christianity itself; objections which have been fwelled into mountains in their imaginations, would have appeared no greater than mole-hills; and doubt and anxiety would never have invaded them. Befides,

it is true, I believe, in general, that the things at which well-difpofed minds ftumble the most, are fuch as ought to give them no offence, being quite foreign to christianity, though unhappily they have been generally deemed to belong to it.

Having confidered who, and how many of the prefent age are unbelievers, let it likewife be confidered if not how many, at least who are the believers.

With respect to the minifters, or profeffed teachers of chriftianity, I am well aware, it will be faid, that, befides the prejudices of education in favour of their religion, in common with the bulk of the people, they are gainers by the fyftem, and therefore that they must be fet afide as of no weight in the cafe. I am very ready to own that, in thefe circumftances, their mere profession of christianity

christianity has no weight, because it is confiftent with real infidelity; but allowing them to be men of fenfe, study, and inquiry, and withal men of fair moral characters, their fincere belief of chriftianity certainly has fome weight, especially in cafes in which the gains of the profeffion do not place them much above the common level of their fellow citizens.

Study and inquiry cannot but be allowed to be, in fome meafure, a balance to the prejudices of education; befides that, in numberlefs cafes, this prejudice is much more than balanced by an oppofite one, which is peculiarly incident to ftudious and learned men, viz. the affectation of being thought wiser than our ancestors, and free from vulgar prejudices. As to the emoluments of the chriftian miniftry, they are not

great as to be fufficient, in other cafes, to induce an equal number of men, in fimilar circumstances, to wish to acquire them. by the habitual and conftant profeffion of . a falfehood.

Setting afide the great dignitaries in the church of Rome or of England, many clergymen, in the latter of these establishments especially, who have had no great preferment in the church, men of reading and understanding, have written very able defences of chriftianity.

If it be faid, that these men, though but poorly provided for at the time in which they wrote, might have confiderable expectations, and that several of them did, in fact, attain to great preferment in the church, in confequence of their defences of chriftianity, this cannot be faid of those diffenting minifters who have defended the fame cause with equal zeal, and not lefs ability. What advantage did Fofter, Leland, or Lardner gain by the important services which they rendered the chriftian cause? The two former, if I have been rightly informed, died poor, and the laft, besides almost the whole of a very long life, spent a confiderable part of his own independent fortune in the publication of his works.

If

If the evidence of fuch men as thefe must be fet afide, nothing, furely, worth replying to, can be objected to the belief and defence of chriftianity by fuch men as Locke, Newton, or Hartley; all men of fober minds, in no other refpect the dupes of vulgar prejudice, leaft of all thofe of education; all of them men of strict virtue and integrity, all of them men of the first rate abilities, the two latter of them efpecially, infinitely fuperior to any of the advocates for infidelity. These men gave the closest attention to the fubject, and they were masters of all the previous knowledge that is requifite to form a competent judgment in the cafe. They certainly could have no views of intereft in their profeffion or defences of chriftianity; and, as men of letters, would probably have gained, rather than have loft any thing, in point of general eftimation, by efpoufing the caufe of infidelity. For it can hardly be denied, that the works of fuch men as Mr. Hume and Voltaire, have been much more read and admired in confequence of their being un

believers,

believers, than they would otherwife have been.

It is not easy, for want of a fufficient knowledge of antient and diftant countries, to compare the state of the belief of Judaism and of christianity with that of any system of heathenifm or Mohammedanifm, which are deemed to be falfe both by believers and unbelievers of chriftianity; but as far as we are able to make this comparison, all the conclufion that can be drawn from it is certainly in favour of the Jewish and chriftian religions. It will not be pretended that fo much as one philofopher, or man of letters, was a ferious believer of any pagan fyftem, notwithstanding their oppofition to chriftianity at its first promulgation. In Mohammedan countries there is at prefent very little reading or study, and if we be not mifinformed by fome late travellers, thofe who are addicted to ftudy, or who have any thing of a fpeculative turn, are generally fuppofed to be unbelievers. However, nothing written against their re