press their precepts only by temporal motives. They could not invigorate the patience, excite the industry, stimulate the hopes, or touch the consciences of their hearers, by displaying the awful prospects of eternity. And if now, even arguments, founded upon the sublime views of a future state, are often found insufficient to recommend religion and morality, what hopes could they have of raising the attention of the multitude?

Hence the wisest instructions of the philosophers were unable to effect any remarkable change in the minds and lives of any considerable number of men; or to make them willing to lay down their lives for the sake of virtue, as the disciples and followers of Christ are known to have done. In speculation, indeed, it may perhaps seem possible, that the precepts of the philosophers might at least be sufficient to reform men's lives for the future; but, in experience and practice, it has appeared impossible for philosophy to reform mankind effectually, without the assistance of some higher principle. In fact, the philosophers never did or could effect any remarkable change in the minds and lives of men, such as the preaching of Christ and his apostles undeniably did produce. The wisest and most sensible of the philosophers themselves have not been backward to complain, that they found the understandings of men so dark and beclouded, their wills so biassed and inclined to evil, their passions so outrageous and rebellious against reason, that they considered the rules and laws of right reason as very difficult to be practised, and they entertained very little hope of ever being able to persuade the world to submit to them. In short, they confessed, that human nature was strangely corrupted; and they acknowledged this corruption to be a disease, of the true cause of which they were ignorant, and for which they could not find out a sufficient remedy: so that the great duties of religion were laid down by them as matters of speculation and dispute, rather than as rules of action; and they were not so much urged upon the hearts and lives of men, as proposed to their admiration. In short, the heathen philosophy was every way defective and erroneous: and, if there were any thing really commendable in it, it was owing to traces and scattered portions of the revelations contained in the Scriptures, with which the philosophers had become acquainted through various channels.

Further, if, from the principles and practices that obtained in private life, we ascend to those which influenced the governments of the antient heathen nations, we shall find that the national spirit, which was cherished by their different states, was every where of an exceptionable character. Thus, "the eastern sovereigns aimed, with unbounded ambition, at the establishment and extension of despotic power; ruling, excepting in a few instances, with capricious tyranny and licentious indulgence, while their prostrate subjects were degrad

verum frequenter accedunt. Sed nihil ponderis habent illa præcepta ; quia sunt humana, et auctoritate majori, id est, divinâ illâ carent. Nemo igitur credit; quia tam se hominem putat esse qui audit, quam est ille qui præcipit. Lactantii Institutiones, lib. iii. c. 27.

ed and trampled down like the mire in the streets, and rendered base, superstitious, and vile in manners and conduct.

The Grecian states cherished a love of freedom, and a generous ardour for noble actions; but they rarely manifested a respect for justice in their contests with other nations, and little regard to the rights of humanity; while, in the internal regulations of their governments, they seldom adhered to the principles of moderation and equity. Their distinguished men excited jealousy and commotions by ambition; and the general classes of the community exhibited a spirit of base ingratitude towards their benefactors, an ungenerous suspicion of their most virtuous rulers, and an hatred of all who were raised to distinction by pre-eminent qualities. They calumniated those who were most entitled to praise, and banished men whose talents did honour to the periods in which they lived, and who have transmitted the fame of their several countries to distant times, persecuting to expulsion and death those whose justice and wisdom have excited the admiration of all succeeding ages.

The Romans professed to oppose tyranny, and to spare those subjected to their power; but their object was universal dominion. They displayed the virtues of a stern and military people in rising to eminence, and particularly a noble patriotism and devotion to the public interest; but their lusts engendered unceasing wars, and their internal state was disturbed and agitated with contests for an agrarian equality which never could exist, and with tumults of factious men clamouring for freedom, while they promoted sedition, and aimed at exorbitant power. Dissension and civil wars at length subjected them to imperial authority, which soon degenerated into the despotism of men, raised by military caprice to a short-lived and precarious power, or brought forward by the chance of revolutions; while the empire was shaken by internal enemies, or sunk in its decline into feebleness and decay.

