to believe, that the station of Richmond will not hereafter be inferior. 4. Having already expressed my intention, or rather the necessity I shall be hereafter under, of paying little regard to the coherence of one reflection with another, I must here say a word or two on the subject of connexion, which is necessary in some things, as between the horse and the car, between the premises and the conclusion. Yet we buy a horse in one place, and a car in another, separately. In like manner, we pick up here and there, hints, materials, axioms, premises, nay, even conclusions, which we afterward arrange into regular discourses. Unconnected matters therefore are sometimes useful, especially to such as have a better talent at disposing, than at inventing. Accordingly, I never gave any thing to the public, so well liked, or so often read, as the Hylema in my fifth volume. It was Dryden, I think, who observed that no two modern books were better received by the world, than Paschal's Thoughts, wholly, and Bruyere's Characters, almost wholly unconnected. If going to Moscow, we want a house, it is very convenient to find all the parts and materials of a timber-house, ready framed, and capable of being erected in a few hours; but if furniture is not so easily obtained in that city, we must wait till it is brought from various and distant places, or is manufactured by Russian workmen on the spot. Now, if I am but a Russian workman, I at least supply you at a low price. 5. If there is nothing in a man but machinery, it may be hoped, that an harpsichord shall some time or other be made, which shall, of itself, perform any tune we bid it, and accompany the same with an excellent song. Such was once exhibited as a show at Paris, and people began to say, the devil was in it, because perhaps the tunes and songs were of the wanton kind. But an antimaterialist having caused the instrument to be opened, found a dwarf boy in the belly of it. The body of a fine young lady, who sings well, is no more than a musical machine; but there is somewhat within her, that plays upon it, which is deprived of that pleasing power, as often as the machine is disordered by a violent cold, just in the same manner as Handel must have been when his organ or harpsichord was wholly untuned. He is little better than a beast who thinks, there is no soul in a beast; and he is worse than a beast who thinks, there is not somewhat more than an animal soul in a man. It is nothing but a wish, that dictates this opinion, and that wish again is but the dictate of such a worse than beastly life, as shocks his still inextinguished conscience at the prospect of an account. Were it possible he could form high hopes of heaven at the end of such a life, he would, that instant, find a soul within him, and become immortal in his own opinion. People may talk as they will; but there is no one thing more evident to experience, than that most men owe their opinions to their wishes. Happy he, who wishes for nothing, but that which he is sure to obtain; yet happier he, who wishes only for that which is really good for him. 6. Briareus, with a hundred hands, may keep open house for a hundred mouths, but Plutus cannot afford it. 7. The bank of supererogation, by too largely dealing in discount, is losing its credit, and must soon shut up. 8. Music, as most other arts and sciences, born like a child soon arose to its perfection, and hath been, ever since, degenerating. That its chief excellence consisted in simplicity, is evident from what we know of ancient music, and from its effects above two thousand centuries ago, when it spoke to the heart through the ears. The ancients knew nothing of counter part, nor did the absurdity of listening to two tunes at once ever enter into their thoughts. Even we know the attention is distracted and enfeebled when given to any two things at the same time. The same, in a certain degree, may be said of multiplying notes in the same tune, which we moderns dignify with the name of variety; for here too the attention is hurried too fast from one thing to another, before an effect of any force can be impressed on the mind. It is not to tickle the ears, but to move the soul, that poetry and music should be employed. Plutarch, now an ancient, complains, that music even in his time, was debauched by adding more strings to their instruments, and by running divisions without meaning, through a multiplicity of tones. What would he say, were he to hear our present senseless jingle, introduced by our composers, who really know nothing of music, to shew what tricks they can play with sounds, and to give our conceited performers an opportunity of displaying an agility of finger. Compared to the ancients, Corelli himself, through generally touching the passions, was but a modern. Handel was somewhat more. By his choice of subjects, and composing to the purpose, his music spoke an intelligible language, felt by the hearts of his hearers. At present, the compositions of these great masters are out of fashion. Seldom in public, and never in private, do we hear a single bar of their compositions, nor any thing that hath the resemblance of them. No, all is tweedledum, tweedledee, jingle, jangle. 9. Much the same is the case of religion, which, like man, to whom it was sent, came forth at once in simplicity and perfection, and hath ever since been subtilized and corrupted by priestcraft, and inventions of men; still more prone through vanity and their other vices to accommodate religion to themselves, than themselves to religion, excepting when God was pleased to interpose, and revive among mankind a due sense of its original simplicity and spirit. And now what have we for it? Nothing but a subject of pretended dispute, for which we care not a straw, any farther than to make a shew of our own ingenuity in striking out new whims, and defending them with a fancied superiority of refinement. Just because we have espoused it, we quarrel about it with any one who sets up for a familiarity with it, though perhaps he cares as little for our old wife, as we do ourselves. As the cross of Christ was a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks, so his humility, and all his other virtues, are so many stumbling blocks to our detestable passions, and downright foolishness to our philoshphical imaginations. Its mysteries serve us for so many bones of contention, about which we