of reforming it. But they not only saw and acknowledged their great want of a divine revelation, to instruct them in their conduct towards God and towards man; they likewise expressed a strong hope or expectation, that God would, at some future time, make such a discovery as should dispel the cloud of darkness in which they were involved.1

IV. From the preceding remarks and considerations, we are authorised to infer, that a divine revelation is not only probable but necessary. In fact, without such revelation, the history of past ages has shewn, that mere human reason cannot attain to any certain knowledge of the will or law of God, of the true happiness of man, or of a future state. To a reflecting and observant mind, the harmony, beauty, and wisdom of all the varied works of creation are. demonstrative evidence of a First Great Cause; and the continued preservation of all things in their order attests a divine and superintending Providence. But the ultimate design of God in all his works cannot be perfectly known by the mere light of nature, and consequently our knowledge of his preceptive will or law is equally uncertain, so far as his works disclose it or philosophy has discovered it. Indeed, if we examine the writings of the most celebrated antient philosophers, we shall find that they were not only ignorant of many important points in religion which revelation has discovered to us, but also that endless differences and inconsistences prevailed among them in points of the greatest moment; while some of them taught doctrines which directly tend to promote vice and wickedness in the world; and the influence of all, in rectifying the notions and reforming the lives of mankind was inconsiderable. A concise statement of facts will confirm and illustrate this observation :

1. The ideas of the antients respecting the nature and worship of God were dark, confused, and imperfect.

While some philosophers asserted the being of a God, others openly denied it; others, again, embraced, or pretended to embrace,

1 Plato, de Rep. lib. iv. & vi. and Alcibiad. ii. Dr. Samuel Clarke has exhibited these and other testimonies at length in his Discourse on the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, proposition vi. (Boyle's Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 130–135. folio edit.)

2 On this subject the reader may peruse, with equal pleasure and instruction, Dr. Ellis's elaborate Treatise on the "Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature," published many years since at Dublin, and reprinted at London in 1811. 8vo. Dr. E. also threw the substance of this treatise into a single discourse, which may be substituted for the preceding by those who may not be able to command the requisite leisure for reading a large volume. The discourse in question is printed in the first volume of the well known and excellent collection of tracts intitled "The Scholar Armed against the Errors of the Time;" and is intitled "An Enquiry, whence cometh Wisdom and Understanding to Man?" It shews satisfactorily, that Religion and language entered the world by divine revelation, without the aid of which man had not been a rational or religious creature; that nothing can oblige the conscience but the revealed will of God; and that such a thing as the law of nature never existed but in the human imagination. The same argument is also discussed in an able but_anonymous tract (now of rare occurrence, and known to be written by the Rev. Dr. Findlay, a divine of the Scottish church), intitled "An Attempt to shew that the Knowledge of God has, in all Ages, been derived from Revelation or Tradition, not from Nature." Glasgow, 1773. 8vo.

the notion of a multiplicity of gods, celestial, aërial, terrestrial, and infernal; while others represented the Deity as a corporeal being united to matter by a necessary connexion, and subject to an immutable fate. As every country had its peculiar deities, the philosophers (whatever might be their private sentiments) sanctioned and defended the religion of the state; and urged a conformity to it to be the duty of every citizen. They "diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers; devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes, condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robes." It is true that insulated passages may be found in the writings of some of the philosophers, which apparently indicate the most exalted conceptions of the divine attributes and perfections. These and similar passages are sometimes regarded with a Christian eye, and thence acquire a borrowed sanctity: but, in order to discover their real value, they must be brought to their own standard, and must be interpreted upon principles strictly pagan, in which case, the context will be found, either to claim such perfections for the deified mortals and heroes of the popular theology, or to connect them with some of those physiological principles which were held by the different philosophical sects, and effectually subverted the great and fundamental doctrine of one supreme Creator.2 The religion of the antient Persians is said to have been originally founded on their belief in one supreme God, who made and governs the world.3 But a devotion founded on a principle so pure as this, if it survived the first ages after the flood, which cannot be proved, is known with certainty to have been early exchanged for the Sabian idolatry; the blind and superstitious worship of the host of heaven, of the sun, the planets, and the fire, the water, the earth, and the winds.

In consequence of these discordant sentiments, the grossest polytheism and idolatry prevailed among the antient heathen nations. They believed in the existence of many co-ordinate deities, and the number of inferior deities was infinite: they deified dead, and some

1 Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. p. 50.

2 Dr. Ireland's Paganism and Christianity compared, pp. 46, 47. Frank's Essay on the Use and Necessity of Revelation, p. 44. "These ideas of the philosophers of Europe," says Dr. Robertson, "were precisely the same which the Brahmins had adopted in India, and according to which they regulated their conduct with respect to the great body of the people. Wherever the dominion of false religion is completely established, the body of the people gain nothing by the greatest improvements in knowledge. Their philosophers conceal from them, with the utmost solicitude, the truths which they have discovered, and labour to support that fabric of superstition which it was their duty to have overturned." Historical Disquisition concerning Antient India, pp. 283, 284.

