VIII. cured by these fame bloody-minded LET. prelates of ours, the infidels are now obliged, on a funday evening, to blafpheme in PRIVATE! This is a falling off, to which my memory furnishes me with nothing fimilar, unless it be the ftory of a man, much given to the ufe of the long bow, who afferted, one morning, to his family, that he had just feen forty couple of dogs running through the yard. It being denied that fo many were kept in the country, "Nay," cried he, "I am fure there were "twenty." The audience ftill continuing fceptical, "Why, then," faid he, with perfect gravity, "it was our "little brown cur!" For fuch "cruel, barbarous, and "inhuman" ufage, thefe gentlemen are determined, it feems, to have their revenge LET. revenge upon the church, and really VIII. think themselves able, at this time of day, to write Revelation out of the world, in a twelve-penny pamphlet ! -Take this whole bufinefs together, and it is enough to make the weeping philofopher laugh. In the thirty fections of their pamphlet, they have produced a lift of difficulties to be met with in reading the Old and New Teftament. Had I been aware of their defign, I could have enriched the collection with many more, at least as good, if not a little better. But they have compiled, I dare fay, what they deemed the best, and in their own opinion prefented us with the effence of infidelity in a thumb phial, the very fumes of which, on drawing the cork, are to ftrike the bench of bifhops dead at once. Let Let not the unlearned Chriftian be LET. 66 alarmed, as though fome strange "thing had happened to him," and modern philofophy had difcovered arguments to demolish religion, never heard of before. The old ornaments of deifm have been "broken "off," upon the occafion, " and caft "into the fire, and there came out "this calf." Thefe fame difficulties have been again and again urged and difcuffed in public; again and again weighed and confidered by learned and fenfible men, of the laity as well as of the clergy, who have by no means been induced by them to renounce their faith. Indeed, why fhould they? For is any man surprised, that difficulties fhould occur in the books of Scripture, those more especially of the Old VIII. LET. Teftament? Let him reflect upon the VIII. variety of matter on which they treat; the distance of the times to which they refer; the wide difference of ancient manners and customs from those of the age in which we live; the very imperfect knowledge we have of thefe, as well as of the language in which they are defcribed; the concifeness of the narratives, fufficient for the purpose intended, but not for gratifying a reftlefs curiofity; above all, the errors and defects of tranflations. Many and painful are the refearches fometimes neceffary to be made, for fettling points of this kind. Pertnefs and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will coft learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the fame fame question fhall be triumphantly LET. afked again, the next year, as if no- VIII. thing had ever been written upon the fubject. And as people in general, for one reason or another, like fhort objections better than long anfwers, in this mode of difputation (if it can be ftyled fuch) the odds must ever be against us; and we must be content with those for our friends, who have honefty and erudition, candour and patience, to study both fides of the queftion-Be it fo. In the mean time, if we are called upon seriously for fatisfaction on any point, it is our duty to give the best in our power. But our adverfaries will permit us to obferve, that the way they are pleased to take (the way, I mean, of doubts and difficulties) is the longest way about; and I much fear they K 2 |