to expect his real opinion, but within the pale of his own particular school, and that school professed controversy upon every point. I will instance one passage which would have done honour to his sentiments, had he spoke his own language as well as that of the Platonists, whom he is here personating -Nec verò Deus, qui intelligitur à nobis, alio modo intelligi potest, quàm mens soluta quædam et libera, segregata ab omni concretione mortali, omnia sentiens et movens. Whilst the purest truths were thrown out only as themes for sophistry to cavil at, the mass of mankind resembled a chaos, in which, if some few sparks of light glimmered, they only served to cast the general horror into darker shades.

It must not, however, be forgotten, that there was a peculiar people then upon earth, who professed to worship that one Supreme Being, of whose nature and attributes certain individuals only amongst the Gentile nations entertained suitable conceptions.

Whilst all the known world were idolaters by establishment, the Jews alone were Unitarians upon system. Their history was most wonderful, for it undertook to give a relation of things, whereof no human records could possibly be taken, and all who received it for truth, must receive it as the relation of God himself; for how else should men obtain a knowledge of the Creator's thoughts and operations in the first formation of all things? Accordingly we find their inspired historian, after he has brought down his narration to the journal of his own time, holding conferences with God himself, and receiving through his immediate communication, certain laws and commandments, which he was to deliver to the people, and according to which they were to live and be governed. In this manner Moses appears as the commissioned legislator of a Theocracy, empowered to work miracles in confirmation of his

vicegerent authority, and to denounce the most tremendous punishments upon the nation, so highly favoured, if in any future time they should disobey and fall off from these sacred statutes and ordinances. A people under such a government, set apart and distinguished from all other nations by means so supernatural, form a very interesting object for our contemplation, and their history abounds in events no less extraordinary and miraculous than the revelation itself of those laws, upon which their constitution was first established: their tedious captivities, their wonderful deliverances, the administration of their priests and prophets, their triumphs and successes, whilst adhering to God's worship, and their deplorable condition, when they corrupted his service with the impurities of the idolatrous nations, whom they drove from their possessions, form a most surprising chain of incidents, to which the annals of no other people upon earth can be said to bear resemblance.

Had it suited the all-wise purposes of God, when he revealed himself to this peculiar people, to have made them the instruments for disseminating the knowledge of his true religion and worship over the Gentile world, their office and administration had been glorious indeed; but this part was either not allotted to them, or justly forfeited by their degenerate and abandoned conduct: disobedient and rebellious against God's ordinances, they were so far from propagating these imparted lights to the neighbouring nations, that they themselves sunk into their darkness, and whilst all the land was overrun with idols, few were the knees which bowed to the living, true, and only God.

Moses, their inspired lawgiver, judge, and prophet, is generally said to have delivered to them no doctrine of a future state: I am aware there is a

learned author now living, one of their nation, David Levi by name, who controverts this assertion; it is fit, therefore, I should leave it in reference to his future proofs, when he shall see proper to produce them; in the mean time I may fairly state it upon this alternative, that if Moses did not impart the doctrine above-mentioned, it was wholly reserved for future special revelation; if he did impart it, there must have been an obstinate want of faith in great part of the Jewish nation, who knowingly professed a contrary doctrine, or else there must have been some obscurity in Moses's account, if they innocently misunderstood it: the Sadducees were a great portion of the Jewish community, and if they were instructed by their lawgiver to believe and expect a future state, it is high matter of offence in them to have disobeyed their teacher; on the other hand, if they were not instructed to this effect by Moses, yet having been taught the knowledge of one all-righteous God, it becomes just matter of surprise, how they came to overlook a consequence so evident.

NUMBER LXIV.

FROM the review we have taken of the state of mankind, in respect to their religious opinions at the Christian era, it appears that the Gentile world was systematically devoted to idolatry, whilst the remnant of the Jewish tribes professed the worship of the true God; but at the same time there did not exist on earth any other temple dedicated to God's service, save that at Jerusalem. The nation so highly favoured by him, and so enlightened by his

N® 64. immediate revelations, was in the lowest state of political and religious declension; ten out of their twelve tribes had been carried away into captivity, from which there has to this hour been no redemption, and the remaining two were brought under the Roman yoke, and divided into sects, one of which opposed the opinion of the other, and maintained that there was to be no resurrection of the dead; the controversy was momentous, for the eternal welfare of mankind was the object of discussion, and who was to decide upon it? the worshippers of the true God had one place only upon earth, wherein to call upon his name; the groves and altars of the idols occupied all the rest: who was to restore his worship? who was to redeem mankind from almost total ignorance and corruption? Where was the light that was to lighten the Gentiles? reason could do no more; it could only argue for the probability of a future state of rewards and punishments, but demonstration was required; an evidence that might remove all doubts, and this was not in the power of man to furnish: some Being therefore must appear, of more than human talents, to instruct mankind; of more than human authority, to reform them: the world was lost, unless it should please God to interpose, for the work was above human hands, and nothing but the which created the world, could save the world.

power

Let any man cast his ideas back to this period, and ask his reason if it was not natural to suppose that the Almighty Being, to whom this general ruin and disorder must be visible, would in mercy to his creatures send some help amongst them; unless it had been his purpose to abandon them to destruction, we may presume to say he surely would: is it then with man to prescribe in what particular mode and form that redemption should come? Certainly it is not with man, but with God only; he, who

grants the vouchsafement will direct the means; be these what they may, they must be preternatural and miraculous, because we have agreed that it is beyond the reach of man by any natural powers of his own to accomplish: a special inspiration then is requisite; some revelation, it should seem, we know not what, we know not how, nor where, nor whence, except that it must come from God himself: what if he sends a Being upon earth to tell us his immediate will, to teach us how to please him, and to convince us of the reality of a future state? that Being then must come down from him, he must have powers miraculous, he must have qualities divine and perfect, he must return on earth from the grave, and personally shew us that he has survived it, and is corporeally living after death: will this be evidence demonstrative? who can withstand it? he must be of all men most obstinately bent upon his own destruction, who should attempt to hold out against it; he must prefer darkness to light, falsehood to truth, misery to happiness, hell to heaven, who would not thankfully embrace so great salvation.

Let us now apply what has been said to the appearance of that person, whom the Christian church believes to have been the true Messias of God, and let us examine the evidences upon which we assert the divinity of his mission, and the completion of its purposes.

In what form, and after what manner, was he sent amongst us? was it by natural or preternatural means? if his first appearance is ushered in by a miracle, will it not be an evidence in favour of God's special revelation? If he is presented to the world in some mode superior to, and different from, the ordinary course of nature, such an introduction must attract to his person and character a more than ordinary attention: if a miraculous and mys