now reject the divine grace and mercy should ever be admitted to that transcendent bliss and glory, which God hath been pleased of his own free and rich goodness to promise to the righteous, and which no man could pretend to challenge as in strictness of justice due to him. Nor is it any impeachment of the divine wisdom and goodness to leave obstinate sinners during the whole course of their existence under that part of the punishment which ariseth from the stinging reflections of their own guilty consciences, or from the natural effects of their wickedness and bad temper of mind. And whatever farther punishments there may be more directly and immediately inflicted by the divine hand, we may be sure they shall be in such measures and proportions to each individual, as never to exceed the demerit of their crimes. What has been said may help us to judge of the strange representation this author is pleased to make of the Scripture doctrine of future punishments: That "such a proceeding can be ascribed to no principle, but to the revenge of a being, who punishes to the full extent of his power, and merely for the pleasure of punishing, and without any regard to justice, creatures who did not offend him, merely for the pleasure of offending him; creatures who had free-will, and made wrong elections; creatures who might plead, in mitigation of their punishments, their frailties, their passions, the imperfections of their natures, and the numerous temptations to which they stood exposed." This representation is unjust in every article. The tendency of it is plainly this: to apologize for sin, and to diminish the evil of it. And what good can be proposed by this, it is hard to say. Nothing can be more contrary to the honour of God, to the good of mankind, to the peace and order of the moral world, than to endeavour to make men entertain slight thoughts of the evil of sin. To what purpose is it to say, that sinners do not offend God merely for the pleasure of offending him? If they do it for the pleasure of gratifying their own corrupt inclinations and appetites, which they oppose and prefer to the most wise and holy will and law of the sovereign Lord of the universe, is not this a very heinous guilt? Their having free-will, and making wrong elections, when it was in their choice to have done otherwise, though mentioned here in mitigation of their guilt, is a great aggravation of their crime, and an abuse of their reason and liberty which are amongst the noblest gifts of God. To plead passions and temptations, is an excuse, which, if admitted, may serve to apologize for the greatest crimes. But they are not allowed by any wise human. judicatories as a reason for exempting those that transgress the laws from the penalties to which their transgressions had exposed them. And Lord Bolingbroke himself has elsewhere very properly observed, that those very persons who pretend that inclinations cannot be restrained, and who speak most of the power of the appetites and passions, can resist and control them, when any evident in * Works, vol. v. p. 518. terest, or contrary inclination, leads them to do so. And as to any transgressions that may properly be called frailties and infirmities, and which have little of the will in them, the wise and just Ruler of the world will no doubt make all the allowances that equity can demand. Upon the whole, the Christian doctrine of future rewards and punishments is so far from furnishing a just objection against the divine original of the gospel revelation, that, if rightly considered, it yieldeth a noble evidence of its usefulness and truth. It is scarce possible to form an idea of any thing more solemn and affecting, and better fitted to make a strong impression on the human mind, than the representation given in the New Testament of the future judgment. The whole human race convened before the sovereign universal Judge, innumerable myriads of holy angels attending, the judicial process carried on with the greatest solemnity, a strict and impartial inquiry made, the most hidden actions brought to light, and the very secrets of the heart laid open, and all followed by eternal retributions. It seemeth plain from our Saviour's marner of representing things, that he regarded it as a matter of great importance, that sinners should have no hope or expectation given them of obtaining mercy and salvation, if they persisted to the end of this present life in a course of impenitence, presumptuous sin, and disobedience. He nowhere giveth the least intimation, that the punishment of the wicked in a future state shall have an end. On the contrary, he still speaketh of it in terms, which, according to the natural import of the expressions, seem to signify that it shall be of a perpetual duration, without adding any thing to qualify those expressions. And for any persons to flatter themselves, that God may in his absolute sovereignty dispense with the rigour of his threatenings, and to depend upon such an expectation, would be an extreme folly, when the plain tenor of the revelation seems to go the other way. I have now finished the design I had in view, which was to defend natural and revealed religion against the attacks made upon both by this very confident and assuming author. In the execution of this design, I have principally confined myself to the reasoning part of his Lordship's works, as far as religion is concerned, and have not willingly overlooked any thing that had the appearance of argument. But I have not attempted to follow him in several of those excursions which seem to have been principally intended to show the variety of his reading, of which it must be owned there is a great appearance, though I cannot say he has given many proofs of his having maturely digested it. Several things there are in his scheme of metaphysics, and in the account he has given of the sentiments of the ancient philosophers, which might be justly animadverted upon, though it will not be denied that some of his observations on these heads are just and curious. But as a distinct examination of them would have very much enlarged this work, which is * See his Letters on the Study and Use of History, let. iii. sect. 1. already longer than I at first intended, or than I would have wished it to be, I have chosen to omit them: for the same reason I have taken no particular notice of the reflections he has occasionally cast upon the ancient fathers of the Christian Church, and upon the body of the primitive Christians,* of whom he has made a most injurious representation, and has in effect justified the persecutions raised by the heathens against them. He tells us, that "their clergy were, under pretence of religion, a very lawless tribe.-That they broke the laws in the most public manner, and instigated others to break them, by popular insurrections against the authority of magistrates, and by tumults and riots, in which they insulted the established religion of the empire.