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I cannot conclude this introduction without recommending to my readers the prefent bifhop of Carlifle's Appendix to his Confiderations on the Theory of Religion, for a fuller account of the fcripture doctrine of the fate of the dead, than is given in Chapter I. Section V. of this volume.

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PART III.

THE

DOCTRINES

OF

REVEALED RELIGION.

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S the Jewish and christian religions have been proved to be founded on a feries of revelations of the will of God to man, the hiftory of which is recorded in the Old and New Teftament, it behoves us to examine thefe books with care; taking it for granted, that they contain truths of the greatest importance to our happiness.

In this part of my work, therefore, I propose to exhibit, with as much fidelity and distinctness as I can, all the general knowledge that can, with certainty, be collected from thefe books, which are usually, and very defervedly, termed facred. I fhall be careful, however, to keep as far as poffible from all controverfy, and fimply recite what appears to me to be contained in the fcriptures, just as I think I should have done if I had never

heard

heard of any controverfy upon the fubject. Every thing that has been the fubject of much contention and debate, I fhall referve for another work, which will be appropriated to a view of the corruptions of chriftianity.

As I divided the fubject of natural religion into three parts, the first containing what we are able to learn from thence concerning God, the fecond concerning our duty, and the third concerning our future expectations, I fhall adhere to the fame general divifion in this part of my work alfo; by which means it will be more easily and diftinctly feen what additional, what fuller, and clearer knowledge, we receive on thefe important fubjects from divine revelation.

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CHAPTER I.

WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE SCRIPTURES CONCERNING GOD.

This first chapter I fhall fubdivide into two others, the first re fpecting the unity, as alfo the natural perfections, and providence of God, and the fecond his moral perfections.

SECTION I.

Of the unity, the natural perfections, and providence of God.

ONE of the most important of all the truths

concerning God, as that invifible being, who is the object of our fupreme reverence, and to whom we addrefs ourfelves in prayer, as our immediate inspector, and moral governor, is his unity. That there is but one God, we have feen to be a truth deducible from the observation of the works of nature; but it is not fo eafily and clearly deducible from thence, but that mankind have always been prone to fall into idolatry, or the worship of "more gods than one; which feems to have arifen chiefly from the very low and imperfect ideas that men entertained of the knowledge and power of God.

Judging

Judging of all other intelligent beings by themfelves, they had no conception of one fuperintending mind only being fufficient for all the purpofes for which the prefence and agency of the deity was supposed to be requifite; and therefore they imagined, that there muft, of neceffity, be a multiplicity of beings of that character, each fuperin. tending his refpective province in nature. If they retained the idea of one fupreme God, which feems to have been the belief of all mankind in the earliest ages (handed down, I believe, by tradition from Noah and his immediate defcendants) they ftill did not think that this one fupreme being could go. vern the world without the affiftance of other fubordinate beings, of an intermediate nature between himself and man. Thefe fubordinate agents they would therefore confider as the beings with whom they had immediately to do, and whom their religious worship and homage would refpect; while the worship of the fupreme being would be in danger of being neglected.

This was the actual progrefs of things in the heathen world. Mankind began with the worship of one true God; but, having afterwards affociated with him various inferior beings, as objects of divine worship, they, in time, loft fight of the fupreme being altogether; fo that none of the objects of the popular worship among the Greeks or Romans were any thing more than either the fun, G 4 moon,

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