and exculpate their God from the just charge of cruelty injustice and murder. Lice, frogs, flies, blood, fury and vengeance, were sent forth upon the Egyptian king, to induce him to let the chofen people of God depart; divine efforts were repeated over and over again to produce an effect which God by a fingle command, by one folitary act of power could have accomplished in a moment. Believers in revelation will ye pafs once more in review these miraculous tales of antiquity and then afk the queftion whether you fee in them ought but ignorance and fuperstition on the one hand; and on the other incompe-. tence of divine power united with folly, cruelty and murder. A fingle fentiment of moral truth which teaches man fympathy benevolence and juttice is worth a thou fand pages of fuch miferable and contemptible stuff.

TO THE EDITOR.

More of Human Reasoni

"Reafon," fays a believer to an infidel," is a deceitful: and blind guide, and in fpiritual concerns will infalliably lead to destruction." "How are you affured of it?" fays: the other" to which of my faculties is this addreffed ? Does reafon by exercifing its own powers difcover its own treachery? If fo, does, it not in the act of commu.. nicating give the lie direct to the fentiment? If your rea.. fon can fo clearly difcern that it is obfcured, it cannot furely be that very blind guide you would represent it.— If it cannot fo difcern, the affertion is evidently made at random, and requires examination.""I am enabled, (replies the believer,) to see spiritually, and you only carnally-your mind is not yet endued, with divine grace, and until an inward change is effected, which cannot be wrought but by God himfelf, you cannot perceive the force of what is addrefsed to you.-Be not however led afiray by the fubtle and fpecious arts of fophiftry; but

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believe, and truft in God to work the change. in your heart at his own good pleasure."

Now one of thefe beings makes a ferious and folemn affertion which the other verily difbelieves and denies.Suppofing them both equally honeft and fincere (for the unbeliever cannot furely be cenfurable for not using that which the believer tells him he has not and cannot have till God fends it) how is their difference of opinion to be canvaffed, and the error corrected? With what mental powers are they refpectively to fet about the enquiry? Is the truth of the queftion to be on both fides-examined by the help of reafon or without it, or with fome other and what faculty? Or is one party (who has nothing better) to exercife his fingle talent on the occafion, while the other oppofes to it a power which to reafon is declared incomprehenfible. If the carnal man and the fpiritual are conveying their thoughts through a different medium, how can they ever come to a point? and where is the utility of the latter's fowing where nothing can be reaped, or in other words, of cafting pearls before fwine? For the fpiritual man fays, the carnal one, cannot understand him when he speaks the truth fpiritually, though accord. ing to his own account, he is at the fame moment oppofing to a mere human faculty, one that partakes of the divine.

If a book called profane be put into the hands of a ftranger, it will be admitted that he is to examine it with his natural understanding; but how is he to act when the bible is produced to him, particularly when informed by the human producer, that it is a divine communication and not to be examined like production's merely human?" How is he to fet about confidering that to the proper examination whereof his reafon is declared incompetent ? Is he with his unafsifted faculties to examine and judge of it as well as he can until he hears exprefs from Heaven with better, or is he to rely implicitly on human intelligence which accompanies it, and lay down or lock up the book till celeftial optics are given for the purpose ? The contents of the bible being firft received through the

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fame channels as thofe of any other work, can the rea fon of a believer, like the ftops of an organ, be shoved afide and the faculty fitted for this occult ftudy in troduced at pleafure into its room?-The cononical books of the Old and New Teftament must no doubt be read with the fpiritual faculty and the uncanonical apocrypha with the natural, but how fuddenly to convey the matter of these refpective works through the eyes and ears of their readers to the appropriated powers of the mind is the difficuly.-Is there in the bible (dictated as is faid by God) any passage fignifying that the under standing of its readers fhall not take cognizance of its fentiments, and if fuch fhould (upon fpiritualizing fomething for the purpose) be found in it how can reafon, while it reads, avoid controverting the pofition and refufing to knuckle to a ufurper?-To what faculty of the human mind is the bible fuppofed originally to have been addressed? How can it be a revelation to man, if it muft fteer, clear of his reafon as a fhip avoids a fhoal? If it be not intended to be examined by the faculty which diftin-. guishes man from brute, why is it not as fit to be addreff, ed to brutes as to men? If the prime and effential quality of man is not to meddle with it, why is it addressed to man in particular?—We are not it is faid, to examine a divine communication with a human and imperfect understanding. How then muft it be examined? We cannot do it with any thing divine, and if not cognizable by human reafon, why muft it be examined with fomething inferior to reafon which is ftill human?-If there be any fault in examining a divine present with human powers, with whom do believers contend that fuch fault origi nates? It is faid to have been revealed for the benefit of human finners, who nevertheless are declared incapable of reading it to any purpose until they can fend to Heaven for fpectacles.-If the book is not to be examined by unafsifted human faculties, why has the fuppafed revelation been made to human beings, or why did not a divine key or gloffary accompany it?