3 Asiat. Researches, vol. ii. p. 58.

4 Leland's Advant. and Necessity of the Christ. Rev. vol. i. pp. 59. 79.

5 Thus, the Chaldeans had twelve principal deities, according to the number of months in the year, and Zoroaster, the great Persian reformer, taught the Medians and Persians that there were two spirits or beings subordinate to one supreme, eternal, and self-existent being, viz. Oromasdes, the angel of light and promoter of happiness and virtue, and Arimanes, the angel of darkness and author of misery and vice. - Varro makes three sorts of heathen theology ; the fabulous, invented by the poets; the physical, or that of the philosophers; and civil or popular, which

times living persons, the former often out of injudicious gratitude, the latter usually out of base and sordid flattery. According to the vulgar estimation, there were deities that presided over every distinct nation, every distinct city, every inconsiderable town, every grove, every river, every fountain. Athens was full of statues dedicated to different deities. Imperial Rome, from political principles, adopted all the gods which were adored by the nations who had yielded to her victorious arms, and thought to eternise her empire by crowding them all into the capital. Temples and fanes were erected to all the passions, diseases, fears, and cvils, to which mankind are subject. Suited to the various characters of the divinities were the rites of their worship. Many of them were monsters of the grossest vice and wickedness: and their rites were absurd, licentious, and cruel, and often consisted of mere unmixed crime, shameless dissipation and debauchery. Prostitution, in all its deformity, was systematically annexed to various pagan temples, was often a principal source of their revenues, and was, in some countries, even compulsory upon the female population. Other impurities were solemnly practised by them in their temples, and in public, from the very thought of which our minds revolt. Besides the numbers of men, who were killed in the bloody sports and spectacles instituted in honor of their deities, human sacrifices were offered to propitiate them.1 Boys were last was instituted in the several cities and countries. - The Greek theology was thus distinguished; -1. God, who rules over all things; -2. The gods, who were supposed to govern above the moon; 3. The demons, whose jurisdiction was in the air below it; and, 4. The heroes, or souls of dead men, who were imagined to preside over terrestrial affairs. And, besides all these, the evil demons were worshipped, from fear of the mischief they might commit. These facts will account for the prodigious multitude of heathen deities, of which Hesiod computes thirty thousand to be hovering about the earth in the air, unless he is to be understood as meaning an indefinite number. - Orpheus reckoned only three hundred and sixty-five; Varro enumerated three hundred Jupiters; although he himself, together with Cicero, Seneca, and some other eminent philosophers, were ashamed of the heathen deities, and believed that there is but one God.

1 The chief oracles among the heathens appointed human sacrifices; as that at Delphi, that of Dodona, and that of Jupiter Saotes. It was a custom among the Phoenicians and Canaanites, in times of great calamity, for their kings to sacrifice one of their sons, whom they loved best; and it was common both with them, as well as with the Moabites and Ammonites, to sacrifice their children. Further, the Egyptians, the Athenians, and Lacedemonians, and, generally speaking, all the Greeks ;- the Romans, Carthaginians, Germans, Gauls, and Britons; in short, all the heathen nations throughout the world offered human sacrifices upon their altars; and this, not on certain emergencies and imminent dangers only, but constantly, and in some places every day. Upon extraordinary accidents, multitudes were sacrificed at once to their sanguinary deities. Thus, during the battle between the Sicilian army under Gelon and the Carthaginians under Amilcar, in Sicily, the latter remained in his camp, offering sacrifices to the deities of his country, and consuming upon one large pile the bodies of numerous victims. (Herod. lib. vii. c. 167.) When Agathocles was about to besiege Carthage, its inhabitants seeing the extremity to which they were reduced, imputed all their misfortunes to the anger of Saturn; because, instead of offering up children of noble descent (who were usually sacrificed) there had been fraudulently substituted for them the children of slaves and foreigners. Two hundred children of the best families in Carthage were therefore immolated, to propitiate the offended divinity; to whom upwards of three hundred citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves, from a sense of their guilt of this pretended crime. (Diod. Sic. lib. xx. c. 14.) On another occasion, the Carthaginians, having obtained a victory, immolated the

whipped on the altar of Diana, sometimes till they died. How many lovely infants did the Carthaginians sacrifice to their implacable god Moloch! What numbers of human victims, in times of public danger, did they immolate, to appease the resentment of the offended deities!

