such as Tindal, Toland, Collins, Chubb, and Morgan. This solemn argument particularly, of the PERFECTION OF NATURAL RELIGION, and the superseded use of Revelation, he delivers to us just as he found it in Tindal. Now Tindal, who pretended to hold that natural Religion taught both the moral attributes and a future state, had some pretence for saying that it was perfect and absolute. But what pretence has his Lordship to say it after him, who holds that natural Religion taught "neither one nor the other? The truth is, he refused no arms against REVELATION; and the too eager pursuit * Vol. V. p. 544.

of

of this his old enemy through thick and thin has led him into many of these scrapes.

To see his Lordship use TINDAL'S ARGUMENTS against Revelation, and for the perfection of Natural Religion, along with his OWN PRINCIPLES of no morat attributes and no future state, must needs give the Reader a very uncommon idea of his abilities: for the first of these principles makes one entire absurdity of all he borrows from Tindal against Revelation; and the second takes away the very pretence for perfection in natural Religion.

His Lordship's friend, Swift, has somewhere or other observed, that no subject in all Literature but Religion I could have advanced TOLAND and ASGILL into the class of reputable Authors. Another of his friends seems to think that no subject but Religion could have sunk his Lordship so far below it: IF EVER LORD BOLINGBROKE TRIFLES (says Pope), IT WILL BE WHEN HE WRITES ON DIVINITY*. But such is the fate of Authors, when they chuse to write upon subjects for which they were not qualified either by nature or grace. For it is with authors as with Men: Who can guess which Vessel was made for honour, and which for dishonour? when sometimes, one and the same is made for both. Even this choice Piece of the FIRST PHILOSOPHY, his Lordship's sacred pages, is ready to be put to very different uses, according to the different tempers in which they have found his few Admirers on the one side, and the Public on the other; like the china Utensil in the DUNCIAD, which one Hero used for a p-pot, and another carried home for his Headpiece.

Pope's Works, V. IX. Lett. xiv.

$ 4

CONTINUATION OF BOOK II.

SECT. V.

ITHERTO we have shewn the Magistrate's care in PROPAGATING the belief of a God-of his Providence over human affairs--and of the way in which that Providence is chiefly dispensed; namely, by rewards and punishments in a future state. These things make the essence of Religion, and compose the body of it.

His next care was for the SUPPORT of Religion, so propagated. And this was done by UNITING it to the State, taking it under the civil protection, and giving it the rights and privileges of an ESTABLISHMENT. Accordingly we find that all states and people, in the ancient world, had an ESTABLISHED RELIGION; which was under the more immediate protection of the civil Magistrate, in contradistinction to those which were only TOLERATED.

How close these two Interests were united in the Egyptian Policy, is well known to all acquainted with Antiquity. Nor were the politest Republics less solicitous for the common interests of the two Societies, than that sage and powerful Monarchy (the nurse of arts and virtue) as we shall see hereafter, in the conduct both of Rome and Athens, for the support and preservation of the established worship.

But