snarl and dispute, just because we do not understand them, but only as so many objections to the religion, of which they appear to make a part, although we know, or ought to know, that our faith is by no means concerned with any doctrine of religion, but so far forth only as we are able easily to understand it. As to the foreknowledge of God, one of the mysteries of natural religion, as it is called, and as to the peculiarly Christian mysteries of the Trinity, the incarnation, and the resurrection, we perfectly understand the propositions wherein they are delivered, and have more than sufficient reason to believe them on God's word, though we can no more account for them, than for the rolling of our eyes, but should believe them as there is not so much as a shadow of inutility, inconsistency, or contradiction in any of them. It is a great doubt with me, whether, on all other subjects half so much nonsense hath been spoken and written, as on that of religion; but sure I am, that in this instance, it is more impious than any other. Perhaps the grossest proofs of this are those, so often repeated from one infidel to another, wherein they confidently assert it as their primary and fundamental axiom, that the uninstructed, unassisted light of natural reason is a sufficient guide to man in all matters of religion and morality, to all men, the low and illiterate, as well as the learned. O ye philosophical infidels, how much do you make yourselves accountable for? Is man as God made him? Is he able, of himself, and by the light of nature alone, to find out the true religion, that is, on all occasions, instantly and on the spot to know what he ought to think, speak and do, to promote the glory of his Maker, and insure his own real happiness? For himself, and all other men, ideots and madmen excepted, he boldly answers, Yes; and by this answer obliges himself to justify all the opinions of his predecessors in philosophy, howsoever contrary to one another, howsoever destructive of morality and common honesty, they have been, particularly those of the Sceptics, to whom truth and certainty in every thing were but dreams; and those of the Epicureans, who threw a dye for the creation, and gave the universe to blind chance; to justify all the religions of Jews, Mahometans, Pagans, and why not of Christians too? To justify the adoration of sticks, stones, devils; to justify the rites of Venus in Cyprus, of Adonis on Mount Aphac, of Flora at Rome, whose priestesses were naked strumpets; in all which the most enormous lewdness was practised as solemn acts of devotion; to justify human sacrifices, particularly of children, burnt alive by their own parents, an horrible species of worship, which obtained every where, among the Assyrians, Persians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, &c. All these things, we know, were done, not only by here and there a single fool, but by whole nations, the most civilized and polished, who could boast the light of nature in an higher degree of perfection, than our present Deists, as is evident by their works, still extant in history, poetry, architecture, sculpture, &c. The advocates of the uninstructed light of nature must also patronise their brethren the canibals, those undebauched children of nature, in their goodly practice of fattening, killing, and eating the flesh of other men. This horrible piece of barbarity is as natural, as their sacrificing their children to their gods. Here I cannot help thinking of Laban, a man who ought to have known somewhat better, pursuing his daughters for stealing his gods! stolen gods! cunning Laban, wert thou in earnest? These were little household divinities, about the size of a man's thumb, which Rachel concealed under her breech for the sake of so much metal, possibly to re-cast them into a utensil for the same situation. Miserable! that any man should trouble himself about such trifling trumpery! Had they been like the strapping gods of Nebuchadnezzar, or the Rhodian Apollo, their quantity of gold or brass might have given them a proportionable conse quence. Now, you advocate for the unaided light of nature, either prove that all this, and ten thousand times more of the same kind, was perfectly rational and right; or give up the boasted sufficiency of that light for the important purposes of religion, virtue, and human happiness; and look out for some other light, more adequate to those purposes. Here, however you cry out, Hath not revelation been attended with as great a number of extravagancies, equally derogatory to God, and destructive of human happiness? I answer, By no means; yet confess, with so many and so great, that could they be at all charged to the account of revelation, and not wholly and justly retorted on yourself, I should throw away my pen, sit down in scepticism, and let the vessel drive. Far from patronizing the heretics, I insist, and all men must second me therein, that their opinions, at worst, were rational, and their practices innocent, in comparison of those I charge on your light of nature, which you insist, was all the light that mankind ever had, and you must vindicate, or give it up. But really and truly, not a single heresy among us all can be, with any colour of justice traced up to revelation, but to the obliquity and debauchery of that natural light, so idolized by yourself. You must own, that all men, calling themselves Christians, had that light, as well as you. How then, on your own axiom, could they possibly have deviated into so many differences and absurdities in regard to Christianity, every one of which you are obliged to defend, and indeed are ever ready to do it, but on occasions like the present, wherein you are distressed for an evasion, and vainly endeavour to turn the attack made on you into an objection to revelation. Take what course you will, the utter insufficiency of your natural light must for ever recoil upon you, as well from our heresies, as your own idolatries, with redoubled force. Talk no more about your light, which suffers us all to stray into every species of folly and wickedness, and so poorly defends its own aberrations. The light in a quaker lantern, though with singed windows, the dimmest light that ever presumed to call itself Christian, and indeed somewhat of kin to your own, is worth a thousand of it. It is to me most astonishing, how your natural knowledge of religion, so |