It has been said that the mysteries were designed to instruct the people in the principles of true religion and of true morality; and ingenious and learned men have laboured to represent them in this light, and also to shew how well calculated they are for this end. "They have said, that the errors of polytheism were detected and exposed, and the doctrines of the divine unity1 and supreme government taught and explained in them; that the initiated became bound by solemn engagements to reform their lives, and to devote themselves strictly to the practice and cultivation of purity and virtue; and that the celebration of the mysteries was extensive; and their influence great : 'initiantur,' says Cicero, 'gentes orarum ultimæ.'

-

"It is true, that the priests of the mysteries were highly ostentatious of their own morality, and zealous in their professions to regenerate the people. But the means which they employed were neither suitable nor adequate to that end; nor did they answer it. The mysteries, which, it has been pretended, were calculated to produce it, served only, in fact, to explain some of the subjects of mythology, and to promote the designs of human policy to inspire heroism, and to secure civil subordination and obedience. In proof of this we may ask, if they contributed at all to change the people's polytheistical opinions, or to improve their morals? Did they not, in place of becoming better by them, degenerate daily? were they not oppressed more and more by superstition, and dissolved in vice? Did not some of the best and wisest philosophers disapprove of the mysteries?-Alcibiades mocked the gods-Anaxagoras was expelled by the Athenians for the neglect of them. Socrates certainly had no good opinion of the mysteries-- he was not initiated into them; and circumstances attending them have been suggested, which ought to render their moral tendency more than suspicious.

"They were celebrated in the silence and darkness of the night,

handsomest of their captives, the flame of whose funeral pile was so great as to set their camp on fire. (Ib. lib. xx. c. 65.) Lactantius (Divin. Instit. lib. i. c. 21.) has recorded numerous similar horrid sacrifices of human victims. Beside the preceding authorities, the reader will find numerous additional testimonies, drawn from classic authors, in Dr. Harwood's Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. pp. 111-116.; Mr. Bryant's Analysis of Antient Mythology, vol. ii. pp. 224. 266. 312.; and also in Dr. Leland's Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, vol. i. ch. vii. pp. 134–157.

1 Dr. Hill (Essays on the Institutions, &c. of Antient Greece, p. 52.) is of opinion, after many eminent writers, that the doctrine of the unity of God was taught in the mysteries. See also Bp. Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. sect. 4. But Dr. Leland has long since examined the various proofs adduced in support of this sentiment; and has shewn that there is great reason to think that the notion of the Deity taught in the mysteries was not a right and just one; and even if it were so, that it would have been of little use, as it was communicated only to a few, and under the strictest seal of secrecy. Advant. and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, vol. i. pp. 158-196.

with the utmost secrecy. They were frequently conducted under the patronage of the most licentious and sensual deities. The most indecent objects were exhibited, and carried in procession. 'It is a shame,' saith the apostle, 'even to speak of those things which were done of them in secret.' At last they became so infamous, in respect both of morality and good order, that it was found necessary to prohibit them.

"It is hard to conceive how the mysteries could have any good effect on the morals of the people. It might excite the ambition of a few, to be told that the gods were nothing more than eminent men; but it was more likely to disgust the greater part of them, and to render them completely unbelieving and irreligious. Besides, considering how few were initiated, the influence of the mysteries, even supposing them to have had a beneficial influence, must have been very small on the mass of the people. Farther, the initiated were prohibited, under a solemn oath, ever to reveal the mysteries. Whatever benefit, therefore, they might themselves derive from them, they could communicate none to others; nor could the impression, however strong during the initiation, be always retained with equal strength during life. On the whole, taking the account even of those who favour them, the mysteries neither diminished the influence of Polytheism nor promoted the belief of the divine unity;-they contributed rather to the increase of superstition, and to the prevalence of licentiousness and vice. If they were designed, as has been affirmed, to shew that the public religion had no foundation in truth — to hold it up to contempt - what could have a worse effect on the mind of the people? what more injurious to religious and moral principles and practice, than to exhibit the whole civil and ecclesiastical constitution as a trick and imposition-as reared by falsehood and maintained by hypocrisy ?"1

But whatever motives may have induced the first inventors of mysteries to introduce them, the fact is that they neither did nor could correct the polytheistic notions of the people, or correct their morals, and in the course of time they became greatly corrupted; consequently they could not but have a bad effect on the people, and tend to confirm them in their idolatrous practices. All men, indeed, under pain of displeasing the gods, frequented the temples and offered sacrifices; but the priests made it not their business to teach them virtue. So long as the people were punctual in their attendance on the religious ceremonies of their country, the priests assured them that the gods were propitious, and they looked no farther. "Lustrations and processions were much easier than a steady course of virtue; and an expiatory sacrifice, which atoned for the want of it, was much more convenient than a holy life." who were diligent in the observance of the sacred customary rites, were considered as having fulfilled the duties of religion; but no farther regard was had to their morals, than as the state was con

Those

1 Dr. Ranken's Institutes of Theology, pp. 180, 181. Glasgow. 1822. 8vo.