Scriptures not to be authentic, they are free to do it; but even this would confer no value on their speculations: moral theories and physical theories of the world are equally useless and precarious, when once we quit the light of Revelation, and the testimony of history. Naturalists indeed may speculate on the origin of this visible world at their will; for we shall assuredly conduct ourselves the same, whether the globe we dwell on shall be thought to have originated from a chaotic mass, or to have been struck from the sun by collision with a comet: but let us once be persuaded that evil is inevitable, and that all our actions flow from necessity, and the consequences are obvious. And if the time and occasion would serve, I could shew at length that there is no one doubt or difficulty, which formerly served to perplex and embarrass these questions and enquiries, from which men have, in this celebrated age, been able to extricate themselves. We are still disputing as much as ever, not only about the freedom or necessity of human actions, (which will be the subject of a future discourse,) but about their moral fitness and unfitness; the operation and effects of motives; the true distinction between substance and idea; the fallibility of our faculties and senses, even to the doubt, and sometimes to the very denial, of the existence of matter; though with some, on the contrary, every thing is material even the human soul. If the moral fitness and unfitness of actions may be thought in any instance to be duly determined, still are we left in want of any clear perception of the obligation that is to govern us; for obligation, in the abstract, is itself among those things, whose nature, foundation, force, I had almost said whose very existence has been as much questioned by modern metaphysicians, as any other point whatsoever.

"We need not then wait for any Age of Reason to enlighten us upon these points; for we may depend upon it, that the further we recede from the first beginning of things, the more vain all such researches will be. Let us remember what it is we are enquiring after. We do not want to be told that man exists, that he is a dependent being, that he is subject to both moral and physical ills: we require to be informed, not so much what man is, as what he has been, and is to be. We want to know, if I may with proper reverence so express myself, what was in the contemplation of the Creator when he first made man; what intimation he gave him of his condition and future destiny; or whether any such intimation was ever given. We want not to be told, that there is a God above us, and evil around us; but we want to know how these are to be reconciled. They will not be reconciled by any measures of compensation and mercy in store, without further explanation; for thus both compensation and mercy would seem reflections on the Deity, who might have made us so as not to stand in need of either. If God has spoken to us, then compensation and mercy may be brought into the system with the most glorious effect: but if we are neither assured that God has

accounted

accounted to us for the existence of evil, nor taught us how tò exercise the faculties he hath endowed us with; both compensation for our sufferings, and mercy for our failings, would be our very birthright, and God would appear a debtor to the work of his own hands."

In the fourth lecture, the learned author oppofes with irrefiftible arguments the fophiftry of those who maintain, that the volume of nature is fully fufficient for our instruction, not only in all virtue and godlinefs of living, but in the only true religion, and the worship due to the Creator.

The doctrine of neceffity fo ftrenuously contended for by many who call themfelves Chriftians, in conjunction with pofitive infidels, is placed in a strong and juft light.

"No circumstances of character or disposition, no cultivation of good habits, or encouragement of evil ones, can be suffered to make any difference between the virtuous and the wicked, as necessary beings; they are equally propelled by motives, over which they have no power, and governed by causes the most certain and irresistible. Instead of being in any instance the authors or beginners of any events whatsoever, to use their own expressions, men are only "the vehicles through which certain causes operate." The very first principles of Religion are turned against us; laws founded on rewards and punishments, we are told, must infer, that such motives have a regular and uniform influence on the mind, and therefore establish the doctrine of necessity. But surely, if this reasoning is right, the common course of events must appear to be in open contradiction to it; for how could punishment itself ever become necessary, if the mere dread of it was sufficient, as a restraining motive, to prevent transgression? How could some incur punishment, and others not, if the motives had an uniform influence? And how, after all, could any expect to be punished by a moral Being, for actions altogether necessary and unavoidable?

