is neceffary in one place, and lefs than he might have done in another: yet he certainly has a just conception of the extent of his fubject, and has offered many remarks which highly deferve the ferious confideration of infidels.

DOUBTING, as Bishop Butler observes, is a species of belief: it is faith struggling with objections; and though it may be easiest for a mind in this ftate to betake itself to Deifm, it is not the most commendable refuge. Before revelation be renounced and its hopes relinquifhed, the weight of every objection, as it affects either a part or the whole of the great question, ought to be confidered. This is what Dr. P. evidently wishes; and the prefent work, which is the laft volume that he published previously to his embarking for America, is calculated to affift this examination. Having publifhed feveral works on the Evidences of Revealed Religion, fome of the statements and reasoning to be found in them will neceffarily occur in the prefent:-but it is not a mere recapitulation of his former arguments. The ground which he has here taken is in some respects new, and his range is more extended.

It is usual with divines, in their views of revelation, to take little notice of the Old Teftament, while they are diffuse in defending and illuftrating the New. This conduct, whether arifing from ignorance or timidity, is highly favourable to Deifm. It feems at least to abandon a great part of scripture to the full force of its objections. Probably this is not intended by them: but they ought to confider that, by fuch omiffion, their works are unfatisfactory, and ill fuited to the investigating genius of the age. Dr. P. is an exception. He confiders the fcriptures as containing a hiftory, more or less detailed, of a series of divine difpenfations or communications, and he examines the divine miflion of Mofes and the Prophets, as well as that of Jefus; meeting and difcuffing the principal objections which have been urged against the O.T. narrative.

As Christianity arofe out of Judaism, and its evidences are blended with thofe of the Old Teftament, its defence neceffarily requires an examination of the facred books of the Jews. It is not furprising that, as antient records, they fhould abound with difficulties: but the friend of truth will not be startled at them. Dr. P. advances to meet them without fear; perfuaded that, as rational inquiry and feriptural knowlege proceed, they will gradually difappear. There is a pleasure in following a man who writes under fuch a conviction; yet his fincerity must not induce us to fufpend our judgment. An honeft writer ought to have an honeft critic. He who is in pursuit of truth will with to have his path enlightened by all the fcintillations which iffue from the collifion of inquiring minds. While,

therefore,

therefore, we praise the good fenfe and found argument which abound in this work, we shall not hesitate to make objections to fuch parts as appear to be ill calculated to produce conviction. The object of this publication Dr. P. ftates in the following words:

It now more than ever behoves all the friends of religion to fhew that they are not chargeable with a blind implicit faith, believing what their fathers, mothers, or nurfes, believed before them, merely because they believed it; but that their faith is the offspring of reafon: that Chriftianity is no cunningly devised fable, but that the evidence of the facts on which it is built is the fame with that of any other facts of antient date; fo that we must abandon all faith in history, and all human teftimony, before we can difbelieve them.

The great problem to be folved is, how to account for present appearances, and fuch facts in antient history as no perfon ever did, or can deny, viz. the actual existence of Chriftianity, and the state of it in the age immediately following that of Chrift and the apoftles. Unbelievers must think that they can account for the facts without admitting the truth of the gofpel hiftory. On the other hand, the Chriftian fays that, if this hiftory be not admitted, the well-known ftate of things in the age immediately fucceeding must imply more miracles, and those without any rational object, than that history fuppoles. The like, he says, must be the cafe with refpect to the hiftory of the Jews in the Old Teftament. If the Mofaic history be admitted, that of the Jews in that age, and from that time to the prefent, is natural; but on any other fuppofition moft unaccountable; that whole nation thinking and acting as no human beings ever did, or poffibly could, think and act. Whereas, it must be taken for granted, that Jews are, and ever have been, men, as well as ourfelves. This is the ftate of the argument between believers and unbelievers in revelation, that I have frequently held out, and no person can fay that it is an unfair one. Leaft of all it is fuch as a man who wishes to be governed by reason, and who would account for all appearances in the most natural manner, can object to.'

