Shep. Pray, sir, did not those nations, who were left to the light of nature, differ considerably about religious matters?

Dech. Pshaw! Shepherd, all nations have been left to the light of nature, in religious matters; and it was superstition and priestcraft that introduced absurdities and differences.

Shep. The light of nature must then have been very weak and dim, or it had never suffered such monstrous absurdities, and irreconcilable differences, to take an entire possession of all nations.

Dech. Be that as it will, no species of superstition, among the heathens, ever occasioned such bickerings and barbarities, as Christianity hath done.

Shep. Considering how little, either of reason or authority, any way of worship among them could plead in its own behalf, I should not be much surprised, if they were very indifferent about their religions: yet I find, they gave instances of bigotry and superstitious fury, infinitely surpassing those of the worst men that ever called themselves Christians. The Ombi, a people of Egypt, were zealous worshippers of the crocodile; the Tentyritæ abhorred that amphibious god, and had a trick of catching and riding him about, till they made him disgorge the carcases he had swallowed: those two nations entertained a most infernal hatred for each other, on account of this religious difference. They were not satisfied with putting one another to death in the cruelest manner; they even eat the flesh of their enemies raw, and he that came too late for the feast, licked up the blood of the slain, that had been spilt on the ground. This horrible instance of barbarity happened about Juvenal's time, and you may see the description of it, at large, in the fifteenth satire of that poet. Diodorus Siculus tells us, in his second book, that the ancient kings of Egypt, finding the people inclinable to conspiracies and commotions, assigned each city its particular animals for gods; to the intent that each community, hating the rest for their diversity of worship, might be the less inclined to confederate with them against their kings and this, says the historian, took effect; for the inhabitants, in one quarter of the country, were perpetually upbraiding those of another with the impiety of their

worship in after-times they added a great number of vegetable, to their animal, deities. Had you lived in that country, and in those times, high as you carry your notions of the light and religion of nature, you had certainly been a zealous worshipper of a dog, a cat, a clove of garlic, or an onion, and, very probably, a furious persecutor of the rest. You might, possibly, have suffered the dog and cat to snarl and scratch, for their respective divinities; but had you been an onionist, you would not have left so helpless a god to the teeth of a hungry and persecuting boor. But there is no need of multiplying instances to prove, either that man, left to himself, is so destitute of religious light, as to admit of the most foolish and portentous forms of religion; or capable of persecuting those who differ from him about religion, with the most horrid cruelty: the shocking barbarities, exercised by the Pagans on the Christians, furnish us with too pregnant a proof of this. Their light of nature suffered them to worship whores, and adulterers, and cutthroats, and devils; and to massacre those, who came to teach them the knowledge of the only true God, with fire and sword, by thousands. Nor was their cruelty the effect of a sudden and transient fury, or of mere popular rage. The emperors and people joined, and persevered in it, for several

ages.

Temp. This objection of yours, Mr. Dechaine, about divisions and persecutions, is fairly thrown off from Christianity, and turned against your own hypothesis, concerning the sufficiency of the light of nature. The strongest sort of proof is drawn from facts, and the facts are directly against

you.

Shep. Give me leave to close what I had to say on this subject with observing to you, that there is a great and wonderful agreement among Christians concerning fundamentals; that men are not more unanimous about other matters; and that, as I hinted before, it is not about religion, but about their own vain notions, rooted prejudices, and violent passions, that religious disputants make so great a sputter. I must, also, remind you of what hath been said concerning the vast advantages which the authority of the holy Scriptures derives from the disputes among Christians.

Cunn. You said a great deal on that subject, part of

which, indeed, was not amiss; but I must own, Mr. Shepherd, I cannot see how divisions, among the adherents of any religion, can be of service to that religion. The author of ours did not think as you do, when he inculcated the precepts you recited a while ago, enjoining charity and unanimity in the most pathetic terms.

Shep. Religious divisions, sir, or heresies, are as odious, in the sight of God, as any other species of evil; but out of this evil, great as it is, infinite wisdom knows how to extract some good. St. Paul touches on one of the benefits arising from divisions, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. 'There must be heresies,' says he, 'among you, that they which are approved, may be made manifest;' by which he means, that those who are sound in the faith, may be distinguished from such as have secretly attached themselves to false doctrines, and may shine out, like gold refined from its dross. When such a separation as this is once made public, the contrivers of bad opinions, being forced to lay aside the mask of orthodoxy, have no longer an opportunity of insinuating their errors into the minds of well-meaning, but unwary people: besides, if we consider either the nature of revealed religion, or that of man, we shall perceive, that other great advantages may be drawn from religious differences. As to the first, I have already observed, that the writings, in which it is contained, and handed to distant countries or ages, are better proved to be genuine by vouchers violently incensed against one another from principle and passion, than by such as are unanimous in all things.