"But the numberless inconsistencies to be met with in the works I have in view, would amply serve to shew, how difficult it is by any arguments to support a system so entirely in opposi tion to our common sentiments and common feelings. Such inconsistencies it would be easy to point out, and they might be insisted upon with considerable effect, if the case required it: but there is one inconsistency, into which all these writers have fallen, which I think may well serve us as a security against the bad effects to which the doctrine naturally leads. For, exclusive of the false notions it must tend to give us of the Deity, as moral governor of the world, I know no danger so great to be apprehended from this system, as that very obvious one, of setting men entirely free from every sense of responsibility. To expect to be punished by a good God, for actions which he himself is supposed

to

to have rendered as necessary and determinate as the revolutions of the stars, or the falling of heavy bodies, if not contrary to the systems of modern philosophy, must assuredly be allowed to be entirely contrary to the plainest dictates of common sense and

common reason.

"It may be well therefore to notice, that none of the modern advocates of this doctrine allow us to draw such a conclusion; they even go so far as to assert, that their system is not only friendly to religion and morality, but indispensably necessary to both that, so far from rendering us incapable of offence, or not amenable to justice, it is the only system under which we can become either amenable to justice, or capable of offence.

"This may seem very extraordinary, and I am far from thinking it capable of being rendered in any manner intelligible: but it is of this importance to us certainly, that it reduces the question to a mere nullity. If we can by any arguments be shewn to be capable of morality, and amenable to the justice of God or man, under a system of strict necessity, we are only brought to the same state, in which both common sense and religion would place us. And while there is certainly no advantage to be gained by the exchange of one system for the other, we shall do well to reflect, that, before we can adopt the system of fatalism, we must consent to abandon every distinction which now seems to raise us above brute matter, and to elevate us to a resemblance of the Deity! a resemblance, it is true, of finite to infinite; but which may with reverence be spoken of, and which enters into the description of the Mosaic cosmogony. Instead of the plain and simple account of things, which the Scripture gives us, that God was pleased, from the first moment of man's creation, to set before him, for his free choice, "good and evil, life or death," we must bring ourselves to think so unworthily of our Maker, as that ĦE hath necessarily "caused us to err," as my text expresses it; and that a Being of infinite perfections, of power infinite, of wisdom infinite, of goodness infinite," had need of the sinful man!"

"Instead of believing, as the Scriptures teach us, that moral evil among men had its origin in the wilful infringement of one trifling restriction amidst the most magnificent profusion of favours, we must believe, at the hazard of all the consequences that common sense would naturally deduce from such a system, that moral evil proceeds from the original constitution of our nature, and is, and ever has been, altogether inevitable. We must be contented to believe, that we have no certain and authentic account of the first beginning of things, though such a conclusion must compel us to acknowledge, that we have no account more authentic of the consummation and end. If moral evil was not introduced into the world, as the Scriptures represent, we have no right, nor any reason to persuade ourselves, that it will be abolished, as they propose. For it is only those who are prepared to

believe,

believe, that in Adam all died," who may be allowed to hope, that "in Christ all shall be made alive."

This fubject is ftill farther confidered and illustrated in the notes, which are very entertaining, as well as highly inftructive.

The fifth difcourfe is a luminous vindication of the Mofaic account of the early ages of the world.

Much ftrefs having been laid by fome writers upon the antiquity and accuracy of the Aftronomical Tables of the Hindus, the fubject is difcuffed with great ability in this lecture, and still more fully in a note, from which we shall give an extract.

