christians who are accountable for them, from the religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades all things is pure from matter and from sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked men, that have arrogated and defiled the christian name, sink out of sight through a chasm like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, though they leave the numbers small. It needs so very moderate a share of discernment, in a protestant country at least, where a well-known volume exhibits the religion itself, genuine and entire as it came from heaven, to perceive the essential disunion and antipathy between it and all these abominations, that to take them as congenial and inseparable, betrays, in every instance, a detestable want of principle, or a most wretched want of sense. The defect of cordiality toward the religion of Christ, in the persons that I am accusing, does not arise from this debility or this injustice. They would not be less equitable to christianity than they would to some estimable man, whom they would not esteem the less because villains that hated him, knew, however, so well the excellence of his name and character, as gladly to avail themselves of them in any way they could to aid their schemes, or to shelter their crimes. But indeed these remarks are not strictly to the purpose; since the prejudice which a weak or corrupt mind receives from such a view of the christian history, operates, as we see by facts, not discriminately against particular characteristics of christianity, but against the whole system, and leads toward a denial of its divine origin. On the contrary, the class of persons now in question fully admit its divine authority, but feel a repugnance to some of its most peculiar distinctions. These peculiarities they may wish, as I have said, to refine away; but in moments of impartial

seriousness, are constrained to admit something very near at least to the conviction, of their being inseparable from the sacred economy. This however fails to subdue or conciliate the heart; and the dislike to some of the parts has often an influence on the affections in regard to the whole. That portion of the system which they think they could admire, is admitted with the coldness of a mere speculative assent, from the effect of the intruding recollection of its being combined with something else which they cannot admire. Those distinctions from which they recoil, are chiefly comprised in that view of christianity which, among a large proportion of the professors of it, is denominated in a somewhat specific sense, Evangelical; and therefore I have adopted this denomination in the title of this letter. Christianity taken in this view contains-a humiliating estimate of the moral condition of man, as a being radically corrupt -the doctrine of redemption from that condition by the merit and sufferings of Christ-the doctrine of a divine influence being necessary to transform the character of the human mind, in order to prepare it for a higher station in the universe-and a grand moral peculiarity by which it insists on humility, penitence, and a separation from the spirit and habits of the world. I do not see any necessity for a more formal and amplified description of that mode of understanding christianity which has acquired the distinctive epithet Evangelical; and which is not, to say the least, more discriminatively designated among the scoffing part of the wits, critics, and theologians of the day, by the terms Fanatical, Calvinistical, Methodistical.

I may here notice that, though the greater share of the injurious influences on which I may remark operates more pointedly against the peculiar doctrines of christianity, yet some of them are perniciously effectual

against its moral sentiments and laws, which are of a tenour corresponding to the principles it prescribes to our faith. I would observe also, that though I have specified the more refined and intellectual class of minds, as indisposed to the religion of Christ by the causes on which I may comment, and though I keep them chiefly in view, yet the influence of some of these causes extends in a degree to many persons of subordinate mental rank.

LETTER II.

In the view of an intelligent and honest mind the religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Saviour of the world himself while he mingled with scribes and pharisees, or publicans and sinners. But though it thus instantly and totally separates itself from all appearance of relation to the vices of bad men, a degree of effort may be required in order to display it, or to view it in an equally perfect separation from the weakness of good ones. It is in reality no more identified with the one than with the other; its essential sublimity is as incapable of being reduced to littleness, as its purity is of uniting with vice. But it may have a vital connexion with a weak mind, while it necessarily disowns a wicked one; and the qualities of that mind with which it confessedly unites itself, will much more seem to adhere to it, than of that with which all its principles are plainly in antipathy. It will be more natural to take those persons who are acknowledged the real subjects of its influence, as illustrations of its nature,

than those on whom it is the heaviest reproach that they pretend to be its friends. The perception of its nature and dignity must be clear and absolute, in the man who can observe it under the appearance it acquires in intimate combination with the thoughts, feelings, and language of its disciples, without ever losing sight of its own essential qualities and lustre. No possible associations indeed can diminish the grandeur of some parts of the christian system. The doctrine of immortality, for instance, cannot be reduced to take even a transient appearance of littleness, by the meanest or most uncouth words and images that shall ever be employed to represent it. But some other things in the system have not the same obvious philosophic dignity; and these are capable of acquiring, from the mental defects of their believers, such associations as will give a character much at variance with our ideas of magnificence, to so much as they constitute of the evangelical economy. One of the causes therefore which I meant to notice, as having excited in persons of taste a sentiment unfavourable to the reception of evangelical religion, is, that this is the religion of many weak and uncultivated minds.

The schools of philosophy have been composed of men of superior faculties and extensive accomplishments, who could sustain, by eloquence and capacious thought, the dignity of the favourite themes; so that the proud distinctions of the disciples and advocates appeared as the attributes of the doctrines. The adepts could attract refined and aspiring spirits by proclaiming, that the temple of their goddess was not profaned by being a rendezvous for vulgar men. On the contrary, it is the beneficent distinction of the gospel, that though it is of a magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic investigation, (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt

on the pride of human intelligence rejecting it for its meanness,) it is yet most expressly sent to the class which philosophers have always despised. And a good man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communication has come from heaven, adapted to effect the happiness of multitudes in spite of natural debility or neglected education. While he observes that confined capacities do not preclude the entrance, and the permanent residence, of that sacred combination of truth and power, which finds no place in the minds of many philosophers, and wits, and statesmen, he is grateful to him who has "hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes."

But it is not to be denied that the natural consequence follows. Contracted and obscured in its abode, the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who can be content to receive his impression of the intellectual character of the religion from the form of its manifestation made from the minds of its disciples; and, in doing so, can indolently and perversely allow himself to regard its weakest display as its truest image. In taking such a dwelling, the religion seems to imitate what was prophesied of its Author, that, when he should be seen, there would be no beauty that he should be desired. This humiliation is inevitable; for unless miracles were wrought, to impart to the less intellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the evangelic truth must accommodate itself to the dimensions and habitudes of their minds. And perhaps the exhibitions of it will come forth with more of the character of those minds, than of its own celestial distinctions insomuch that if there were no declaration of the sacred system, but in the forms of conception and language in which they give it forth, even a candid

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