recorded in the four Gofpels: by these let us abide, be 'these the standard of our faith, and sheet anchor of our hope, and thefe only. His language is plain, his words cannot be mif-interpreted, nor perverted to different meanings; he speaks to the level of every understanding, as well as to the heart, and cannot be misunderstood. To this it may be objected by freethinkers, that herein we are still at no certainty that these gospels were penned after Chrift's afcenfion; that poffibly those his declarations and doctrines may not have been faithfully recorded; that we still take them upon truft, &c. To this we answer, and lay our appeal to the doctrines themfelves; then let every one who doubts knock at his breast, and say, if he can, from the conviction of his own heart, that fuch doctrines, confidered as a fyftem of theology and ethics, are not of divine origin. Let this be the text, and sceptics will no longer have existence.

83. Ob Man! Oh Chriftian! Emperors, Kings, Princes, Potentates, and Powers; Rulers, and Leaders, under whatsoever denomination of Chriftians you have continued to disgrace thofe originally refpectable names, whether Papift or Proteftant, Lutheran or Calvinist, &c. &c. no longer fuffer to be feverally applied to you that pre

diction

diction which Chrift applied to the hardened Jews, refpecting his perfecuted apostles, "Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever "killeth you, will think he doeth God fer"vice;"no longer, we fay, adopt such an impious doctrine and fuppofition (for herein you are worse than the Jews, for you pretend to believe in Chrift and his doctrines, which they did not) but mutually labor to re-establish peace on earth, and harmony in heaven, by reftoring once more the true fpirit of thofe primitive truths, which were, as the first and last grace of GOD, delivered to you at your creation originally by BIRMAH, and fubfequently by CHRIST, the one and the fame individual, firft begotten of the Father, as before fuggested. Our candid reader will now fee the neceffity we were under of analifing the modern ChriStian tenets and practice, and of expofing the fatal innovations that brought it first into difrepute, and that still continue to obftruct its univerfality: we are fenfible that we hereby lay ourselves open to the censure of fuperficial thinkers, who will be ready enough, although unjustly, to accufe us of Deifm, according to the common acceptation of the phrafe; but as we think we have as indifputable a right as Dr. Clarke or others, to extend or give a new fignifica tion to the word Deift, fo we pronounce,

that

that a man may, with ftrict propriety, be an orthodox Chriftian Deift; that is, that he may, confiftently, have a firm faith in the unity of the Godhead, and in the pure and original doctrines of Christ. In this fenfe alone we glory in avowing ourfelf-A CHRISTIAN DEIST.

84. Having thus fubmitted to our intelligent readers all that we thought necessary to the elucidation of our First General Head, to wit, the existence, the rebellion, the expulfion and punishment of the apoftate angels, according to the minute histo

ry

of that great and fatal event, given in the Chartah Bhade of Bramah, from which all antiquity borrowed their conceptions of this effential piece of knowledge, and which also stands confirmed by the gofpel-difpenfation; and having likewife, occafionally, as we purposed, drawn fome (we hope) useful and most neceffary conclufions and doctrines, from the comparifon between those two divine fcriptures, the course of our pursuit leads us to the investigation of our Second General Head, "The creation of "the universe, for the reception and refi"dence of the expelled angels, after their "emerging from the Onderah, or place of "intenfe darkness, into which they had been

"precipi

precipitated, upon their expulfion from "heaven.'

SECOND GENERAL HEAD.

Secon1 Ge- 85. The eternity, or non-eternity of neralHead. matter (a queftion which exercised the

brains of Plato, Ariftotle, Epicurus, and others of the ancients and moderns to little purpose), is a fubject, the difcuffion of which would be foreign to our design; but the eternity of the world, which some philofophers have held as a principle deduced from the pofition of the eternity of matter, is furely one of the greateft, of the most daring, and inconfiftent extravagancies of the ancients; a conclufion, that is neither fupported by found philofophy, reason, or probability. Nor is it lefs extravagant in man, to fuppofe, that this world, and all that is in it, was made for him; that is, if we confider him in the light in which he feems (by the whole tenor of his actions) to view himself, the mushroom of a day. And indeed it should also feem, that man, from his blind and thoughtless estimation of the world, was likewife perfectly convinced, that he himself was made only for it. With this grovelling conception of his nature and

origin,

origin, it is no wonder that his pursuits should be adequate, and difgrace his intellectual faculties. Man is a free agent, and may say whatsoever he pleases to amufe himself; he may plume himself in asserting the immortality of his foul, his fuperior form, and intellectual powers, in comparison with the reft of the animal creation: he may also fay, that he looks up to a life beyond this, a future life of rewards and punishments;

but we maintain against him, that he neither believes the one or the other; facts ftare him in the face and refute him, his daily practice contradict his words, and prove his attachments and views are folely limited to, and circumfcribed by the folicitudes and fenfual indulgences of this world, which, with all its annexed appurtenances, he arrogantly and prefumptuously conceits was made for his use and—abuse. Strange and irrational conceit, for a being thus circumstanced!

86. In combating and difavowing the poffibility of man's firm faith in the primi-: tive truths just above specified; we think we pay the highest, the most favorable compliment and construction to his understanding and conduct, that is in our power; for. if he really and truly believes, and seriously. thinks himself entitled to hold that fuperior

rank