1

to be the basis, and Cshatryas the summit of the legal system. The military class cannot prosper without the sacerdotal, nor can the sacerdotal be raised without the military: both classes, by cordial. union, are exalted in this world and in the next." Such are the professedly divine Institutes of Menu. With respect to the rites of the old Indian theology, they are indeed commemorative; and the facts, to which they relate, when rightly understood, are genuine historical facts: but, that the portentous form which those facts assume in the received theology ought to be viewed as the offspring of mere fiction, is acknowledged even by the very authors of the books in question. It is a curious circumstance, that the writer of the Hindoo account of the deluge expressly tells us at the close of his narrative, that the monstrous fish which converses with Menu is absolute delusion, and that the whole story as he relates it is to be understood as an allegorical tale,' Here then we have an unreserved confession, that the specious wonders of Paganism were no real wonders, but that they were introduced into sober history by way of throwing over it a veil of mystic obscurity. Just the same remark applies to the Babylonic account of the creation, which is said to have been revealed by a merman who came out of the Erythrèan sea. Berosus fairly allows, that the gigantic demon Omoroca, the various monsters over which she

+2 Instit. of Menu. c. xi. § 84.
3 Asiat. Research. vol. i. p. 234.

2 Ibid. c. ix. § 322.

presided, and her destruction by the god Belus, were all to be viewed as nothing more than an allegorical description of nature.'

As for the miracles, which are said to have been wrought by human agents in attestation of Paganism, such for instance as those of Apollonius Tyanèus or Vespasian or Adrian or the priests of Esculapius, they will not bear the test of sober and dispassionate examination. Either they were done in a corner; or they bear evident marks of dexterous imposture; or they were effected in the case of persons, who had a plain interest in flattering. the vanity of the deified Roman emperors.

Equally may we discard, with merited contempt, the pretended vaticinations of the Gentiles. The ambiguity of the Delphic tripod is even proverbial: and, with respect to the famous prophecy (as it has been called) of Seneca that a mighty continent should hereafter be discovered in the inmost recesses of the ocean; it is evidently nothing more, than one of those ornamental flights of poetry, which might occur to any person, and which might or might not be accomplished. In the fact itself there was nothing improbable; and, from the gradual progress of the arts, it was very natural to expect, that navigation would in process of time be considerably improved.

On the universal polytheism of the Gentiles, it is plainly superfluous to dilate; the bare fact itself needs only to be mentioned.

Beros. apud Syncell. Chronog. p. 29,

III. I might add, that every system of Paganism contradicts all ideas, which we can form of a holy and merciful Divinity: for, wherever the demon of Idolatry has appeared, cruelty and impurity have been his constant attendants; human sacrifices have been associated with systematic debauchery; and not only have the worst deeds of darkness been perpetrated, but, what is the grand characteristic of Paganism, they have formed an essential part of the system and have been perpetrated even on principle. I might further add, that the Mosaical dispensation, however its numerous ritual observances may require to be explained by that consummating revelation of which they were but so many preparatory types and shadows, is worthy of the Supreme Being, from the purity which it inculcates, from the adequate views which it gives us of his hatred of sin, and from the circumstance of its strictly prohibiting all those gentile abominations of which even the better and more enlightened Heathens could discern and acknowledge the enormous depravity.

On this point however I forbear to insist: because it might appear, in some measure, to be arguing in a circle.

Since moral duties, in their quality of duties towards God, can only be learned authoritatively from a genuine revelation we cannot perhaps be allowed to argue backward, from the unauthorized view which we might entertain of them independent of a divine communication, to the truth or falsehood of any given religion. Our feelings indeed almost

compel us to reason in this manner; but possibly the strict rules of logic may forbid us, lest haply we be whirled round in the vortex of the circulating syllogism. We all know from experience, that murder, adultery, and fraud, are offences against. society; because we find, that, if they were wholly unrestrained, the very frame of a body politic would be necessarily unhinged: but we must first learn the nature of God (and that we can only learn from revelation), before we can positively declare, that they are also offences against the Deity; and consequently that no religion, which sanctions them, can proceed from him. We feel it indeed to be perfectly agreeable to right reason, that they should be offensive to the Supreme Divinity; and, in a state of nature, we might very plausibly argue, that they are offensive to him: but, when we consider that crur philosophorum the origin and permissive existence of evil both moral and physical, I know not, how we could so absolutely demonstrate the point a priori, as to make our views of it the test of a possible revelation from heaven. Hence I choose rather to argue in an opposite direction: and, instead of seeking to prove the divine origin of the Pentateuch from the sanctity of its precepts, I would establish its inspiration by a different process; and then rest satisfied, that whatever it enjoins or prohibits must have been so enjoined or prohibited according to the dictates of the highest wisdom.

Such a plan has this grand advantage, that it silences at once every captious objection of infi

delity. Those persons reason very weakly and inconclusively, who from specious difficulties would argue the Pentateuch to be a fraud upon the credulity of mankind: they ought rather in the first instance to inquire, what direct evidence there is both for its authenticity and (what inevitably follows from its authenticity) for its divine inspiration; and, if this evidence be found irresistible, they ought then to submit themselves to the decrees of heaven, assured that whatever God does must be right. This, in fact, is but the natural process of a reasonable mind: for, if once it has been demonstrated that a religious code has proceeded from heaven, it is a palpable absurdity to object to any particulars which it contains.