Shep. It is very true, and surely most of all, in the consideration of that infinite of infinites, in comparison of which all subordinate infinites must be perfectly obvious and intelligible. We justly admire that saying, that God is a Being whose centre is every where, and circumference nowhere,' as one of the noblest and most exalted flights of human understanding; and yet not only the terms are absurd and contradictory, but the very ideas that constitute it, when considered attentively, are repugnant to one another. Space and duration are mysterious abysses, in which our thoughts are confounded with demonstrable propositions, to all sense and reason, flatly contradictory to one another. Any two points of time, though ever so distant, are each of them exactly in the middle of eternity. The remotest points of space, that can be imagined or supposed, are, each of them, precisely in the centre of infinite space. The grand principle of attraction is in itself a mystery; and more so, if considered as the cause of repulsion; for how can matter, considered in itself, act through an absolute void, and at, a distance, in order to attract or repel, alternately, or upon different bodies at the same time? Nay, its great inventor, after pursuing it through a long chain of experiments and demonstrations, leaves it a religious mystery, and can give no farther account of it, but that it is the power of God in matter.' The power of the civil magistrate, and the liberty of the subjects to call him to an account, and sit in judgment on his administration, or, in other words, the due extent of civil power and obedience, make a political mystery, which hath never been settled yet, and it is to be feared never will. Mysteries, in short, are admitted in natural, mathematical, and political knowledge, in all the most plain, trite, and common matters. But when we speak of God, who is the most inconceivable and mysterious of all beings, as if he alone were comprehensible, nothing truly is to be admitted, but what may be accounted for to reason. What is reason to God? It is an inch of line to an unfathomable ocean it is a foot-rule to infinite space. From hence it appears, that the very first principle of all religion, of natural as well as of revealed religion, is a mystery, nay, the greatest of all mysteries; for it hath God, the most incomprehen

sible and mysterious of all beings, for its object. And is the very fundamental article of natural religion itself a great mystery, both in respect to the extreme difficulty of finding it out by the mere force of our natural faculties, and to the impossibility, when it was found out, of comprehending the divine nature? Now, is it not a little extraordinary, that the advocates for natural religion, which is founded on a mystery, and abounds almost in every article with mysteries, should make it their greatest objection to Christianity, that it is, in some measure, mysterious? Mr. Dechaine, I will come to a very fair agreement with you.

Dech. What is that?

Shep. Tell me how you roll your eye, or move your finger; and if I do not return you a satisfactory account, and a clear demonstration, of the Trinity, I will give it up, and with it the whole system of the Christian religion.

Temp. Enough, I think, has been said concerning mysteries; and it does not appear, either that God could not require the belief of them, or that those of the Christian religion are such as could not have had God for their author. It is now time to inquire, whether there is any thing in this religion repugnant to the ends of religion in general, or prejudicial to mankind.

Dech. One so easily satisfied as you, may run from point to point, as fast as he pleases. However, I am as willing to be brief on subjects so dry and disagreeable, as your easiness of assent and faith can make you; and the rather, because howsoever plausible a defence the Christian revelation may seem to admit of in one respect, it cannot do so in all; and my arguments for the sufficiency of the natural light prove to me, that revelation is altogether needless, and, consequently, that every pretence to it is an impudent piece of imposture. But is it not time, think you, after so much thought and care for the soul, to provide for the poor body? Shepherd himself, though rapt in spiritual speculations and mysteries, must at length descend, like one of us, to repair the breaches of his corporeal tabernacle, and gratify the importunities of his outward man.

Shep. Yes; but I am thinking how much more convincingly I should argue for religion in the present times,

could I subsist without food, and save those who hear me, the expense of a maintenance.

Dech. A parson, and not eat! that would be a most persuasive miracle indeed.

DIALOGUE VII.

DECHAINE, TEMPLETON, CUNNINGHAM, SHEPHERD.

