"with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," they must all have had ultimately in view the same object, and be all more or less connected with each other. But what was the first religion?

Is religion natural to man? By theologians religion is commonly divided into two great partsnatural and revealed religion. Is there, or was there ever, such a system as natural religion? Is there such a religion as can with propriety be called natural? If there be, what is it? for, as it must have been the religion first known to mankind, it must likewise be the foundation of all the systems of pure religion which have since prevailed in the world.

These are questions of vast importance, but as they have been keenly agitated by theologians of great learning and equal integrity, the consideration of them must be deferred to a future letter.

LETTER II.

ON THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION, WHETHER IN NATURE OR FROM REVELATION.

THE questions with which I concluded my last Letter, have given occasion to much controversy, arising, as is too often the case, from the disputants employing ambiguous words in different senses. Is there such a thing as Natural Religion? One party fiercely contends that there neither is, nor ever was, such a religion; whilst another insists, with equal earnestness, not only that there is a religion which may with propriety be called natural, but that if there were not, we could have no satisfactory evidence for the truth of any religion professing to be a revelation from Heaven.

Had these disputants commenced their discussions with ascertaining what is meant by the phrase Natural Religion, I think it probable that there would have been no controversy between them; at least I am convinced that there ought to have been

none.

If by the phrase Natural Religion be meant

a system of religion either innate in the mind of man, or discovered by human reason from the phenomena of nature, I am persuaded that there never was, nor ever could have been, such a religion professed or practised in this world. It has indeed been said, that the belief of superior powers has been so universal in all ages and nations, savage as well as civilized, that it can be accounted for in no other way than by supposing such a belief natural to man, either as an innate or instinctive principle, or as a conclusion to which the phenomena of nature must necessarily lead the rudest savages.

But has this belief been indeed universal? I suspect not. From all the accounts which we have had of the native Americans, when they were first visited by Europeans, it seems evident that there were among them large tribes who had no notions of a God or gods,* and of course practised no religious rites or forms of worship. With respect to religion, the natives of New Holland appear to have been in the very same state; and we have the direct testimony of the intelligent Captain Parry and his associates, that the Esquimaux, with whom, in their second voyage, they past some dreary months in the polar regions, had not the smallest notion of any invisible powers to whom adoration is due. Even the notions of those savages who seem to acknowledge a God or gods, cannot be innate, or pro

* Robertson's History of America, and the works to which he refers.

ceed from what Lord Kaimes calls a sense of Deity; for innate or instinctive notions of religion, if there were any such, would, among savages, be necessarily uniform; and, as far as they extend, perfectly correct, as being impressions on the mind made by him who created it. But so far is this from being the case, that even the rudest savages, who practise any religious rites, appear to have very different conceptions of the nature of the beings whom, by such rites, they intend to propitiate; and this they surely could not have, if their belief in the existence and attributes of such beings were derived immediately from the God of Truth,-the equal Lord of savage and of sage. Instinctive belief in powers invisible is, like innate ideas, a phrase which I do not understand.

In the human race, as well as in the inferior animals, there are indeed various instincts prompting to actions, of which, at the time when they are felt, the agent is not aware of the consequences; but those instincts never prompt to absurdities, or to actions defeating the very purpose for which they were implanted in the mind of the agent. It is in what relates to the preservation of the individual, and the continuance of the species, that the operations of instinct are most easily traced; and I believe it will be found, that the fowls of the air, which have no other guide, are never, in their natural state, prompted by instinct to eat what would poison them, or,

* See his Sketches of the History of Man.

when hungry, to abstain from what would nourish them they never feed indifferently on the cherry or the berry of the night-shade, though we have no reason to suppose that they are acquainted with the different qualities of these fruits.

Savages, in their lowest state, seem to be guided in the same way to their proper food; and even we, though, by our boasted reason, we have so far improved or perverted our natural appetites, as to prefer high-seasoned dishes, and intoxicating liquors, to the more salutary food which nature points out to us, are never prompted by instinct, or any thing else, to allay our thirst by eating, or our hunger by drinking. But the religion of savages is fraught with absurdities greater, if possible, than even these. Many of them propitiate their gods by immolating on their altars their own children; others by maiming themselves; and not a few, even of those who are in some respects civilized, by sacrificing their own lives to their gods: * whilst all the religions of polytheists, whether civilized or savage, seem to lead dively to the grassest and most unnatural sensuahow Sun we onsistent theist can suppose, that preslaw was had to such absurd enormities as

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As the worshipers ofgement, who prostrate themselves bebe the our of the to be crushed by it to death

for do