ap

I trust that you have anticipated me, in plying the epithet to this truly excellent prelate, and in praying that our Church may long be blessed with guardians of a similar spirit.

But it is time to bring this digression to a close, and return to our more general enquiry. I will however release you for the present, and reserve the prosecution of it for my next letter.

Yours, most affectionately.

376

LETTER XXXIII.

GENERAL RETROSPECT.-BOYLE'S LECTURES.

POLEMICAL DIVINITY IN THE REIGNS OF QUEEN ANNE AND GEORGE THE FIRST.INFIDELITY. HOBBES. -DANGERS

AND ARTIFICE OF HIS SYSTEM. -LINE OF OPPOSITION ADOPTED BY THE ADVOCATES OF REVELATION.

INFLU

ENCE OF THIS, UPON THE NATIONAL THEOLOGY. PRO-
GRESS OF INFIDELITY.—ZEAL OF CHRISTIANS AWAKENED
TO ARREST IT.-BOYLE'S LECTURE. ITS OBJECT LIMITED
TO THE GENERAL DEFENCE OF REVELATION. CONSE-
QUENCE OF THIS. SUBJECTS OF SOME OF THESE LEC-
TURES. CONFUTATION OF ATHEISM. EVIDENCES OF
CHRISTIANITY. OBJECTION DRAWN FROM THE IMPER-
FECT PROMULGATION OF THE GOSPEL.
OBJECTION, FROM BISHOP BRADFORD.

IN

MY DEAR FRIEND,

REPLY TO THIS

In touching upon the period of our polemical history at which we are now arrived in our retrospect, (including the reigns of Queen Anne and George the First,) I must first notice the active and systematic hostility, displayed in the successive attacks upon revelation; and especially the artifice of fighting Christianity, as it were, with her own weapons, and urging some of the

peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, to disprove its evidence, and subvert its authority.

In the writings of Hobbes, to which I have already alluded, and which, though they did not expressly attack revelation, seem to have done as much to undermine its influence, as any other productions of the infidel school, the natural distinctions of good and evil were annihilated: and while the Divine Law was formally admitted as the rule of human conduct, the evidence of this law, was ridiculed or disputed; its sanctions were neutralized by the disbelief of a future life, and its moral influence upon the will, was destroyed by the denial of human liberty.

We are informed by Bishop Burnet, that the mischievous tendency of the writings of Hobbes, was not perceived on their first publication, from the partial resemblance which his system bore to the Calvinistic scheme. His artifice, of identifying the doctrine of necessity with that of predesti

nation, and, admitting, or exaggerating, the depravity of human nature, was calculated to deceive, or to disarm, the Christian reader; and the line of argument to which his opponents were necessarily led in refutation, in the assertion of natural law, free and the office and power of conagency, science, combined the general vindication of religion with a free examination of the Calvinistic doctrines, and an exhibition of the evil consequences of their abuse, whether under the influence of infidelity or enthusiasm. Hence it followed, that many of the opponents of Hobbes maintained a double controversy; and appear alternately to have had in view, the principles of the infidel and the fanatic; or rather the application of principles apparently similar, to the defence of enthusiasm or impiety. From this circumstance, it appears, has arisen the practice of enlarging the foundations of natural religion; and referring to certain abstract principles of morals, as inherent in the human mind, and necessarily and obviously resulting from the nature and re

lations of things. Admitting, however, the existence of these principles, and even their agreeableness to natural reason, there is still a distinction to be made, between the abstract fitness of an action, and the obligation of an agent to perform it: and this obligation can never be proved, but upon the admission of some authority competent to impose it. The law of nature, therefore, cannot strictly be alleged as binding upon rational and moral agents, unless there be, on the part of the legislator and the subject, the mutual sanctions of power and responsibility. So that, after all, the whole scheme of human duty, must rest upon the belief of a Creator and a Providence, and of a preference in the Divine Mind for certain modes of conduct, founded, indeed, upon their abstract fitness, and consistency with the order and relations of things established by his infinite wisdom and goodness, but constituting in itself, the only tie that binds man to obedience as a moral agent. God approves the action, because it is right; man is bound to the action, because God approves it. Under any other view, the most