cannot avoid paying attention to the principle of Bacon, who tells us that we must always be careful never to infer conclusions which are unsuited to the measure of the facts, and which therefore, greatly overhanging their basis, have no real strength or solidity.

In the Testimony that supports Christianity in its pristine period, we may, therefore, admit of ignorance, of fanaticism and even of fraud, which we believe also to exist in the present day in Romanism and in other sections of Christianity, without denying that the individuals are Christians, provided Christ be the watchword. The criterion of human endeavors is the Word or God as Christ, and no other Unity exists in Theology.

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The link which connects the Old and the New Testament is altogether in the Unity of the Word. But the testimony of the Bible is the human conception of the times respecting the Word revealed. The Book cannot be distinguished from itself as the Word can from the Book. The conceptions of former days may vary or differ from ours respecting Him who is trusted in as unvarying, without Faith being cancelled thereby. Trust in God does not require that a Christian should become a Jew. The Bible cannot be rated from human conception merely because those conceptions are inspired by the feelings which the notion of God gave rise to in the minds of men of former days. It is, we believe, impossible to reflect on the imperfections of human nature, and on that of all language, without admitting that something more certain must be admitted as an object of Trust. But Theology will never submit to have her province thus narrowed. Even Warburton, a stanch theologian, found Theology against him, when he attempted to prove the Divine Mission of Moses, by grounding his arguments on the paucity of the main tenets of that

legislator. This the theologians asserted was utterly subversive of the whole, for with Theology the total system must stand or fall.

As to the Attributes and Qualities assigned to their Gods, by the Heathens, these, according to Warburton, always correspond with the nature and genius of the civil government. If this was gentle, benign, compassionate and forgiving, Goodness and Mercy made up the essence of the Deity; but if severe and inexorable, captious and unequal, the very Gods were Tyrants, and expiations, atonements, lustrations and bloody sacrifices composed the system of religious worship. "This," says the learned Bishop above named, "I have observed to hold universally throughout Antiquity, so that by the rule here delivered, a man might, on being told the genius of any particular government, rightly pronounce on the nature of the Gods." If ever a general propensity may be termed a dictate of Nature it was obviously that of admitting a Revelation of some kind in contradistinction to what is called the Religion of Nature; but asks Warburton what could cause mankind so readily to embrace these offered Revelations, and he adduces the following:

1. Either a consciousness that they wanted a revealed Will for their rule of action;

Or, 2. An old tradition that God was wont to vouchsafe it to their forefathers.

"And there can be no third," adds the Bishop, "for it is either in the nature of man or in a tradition preserved in the whole race. Prince-craft or Priestcraft might indeed offer them for private ends, but nothing short of a common reason could dispose mankind to accept them." Now the common reason to which Warburton alludes is, according to our view, the Word or Name of God, and His Attributes as the

finite conception. Mankind, forgetful of the nature of the knowledge, always aimed at a nearer apprehension of God, or claimed belief thereto. Warburton conceives the very disposition of man to receive such absurd schemes of Religion as Revelations from Heaven as proving more than a thousand arguments that mankind was ignorant even of the very principles of natural religion, and that therefore men were fully conscious of their want of a Revelation. And therefore men so totally at a loss for a rule of life would greedily embrace any direction that came with a sanction from Heaven. This, he reminds us, was not only confined to the ignorant and to the people, but even the wisest, and Socrates especially, owned their want of a superior direction.

Warburton, conceiving Natural Religion to be very distinct from Revealed Religion, admits its two fundamental supports to be 1. The knowledge of Moral Obligation, and 2. The belief in a future state of Rewards and Punishments. The latter they unanimously rejected, he says, but though they all admitted of moral obligation, no two went the same way, and none hit upon the right. "The honor of this discovery was reserved," according to Warburton, "for true Revelation, which teaches us in spite of unwilling hearers that the real ground of moral obligation is the Will of God."

Now, though we are well aware that in the eyes of the orthodox Bishop we would appear as blasphemers and would incur anathema for our opinions, yet we shall remark that his views incline strongly towards the opinions we maintain. Warburton, to the astonishment of all Christianity, aimed at proving the Divinity of Moses's law from the circumstances of the law itself, and that the doctrine of a future state of rewards and

punishments is not to be found in, nor did make part of, the Mosaic dispensation. "Mistaken notions," he says, "of the Jewish and Christian dispensations have made some advocates of Revelation always unwilling to confess the truth here contended for, so that it is not with Atheism and Free-thinking that an adversary is found, but in Orthodoxy. I have often, indeed, asked myself what had I to do to invent new arguments for religion when the old ones had outlived so many generations of the race of infidels and freethinkers. I might then have flourished in the favor of my superiors and the good will of my brethren; advantages I prize above every thing, next the love of Truth. This breaks all my measures, imperiosa trahit veritas, and I am once more borne away in the troubled torrent of Antiquity." Warburton then proceeds to show the necessity of being acquainted with the history of ancient Egypt with respect to religion and customs in order to receive therefrom a light, "since Moses was learned in all the Wisdom, and the Jews besotted with all the Idolatries of Egypt. Now in this inquiry into Egyptian manners by an odd chance not uncommon in blind scuffles, the Infidels and we have changed weapons. Our enemies attack us with the Bible to prove the Egyptians very learned and superstitious in the time of Moses, and we defend ourselves with the Chronology of Sir Isaac Newton to prove them very barbarous and very innocent. Infidels, drawing from the written fact that in the Jewish law there were many ordinances respecting the institutions of Egypt a conclusion against the divine inspiration of Moses, the defenders of Revelation, taken by surprise, acted as unprepared disputants generally do to support their opinions, i. e., chose rather to deny the premises than the conclusion; for not knowing to what

their adversary's principles may lead, they think it a point of prudence to cast off all danger, and stop him in his first advance; whereas the skilful disputant well knows that he never has his enemy at more advantage than when he shows him arguing wrong from his own principles."

Taking up this ground, Warburton calls "the Tolands, the Blounts, the Tindals, &c., a race of coldheaded dreamers, in whose composition is found more of that quality which subjects men to draw wrong conclusions, than of that which tempts them to invent false principles." Still, he by no means consents to be understood as admitting the premises of his adversaries in the latitude in which they are delivered, for "the human mind, miserably weak and unstable, and distracted with a great variety of objects, is naturally inclined to repose itself in system, nothing being more uneasy than a state of suspense, or a view too large for our comprehension. Hence we see of every imaginary fact some or other have made an hypothesis, of every hypothesis a castle, within the precincts of which they draw every thing they fancy may contribute to its defence or embellishment. Of this we have adduced an instance in the folly of those who are for drawing all arts, laws and religion from the Hebrews. An extravagance at length come to such a height, that if you would believe certain writers, (Gale, Court, Huet, &c.,) the poor Heathen had neither the Grace to kneel to Prayers, nor the Wit to put their Gods under cover, till the Israelites taught them the way." Warburton here maintains that when we are told that Honor to Parents and the restraint of Theft by Punishment came to the Hebrews from the Egyptians, as also circumcision, the proposition is a fallacy from whatever party it comes, since Cumberlant has proved that they ex