attested, as to admit of no dispute. And were I, continued he, to assign the exact time when miracles probably might first have ceased, I should be tempted to fancy it was when sacred writ took place, and was completed.

This is fancy indeed, (replied the grave gentleman) and a very dangerous one to that scripture you pretend is of itself so well attested. The attestation of men dead and gone, in behalf of miracles past and at an end, can never surely be of equal force with miracles present: and of these, I maintain, there are never wanting a number sufficient in the world to warrant a divine existence. If there were no miracles now adays, the world would be apt to think there never were any. The present must answer for the credulity of the past. This is "God witnessing for himself;" not "men for God. For who shall witness for men, if in the case of religion they have no testimony from Heaven in their behalf?

What it is may make the report of men credible (said the younger gentleman) is another question. But for mere miracles it seems to me, they cannot be properly said to witness, either for God or men. For who shall witness for the miracles themselves?

For what though innumerable miracles from every part assailed the state, and gave the trembling soul no respite? What though the sky should suddenly open, and all kinds of prodigies appear, voices be heard, or characters read? What would this evince more than that there were certain powers could do all this? But what powers; whether one or more; whether superior or subaltern; moral or immoral; wise or foolish; just or unjust; good or bad; this would still remain a mystery; as would the true intention, the infallibility or certainty of whatever these powers asserted. Their word could not be taken in their own case. They might silence men indeed, but not convince them, since power can never serve as proof for goodness; and goodness is the only pledge of truth. By goodness alone, trust is created. By goodness, superior powers may win belief. They must allow their: works to be examined, their actions criticised; and thus, thus only, they may be confided in; when by repeated marks, their benevolence is proved, and their character of sincerity and truth, established.

VOL. III.

MISCELLANEOUS REFLECTIONS.

P. 38. By modern example we know, perhaps yet better than by any ancient, that in religion, the enthusiasm which works by love, is subject to many strange irregularities; and that which works by fear, to many monstrous and horrible superstitions. Mystics and fanatics are known to abound as well in our reformed,

as in the Romish churches. The pretended floods of grace poured into the bosoms of the quietests, pietists, and those who favour the extatick way of devotion, raise such transports as by their own proselytes are confessed to have something strangely agreeable, and in common with what ordinary lovers are used to feel. And it has been remarked by many, that the female saints have been the greatest improvers of this soft part of religion. What truth there may be in the related operations of this pretended grace and amorous zeal, or in the accounts of what has usually passed between the saints of each sex, in these devout extacies, I shall leave the reader to examine: supposing he will find credible accounts, sufficient to convince him of the dangerous progress of enthusiasm in this amorous lineage.

P. 44. Whatever happened to other races or professions, that of the priest, in all likelihood, must have propagated the most of any. It is a tempting circumstance, to have so easy a mastery over the world; to subdue by wit, instead of force; to practice on the passions, and triumph over the judgment of mankind; to influence private families, and public councils; conquer conquerors; controul the magistrate himself, and govern without the envy which attends all other government or superiority. No wonder if such a profession was apt to multiply, especially when we consider the easy living and security of the professors, their exemption from all labour and hazard; the supposed sacredness of their character, and their free possession of wealth, grandeur, estates, and women.

It will, however, as I conceive, be found unquestionably true, according to political arithmetic, in every nation whatsoever; that the quantity of superstition (if I may so speak) will, in proportion, nearly answer the number of priests, diviners, soothsayers, prophets, or such who gain their livelihood, or receive advantages by officiating in religious affairs.

No superstition will ever be wanting among the ignorant and vulgar, whilst the able and crafty have a power to gain inheritanoes and possessions, by working on this human weakness. This is a fund which, by these allowances, will prove inexhaustible. New modes of worship, new miracles, new heroes, saints, divinities (which serve as new occasions for sacred donatives) will be easily supplied on the part of the religious orders; whilst the civil magistrate authorizes the accumulative donation, and neither restrains the number or possessions of the sacred body.

P. 52. Before the time that Israel was constrained to go down to Egypt, and sue for maintenance to these powerful dynasties or low land states, the holy patriarch, Abraham himself, had been necessitated to this compliance on the same account. He applied in the same manner to the Egyptian court. He was at first well received, and handsomely presented; but afterwards ill used, and out of favour with the prince, yet suffered to depart the kingdom,

and retire with his effects; without any attempt of recalling him again by force, as it happened in the case of his posterity. It is certain, that if this holy patriarch, who first instituted the sacred rite of circumcision within his own family or tribe, had no regard to any policy or religion of the Egyptians; yet he had formerly been a guest and inhabitant in Egypt (where historians mention this to have been a national rite;) long ere he had received any divine notice or revelation, concerning this affair. Nor was it in religion merely that this reverend guest was said to have derived knowledge and learning from the Egyptians .It was from this parent country of occult sciences, that he was presumed, together with other wisdom, to have learnt that of judicial astrology; as his successors did afterwards other prophetical and miraculous arts, proper to the magi or priesthood of this land.

