Other nations there are who carry submission still further. We have, in our times, seen a sovereign ask the pope leave to bring to a trial, in his royal court of justice, some monks, accused of regicide, fail in his solicitations for leave, and not dare to try those wretches.

It is well known that formerly the pope's power was still of greater extent. They were much superior to the gods of antiquity; for those deities were only imagined to dispose of empires, but the popes disposed of them in reality.

Sturbinus says, that they who doubt of the pope's divinity and infallibility are excusable, when it is considered, that St. Peter's see has been profaned by forty schisms, and twenty-seven of them have been attended with murders, massacres, and wars.

That Stephen VII., a priest's son, had his predecessor, Formosus, dug up, and the corpse's head cut off.

That Sergius III. was convicted of assassinations, and had a son by Marozia, who inherited the papacy.

That John X., Theodoras's gallant, was strangled in his bed.

That John XI., son of Sergius III., was known only for his scandalous intemperance.

That John XII. was murdered at his strumpet's house.

That Benedict IX. bought the pontificate, and sold it again. That Gregory VII. was the author of civil wars, which were continually prosecuted by his successors, for the space of five hundred years.

That, lastly, among so many debauched, ambitious, and sanguinary popes, there has been an Alexander VI., whose name always excites no less horror and detestation than those of Nero and Caligula.

This, it is said, proves the divinity of their character, that it should have subsisted amidst so many crimes; but, had the behaviour of the caliphs been still more flagitious and execrable, they would then have been still more divine. This is Dermius's argument; but the Jesuits have answered him.

PREJUDICES.

PREJUDICE is an opinion void of judgment; thus every where many opinions are instilled into children before they are able to judge.

There are universal and necessary prejudices, and such are

essential to virtue. In every country children are taught to believe in a God, who punishes and rewards; to respect and love their father and mother; to hold theft a crime, and a selfish lie a vice, before they can so much as guess what vice or virtue is. Thus there are very good prejudices, and these are such as, on being brought to the test, judgment ratifies.

Sentiment is not mere prejudice: it is much stronger. It is not because the mother has been told that she must love her son, that she loves him; she happily cannot help her fondness for him. It is not from prejudice that a man runs to assist an unknown child, whom a beast is ready to devour, or who is in any other danger.

But it is from mere prejudice that you respect a man dressed in a particular manner, and grave in his carriage and discourse. Your parents have told you to bow to such a man; thus you come to respect him, before you know whether he deserves your respect. Being grown up, and your knowledge enlarged, you begin to see that this man is a hypocrite, eaten up with pride, selfishness, and craft; hereupon you despise what you venerated, and prejudice is superseded by judgment. You have, from prejudice, believed the fables with which you were amused in your childhood. You are told that the Titans waged war against the gods; and that Venus was in love with

Adonis. These fables at twelve years of age, go down with you as realities: but at twenty you perceive them to be only ingenious allegories.

Let us briefly, for order sake, examine the different sorts of prejudices; we may, perhaps, find ourselves like those who perceived that, at time of the Missisippi scheme, they had been calculating imaginary riches.

PREJUDICES OF THE SENSES.

Is it not very odd that our eyes always deceive us, even when we see very well? whereas we are never deceived by our ears. If a sound ear hears these words, You are handsome; I love you it is very certain that the person speaking did not say, I hate you; you are ugly. But the apparent smoothness of a looking-glass is a deception; a microscope shows the surface to be, in reality, very rugged. The sun appears to be but about two feet in diameter: whereas it is demonstrated to be a million of times larger than the earth.

God has, apparently, put truth in your ears and error in your eyes: but study optics, and you will find that God has

not imposed on you; and that it is impossible, in the present state of things, objects should appear otherwise than you

see them.

PHYSICAL PREJUDICES.

That the sun rises and sets, and that the earth is immoveable, are prejudices naturally imbibed: but that lobsters are good for the blood, because in boiling they turn red; that eels cure the palsy because of their frisking; that the moon has an influence on diseases, because a stronger symptom of a fever was observed in a patient in the wane of the moon; these notions, with a thousand others, were entertained by the empirics of old, who judged without reasoning, and led others into their mistakes.

HISTORICAL PREJUDICES.

Most stories have been credited without examination, and such belief is a prejudice. Fabius Pictor relates that, several ages before him, a vestal virgin, of the city of Alba, going with her pitcher to draw water, was ravished, and brought into the world Romulus and Remus; and that these twins were suckled by a she-wolf, &c. This fable the Roman people greedily swallowed, without examining whether at that time vestal virgins were known in Latium; whether it was likely that a king's daughter should go out of her convent, with a pitcher in her hand; and whether it was agreeable to nature, that a she-wolf, so far from eating two infants, should suckle them. The prejudice took root.