The laws of nations were not established upon any foundation commensurate with the importance of their objects; they were ill defined and little respected. War, particularly in its earliest periods, was little better than pillage and piracy. A respect for heralds and ambassadors, and for the claims of the vanquished, was often violated."3

V. Lastly, if we advert to the pagan nations of the present age, we learn from the unanimous testimony of voyagers and travellers, as well as from those who have resided for any considerable time among them, that they are immersed in the grossest ignorance and idolatry, and that their religious doctrine and practices are equally corrupt.

Thus, in Tartary, the Philippine islands, and among the savage nations of Africa, the objects of worship are the sun, moon, and

1 Homer and Thucydides, lib. i. and Justin, lib, iv. c. 3.

2 Herod. lib. vii. c. 133.

3 Dr. Gray on the Connection between the Sacred Writings and the Literature of Jewish and Heathen Authors, &c. vol. i. pp. 217, 218. 220.

stars, the four elements, and serpents; at Tonquin, the several quarters of the earth; in Guinea, birds, fishes, and even mountains; and almost every where, evil spirits. Together with idolatrous worship, sorcery, divination, and magic almost every where prevail. Among their religious tenets, we may notice that, in Tartary, they believe in two gods, one of heaven, the other of the earth; in Japan, they hold that there are two sorts of gods, and that demons are to be feared; in Formosa, that several gods preside over the several quarters of the earth, one of whom is paramount above the rest, attaining his supremacy by passing through a multitude of bodies; the Tartars, and American Indians, believe in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of beasts, and (as many African tribes also believe) that the souls of men after death require meat, drink, and other accommodations of this life. Corresponding with such principles, are the moral conduct of these, and indeed of almost all pagan nations. Polygamy, divorce at the caprice of the husband, and infanticide, are nearly universal. Among many of the African tribes, as well as in America, cannibalism prevails; and almost every where, human lives are sacrificed at the caprice of a tyrannical sovereign.1 Many of these nations are yet in the deepest barbarism; but if we advert to the actual state of Hindostan and of China, which countries have been highly celebrated for their progress in the useful arts, we shall find that they are equally ignorant of the true object of worship, and equally immoral in private life.

The religion of the Hindoos, like that of the antient Persians, is affirmed to have originally recognised but one supreme God.2 But whatever may be found in the Vedas, or books by them accounted sacred, implying the unity of God, is completely disfigured and lost in the multitude of deities or idols associated with him; and in the endless superstitions into which the Hindoo worship has degenerated, from the earliest periods of authentic history. In Hindostan, indeed, the polytheism is of the grossest kind, not fewer than three hundred and thirty millions of deities, claiming the adoration of their worshippers: rites the most impure, penances the most toilsome, almost innumerable modes of self-torture, as various and extraordinary in kind as a distorted fancy can suggest, and as exquisite in degree as human nature can sustain, the burning or burying of widows, infanticide, the immersion of the sick or dying in the Ganges, and self-devotement to destruction by the idol Juggernaut, are among the horrid practices that flow from the system of idolatry established among them, and which are exceeded in folly or ferocity by none to which paganism has given birth. The manifest effects of this system are, an immersion into the grossest moral darkness, and a universal

1 See Millar's History of the Propagation of Christianity, vol. i. ch. vii. 2 See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 172. where the same thing is asserted of the faith of the Arabs and Tartars. See also Sir John Malcolm's Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 147, where the Hindoos are said to have degenerated from a worship, originally pure, into idolatry; though it is, at the same time, admitted in a note, " that the most antient Hindoos, though they adored God, worshipped the sun and elements.”

corruption of manners. The Hindoo is taught that the image which he beholds is really God, and the heaviest judgments are denounced against him, if he dare to suspect that it is nothing more than the elements of which it is composed. In the apprehensions of the people in general, the idols are real deities; they occupy the place of God, and receive that homage, fear, service, and honour which the AlMIGHTY CREATOR So justly claims. The government of God is subverted, together with all the moral effects arising from the knowledge of his perfections and his claims upon his rational creatures. There are, it is true, eastern maxims of morality, which perhaps are not inferior to the purest doctrines of the Greeks and Romans; and it will not be denied by those who have examined them, that they have many points of resemblance even to Christian morality. But, in consequence of the total want of authority, (common to them with all other heathen nations), either to enforce what is pure in their morality or to emancipate the people from the most inveterate and detestable usages, the Hindoos present to us all the same inherent defects which characterise the morality of the antient western heathens. Institutions, of a most malignant nature, exist among them, by which the superior and privileged orders are enabled to keep the people in perpetual ignorance and slavery; and to exclude them for ever from the comforts, the duties, and even the society of their fellows. Hence the universal characteristics of the Hindoos are, habitual disregard of truth, pride, tyranny, theft, falsehood, deceit, conjugal infidelity, filial discbedience, ingratitude, (the Hindoos have no word expressive of thanks), a litigious spirit, perjury, treachery, covetousness, gaming, servility, hatred, revenge,3 cruelty, private murder, the destruction of illegitimate children, particularly by procuring abortion (not fewer than ten thousand children are computed to be thus murdered in the single province of Bengal every month), and want of tenderness and compassion to the poor, the sick, and the dying.4