One cannot indeed but observe, in after times, the strange adherence, and servile dependency of the whole Hebrew race on the Egyptian nation. It appears that though they were of old, abused in the person of their grand patriarch, though afterwards held in bondage, and treated as the most abject slaves, though twice expelled, or necessitated to save themselves by flight, out of this oppressive region; yet in the very instant of their last retreat, whilst they were yet on their march, conducted by visible divinity, supplied and fed by heaven, and supported by continual miracles; they notwithstanding inclined so strongly to the manners, the religion, rites, diet, customs, laws, and constitutions of their tyrannical masters, that it was with the utmost difficulty they could be withheld from returning again into the same subjection. Nor could their great captains and legislators prevent their relapsing perpetually into the same worship to which they had been so long accustomed.

How far the divine providence might have indulged the stubborn habit and stupid humour of this people, by giving them laws (as the prophet says) which he himself approved not, I have no intention to examine. This only I pretend to infer from what has been advanced, that the manners, opinions, rites, and customs of the Egyptians, had, in the earliest times, and from generation to generation, strongly influenced the Hebrew people (their guests and subjects,) and had undoubtedly gained a powerful ascendancy over their natures.

How extravagant, soever, the multitude of the Egyptian superstitions may appear, it is certain that their doctrine and wisdom were in high repute, since it is taken notice of in holy scripture, as no small advantage even to Moses himself, that he had imbibed the wisdom of this nation; which, as is well known, lay chiefly among their priests and magi.

Before the time that the great Hebrew legislator received his education among these sages, a Hebrew slave, who came a youth into the Egyptian court, had already grown so powerful in this

kind of wisdom, as to outdo the chief diviners, prognosticators and interpreters of Egypt. He raised himself to be chief minister to a prince, who, following his advice, obtained in a manner the whole property, and consequently the absolute dominion of that land. But to what height of power the established priesthood was arrived, even at that time, may be conjectured hence; that the crown (to speak in a modern style) offered not to meddle with the church-lands; and that in this great revolution nothing was attempted, so much as by way of purchase or exchange,* in prejudice of this landed clergy: the prime minister himself having joined his interest with theirs, and entered+ by marriage into their alliance. And in this he was followed by the great founder of the Hebrew-state; for he also matched himself with the priesthood of some of the neighbouring nations, and traders into Egypt,§ long ere his establishment of the Hebrew religion and commonwealth. Nor had he perfected his model till he consulted the foreign priest, his father-in-law, to whose advice he paid such remarkable deference.

But to resume the subject of our speculation, concerning the wide diffusion of the priestly science or function; it appears from what has been said, that notwithstanding the Egyptian priesthood was by ancient establishment, hereditary; the skill of divining, soothsaying, and magic was communicated to others besides their national sacred body: and that the wisdom of the magicians, the power of miracles, their interpretation of dreams and visions, and their art of administering in divine affairs, were entrusted even to foreigners who resided amongst them.

P. 60. When all other animosities are allayed, and anger of the fiercest kind appeased, the religious hatred, we find, continues still as it began, without provocation or voluntary offence. The presumed misbeliever and blasphemer, as one rejected and abhorred of God, is through a pious imitation, abhorred by the adverse worshipper, whose enmity must naturally increase as his religious zeal increases.

From hence the opposition arose of temple against temple, proselite against proselite. The most zealous worship of one God, was best expressed (as they conceived) by the open defiance of another. Surnames and titles of divinity passed as watchwords. He who had not the symbol, nor could give the word, received the knock.

Down with him! Kill him! Merit Heaven thereby, Dryden has it, in his American tragedy.

as our

Exod. iii. 1-xviii. 1. &c.

§ Such were the Midianites, Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36.

. Exod. xviii. 17, 24.

(To be continued.)

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post paid, or free of expence, are requested to be left.

The Lion.

No. 13. VOL. 4.] LONDON, Friday, Sept. 25, 1829. [PRICE 6d,

London, Sept. 24, 1829.

DURING our stay in London, we shall fill up those reports of our proceedings in the country, which the time and circumstances would not allow of being done during our peregrinations, and which can be so much better done after a calm, deliberate, and dispassionate view of all the proceedings. It is a loss to the world, that every word uttered by us and against us, in our orations, lectures, and discussions, during the four months' tour, has not been reported and published, by impartial persons. My report will be deemed partial, my memory will not serve me to record all that happened, and further, my style of description is too concise to do justice to all that passed. This I can vouch for, that the talent of Infidelity was never before so fully and so finely brought into action. The speech of the Rev. Robert Taylor in the Gothicroom at Liverpool, in reply to Mr. F. B. Wright, the Unitarian preacher, who had set up as adamantine pillars, whose base was the centre of the earth and whose top reached to heaven, the Christian institutions of the sabbath and the sacrament, and which were sufficient evidences of the correct historical foundation of the Christian religion, if all others were deficient or absent, would, if published, be worth a sovereign. The newspaper-people are absolutely afraid to report our language, and they are afraid because it is powerful against the religion of the country. They know it cannot be answered: they know it is convincing: they know it is a specimen of unalloyed talent emanating from great research, deep thought, and honest application of the powers of the human mind: they see Christian advocates contemptible before it, and if they do notice us at all, they go and lie for malice and vexation. Some of the fellows who are themselves Infidels, such as Foster Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 62, Fleet Street. No. 13.-Vol. 4. 2 c