APPENDIX:

CONTAINING

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER

TO THE AUTHOR OF THESE SERMONS,

WITH HIS ANSWER TO IT.

SOON after I had published this volume, I received an anonymous Letter, addressed to me at Thurcaston, of which the following is an exact copy.

SIR,

LETTER TO DR. HURD.

Some months ago it was reported, that Dr. Hurd was preparing to expound the Apocalypsis, and once more to prove the Pope to be Antichrist. The public were amazed. By gay and by the busy world, the very attempt was treated as an object of ridicule. Polite scholars lamented, that should be pre

the

you

vailed on to give up your more solid and liberal studies, for such obscure and unprofitable researches. Your own brethren of the church hinted, that it would be far more prudent to observe a respectful silence with regard to those awful and invidious mysteries. A more than common share of merit was requisite to surmount such adverse prejudices. Your Sermons, Sir, have been perused with pleasure by many, who had the strongest dislike to the name and subject. Every one has admired the vastness of the plan, the harmony of the proportions, and the elegance of the ornaments; and if any have remarked a weakness in the foundations, it has been imputed to the nature of the ground; and the taste of the Patron has been arraigned rather than the skill of the Architect.

Since you have undertaken the care and defence of this extensive province, I may be allowed, less as an opponent than as a disciple, to propose to you a few difficulties; about which I have sought more conviction than I have hitherto obtained. From the general cast of your writings, I flatter myself that I am speaking to a candid critic, and to a philosophical divine; whose first passion is the love. of truth. On this pleasing supposition, let me

venture to ask you, Whether, there is sufficient evidence that the Book of Daniel is really as ancient as it pretends to be." You are sensible, that from this point the Golden Chain of Prophecy, which you have let down from Heaven to earth, is partly suspended.

There are two reasons which still force me to with-hold my assent. I. The author of the Book of Daniel is two well informed of the revolutions of the Persian and Macedonian empires, which are supposed to have happened long after his death. II. He is too ignorant of the transactions of his own times. In a word, he is too exact for a Prophet, and too fabulous for a contemporary historian.

I. The first of these objections was urged, fifteen hundred years ago, by the celebrated Porphyry. He not only frankly acknowledged, but carefully illustrated the distinct and accurate series of history, contained in the book of Daniel, as far as the death of Antiochus Epiphanes; for beyond that period, the author seems to have had no other guide than the dim and shadowy light of conjecture. The four empires are clearly delineated, the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, the rapid conquest of Persia by Alexander, his untimely

death without posterity, the division of his vast monarchy into four kingdoms, one of which, Egypt, is mentioned by name, their various wars and intermarriages, the persecu tion of Antiochus, the prophanation of the Temple, and the invincible arms of the Romans, are described with as much perspicuity in the prophecies of Daniel, as in the histories of Justin and Diodorus. From such a perfect resemblance, the artful infidel would infer, that both were alike composed after the event. This conduct has supplied St. Jerom with a fund of learning, and an occasion of triumph: as if the philosopher, oppressed by the force of truth, had unwarily furnished arms for his own defeat. Yet, notwithstanding Jerom's confidence, and in spite of my inclination to side with the father, rather than with the adversary of the church; the reasoning of the latter may I fear be justified by the rules of logic and criticism.

May I not assume as a principle equally consonant to experience, to reason, and even to true religion; "That we ought not to admit

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any thing as the immediate work of God, "which can possibly be the work of man; and "that whatever is said to deviate from the or

dinary course of nature, should be ascribed

to accident, to fraud, or to fiction; till we

are fully satisfied, that it lies beyond the "reach of those causes?" If we cast away this buckler, the blind fury of superstition, from every age of the world, and from every corner of the globe, will invade us naked and unarmed.

The eager trembling curiosity of mankind has ever wished to penetrate into futurity; nor is there perhaps any country, where enthusiasm and knavery have not pretended to satisfy this anxious craving of the human heart. These self-inspired prophets have strove by various arts to supply the want of a divine mission. Sometimes adapting their conjectures to the present situation of things, and to the passions and prejudices of those, for whom their oracles were intended, they have involved themselves in the mystic veil of dark, general, and ambiguous metaphors: and embracing an indefinite space, they have trusted to time and fortune for the accomplishment of their predictions, or to the industry of kind commentators for a favourable interpretation of them. Sometimes they have commenced prophets, and even true prophets at a very easy rate, by delivering the narrative of things already past under the name of some celebrated character of a distant