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LETTER II.

"What

OUR Apologist observes, dear sir, p. 11, “ever might be the force of Mr. Hume's faith, no "one, it is conjectured, will charge him with having

neglected good works. I do not pretend,” adds he, "to say how far those are, or are not suf"ficient."

Indeed, I believe there will be no absolute necessity, upon this occasion, of going deep into the controversy concerning faith and works. The character in which Mr. Hume principally appeared, and on which he chiefly valued himself, was that of an author. He passed his life in writing; the effects of his writings are visible in his worthy apologist, and many others; they are likely to go down to posterity. An unwearied endeavour to propagate the principles contained in those writings, is what we can never consent to dignify with the appellation of a good work. To worship, to love, and to serve God, oneself, is the first of good works; to teach and incite others to do the same, is the second. To renounce every thing of this kind, oneself, is the first of evil works; and the second is like unto it, to tempt and seduce others, that they may fall after the same example of unbelief. This is the employment of that person, whom the apologist mentions, as having joined with

the dancing-master, and the perfumer, in compounding a system of manners, recommended by the late Earl of Chesterfield. He might possibly divert himself in that way, at his leisure hours; but when he set to business in good earnest, the issue was, AN IN

QUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

The apologist is fond of citing two lines, which have been often cited by others with a similar view.

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, "His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." The Christian faith, at its first appearance, endured the trial of ten persecutions, and triumphed over the wit, wisdom, and power of the whole Roman empire. Offered openly to the inspection and examination of the world, it has now stood its ground above seventeen hundred years. The apologist hardly expects it should at length fall before a couplet of Mr. Pope. Poets, he knows, are not upon oath; and one for sense, and one for rhyme, is often a fair composition. The verses rhyme well; but as to sense, that is another question. Their author somewhere tells us, that in reading religious controversy, he still found himself to agree with the last author he perused. One cannot therefore well take him for a guide in these matters. The bright sun of the morning fell from his exalted station in the heavens; and he, who penned MESSIAH, was afterwards unfortunately duped by the sophistry of Bolingbroke. "Evil "communications corrupt good manners."

Page 112. "A system which seems to have been pillaged "from the dancing-master, the perfumer, and the devil."

As to the verses in hand, I know not that they were designed to extend by any means so far, as, by the present application, the apologist means to extend them. If they were, the proposition contained in them will be this: that, provided a man discharge the relative and social offices, it matters not what deity he acknowledges and worships; or whether he acknowledge and worship any.

I am sorry I should be obliged to go back to a thing so vulgar and antiquated as my CATECHISM. But so it happens. I cannot forget that, when a boy, I learned two things: my duty towards God, and my duty towards my neighbour. my neighbour. And, from that day to this, it never entered into my head, that the performance of the latter would atone for the neglect of the former. Surely one might as well say, the performance of the former would atone for the breach of the latter. But the apologist will never allow one; and we cannot submit to allow the other. What! Shall we make a conscience of discharging our duty to men like ourselves, and none of discharging that to our Maker, our Redeemer, our God? Is it reckoned praise-worthy, generous, noble, great, and good, to love and celebrate an earthly parent or benefactor; and can it be deemed a point of indifference, whether we believe or deny, whether we bless or blaspheme our heavenly and eternal Father and Friend, who gives us life, and breath, and all things, in this world, and invites us to a far more happy and glorious state of existence in another? May we adore Jehovah, or Baal; the Creator of the universe, or a monkey, or matter,

or chance, or nothing, as the whim takes us, and be blameless? Tell it not to believers; publish it not among the Christians!

The matter of fact is that life cannot be in the right, which is spent in doing wrong. And if to question all the doctrines of religion, even to the providence and existence of a God, and to put morality on no other foot than that of UTILITY-if to do this be not to do wrong-then farewell all distinction between right and wrong for evermore. To maintain and diffuse the truth of God is to do his will; to deny, corrupt, or hinder it, is to work iniquity; and a life so employed is a wicked lifeperhaps the most wicked that can be imagined. For what comparison is there between one who commits a crime of which he may repent, or, at worst, it may die with him; and one who, though he do not himself commit it, teaches and encourages all the world to commit it by removing out of the way the strongest sanctions and obligations to the contrary, in writings which may carry on the blessed work from generation to generation? Let not these errors be called errors of speculation only. Action flows from speculation. No man ventures upon sin, till he has, for the time at least, adopted some false principle. And "when men begin to look "about for arguments in vindication of impiety and

immorality, such speculations as those of Mr. "Hume become interesting, and can hardly fail of "a powerful and numerous patronage. The corrupt judge; the prostituted courtier; the states

"blood of his country; the pettifogger, who fat"tens on the spoils of the fatherless and widow, "the oppressor, who, to pamper his own beastly "appetite, abandons the deserving peasant to beg

gary and despair; the hypocrite, the debauchee, "the gamester, the blasphemer-all prick up their ears, when they are told, that a celebrated author "has written Essays, containing such doctrines, and leading to such consequences." Weighed against a conduct like this, the moralities of social life (a system of which, by the way, according to Mr. Hume, every man is left to compound for himself) are dust upon the balance; they are like the salutation of Joab, when he smote Amasa to the heart: "And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my "brother? And Joab took Amasa by the beard "with the right hand, to kiss him. But Amasa took "no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand; so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and "shed out his bowels to the ground.' In short, if faith in God be not the effect of superstition and imposture, which no man has yet proved it to be, we are bound to regard it as our most valuable possession, and to esteem those who would rob the world of it as the worst of thieves; however towards each other they may practise what the apologist styles the duties, the decencies, and the charities".

Page 12. "Perhaps it is one of the very worst "circumstances against Christianity, that very few of