The train of reflection pursued in this Number, leads me naturally to notice the opinions of Archbishop Tillotson, as connected with its subject. Nor is it without much regret, that I find myself compelled to notice, for the express purpose of marking with condemnation, the opinions of a prelate, whose great talents and virtues have combined to shed so bright a lustre on the annals of the English church. This distinguished writer, having been forcibly impressed with the many visible traces of the doctrines and truths of revelation discoverable in the mythology and worship of the Heathen world, was led to conclude, with a rashness little to be expected from such a man, that the Christian religion, whilst it was in its substance a most perfect institution, was yet, in condescension to the weakness of mankind, accommodated to the existing prejudices of the world, so far as was consistent with the honour of God, and its own great and valuable purposes. And accordingly he maintains, that the doctrine of our redemption by the sacrifice of Christ, had its origin in the notion of sacrifices entertained amongst the Pagans.

"This notion" (he says)" of the expiation of sin, by sacrifices of one kind or other, seems to have obtained very early in the world; and, among all other ways of divine worship, to have found the most universal reception in all times and places. And indeed a great part of the Jewish religion and worship, was a plain condescension to the general apprehensions of men, concerning this way of appeasing the Deity by sacrifice and the greatest part of the Pagan religion and worship was likewise founded upon the same notion and opinion, which,

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So highly was Tillotson esteemed as a writer by the celebrated Locke, that, in his treatise Concerning reading and study for a gentleman, he specifically recommends the constant perusal of the works of that prelate, as a most useful exercise for the student who is desirous to acquire the talent of per spicuity. So very highly, indeed, did that most excellent judge of whatever is requisite to clearness of expression, rate the archbishop's endowments in this particular, that he has joined with him but one other writer in the English language, as exhibiting a just model for the acquisition of a perspicuous style. That writer is Chillingworth, whom he commends also for attainments of yet higher value. "Besides perspicuity" (he says) "there must be also right reasoning; without which, perspicuity serves but to expose the speaker. And for the attaining of this, I should propose the constant reading of Chillingworth, who, by his example, will teach both perspicuity and the way of right reasoning, better than any book that I know; and therefore will deserve to be read upon that account over and over again; not to say any thing of his argument."-Locke's Works, vol. iv. p 601.

Why I have so readily availed myself of the opportunity, afforded by this honourable testimony, of presenting Chillingworth to the more immediate notice of the student, at this period, and in this country, will not be difficult, upon reflection, to discover.-Quære-Are Tillotson, and Chillingworth, and writers of that manly stamp, those, with whom the youth of the present day are most solicitous to converse, for the improvement of their reasoning and their style?

because it was so universal, seems to have had its original from the first parents of mankind, either immediately after the Creation, or after the Flood; and from thence, I mean as to the substance of this notion, to have been derived and propagated to all their posterity. And with this general notion of mankind, whatever the ground or foundation of it might be, God was pleased so far to comply, as once for all to have a general atonement made for the sins of all mankind, by the sacrifice of his only Son."-Tillotson's norks, vol. i. p. 440. For similar observations see do. pp. 439, 446, 447, 451. And again in vol. ii. p. 112, he states the matter thus: that "with these notions, which had generally possessed mankind, God was pleased to comply so far, as, in the frame of the Jewish religion, (which was designed for a type of the more perfect institution of the Christian religion, and a preparation for it,) to appoint sacrifices to be slain and offered up for the sinner," &c. and that afterwards, in the dispensation of the Gospel, the same condescension to the apprehensions of mankind was likewise observed, as has been already stated.

Now it is surely much to be lamented, that when this learned Prelate had, upon a full examination of the case, been led to discover such a striking conformity between Paganism and Christianity, as must reduce the matter to this alternative, either that the Christian dispensation was framed in compliance with Heathen prejudices, or that Paganism was a corruption of those oracles which conveyed anticipa tions of the Christian scheme: it is much, I say, to be lamented, that he should have been drawn into a conclusion so directly at variance with history and scripture, when one se powerfully sustained by both, was immediately at hand.

