frit product of which has been always feen to be a total oblivion of a God.

But if we are to fuppofe what the poet would feem to infinuate, in difcredit of the difpenfation, that the foil of Judea was abfolutely incorrigible; a more convincing proof cannot be given of that

EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE

which Mofes promifed to them. So that if the corrigibility of a bad foil perfectly agreed with the END of the difpenfation, which was a feparation, the incorrigibility of it was as well fitted to the MEAN, which was an extraordinary Previdence. For the fact, that Judea did fupport thofe vaft multitudes, being unquestionable, and the natural incapecity of the country fo to do, being allowed, nothing remains, but that we must recur to that extraordinary Providence which not only was promifed, but was the natural confequence of a theocratic form of government. But I am inclined to keep between the two contrary fuppofitions, and take up the premifes of the one, and the conclusion of the other: to hold that the fterility of Judea was very corrigible; but that all pofAble culture would be inadequate to the vast number which it fuftained, and that therefore its natural produce was fill further multiplied by an extraordinary blefing upon the land.

To fupport this fyftem we may obferve, that this extraordinary affiftance was bellowed more eminently, because more wanted, while the Ifraelites remained in the wilderness, MOSES, whofe word will yet go as far as our general bifarian's, fays, that when God took Jacob up, to give him his

Law, he found him indeed in a defert land, and in the wafte bowling wilderness; but it was no longer fuch, when now God hath the leading of him. "He led him about," (i. e. while he was preparing him for the conqueft of the promifed land,)" be inftruded bim," (i. e. by the Law, which he there gave him,)" be kept him as the apple of his eye," (i. e. he preferved him there by his extraordinary Providence ;) the effects of which he defcribes in the next words, he made him ride on the high places of the earth,' (i.e. he made the wilderness to equal, in its produce, the beft cultivated places,) that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to fuck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; butter of kine, and milk of fheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bathan," (i. e. large as that breed,) and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat,” (i.e. the flour of wheat;)" and thou didft drink the pure blood of the grape."

That this was no fairy-fcene, appears from the effects." Jefhurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatnefs; then be forfook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his falvation, &c," This fevere reproof of Mofes certainly did not put the Ifraelites in an humour to take the wonders in the foregoing account on his word, had the facts he appeals to been the leaft equivocal.

On the whole, we can form no conception how God could have chofen a people, and affigned them a land to inhabit, more proper for

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the

the difplay of his almighty power, than the people of Ifrael and the land of Judea. As to the people, the PROPHET, in his parable of the vine-tree, informs us, that they were naturally the weakest and moft contemptible of all nations: and as to the land, the POET, in his great fable, which he calls a general history, affures us, that Judea was the vileft and most bar ren of all countries. Yet fomehow or other this chofen people became the inftructors of mankind, in the nobleft office of humanity, the fcience of true theology: and the promised land, while made fubfervient to the worship of one God, was changed, from its native fterility, to a region flowing with milk and honey; and, by reafon of the incredible numbers which it fuftained, defervedly entitled the GLO

RY OF ALL LANDS.

This is the ftate of things which SCRIPTURE lays before us. And I have never yet feen thofe ftrong reafons, from the fchools of infidelity, that should induce a man, bred up in any fchool at all, to prefer their logic to the plain facts of the facred hiftorians.

I have ufed their teftimony to expofe one, who indeed renounces their authority: but in this I am not confcious of having tranfgreffed any rule of fair reafoning. The Freethinker laments that there is no contemporary hiftorian remaining, to confront with the Jewish law. giver, and detect his impoftures. However, he takes heart, and boldly engages his credit to confute him from his own hiftory.

This is a fair attempt. But he prevaricates on the very onfet. The facred hiftory, befides the many civil facts which it contains, has many of a miraculous nature. Of thefe, our freethinker will allow the firft only to be brought in evidence; and then bravely attacks his adverfary, who has now one hand tied behind him: for the civil and the miraculous facts, in the Jewish difpenfation, have the fame, nay, a nearer relation to each other, than the two hands of the fame body; for these may be ufed fingly and independently, though to difadvantage; whereas the civil and the miracu lous facts can neither be underflood or accounted for, but on the individual inspection of both. This is confeffed by one who, as clear-fighted as he was, certainly did not fee the confequence of what he fo liberally acknowledg ed." The miracles in the Bible" (fays his philofophic lordship)

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are not like thote in Livy, detached pieces, that do not disturb the civil history, which goes on very well without them. But the miracles of the Jewish hiftorian are intimately connected with all the civil affairs, and make a neceffary and infeparable part. The whole hiftory is founded in them; it confifts of little elfe, and if it were not an hiftory of them, it would be a hiftory of nothing t."