Two difcourfes on the Importance of Religion to enlarge the Mind of Man, and on Revelation the only Remedy for Idolatry and Superftition, precede his remarks on the hiftory and evidences of Revealed Religion. Thefe difcourfes clearly evince the tendency of its great doctrines to ftrengthen, expand, refine, and exalt the mind.

After having confidered the nature of man, and the fund of great principles with which religion fupplies him, the Doctor deduces the fuperiority of the Chriftian over the fcholar: obferving that, compared with the momentous truths of revelation, all other knowlege is a trifle. That fundamental pofition of Deism, the fufficiency of reason to difcover all useful truths, Dr. P. not only denies, but he pronounces it the offspring of a concert of the powers of the human intellect, derived from that, very revelation which they confider as unneceffary. He deems

it

it highly improbable that mankind, if left to themselves, would ever have attained to the idea of one fupreme, uncontrolled Caufe, without whofe appointment or permiffion nothing can ever come to pafs, and that nothing comes to pass but what has the beft tendency, being really, though not apparently, fubfervient to good.' As to the firft of the human race, he contends that they must have been affifted and inftructed by foreign means; fo that what we may properly call divine revelation was abfolutely neceffary to them. What points of knowlege this revelation included, Dr. P. does not undertake to inform us but we may prefume that he does not conceive it to have extended very far, fince he tells us that no more was communicated than was abfolutely neceffary to their wellbeing; and that where their own reafon and obfervation were able, in any good meafure, to anfwer the purpose, they were Jeft to its guidance; though, in this cafe, much error and much inconvenience muft have arifen from the falle judgments that men thus left to their own experience and observation, will fall into.' It may here be afked, Does not this reprefent divine revelation as doing too little? What can be the reason of a partial communication, which was fo foon to expose men to the evils of erroneous judgment? Dr. P. replies, that one reafon of this may be, that knowlege acquired by experience is of much more value than that which is acquired by inftruction.' He therefore conceives the human race to have been left to themfelves as far as their fafety would allow, and that the fupernatural interpofition was only to prevent fome great and fatal evil, which it was impoffible for them to forefee; and (he adds) if we confider the ftate of the world in very early ages, deftitute of the knowledge that has fince been acquired by experience and obfervation, and the lights that have been derived from revelation*, we fhall be convinced that fome fupernatural instruction was highly expedient, if not abfolutely neceffary, if it was the ultimate intention of our Maker to train men to virtue here, and happiness hereafter.'

Having farther evinced the expediency of revelation, by taking a view of the prevalence of icolatry and fuperftition, he proceeds to confider the miracles by which the mifiion of Mofes was proved; fuch as the releafe of the Ifraelites from the Egyptian yoke, the delivery of the law from Mount Sinai, and the miracles in the wilderness,-in the examination of which he offers many judicious obfervations: but among these we do not reckon what he advances in p. 102, on the death of Mofes who, because he is faid in the N. T. to have appeared in company with Elijah to the difciples on the mount of transfiguraWill not the Deift call this a begging of the question?

tion, (may not this have been only a vifion?) Dr. P. conjectures to have been translated into heaven without dying, and to be now living together with him and Jefus. To Dr. P. as a materialift, fome curious questions may be proposed on this fubject: but we shall abftain, through fear of extending this article to an inconvenient length. We will lay before our readers his remarks on the objections which have been offered on the fubject of God's hardening Pharoah's heart, and on the divine order for the total deftruction of the Canaanites:

I would obferve with refpect to these objections, and also to that from the deftruction of the Canaanites, and other violations of the common rules of moral conduct among men, that what we call evil, natural and moral, is continually employed in the course of Divine Providence as the means of producing good, and that there can be no juft objection to this in the conduct of any being, provided all the confequences of things could be foreseen and attended to, as they are by the Supreme Being. The reafon why our choice of means to gain the fame good end is limited by the ufual rules of morality, is the imperfection of our knowledge. On this account, the rule of our conduct is in many cafes different from that of God's. We must not do evil that good may come, because we cannot be fure that good will come of it. But in this forefight, as well as in every thing elfe, God is infallible. He fees the end from the beginning, and therefore in his conduct the introduction of partial evil may have the best effect.