The stumbling-block to the Archbishop, as an ingenious writer has justly remarked, was the supposition of a Religion of Nature, prior to, and independent of, revelation. Hence

*One of the most singular theories ever devised on the subject of Natu ral Religion, is that of Bishop Warburton; which I subjoin here the more readily, as it tends to show to what strange conceits even the greatest men may be carried, when they attempt to be wise beyond what is written, and presume to substitute their own conjectural reasonings, for the solid truths of revelation -Man, he contends, was created mortal, in the immaterial, as well as the material part of his nature, immateriality simply being common to him with the whole animal creation. But by God's breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, and thereby making him a living soul, the life in man was discriminated from the life in brutes; since by this act was communicated to his immaterial part a rational principle, which, by making him responsible for his actions, must require, according to the existing constitution of things, a continuance of life, and consequently, a distinct existence of the soul after its separation from the body. In the state in which, according to the Bishop, the first couple were placed previous to their admission into Paradise, they were subject only to the law of Natural Reli

arose the assumption, that the notion of expiation for sins by sacrifice, which he found so early, and so universal, was

gion, the constituent parts of which religion were discoverable by the efforts of the human understanding, unassisted by divine instruction. On being advanced to the Paradisiacal state, man became the subject of Re❤ealed Religion; and as the reward of his obedience to the positive precept attached to his new condition, immortality, (meaning thereby, the perpetual duration, and uninterrupted union of the body and soul) a quality which was altogether extraneous to his original nature, was placed within his reach, by the free grace of God. The opportunity now afforded to him of exalting his nature, by the superinduced blessing of immortality, was lost by his non-compliance with the condition: and at the same time, the corruption which his disobedience caused to that rational nature in which he had been made to resemble the divine image, degraded him to his first condition of mortality, and made him again liable to that total death, that complete annihilation to which his frame was originally subject. But by the intervention of Jesus Christ, man was not only restored to the advantages of his original state, namely, the continuance of the soul after the dissolution of the body; but he was also enabled to obtain that immortality which Adam by his obedience might have secured; with this difference however, that, in the immortality procured by Christ, death is permitted to give a temporary interruption to that existence and union of the soul and body, which, in the other case, would have been unbroken. But not only had the transgression occasioned a relapse into that state of mortality in which man had been originally created, but it also threw him back into that subjection to natural Religion, in which he was at first placed. In this dispensation of Natural Religion, which, according to Bishop, Warburton, was thus permitted to precede the dispensation of Grace, the aids and succours of virtue were not, however, according to his hypothesis, wanting; for, in his view of the subject, the light of revelation is by no means required to make known the efficacy of repentance, or the rewards of upright conduct. Both these points, he contends, are evidently manifest to the eye of reason, tracing the connexion that must subsist between the creature and his Maker. Such are the paradoxical, and, it must be added, unscriptural sentiments, conveyed by this learned writer, in the ixth book of the Divine Legation. They will be found well, though briefly, treated by Mr. Pearson, in the first three sections of his Critical Essay; a work, of which I have already had occasion to speak in p. 67, and p. 280. of this work. Dr. Graves also, in the 4th section, part III. of his Lectures on the Pentateuch, has made many valuable remarks, affecting, though not directly, these positions of the too ingenious Bishop.

It ought not to pass unnoticed, that his Lordship in one of his Letters to his friend Dr. Hurd, speaks of this his favourite theory, as intended to "confute the triumphant reasoning of unbelievers, particularly, Tindal, who say redemption is a fable: for the only means of regaining God's fa our, which they eternally confound with immortality, is that simple one which natural religion teaches, viz. repentance. To confute this, it was necessary to show, that restoration to a free-gift, and the recovery of a elaim, were two very different things. The common answer was, that natural religion does not teach reconciliation on repentance; which, if it does not, it teaches nothing, or worse than nothing." Of Natural Religion then, after all that Bishop Warburton has written about it, we have his full confession, that if it does not teach the sufficiency of repentance, it teaches even worse than nothing.-The opponent of the notion of Natural Religion, may safely allow the matter to rest upon the ground, on which the Bishop has placed it. That God will accept repentance in compensation for obedience, nothing short of the word of God can ever establish satisfactorily to any reasonable mind. The consequence of this position is supplied by the author of the Divine Legation.

the mere suggestion of human apprehension; not deduced from any express revelation concerning the Lamb of God slain, in decree and type, from the foundation of the world; not springing from any divine institution, ordained for the purpose of showing forth Christ's death, until he should himself appear in the flesh, to fulfil all that was prefigured of him, and to take away sin, and put an end to sacrifice, by the one great sacrifice of himself.