:

A monk wrote, that Clovis, being in great danger at the battle of Tolbiac, made a vow, if he escaped safe, to turn Christian but is it natural, in such an exigency, to apply to a foreign deity? Is it not in extremities, that our native religion acts with the greatest force? What Christian in a battle against the Turks, would not call on the Blessed Virgin rather than on Mahomet? It is added, that a dove brought a phial in its bill for anointing Clovis; and that an angel brought the oriflamme, or banner, to be carried before him. All such tales prejudice readily credits; but they who are acquainted with human nature well know, that both the usurpers Clovis and Rollo turned Christians that they might more safely rule Christians, as the Turks, on becoming masters of Constantinople, turned Mussulmans, to ingratiate themselves with Mussul

mans.

RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES.

If your nurse has told you, that Ceres presides over grain; or that Vishnou and Xaca have, several times, become men ; or that Sagmoncodom came upon earth, and cut down a forest or that Odin expects you in his hall, towards Jutland; or that Mahomet, or some other, has made a journey into heaven; lastly, if your governor afterwards inculcates into your brain the traces made in it by your nurse, you will never get rid of them. Should your judgment attempt to efface these prejudices, your acquaintance, and especially the female part, will charge you with impiety; then the dervise, lest his income may suffer curtailment, will accuse you to the cadi, who will do his best to have you impaled, for he would have all under him blockheads, thinking that they make the tamest subjects and thus things will go on, till your accquaintance, the dervise, and the cadi, shall perceive that folly does no good, and that persecution is abominable.

RELIGION.

FIRST QUESTION.

DR. WARBURTON, bishop of Gloucester, author of one of the most learned pieces that ever appeared, in vol. i. page 8, expresses himself to this purpose: "A religion, or society, not founded on the belief of a future state, ought to be supported by an extraordinary providence: the Jewish religion was not founded on the belief of a future state; therefore, it must have been supported by an extraordinary providence."

Several divines have declared against him, and disputant like, have retorted his argument on himself; "A religion not founded on the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and eternal rewards, must be false. Now, Judaism had no such tenets; therefore Judaism, so far from being supported by providence, was, according to your principles, a false and savage religion, which denied any such thing as providence."

Others of the bishop's adversaries maintained, that the immortality of the soul was known amongst the Jews, even in Moses's time; but he very evidently proved against them, that neither in the Decalogue, nor Leviticus, nor Deuteronomy, is one single word said of this belief; and that it is ridiculous to go about wresting and corrupting a few passages of the

other books, in support of a truth, about which their book of laws is silent.

The bishop, though he composed four volumes to demonstrate, that the Jewish law proposed neither punishments nor rewards after death, has not been able to give his adversaries any very satisfactory answer. They urged, that "either Moses was acquainted with this doctrine, and then he deceived the Jews in not making it public; or he was ignorant of it, and, if so, he was, incapable of founding a good religion.Indeed, had the religion been good, why was it abolished? A true religion should suit all times and places; it should be like the light of the sun, which shines in all lands, and throughout all generations."

This prelate, with all his erudition and sagacity, has been hard put to it, in making his way through all these difficulties: but what system is without difficulties?

SECOND QUESTION.

Another learned person, a much greater philosopher, and one of the most profound metaphysicians of the times, produces strong reasons to prove, that the first religion was Polytheism; and that, before improved reason came to see there could be only one Supreme Being, men began with believing several gods. I, on the contrary, presume to believe, that they began with worshipping only one God, and that human weakness adopted several others afterwards; and I conceive the thing to be thus:

It is not to be doubted, that villages and country towns were prior to large cities; and that men were divided into small reIt is very publics before they were united in large empires.

natural, that a town, terrified at the thunder; distressed by the ruin of its harvest; insulted by a neighbouring town; daily feeling its weakness, and every where perceiving an invisible power, soon came to say, There is some being above which does us good and hurt.

us,

It seems to me impossible, that they should have said, There are two powers: for wherefore several? In every thing we begin with the simple, then proceed to the compound, and often an improvement of knowledge brings us back again to the simple. This is the process of the human mind.

Which being was first worshipped? was it the sun? was it the moon? I can hardly believe it. Only let us take a view of children, they are pretty nearly on a footing with ignorant The beauty and benefit of that luminous body, which

men.