The religious and moral state of China, though less degraded than that of the Hindoos, is deplorable, notwithstanding its boasted superiority in arts and science, and in the wisdom of its institutions. Religion, as a system of divine worship, as piety towards God, and as holding forth future rewards and punishments, can hardly be said to exist among the Chinese. They have no sabbatical institution, no

1 Asiat. Researches, vol. viii. pp. 297, 298.

2 See Asiat. Researches, vol. iv. pp. 166, 167.

3 Where other revenge for a supposed injury is not in their power, they are known to destroy themselves, expressly in order that the guilt of their death may rest upon their enemies; and in the hope, that, in the process of the metempsychosis (to which they give implicit credit.) they may have more speedy opportunity of wreaking their full vengeance on the offender. This custom is called Dhurna. See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 337.

4 See Ward's History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos, 4 vols. Svo. where the facts above noticed are fully detailed. See also Dr. Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia, and especially Mr. Charles Grant's "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to morals, and on the means of improving it," in vol. x. of the Reports of the House of Commons (1812-1813.) Tit. East India Company, Fourth Part.

congregational worship, no external forms of devotion, petition, or thanksgiving to the Supreme Being: the emperor, and he alone, -being high priest, and the only individual who stands between heaven and the people, having the same relation to the former that the latter are supposed to bear to him, performs the sacred duties according to the antient ritual, and at certain fixed periods, but the people have no concern with them. All ranks, from the emperor downwards, are full of absurd superstitions, and worship a multitude of imaginary spirits that are supposed to preside over the seasons of the year, over mountains and rivers, and over the door and hearth of the house, and influence all the concerns of men. The absurd notion of the transmigration of souls into other bodies is universal; and other articles of faith prevail among them, as various as the modes of worship; in all which the people appear to be rather actuated by the dread of evil in this life, than by the fear of punishment in another. The duties which they perform are more with a view to appease an angry deity, and avert impending calamities, than from any hope of obtaining a positive good. They rather consult or inquire of their gods what may happen, than petition them to grant it, for a Chinese can scarcely be said to pray. He is grateful when the event proves favourable to his wishes, petulant and peevish with his gods when it is adverse. Though some individual instances of integrity have occurred in the intercourse of the Chinese with Europeans, yet their general character is that of fraud, lying, and hypocrisy. Polygamy universally prevails, as also the cruel practice of exposing infants to perish, not fewer than nine thousand of whom are computed to be annually destroyed at Pekin, and the same number in the rest of the empire.

Nor is the case materially different with the Mohammedans. Though their religion includes the acknowledgment of one living and true God; yet, rejecting the Messiah, and attaching themselves to a sanguinary and lascivious impostor, it produces no good effect upon their morals, but leaves them under the dominion of barbarity and voluptuousness. These and similar instances of corruption in worship, doctrine, and practice, which have prevailed and still exist in the heathen world, fully prove the utter insufficiency of natural reason to be a guide in religion; and also show into what monstrous opinions and practices whole nations may be led, where that is their guide, without any help from revelation. Nor will it diminish the force of this argument, to say that these instances of corruption are owing to an undue use of their reason, or that the measure of reason, possessed by the heathen nations, is low and imperfect; since they are sufficiently skilful in whatever concerns their political or personal interests, in the arts of annoying their neighbours, and defending themselves against incursions, in forming alliances for their defence, and conducting the ordinary affairs of life according to the manners and customs of their several countries. Nor are the absur

1 Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. iii. part i. article China. Barrow's Travels in China, pp. 418-487.