Short Method with the Jews. p.88. RANDOLPH's Vindica. of the Doctrine of the Trinity. pt. 1. p. 21. GRABE's Note at Sect. 2, c. 3. of BULL's Defense.

Page 129. (s) Son of Mary.] Nothing can be more ridiculous than the Mahometan notions respecting the birth of our Saviour. Mary is fuppofed to have conceived by the breath of Gabriel. Yet in the nineteenth Chapter of the Koran, the following inconfiftent and impious expreffions are put into the mouth of the Deity himself. We Jent our Spirit Gabriel to Mary in the shape of a perfect

man.

Mr. Sale obferves, that Mahomet's account of the delivery of Mary is like the fabulous one of Latona. Both, it feems, were delivered by a palmtree; and in the womb of the latter Apollo spoke, as in that of the former, fay fome, did Jefus. Poffibly this may be a refinement upon the Koran itself; or upon the circumstance of the babe's leaping in the womb of Elifabeth. Luke i. 41.

See Sale's Note at Ch. 19. of the Koran.

Page 131. (t) God is one God.] It is the tenet of all true Musfulmen, fays the author of Mahometim explained, that the most abandoned finners that ever existed shall be faved, " provided they fhall "once during their lives have teftified the Unity "of God, by pronouncing that fundamental ar"ticle of the Muffulman belief, there is no God but "ALLAH, and MAHOMET is his Apostle." This,

I conceive, must be understood with fome reftriction, and fuppofes no apoftacy fubfequent to the atteftation in queftion. For the famous Mahometan Doctor, Algazali, in his comment on these two capital articles of their faith, delivers himself in the following words. He shall also believe that they that confefs one God fhall at length go out of the fire, after they have underwent the punishment due to their fins; fo that by the favourable mercy of God, no perfon fhall remain in hell who acknowleged the Unity of the Godhead.

The first Musulmen gloried in the title of Unitarians upon every occafion. Some of them carried their zeal for the grand article of their religion to a degree of favage ferocity. We have a notable example of this in the hiftory of the Saracens. At the fiege of Damafcus, in the reign of Omar, the fecond Caliph after Mahomet, Abu-Obeidab, the commander of the Saracen army, had granted quarter to certain citizens; which was a piece of lenity fo exafperating to Derar, an officer of very high rank, as to draw from him a declaration, feconded by the folemnity of an oath, that, for his part, be I would never have mercy upon any that faid that God bad a fon, and joined a partner with God.

We learn from the anonymous author of Four Treatifes, &c, (who affures us he derives his authorities from writers of the first class,) that the Mahometans carry this unitarian principle with them literally

Z 4

literally to their graves. His account of their funeral folemnities is entertaining enough; but the following are the only particulars with which we are at all concerned. At the interment of a MufJulman the Muezzin, or Cryer, muft go before the corps, reciting with a loud voice, there is no God but very God. At the close of the whole ceremony, the defunct is addressed by the priest in these words. Be mindful of the covenant with which thou haft gone out of this world; bearing witness that there is no God but very God alone, and that Mahomet is his prophet, and that Paradife is for certain, and fire for certain, and the refurrection for certain; &c, &c.

How fhall we reconcile all this with Mr. Locke's affertion, that "to the light which the Messiah brought into the world with him, we must ascribe "the owning and profeffion of one God, which "the Mahometan religion hath derived and bor"rowed from it." Strange affertion! The Mahometan faith is this, that there is one Perfon in the Godhead; the Catholic faith is this, that there are three Perfons in one Godhead. Remove this difference; and you will make a confiderable breach in the middle wall of partition between the two religions. (See Difc. 4th. fub fin.)

Reafonab. of Christianity. p. 86. Comment prefixed - to the 2d. Vol. of OCKLEY's Hiftory of the Saracens. OOKLEY'S Hift. of the Saracens, Vol. 1. p. 227, 134.

Treatife

Treatife concerning the Turkish Liturgy. p. 139, 142. Page 132. (v) Papal innovation.] The Arians in Poland, foon after the Reformation, moft ridiculously attempted to reprefent the doctrine of the Trinity as the most anti-christian of all corruptions in the Church of Rome; and would have fain had it believed, that Providence permitted the Pope to wear a triple crown, as a mark denoting him to be a maintainer of that doctrine.

See HOOKER's Ecclef. Pol. B. 4. p. 142.

Page 144. (u) tables of man's heart.] Burlamaque, in his book entitled Principles of natural and politic Law, obferves fomewhere, that "moral "maxims or actions are as certain, as much dic"tated by pure reason, as physical, or mathema"tical ones." That the Creator, e. g., fays he, is to be worshipped &c, by the creature, is as felfevident as that the whole is greater than its parts. Bp. Cumberland calls the Law of nature immutable, eternal, and univerfal. I cannot think Bp. Taylor expreffes himself with accuracy, and much less with true cafuiftical precifion, in the following paffage extracted by Dr. W. Lowth from the Ductor Dubitantium. "If we be fent to read the laws of <c nature in the tables of our own hearts, where "fome things are disordered by passion, many more

Differtation on the Law of Nature. p. 89.

are

"are written by intereft; fome are indited by "cuftom, and others imprinted by education; and "amongst several men these are the authors of con"trary infcriptions; I fay, if we have no better "director than this, whereby to fquare our actions, "we fhall find ourselves at a lofs for the managing "our behaviour in fome of the weightieft concerns "of life." The infcriptions of paffion, intereft, and cuftom, &c, are not those original impreffions which are ftill legible, and fufficiently diftinguishable by a candid and inquifitive mind. The law of nature, abstractedly confidered, is ftill what Bp.

Cumberland calls it.

That obnoxiousness to error from which men of the brightest parts, and the greatest profeffional abilities, are not exempt, is to writers in general at once an encouraging and an humbling circumstance.

The corruption of human reafon, and the ignorance and error incident to our understandings, " has, fays a most excellent author, given manifold "occafion for the benign interpofition of Divine "Providence, which in compaffion to the frailty, "the imperfection, and the blindness of human "reafon, hath been pleased at fundry times, and in "divers manners, to discover and enforce its laws

by an immediate and direct Revelation. The "doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or "Divine law, and they are to be found only in the Scriptures.