*

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material God; a Descartes, who prates about the laws of motion; but a legislator, who announces to all men without hesitation; with out fear of being mistaken how the world was created, Nothing can be more simple, or sublime, than his opening, "In the beginning

* God created the heaven, and the earth :" He could not speak more assuredly if he had been a spectator, and by these words mythology systems and absurdities shrink to nought, and are mere chimeras in the eye of reason. All the academies of the universe may fancy systems on the creation of the world; but after all their researches, all their conjectures, all their combinations, their multitude of volumes, they will tell me much less than Moses has said in one single page, such is the difference between men who speak from themselves, and the man who is inspired, these were opinions of a celebrated Pontiff; but how many men have been prodigies in science, and yet have erred in their notions of the Deity? Instead of the sublime belief of the unity, have preplexed and tortured their

minds to fancy a triune God. How many philosophers whose wisdom has been proverbial have asserted absurd dogmas? because they imagined their sophistications the standard of reason, and forsook the sacred page where it was taught them.

"THE fear of the Lord is the beginning of "wisdom." Learning is ostentatious and illusive if it does not make men religious, and it is erroneous and fallacious when it relies on its own conjectures: the Unity of the Deity and obedience of his commandments are the best proofs of wisdom. How circumscribed and contemptible is a pretended knowledge founded on our own discovery. How wretchedly have philosophers floundered in their hypothetical definitions of moral duties, when they have deviated from orthodox precept; of such sophists the Prophet says, "That frustrateth the tokens "of the liars, and maketh sinners mad; that "turneth wise men backward, and maketh their "knowledge foolish."

ALL nations of the earth except Jews are

governed

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governed by human institutes, by the authority of kings, or the mandate of legislators. The government of the Jews was alone a theocrisy, it was a compact between God and his people; instead of political speculations, they consulted the Urim and Thummim; instead of precarious human suggestions, they had the dictates of the divine oracle; while they were obedient to God's injunctions they were prosperous and happy, they were his peculiar people, and they will retain his prepossession while they persist in their faith. Bishop Newton said, woe to the people who persecute them, and so will their persecutors infallibly find it. God who promised their restoration will avenge them: "I will "judge those that have judged thee, and thy "children I will save; and I will feed thy "enemies with their own flesh, and they shall "be made drunk with their own blood as with "new wine; and all flesh shall know that I am "the Lord that save thee, and thy redeemer "the mighty one of Jacob." (Isaiah.) Are these denunciations forgeries? Are they inter

polations?

polations? Have the Prophets proclaimed them, and is the bible a Christian creed, and yet so flagrantly violated? In what stronger and more terrible language can it utter its menaces, and who can outrage these defenceless people, that does not set holy writ at defiance.

IT is presumption and supererogation to quote Divine authors to one who is incessantly contemplating them, and comprehends and construes them more accurately than any other man; but perhaps, you are less intimate with the moral tenets and profound learning of Dr. WOLLASTON, the only work of this nature that does not refer to the new fangled doctrine of the Gospel; of which, and its imputed author, it is studiously silent:-read his sublime invocation,

"ALMIGHTY BEING! upon whom depends "the existence of the world, and by whose "providence I have been preserved to this

moment, and enjoyed many undeserved ad"vantages: graciously accept my grateful sense "and acknowledgments of all your beneficence toward me: deliver me from the evil con

66 sequences

te sequences of all my transgressions and follies "endue me with such dispositions and powers,

"as may carry me innocently and safely through "all future trials; and enable me upon all "occasions to behave myself conformably to the "laws of reason, piously, and wisely suffer no "being to injure me, no misfortune to befal me, "nor me to hurt myself by any error or miscon"duct of my own; vouchsafe me clear and

distinct preceptions of things; with so much "health and prosperity, as may be good for me: that I may at least pass my time in peace, with contentment, and tranquillity of mind: " and that, having faithfully discharged my duty ❝to my family and friends, and endeavoured to "improve myself in virtuous habits and useful "knowledge, I may at last make a decent and "happy exit, and then find myself in some better state."

SANCTIFIED and blessed be the gracious and Almighty God! for the Tetragammaton we dare not mention, that has made us know him; and that our fortitude and faith has not forsaken

us,