-And he believes the list of the martyrs consisted more of those who suffered for breaking the peace, than of those who suffered quietly for the sake of their religion." Such is the charge he has thought fit to bring against a worthy and peaceable body of men (for so the primitive Christians generally were); whose innocent and virtuous behaviour has been acknowledged by some of their pagan adversaries themselves. You will observe, that I have, for the most part, except where the argument led to it, passed over the bitter sarcasms he so frequently throws out against the Christian divines. They have the honour to be reviled and insulted in every work that is designed. against revealed religion. But it must be owned, that his Lordship has in obloquy and reproach far exceeded all that have gone before him. He has found out, what the world did not know before, that the divines are in a formed alliance and confederacy with the atheists against God and his providence, and that the latter are not such dangerous enemies to religion as the former. I have not thought myself obliged to take any distinct notice of the long account he has given in his fourth essay, of the encroachments of the ecclesiastical upon the civil power, and the several As a specimen how ready our author is to lay hold of the slightest appearances for casting a slur upon the ancient fathers and primitive Christians, I would observe, that after mentioning the Gnostics, and their pretences, he adds, that "the orthodox grew in time as much Gnostics as others; and we see that the church of Alexandria thought it necessary to be so, in order to be truly religious."* He is so fond of this thought, that he afterwards repeateth it, and talks of the "heretics assuming the pompous title of Gnostics, and despising the first preachers of Christianity, as ignorant and illiterate men: and that Clement of Alexandria maintained, that to be a good Christian it was necessary to be a good Gnostic." It would be hard to produce an instance of greater disingenuity than Lord Bolingbroke is here guilty of, and it can scarcely be supposed that he was so ignorant as not to be sensible of it. The word Gnostic properly signifies a man of knowledge. Some corrupters of Christianity in the primitive times, who made high pretences to extraordinary knowledge, assumed that title to themselves. And because Clement describes the true Gnostics in opposition to the false, to show that this name, in which those heretics gloried, belonged in its just sense only to the true Christian; therefore he and the orthodox Christians were Gnostics, i. e. of the same principles and practices with that sect which they condemned. It may be safely left to the reader to judge of the fairness of such a conduct. + Ibid. p. 458. * Works, vol. iv. p. 336. + Works, vol. iv. ր. 434. M M steps by which those encroachments were carried on, especially in the times of the papal usurpation. He has advanced little on these heads that can be called new, or which had not been observed by others before him. And we have his Lordship's own acknowledg ment frequently repeated, that this is by no means chargeable on true original Christianity. It would therefore be very disingenuous, to turn that to the disadvantage of the religion of Jesus, which has been only owing to a gross abuse and corruption of it, a corruption which was plainly foretold in the sacred writings, at a time when it was impossible for any human sagacity to foresee it. He frequently exclaims against artificial theology, and complains of the profane mixtures which have been brought into the Christian religion, by the subtilties of a vain philosophy, and by idle traditions. It must be acknowledged, that there has often been too much ground for such complaints. And to endeavour to separate pure uncorrupted Christianity, as taught by Christ and his apostles, from debasing mixtures and the corrupt additions that have been made to it, is undoubtedly a noble and useful work, and, when properly performed, is doing a real service to Christianity, and tendeth to establish the credit of it, and to promote its sacred interests. But such writers as Lord Bolingbroke are certainly the unfittest persons in the world to undertake it: Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis, Instead of promoting the good work of reformation, and of contributing to restore religion in its primitive purity, they bring a disgrace upon those who would in good earnest attempt it, and furnish the patrons of those corruptions with a plausible pretence for reproaching and misrepresenting such persons, as having an ill intention against Christianity itself, and as serving the cause of deists and infidels. His Lordship charges the mischiefs which have befallen the Christian Church as having been chiefly owing to this: that "the pure word of God neither is nor has been the sole criterion of orthodoxy."* He asserts, that "no human authority can supply or alter, much less improve, what the Son of God came on earth to reveal." He says, that "divines should return to the Gospel, as philosophers have returned to Nature, and presume to dogmatize no farther than the plain import of it will justify." And here he recommends it as the most effectual way to remove the scandals arising from the dissensions among Christians, that the Christian divines" should be content to explain what they understand, to adore what they understand not, and to leave in mystery all that Christ and his apostles have left so."§ Works, vol. iv. p. 448. + Ibid. p. 627. Ibid. p. 449. § Ibid. p. 629. These advices, considered in themselves, might have been thought to proceed from a good and friendly intention. But every thing is suspected that comes from such a hand. Yet a real friend to Christianity will know how to make a proper use of admonitions and reproofs, even when given by an enemy. I shall conclude with this observation: that the religion of Jesus, as delivered in the New Testament in its original purity and simplicity, will be ever able to stand its ground against all the assaults of the most subtile and most malicious adversaries. It hath a dignity and excellence in it, which hath often extorted favourable acknowledgments even from those who have appeared to be strongly prejudiced against it, of which we have a remarkable instance in the late Lord Bolingbroke. And I am persuaded, that the more any thinking man considereth it with a free and unprejudiced mind, the more he will admire it, and will be the more convinced of its truth and excellence, and of its divine original. You will, I doubt not, join with me in earnest prayer to God, that this holy religion may be more universally diffused, that it may be made known to those who know it not, and that where it is known and professed, it may have more of the happy effects which it is so well fitted to produce. I am, Reverend and dear Sir, Most sincerely and affectionately yours, JOHN LELAND. SIR, LETTER XXXIV. THE foregoing Letter finished the observations I had made on Lord Bolingbroke's posthumous works. In the course of those observations, I had occasion to make some references to a small treatise I had published before, intituled, Reflections on the late Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of History, which was the first of his Lordship's writings in which he had appeared in an avowed opposition to the Christian cause. And it having been thought proper to reprint those Reflections, I was advised by you and other friends to insert them in the Supplement to the View of the Deistical Writers, lately published, as they bear a near affinity to |