From all this I affume, that where an unbeliever, a philofo pher if you will, (for the poet Voltaire makes them convertible terms) pretends to fhew the falfhood

of

of Mofes's miffion from Mofes's own history of it; he who undertakes to confute his reafoning, argues fairly when he confutes it upon facts recorded in that hiftory, whether they be of the miraculous or of the civil kind; fince the two forts are fo infeparably connected, that they must always be taken together, to make the hiftory undertood, or the facts which it contains intelligible.

The knowledge of God the best principle to build a good education upon; with a very fimple method of mak. ing children fenfible, that God is not corporeal: from father Gerdil's refutation of Mr. Rouffeau's Emi

lius.

T

HE most proper and efficacious method of leading children to what is good, and guarding them against evil, is to infpire them with the fear of God. It will be in vain for Mr. Rouffeau to fay that the idea of a Godhead is too fublime for children; we speak not of the fpeculative ideas of Simonides, who when he had afked of Hiero a day's time to explain to him what was God, the next day afked two, and afterwards four days, and concluded with faying, that the more he reflected on the question propofed to him by Hiero, the more obfcure and difficult he found it.

A child knows that a house, a ftatue, a picture, or a piece of furniture, did not make itfelf; he knows it, and let us fhew him what we will, if he remarks uniformity and regularity in it, he will not fail afking, who made that? This difpofition is natural to

all children, and this difpofition may naturally open their minds to the knowledge of God.

Let them be told that the world, which exhibits to their view fo magnificent a profpect, did not make itfelf; in telling them this, you tell them nothing novel; they already knew that a houfe could not make itself. But who made the world? It is God, fhall we anfwer? at the fame time explaining to them that God who made the world has not a body like men: that we cannot fee him with our eyes that he knows every thing, and can do what he pleases: that he is good, that he created men to make them happy that he is juft, that he rewards the good and punishes the wicked.

Thefe truths are undoubtedly fublime, and we cannot enough wonder that they should be equally intelligible to the meaneft capacity; the reafon to be affigned for it is, their being neceffary to the perfection and happiness of man. This is the reafon they are fo conformable to the first regular ideas which appear in the minds of children, and that they are connected with these ideas, being in a manner homogeneous.

A child inftructed in this manner, let Mr. Rouffeau fay what he pleafes, will be neither an idolater nor a canibal. The greatest difficulty is, to make him fenfible that God is not corporeal. The following is a method I have with fuccefs tried on fome children.

The child begins by fayingHas God no body? how can he have any thing, if he has no body? Mafter. Obferve all the bodies you fee, have they not all fome length and fome breadth? P 4

Child.

pretend to educate a child by reafon! it is beginning with the end, and making the end the means: if children understood reason, they would have no want of education."

Mr. Locke's maxim is far from being a bad one. If it does not always fucceed, it is owing to there being few men (I mean those who have the care of children's education) who are capable of reasoning with them in a proper manner. We should not fo much reafon with children, as lead them. I will explain myself.

By obferving the difcourfe and actions of children, it may eafily be perceived that they begin to exercise the faculty of combining their ideas, of comparing, one with the other, the objects of their immediate attention, and arranging these things according to the defign they have conceived. Such is the firft effort of reafon, which is nothing more than the faculty of arranging, facultas ordinatrix. If it fo happens that they are defective in their combinations, this defect generally arifes from their want of attention to fome intermediate idea, which their eagerness made them lofe fight of, though it is often an idea very fimple in its nature, and much within the extent of their capacities. Then is the time to fuggeft this idea to them, and they will fpeedily, of their own accord, correct their reasoning. In this manner, in my opinion, children may be taught to reafon, by reafoning with them. Sup pofe a child to be fcrawling on fome paper, and that he draws a man and a house. What, fhould the man be as tall as the houfe! what can

be more eafy than to make him perceive this difproportion, and teach him to conceive an idea of objects in their just proportions in order to arrange them properly?

we

The remark of Horace, that children confer royalty on him who beft deferves it, proves, as have already obferved, that children are fufceptible of moral ideas; that they know what merit, preference, reward, and punishment are; and, of courfe, they cannot be ignorant of moral good and evil, duty, authority, and obedience. I do not fay that thefe things fhould be explained to them by abftracted definitions, or by methodical divifions and fubdivifions; but I fay, that we fhould endeavour to make them have a notion of these things, by pointing them out to children in particular actions, which bear their character, and make a lively impreffion on them. A child complains to his mafter of fome injury being done him by one of his com panions: he defires to have reparation for this injury, and that his companion fhould be chaftifed. This is a practical circumstance, very proper to make him fenfible, by his own experience, of the neceffity there is for a fuperior authority, which keeps all things in order, prevents the wicked from hurting the good, and to which of course it is requifite that every one should fubmit. A thousand fimilar cafes will furnish other not lefs favourable occafions of giving children ideas of morality, and of making them perceive, in the occurrences of their lives, the motives which fhould induce them to prefer virtue, and fly from vice.

The