lefs incompatible with common sense than they are thought to be by all those who will not subscribe them, and by many who do: with this, two claffes of men are particularly offended; the rational diffenters, as they please to call themselves, and the methodists: the former of these having arbitrarily expunged out of their bibles every thing which appears to them contradictory to reafon, that is, to their own reason, or, in other words, every thing which they cannot underfland, are displeased to see those tenets explained, which they have thought proper to reject: the latter, having embraced these very doctrines only because they appeared unintelligible, are unwilling to fee them cleared up, and afraid left those dark and thorny covers fhould be laid open, under which they have fo long sheltered themselves from the rays of reafon : with either of these all debate would be vain and ufelefs; because the first, though for the most part honeft, religious, and learned men, are unable to comprehend any reafoning, which foars

above the limits of their own confined literature and education; and the others are determined to liften to no reasoning at all, having with all reason and common fense declared eternal warfare.

The design of the fifth letter is to fhew, that in the government of fuch imperfect creatures as men over each other there must be much unavoidable evil; that all human governments, whether of the monarchical, popular, or mixed kinds, were at first founded on force or intereft, and muft ever be fupported by the fame means, that is, by compulfion or corruption, both of which must be productive of innumerable evils; that thefe ought not to be imputed to God, because he could not have prevented them without the total alteration of human nature; much less can they be eradicated by men; but that they may in fome measure be leffened by the diminution of moral evil, from which all political evils are derived; and therefore that we ought quietly to submit to these evils, when they do not arife to any intolerable

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tolerable degree, and to apply principally that remedy to the faults of government, which is ever the most effectual, that is, the amendment of our own. It is no wonder, that a leffon fo disagreeable to the restless humours of most men, and fo repugnant to the arts and ends of faction, should call up against the author many opponents, who have liberally bestowed on him the titles of an enemy to liberty, and an advocate for corruption, with the fame justice that a phyfician might be stiled an enemy to health, and an advocate for the gout, who in that diftemper prescribes patience and temperance, rather than fuch inflaming medicines as might convert it into a more dangerous disease. All that he has afferted in this letter amounts to no more than this: that no government can fubfift without some principle of governing; that is, that men cannot be governed without fome means by which their obedience can be obtained; a proposition, which seems as inconteftible, as that every effect must have a caufe. That all government

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government must be difagreeable to those who are governed, is demonftrable from the nature and effence of government itself, which being nothing more than a compulfion of individuals to act in fuch a manner in fupport of fociety, as they are neither wife, nor honeft enough to do from the fuggeftions of their own heads or hearts; this compulsion must be contrary to both their judgments and inclinations, and confequently disagreeable, and for that reafon perpetually refifted fome method muft therefore be made use of to overcome this resistance, and what that method can be, except force or intereft, he cannot find out: he is an advocate for neither, except from their necessity; and, if any one will point out another, he will readily declare his difapprobation of them both.

The fixth and last letter proceeds upon the fame plan as the reft, and endeavours to fhew, that religious evils, that is, the defects fo visible in all human religions, and the mischievous confequences refulting from

them

them, are not owing to any want of wisdom or goodness in our Creator, but proceed, like all others, from our nature and fituation, and the impracticability of giving a perfect religion to an imperfect creature. In order to explain this, it was neceffary to point out the particular imperfections, which in fact do exist in all human religions, whether natural or revealed; not with any defign to depreciate the one, or to invalidate the authority of the other, but only to account for them confiftently with God's wif dom and benevolence: those charged upon natural religion have been readily enough agreed to, but thofe imputed to revelation. have offended many, who have from thence confidered the whole of this enquiry as intended fecretly to undermine the foundations of Christianity, than which nothing can be more averse from the intentions, as well as from the fentiments of the author; but indeed many late deiftical writers have attacked that religion fo unfairly, by infinuating many cavils, which they dared not exprefs,

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