The truth is, that this fame thing called a revelation

is, according to the believer's own account of it, not a thing revealed or made plain; but fomething placed by God in the fight of man requiring abundance of explanation, which nevertheless cannot be had-without further fupernatural afsiftance. This fame fupernatural affiftance too, of which (though faid. to be given for the important purpofe of expounding God's word to his crea tures) no proof has ever been exhibited, causes its pre. tended poffeffors to put different and contradictory con ftructions upon the fame divine paffages (thereby increafing the difficulty) and in effect to charge each other as madmen or impoftors.-They are unanimous only (where. they cannot help it) in. failing to produce evidence of their authority, and yet arrogantly claim from their fel. low mortals a blind and pafsive affent to all their jarring: and inconfiftent affertions, taking fire even at the expreffion of a doubt. A fyftem of religion thus aiming to fubvert Heaven's best gift to man, and involved in fuch a budget of abfurdity, is at war with every attribute of divinity and deferves the folemn reprobation of every upright mind.

Extracts from the Ancient Records of Massachusetts.

Jofiah Plaiftowe, for ftealing four baskets of corn from the Indians, is ordered to return them eight bacts, to be fined five pounds, and hereafter to be called by the name of Jofias, and not Mr. as formerly he used to be. Serjeant Perkins, ordered to carry forty tufts to the fort, for being drunk.

Edward Palmer, for his extortion in taking two pounds thirteen fhillings and four pence, for the wood work of Bofton ftocks, is fined four pounds, and ordered to be fet one hour in the flocks.

Captain Lovel, admomifhed to take heed of light carriage.

Thomas Petit, for fufpicion of flander, idleness, and Atubbornefs, is fentenced to be feverely whipped, and to be kept in hold.

Catherine the wife of Richard Cornish, was found fufpicious of incontinency, and seriously admonished to take heed.

Daniel Clarke, found to be an immoderate drinker, was fined forty fhillings.

John Wedgewood, for being in the company of drunk. ards, to be fet in the ftocks.

John Kitchen, for fhewing books which he was com manded to bring to the governor, and forbid to fhew them to any other, and yet fhewed them, was fined ten fhillings.

Robert Shorthose, for fwearing by the blood of God, was fentenced to have his tongue put into a cleft flick, and to ftand fo for the fpace of half an hour.

Profession of Faith from Rousseau, continued.

On the contrary, the ferenity of the juft is internal, his fmiles are not thofe of malignity but of joy: The fource of them is found in himself, and he is as chearful when alone, as in the midft of an affembly: he derives not contentment from thofe who approach him, but communicates it to them.

Caft your eye over the feveral nations of the world, take a retrospective view of their hiftories. Amidft all the many inhuman and abfurd froms of worship, amidst all the prodigious diverfity of manners and characters, you will every where find the fame ideas of juftice and honefly, the fame notions of good and evil. Ancient paganism adopted the most abominable deities, which it would have punished on earth as infamous criminals; deities that prefented no other picture of fupreme happinefs, than the commiflions of crimes and the gratification of their passions. But vice, armed even with facred authority, defcended in vain, on earth; moral inftinct influenced the human heart to revolt againft it. Even in celebrating the debaucheries of Jupiter, the world admired and respected the continence of Zenocrates; the