Dech. If any system of truths appears to be worth the retaining, mankind, for their own sakes, will not suffer that which is good in itself, and useful to them, to be lost; and therefore I cannot see what occasion there could have been for quarrelling about Christianity, in order to preserve it, had it been found necessary, by those who tried it. Besides, unanimity would have given a greater credit to your religion, than divisions could have done; and therefore seems a more promising preservative: for that which is placed between two, or more, contending parties, and bitterly fought for, by all, is often torn to pieces, and lost in the scuffle.

Shep. Our religion was found to be so well worth retaining, that it would, undoubtedly, have been preserved, had

its professors never differed about it. In that case, there had been no room for your present objection, indeed; but then your other, levelled against the genuineness of its records, would not have admitted of so easy, or so demonstrative an answer. As to the nature of man, it is such, so fickle, and fond of novelty, that, generally speaking, he is not apt, unless stirred by some passion, to be long earnest and warm in one thing: from hence, if there were no disputes about religion, might, in time, arise a coldness, and inattention to it. This, again, might produce a great, and, at length, a total ignorance of it. Nothing is so apt to rouse attention, and strike out knowledge, as disputes. The public disputations in our universities afford an experimental proof of this; for in those, although there is little else but reputation at stake, the disputants on both sides generally exert their utmost efforts for victory. But, when debates about religious differences are once set on foot, all corners of the question, under consideration, are beat into; light and truth are either forced out, or better supported, and riveted in the mind; while, at the same time, other collateral, or dependent truths, that did not before occur, are discovered for a thorough debate on any question not only exercises the rational faculties, but also carries the mind into new topics of thought and inquiry. We light up a candle, perhaps, only to read by; but, while it shews us what is contained in the book we apply to it, it likewise brings into view every thing else about us, and enables us to examine what is said in the author before us, by what is advanced, either for or against it, in other writers. Thus it is, that while the enemy of truth labours, through the corrupt affections, and perverted reasonings, of men, to cloud or suppress the truths of religion; God, by the very same means, clears up old truths, strikes out new ones, and keeps the minds of mankind awake to religious knowledge. It was, perhaps, for this purpose, among others, that mysteries were revealed, and some doctrines, which might have been more fully delivered by divine inspiration, were designedly set forth in such a degree of obscurity, as could not fail to give the ill-disposed an occasion of cavil, and furnish the candid mind with an opportunity of exercise and inquiry. Now this is no more an objection to the goodness of Providence,

than his having given us our outward necessaries only upon the terms of labour, and continual care. How great is the wisdom of that Being, who hath so constituted human nature, that light must spring from darkness, order from confusion, and truth from prejudice and error!

Temp. It is not to be wondered at, that men should differ about religious matters, which naturally lead to metaphysical and abstracted inquiries, when there is so much disputation in arts and sciences, relating to sensible things. What is the next ingredient in Christianity, Mr. Dechaine, which, in your opinion, is detrimental to mankind?

Dech. I really think, if there were no other objection to Christianity, than that its rewards tend to make men mercenary, and its punishments to fill them with abject, I won't say chimerical fears, in which two consists the true definition of slavery; this alone, would be sufficient to weigh it down. In order to be either good, or happy, we must be free but he can never be morally free, who is hired to good actions by an infinite reward, or deterred from bad ones by an infinite punishment: such allurements and terrors, whensoever they are firmly believed in, impose a moral necessity, and a moral necessity is sufficient to take away moral freedom. Then the clergy will never suffer either their principles, or their conduct, to be severely inquired into by people with whom they have any credit; so that not only the principles themselves, but the conduct of those who preach them, tend alike to enslave mankind. Pray, Mr. Shepherd, is he, who is withheld from stealing, merely by the fear of legal punishment, an honest man?

Shep. No.

Dech. Is he an honest man, who brings me a sum of money from my correspondent, which he would have run away with, had not that correspondent, or somebody else, promised him twice the sum, in case he returned with my receipt?

Shep. He is not.

Dech. Does it not plainly follow, then, that he who does good, only in hope of reward, and he who abstains from evil, merely for fear of punishment, is not virtuous, or honest?