Dech. HAVING waded through the learned puddle of authorities, of manuscripts, translations, commentaries, mysteries, things calculated to confound and puzzle the understanding, we come now to the fair field, and firm ground, of reason, whereon, it is to be hoped, we may tread with more security and pleasure. The Christian religion, when brought to the touchstone of reason, must appear to be clogged with a gross alloy of ingredients, diametrically repugnant to the ends of religion in general, and highly prejudicial to the virtue and happiness of its professors. In the first place, a religion that tends to divide and embroil the world, to whet and embitter the minds of men against one another, is as little likely to do good, as to come from God. Man cannot live out of society; and such principles as make it almost impossible for him to live in it, must be of the most unhappy nature and tendency. If we believe the scriptural, and other Christian writers, their principles are of the last importance; and if we consult experience, I am sure we shall find they are so imperfectly or absurdly revealed, as to leave the world to numberless diversities of opinion about them. Now their obscurity makes divisions unavoidable, and their supposed importance inflames those divisions to at degree of animosity fatal to the repose and safety of society. In other quarrels we contend about honour, power, riches, and such like worldly trifles; but, in religious broils, the very souls of men are engaged, God and heaven are fought for, and the heart of man is raised to the utmost height of fury and rage. Hence debates, that could not be settled by the tongue or pen, come to be disputed with the sword.

Fire and faggot are brought in to eke out the arguments on both sides. Those, who fall in the quarrel, are canonized for martyrs by the one party, and damned for heretics by the other. The civil society is sorely shaken, if not totally ruined; and mankind become savages and wild beasts to one another and for what? Why, for God's sake. I need not be particular, sir, in pointing out the unhappy times and transactions I hint at. What I have said, is only a short abridgement of your church history.

Shep. It is but too true. Pray, is the divinity of our Saviour plainly set forth in the New Testament?

Dech. It is: what then?

Shep. It cannot be said then, that the obscurity of this revelation occasioned the bickerings between the Athanasians and the Arians in old times, nor the disputes between us and the Socinians in these latter days.

Dech. No; but the repugnancy of that revelation to reason did.

Shep. I rather think it was man's high conceit of his own reason, than any real repugnancy between reason, truly such, and the revelation mentioned, that raised those frightful commotions we were speaking of. The mere obscurity of the revelation, is certainly and confessedly not to be blamed for them. Pray, is the doctrine of a future resurrection of the body plainly revealed in Scripture?

Dech. I think it is.

Shep. It was not owing, therefore, to any obscurity in this revelation, that Hymenæus and Philetus in the apostoliçal times, and the Quakers in our own, all professing Christianity, did and do maintain, that the resurrection is to be understood in a mere spiritual sense, and is already past. Is communion in both kinds plainly enjoined in the Scripture?

Dech. It seems so.

Shep. It is not, therefore, because our Saviour did not plainly command, and his immediate followers constantly practise, communion in both kinds, that a certain church hath, for many ages, denied the cup to the laity. Are water-baptism and the Lord's Supper clearly commanded in Scripture; and were they constantly observed in the apostolical times?

Dech. If we may believe the Scriptures, they were.

Shep. Yet the Quakers, who, if we may believe the Deists, are those among us, who come nearest to the primitive Christians, can see no such commands in Scripture. And it is there light within that blinds them. It is, indeed, something within, such as false reasoning, passions, prejudices, vanity, and nothing else, that can make men err about the sense of revelations so plain and determinate. As to the importance of certain Christian doctrines, it is not that which animates men to fury and cruelty, but the vainly supposed importance of their own detached opinions about them, and of their own ignorant zeal. Let a doctrine be supposed ever so important, that supposition hath no sort of tendency to inspire its professor with hatred to him, who does not receive that doctrine. But, if such a professor shall once take it into his head to believe, that he does God service in persecuting such as deny that doctrine, he will pursue them to death with fire and fagot. The doctrine he may have from Scripture; but his brutal and flaming zeal he draws from a foolish head, and an ill-disposed heart, of his own. There is no one duty so often, and so strongly, inculcated in Scripture, as that of charity. It is said to be greater than faith and hope. Without it the best graces, and the most excellent gifts, are accounted as 'sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal.' Those who want it are no Christians, nor is the religion of Jesus to answer for their behaviour. By this,' says Christ, shall all men know, that you are my disciples, if you have love one towards another.' And lest a thousand precepts, strongly enforcing charity, forbearance, and forgiveness, even by the hope of mercy from God, should not be sufficient to influence the proud and wrathful minds of men, Christ adds his own example to his precept; he prays and dies for those who spit upon him, and nail him to the cross.

Dech. Christianity, without zeal, is a lukewarm affair, and placed by you all on the same footing with irreligion or Atheism. But a religious zeal never seizes on the mind, without making the wildest work in the world, and exerting its fiery spirit in cruelty and persecution.

Shep. There is a reasonable and useful, as well as a culpable, zeal. They, who persecute others on a religious ac