"Whatever becomes of the question, the great and most important truths of the holy Scriptures cannot be affected by it; the creation, the fall of man, the destruction of the world, &c. &c. And if any profane accounts shall seem to be nearly in agreement with the Greek chronology, it is, I think, as much as can be required or expected. There is one observation I cannot forbear to make with respect to the Indian Tables. M. Bailly is very unwilling to admit, that the missionaries could have any concern with them; and he particularly draws an argument to this purpose from the circumstance of the Indian Tables of mean motions agreeing nearest with Cassini's, which did not exist in 1687, when the Siam Tables certainly did. If, says he, the missionaries communicated the European astronomy to Asia, they could in 1687 only have known the Tables of Tycho, Riccioli, Copernicus, Bouillard, Kepler, Longomontanus, or the Tables of Alphonsus. He also says, that the Indian astronomy differs in so many points from all others, that it must have been original. P. lxxv. Now it is somewhat remarkable, that in M. Bailly's Tables of comparison, Tycho Brahe's Table of mean motions comes the nearest but one to the Indian Table; and at p. xii. M. Bailly notices it as a remarkable thing, that in the Narsapur Tables an annual inequality is attributed to the moon, similar to what Tycho Brahe had discovered: an inequality not known at Alexandria, or in Arabia. It is well known, that the Chinese Tables occasioned similar surprise, till Cassini and Picard discovered their extraordinary agreement with the Tables of Tycho Brahe; and upon questioning Father Couplet, (who was a very sincere man,) he acknowledged, that his brethren had reformed the Chinese Tables by them. See Renaudot on Chinese Learning; who adds, that he had heard the same from Couplet's own mouth. Couplet went to China in 1650, and returned in 1680.

"As to the motive alleged by M. Bailly for preferring the epoch of 3102, because of the supposed conjunction of the planets, it seems trifling, and rather to resemble some fanciful methods of

fixing

fixing the epoch of the creation; two of which, as not unsuitable to the subject of this note, occur to me at this moment. The one to prove the truth of the Hebrew, the other of the Greek chronology of Scripture. "A remarkable astronomical epoch," says M. la Place, in his Traité du Mécanique céleste, Paris, 1802, "is that in which the great axis of the terrestrial orbit coincided with the line of the equinoxes; for then the true and mean equinoxes were united. I find, by the preceding formulas, that this phenomenon took place towards the year 4004 before Christ, a period at which the majority of our chronologists place the creation of the world." The author of the other I know not; but his argument is drawn from the revolutions of the great comet which appeared in 1680, and whose period was determined by Sir Isaac Newton to be 575 years: and he makes out, that, according to the Greek chronology, (I know not which computation he could adopt,) twelve revolutions would exactly have been completed in 1680, as well as 230 revolutions of Saturn, 575 of Jupiter, and 3600 of Mars. Such are the results of retrospective enquiries after astronomical epochs, and which may possibly have been the very way adopted to fix the commencement of the Indian Kali Yug. But this I pretend not to decide: if the epoch of the Tirvalour Tables was derived from actual observation, it is certainly very extraordinary; but we may not pronounce it impossible. According to some computations, and even according to Dr. Grabe's Septuagint, 144 years might then have elapsed after the deluge. M. Bailly confesses it was not a difficult observation; and as to the want of instruments, even Tycho Brahe had no assistance from the telescope. The science of astronomy, to a certain degree, was probably of the first importance; and the invitation to the study of it great in those eastern climates, where, as Sir Robert Barker tells us, in his curious paper on the observatory of Benares, "without the assistance of optical glasses, the Bramins have an advantage unexperienced by the observers of more northern climates. The serenity and clearness of the atmosphere in the nighttime in the East Indies, except at the seasons of changing the monsoons, is difficult to express to those who have not seen it, because we have nothing in comparison to form our ideas upon. It is clear to perfection; a total quietude subsists; scarcely a cloud to be seen; and the light of the heavens, by the numerous appearance of stars, affords a prospect both of wonder and contemplation." Philosophical Transactions, 1777."

"I shall conclude this long, and I fear tedious note, with the following passage from an old translation of a work of the cele brated Amyraut. "Furthermore, whereas it was well said by one, that things of greatest antiquity are best; and the philo sophers themselves, when they treat concerning God and religion, extremely cry up antiquity, and attribute much to the dictates of their ancestors; as if nature itself had suggested to them, that there was a source of all these things, from which they that were nearest