We are not to expect that the author of revelation should be any other Being than the author of Nature, or that he should conduct himself by any other rules. And he who often destroys whole cities and countries by means of earthquakes, and other natural caufes, might choose to effect the destruction of the Canaanites by the sword of the children of Ifrael. And there was this obvious reafon for it, that by exprefsly commiffioning them to effect this extirpation, he fignified in the leaft equivocal manner his difpleasure at the conduct of the inhabitants of this country, for their abominable idolatrous practices, as a warning to the Ifraelites, who were to be a people devoted to his fole worship, for the inftruction of all mankind.'

That part of the O. T. which relates to the destruction of the Canaanites is certainly preffed with difficulties; and the pofition which Dr, P. lays down, to pave the way for their removal, requires elucidation, viz. that we are not to expect that the author of revelation fhould be any other Being than the author of nature, or that he should conduct himself by other rules.' Nature and revelation are different divine means directed to the fame ultimate end: but in as much as they are different, may not the Deity be fuppofed to adopt different rules of conduct in them? In measures effected by the great operations of nature, it may not be neceffary that he should endeavour to accommodate himself to the weakness of the human intellect: but when he reveals himself in the character of a moral inftructor,

it feems abfolutely neceffary that his orders, inftructions, and in fhort every part of his fupernatural communications, fhould appear to our apprehenfion to have a moral tendency, or to dif play his rectitude, wifdom, and goodness, and should excite to virtue: but does a divine command to one people to go into the territory of another, and to deftroy all that breathed, men, women, children, and cattle, and particularly to hamstring their horfes, appear to our apprehenfions confonant to divine rectitude? or could its execution, as an order from heaven, have any tendency to beget in either people a love towards God, or a love towards the human race? Perhaps, after all Dr. P.'s ingenuity, the difficulty which occurs respecting the deftruction of the Canaanites by the Ifraelites will be better obviated by adverting to the phrafeology of the Jewish history, by confidering the nature of those books, from which a great part is a profeffed compilation, and by applying to the whole a rational and manly comment. Dr. P.'s boldness in commenting on the N. T. induces us to wonder at his timidity here.

The remaining difcourfes are entitled:Of miraculous Events in the Time of Jofhua-General Obfervations on the Evidence of the Divine Mission of Moses-Of the miraculous Events from the Time of Jofhua to the Babylonish Captivity

Of the Prophecies concerning the Difperfion and Reftoration of the Jews-Of the Miracles of Jefus-Of the Miracles of the Apoftles-On the Refurrection of Jefus *- A View of Revealed Religion*.

It will not be expected of us particularly to difcufs the contents of these difcourfes: but we must not fuffer the Doctor's explanation of the prophecies to escape our notice. He contends that many of the antient predictions of the O. T. refer to the return of the Jews to their own land, or announce it to be the intention of Providence to put the Jews hereafter in poffeffion of Palestine. Without afferting that many of the paffages, which are adduced by him for this purpose, particularly Jer. xxx. which Dr. P. quotes, relate only to the return of the Jews from the Babylonifh captivity, and that the idea of their re-poffeffion of Canaan, however flattering to them, is not fufficiently juftified by their own oracles: without undertaking to prove this in oppofition to Dr. P. we fhall content Quríelves with lamenting that he has laid down, in treating of the prophecies, no principles of prophetic interpretation. Like a divine of the loweft order, he quotes and ftrings prophecies together but he omits to inform us on what authority he fo connects and arranges them. The power of a name is of little moment in this age of inquiry; and. Dr. P. fhould have

Before published, and here re-printed to complete the plan.

explained