Had the Archbishop, as the same writer observes, reflect ed, that a religion or law of nature,* is a mere ens rationis: that the first parents of mankind were not left to the unassisted light of reason or nature, but were from the beginning fully instructed by their Creator, in all things necessary for

To him who would wish to see, how little the Religion of Nature, so far as it contains any thing truly valuable to man, is strictly entitled to that name, I would recommend the perusal of the preface to The Religion of Jesus delineated. The observations there contained, whilst they tend to show, in animadverting upon The Religion of Nature delineated, how sadly deficient the scheme of natural religion is found, even at this day, although sketched by the hand of a master, and aided by the borrowed discoveries of revelation, at the same time clearly evince, that the promulger of the truths of what is called natural religion, in almost every case in which he advances any that are of importance to mankind, is in reality to be deemed, not Autodidantos, but iodidanros. Of this, however, the fullest and most complete proof is to be derived from the invaluable work of Dr. Ellis, in which he may be said to have demonstrated The Knowledge of Divine Things to be from Revelation, not from Reason or Nature. Leland has also abundantly established the fact, of the total insufficiency of human reason in religious concerns, by the view, which he has given, of the state of religion in the Heathen world, in his work on The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation. From Clarke's 6th and 7th propp. of his Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, although this author is disposed to attribute to the powers of reason rather more than their due share, the same inference may be deduced-especially from what is said p. 659–665. and 666–671. vol. ii. of his works. I should be guilty of injustice to an accomplished modern writer, if on this subject I permitted to pass unnoticed, Dr. Maltby's Thesis for his degree of B. D. contained in the volume of his Illustrations of the Truth of the Christian Religion. The following proposition, "Nequit per se hu. mana ratio cognitione satis plenâ et certâ assequi, quo potissimum modo Deus sit colendus ; quæ sint hominum officia; vita denique futura sit, necne, æterna," is there treated with a justness, a succintness, a good taste, a cor rectness of style, and a strength of authority, which reflect honour upon its author as a divine and as a scholar, and cannot fail to give satisfaction to the reader, who wishes to find the substance of what can be said upon this important question, compressed into the smallest compass, and in the best manner. The concluding observation, concerning such as at the present day repose on the sufficiency of reason for a knowledge of their duties, contains a truth, in which every reflecting mind must necessarily acquiesce. "Profecto càdem, quâ veteres philosophi, caligine animi eorum sunt mersi: aut si quid melius sapiunt, id omne a Christianâ religione malâ fide mutuati sunt." p. 355. And therefore, as the writer finally remarks, it is most devoutly to be desired, that the advocates for the all-sufficiency of reason, would deeply imprint upon their minds, this momentous maxim of the great Bacon"Causa vero et radix fere omnium malorum in scientiis ea una est, quod dum mentis humanæ vires falso miramur et extollimus, vera ejus auxilia non quæramus." p. 359.

them to know: that, after their fall, the way and method of their salvation was, in a certain degree, made known to them: that all religious rites flowed from the same divine source, viz. the original revelation of the redemption of the world by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ that all the apprehensions and common prejudices of mankind, as they are called, were derived from the same fountain: that all, until the apostacy at Babel, had the same tongue, the same faith, the same Lord: that the Heathen carried off from thence the same religious rites and ceremonies, and the same sentiments concerning God and his ways with man, which, by change of language, length of time, wantonness of imagination, perverseness of human nature, and subtlety of the Devil, were reduced to that corrupted state of faith and practice in which our Saviour at his advent found them:-and that, as already observed, from the first promise made to Adam, during the patriarchal and legal dispensations, all was Christianity in type and figure; so that Christianity was the first religion in the world, corrupted afterwards indeed by the Gentile, but preserved by the Jew in type, till Christ the great antitype, the reality and completion, came :-had he (this writer observes) pursued this train of thinking, he would have found the reverse of his conclusion to be the truth; namely, "that Christianity was not instituted in compliance with Paganism, but that Paganism was nothing else but the great truths of Christianity split and debased into a legend of fables, such as we meet with in their mythology."*. Speerman's Letters to a friend concerning the Septuagint translation, and the Heathen Mythology, pp. 150, 151.

The writer, who has made the above observations, and whose reasonings would not have been less valuable had they taken less tincture from the Hutchinsonian school, has endeavoured, and not without success, to establish the point last adverted to, namely, the derivation of the Pagan mythology from the divine revelations.

Tillotson's idea corresponds with that which was afterwards adopted by Spencer. For since he admits the Jewish dispensation to have been typical of the Christian, the accommodation of the Christian scheme to Pagan prejudices, for which he contends, could only have been effected through the previous accommodation of the Jewish scheme to those prejudices; which, as we have seen in Number XLVII. falls

* If this view of the case be a just one, we certainly might reasonably expect to find in the mythology of the ancients, in a much larger and more important sense, what Plutarch says of the Egyptian fables, auudgas Tivni qupatus Tus annbetas, some faint and obecure resemblance of the truth.