postor, (rebellious and perfidious, inhuman and cruel, lewd and lascivious;) propagated it was afterwards by rage and terror of arms, and grew wholly among barbarous people, void of learning and civility; having no religion before, and therefore (as all mankind is naturally receptive of religious impressions) capable to admit any, especially such an one as this, agreeable to their savage humours and lusts ; it subsists upon the same grounds of ignorance and force, refusing all examination, and upon extreme penalties prohibiting any dispute or controversy about its truth; being so far wise, as conscious to itself, that the letting in a little light, and a moderate liberty of discussing its pretences, would easily overthrow it. Even these exterior circumstances of its rise, growth, and continuance, (so full of iniquity and inhumanity,) are great presumptions against its divinity, or rather plainly demonstrate, that it did not proceed from God; whose truth cannot need such courses, whose goodness abhors them: and if we look into it, we shall find it to be a lump of absurd opinions, odd stories, and uncouth ceremonies, compounded chiefly of the dregs of Christian heresies, with some ingredients of Judaism and Paganism, confusedly jumbled and tempered together: from Christian heresies it hath its negative doctrines, opposite to Christianity; for allowing Christ much respect, it yet denies his being the Son of God, and his having really suffered; it rejects his true story, and affixes false ones upon him; that God hath a body and a human shape, (Mahomet felt his hand forsooth, and it was very cold,) an opinion so unreasonable and misbeseeming God, he might draw from the Anthropomorphites; and from the Manichees that doctrine concerning the fatal determination of all events; a doctrine so prejudicial to religion, taking away those foundations of justice between God and man; man's free choice in serving God, and God's free disposal of rewards to men, suitable to their actions. The Jew contributed his ceremonies of circumcision, and purgations by washing; his abstinence from swine's flesh; his allowance of polygamy and divorce. I might add, that from him it borrowed its inhuman condemning, despising, and hating all the world; calling all men dogs, (beside themselves,) and adjuring all to certain damnation; affirming withal, that all of their belief, how wickedly soever they have lived, shall at length partake of salvation. The pagan elysium might be a pattern, whence their paradise of corporeal delight and brutish sensuality might be transcribed; which any man sees how poor an encouragement it is, how unworthy a reward to virtue; yea, how much it rather detracts from and discourages all performances of honesty and reason. He must be very stupid, who can suffer himself to be persuaded that these conceits did come from the God of holiness and wisdom. And how Mahomet was inspired with truth, his stories alone would evince; stories patched out of old histories corrupted, mutilated, and transplaced, interlarded with fabulous legends; contrary to all probable records of history, (the persons, places, times, and all circumstances of which it most unskilfully confounds,) yea, repugnant to the nature of things, and to all imaginable possibility; evident arguments both of an ignorant and impudent impostor: he that will lie or blunder about matters of fact, who can trust him in matters of right and rea Vid. Psal. lxxviii. 5. son? All which (if time would permit, and it were worth the while) might by manifold instances be shewed. I might add its multitude of silly ceremonies, grounded on no reasonable design, nor subservient to any purpose of virtue. But what is said doth enough declare this religion to be of no divine extraction. As for ancient Judaism; that it has no such relxxvi. 1. velation as that we require, and did in the former Deut. iv. 7, conclusion assert, (nor has any probability to expect &c. an universal, complete, standing revelation,) upon many scores may appear. It is from the tenor thereof evident, that it was designed only for one small nation, possessing a very inconsiderable portion of the earth; purposely distinguished, and, as it were, concealed from the rest of mankind; and in .effect so remaining for many ages (until the Roman conquests opened the world and discovered them) in a solitary obscurity; so that the most inquisitive surveyors of the earth, and searchers into the customs of people, (Herodotus, for instance, and others,) could not discern them, did take no notice of them; though for their peculiar manners otherwise most Psal. cxlvii. remarkable. He shewed, saith the Psalmist, his word unto Jacob, his statutes and judgments unto Israel: he hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them. I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine, saith God to the Jews, Levit. xx. 26. and, So shall we be separated, saith Moses in his address to God, Exod. xxxiii. So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the Deut. vii. 6. earth: Thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy 19, 20. Exod. xxxiii. 16. xiv. 2. 24, 25. v. 1. vi. 3, God: the Lord hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth: and for this very purpose (of distinction and separation) many of their laws were appointed; I am the Lord your God, which have Levit. xx. separated you from other people: ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, &c. We see the laws of that religion particularly directed to that people; Hear, O Israel, Deut. iv. 1. being the usual compellation, set in the head of &c. them: and, I am the Lord thy God, which brought Exod. xx. thee out of the land of Egypt, is the introduction to the very Decalogue itself: the encouragements also to, and discouragements from, obedience, do peculiarly appertain to them; a long and prosperous enjoyment of the land of Canaan, if they did obey; and dispossession or affliction therein, if they should presume to disobey; You shall walk in all the ways Deut. v. 33. which the Lord your God hath commanded you, vi. 3, &c. that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye possess. Such were the promises exciting to obedience; and the threatenings to disobedience suitable; as every where in their law and story is visible. Vid. Deut. This revelation therefore cannot be deemed general, such as we argued in reason might be expected from him, who, as the Psalmist sings, is good to all, Ps. cxlv. 9. and his tender mercies are over all his works; who hath made of one blood av ovos avopawv, the whole Acts xvii. nation of mankind, as St. Paul in the Acts expresseth it; who, as St. Peter there implies, is no re- Acts x. 34. specter of persons, or of nations; who is the Maker 1 Tim. iv. and Saviour of all men, and, as the Wise Man tells 26. 10. ii. 4. xi. 23, &C. Wisd. vi. 7, us, careth for all alike; being desirous that all men 2 Pet. iii. 9. should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the Wisd.xi.26. truth; not willing that any should perish, but that Vid. Ezek. all men should come to repentance; who is not piλe xviii. 29. Bpaios only, or piλéλŋ, (a lover of Jews only, or Greeks,) but piλávoρwоs, a lover of men, and pλóųvRom. iii. xos, a lover of souls; who, lastly, is not the God of vasis Oss the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also: as not our prophets and apostles only tell us, but the reason of Plat.Thet. the thing, and the voice of nature doth declare. δύσνους ἀν θρώποις. And as this revelation was particular, so was it also partial; as God did not by it speak his mind to all, so neither did he in it speak out all his mind. Surveying this religion, may we not easily descry a great redundance in the circumstantial and exterior parts; a great defect in the substantials and inwards thereof? Ritual institutions innumerable we see, nicely described, and strongly pressed; moral precepts more sparingly delivered, not so clearly explained, nor so fully urged by rational inducements: observation of times and places; distinction of meats and habits; corporal cleansings and purgations; modalities of outward service in sacrifices and oblations, those dikaμata σaprès, (Heb. ix. 9, 10.) justifications of the flesh, that could not perfect the observer's Col. ii. 21. conscience, (or mind, or inward man;) touch not, taste not, handle not, most largely and with extreme punctuality, some of them under heavy penalties (excision and extermination) enjoined; while moral duties and spiritual devotions (so exceedingly more agreeable to rational nature, and more pleasing to God) seem not so perfectly provided for. Many things are tacitly connived at, or plainly permitted to them, (as polygamy, divorce, some kind of re |