recent edition of Leland's View of the Deistical writers (Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, &c. &c.) together with many other valuable treatises, afford in formation concerning their principles, and contain a refutation of their objections against revealed religion. Mr. Belsham has thus assigned the principal causes of modern infidelity in his reply to Mr. Wilberforce

1. The first and chief is an unwillingness to submit to the restraints of religion, and the dread of a future life, which leads men to overlook evidence, and to magnify objections. 2. The palpable absurdities of creeds generally professed by Christians, which men of sense having confounded with the genuine doctrines of revelation, they have rejected the whole at once, and without inquiry. 3. Impatience and unwilling ness to persevere in the laborious task of weighing arguments and examining objections. 4. Fashion has biassed the minds of some young persons of virtuous characters and competent knowledge, to resist re velation, in order to avoid the imputation of sin. gularity, and to escape the ridicule of those with whom they desire to associate. 5. Pride, that they might at an easy rate attain the character of philoso phers and superiority to vulgar prejudice. 6. Dwelling upon difficulties only, from which the most rational system is not exempt, and by which the most candid, inquisitive, and virtuous minds are sometimes entangled. The mass of mankind, who never think at all, but who admit, without hesitation, all that

the nurse and the priest have taught,' can never be. come sceptics. Of course the whole class of unbelievers consist of persons who have thought more or less upon the subject; and as persons of sense seldom discard at once all the principles in which they have been educated, it is not wonderful that many who begin with the highest orthodoxy, pass through different stages of their creed, dropping an article or two every step of their progress, till at last, weary of their labour, and not knowing where to fix, they reject it altogether. This, to a superficial and timid observer, appears to be an objection to freedom of inquiry; for no person beginning to inquire, can or ought to say where he will stop. But the sincere friend to truth will not be discouraged. For without inquiry truth cannot be ascertained, and if THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION shrinks from close examination in this bold and inquisitive age, it must and it ought to fall. But of this issue I have not the smallest apprehension. Genuine Christianity can well bear the fiery trial through which it is now passing, and while the dross and the rubbish are consumed, the pure gold will remain uninjured, and will come forth. from the furnace with increased lustre."

Indeed the objections which some Deists have made to revelation, affect not so much the religion of Jesus Christ, laid down in the New Testament, as certain absurd doctrines and ridiculous practice's which have been added to it by the weakness and

wickedness of mankind. Reiterated accusations therefore of unfairness have been brought against the generality of Deistical writers; and with this palpable injustice Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and Thomas Paine stand particularly charged. Paine's Age of Reason has been ably answered by many writers, especially by the present Bishop of Landaff, in his Apology for the Bible.

The late Dr. Beattie, in the eloquent conclusion of his Essay on the Immutability of Truth, speaking of Sceptics and Deists, very justly remarks: Caressed by those who call themselves the great, engrossed by the formalities and fopperies of life, intoxicated with vanity, pampered with adulation, dissipated in the tumult of business, or amidst the vicissitudes of folly, they perhaps have little need and little relish for the consolations of religion. But let them know, that in the solitary scenes of life there is many an honest and tender heart pining with incurable anguish, pierced with the sharpest sting of disappointment, bereft of friends, chilled with poverty, racked with disease, scourged by the oppressor, whom nothing but trust in Providence, and the hope of a future retribution, could preserve from the agonies of despair. And do they with sacrilegious hands attempt to violate this last refuge of the miserable, and to rob them of the only comfort that had survived the ravages of misfortune, malice, and tyranny? Did it ever happen that the influence of their tenets disturbed the tran

quillity of virtuous retirement, deepened the gloom of human distress, or aggravated the horrors of the grave? Ye traitors to human kind! ye murderers of the human soul! how can ye answer for it to your own hearts? Surely every spark of your generosity is extinguished for ever, if this consideration do not awaken in you the keenest remorse."

The rejecters of REVELATION (before they thoughtlessly calumuiate it) would do well to consider what they are able to give us in its stead, better calculated. to alleviate the distresses, and bind up the bleeding heart of humanity.

Though the pernicious tendency of infidelity is to be severely reprobated, yet the prosecution of Deists is altogether contrary to the genius of Christianity. It extends the evil deprecated, and affords a miserable specimen of the spirit by which we are actuated. This was the case both with Woollaston, and latterly with Eaton, the publisher of the Third part of Paine's Age of Reason. Respecting Woollaston, see an interesting correspondence affixed to Dr. Kippis's Life of Dr. Lardner, between the Bishop of Chichester and Dr. Lardner, who thus writes on the subject with his usual good sense and liberality: "Your lordship freely declares Woollaston ought not to be punished for being an infidel, nor for writing at all against the Christian religion, which appears to me a noble declaration. If the governors of the church and #ivil magistrates nad all along acted up to this pric

eiple, I think the Christian religion had been before now well nigh universal. But I have supposed it to be a consequence from this sentiment, that if men have an allowance to write against the Christian religion, there must be also considerable indulgence as to the manner likewise. This has appeared to me a part of that meekness and forbearance which THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION obliges us to, who are to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long suffering. The proper punishment of a low, mean, indecent, scurrilous way of writing seems to be neglect, contempt, scorn, and indignation." These latter expressions seem prophetical of the fate of Paine's attack on the Bible. It is a pity then that any prosecution should revive a work falling into ob livion. Let us have more regard for the mild and tolerant genius of our common Christianity,

THEOPHILANTHROPISTS.

THE Theophilanthropists are a kind of Deists arisen in France during the revolution. Mr. Thomas Paine figured amongst them for some time, and even delivered a discourse before them on the principles, &c. of this system, which was afterwards established. Since the return of Popery under Buonaparte, they are said to be nearly annihilated; at least they by no