(RELIGIO), is a Latin word derived, according to Cicero*, from relegere, "to re-confider;" but according to Servius and most modern grammarians, from religare, "to bind fast." The reason assigned by the Roman orator for deducing religio from relego, is in these words, "qui autem omnia, qua ad cultum deorum pertinent, diligentior retraharet, et tanquam relegere rent, sunt dicti religios ex relegendo." The reason given by Servius for his derivation of the word is, "quod mentem religio religet." If the Ciceronian etymology be the true one, the word religion will denote the diligent study of whatever pertains to the worship of the gods; but according to the other derivation, which we are inclined to prefer, it denotes that obligation which we feel on our minds from the relation in Religion, which we stand to some superior power. In either case, the import of the word religion is different from that of theology, as the former signifies a number of practical duties, and the latter a system of speculative truths. Theology is therefore the foundation of religion, or the science from which it springs; for no man can study what pertains to the worship of superior powers till he believe that such powers exist, or feel any obligation on his mind from a relation of which he knows nothing.

This idea of religion, as distinguished from theology, comprehends the duties not only of those more refined and complicated systems of theism or polytheism which have prevailed among civilized and enlightened nations, such as the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, and the theism of the Jews, the Mahometans, and the Christians; it comprehends every sentiment of obligation which human beings have ever conceived themselves under to superior powers, as well as all the forms of worship which have ever been practised through the world, however fantastic, immoral, or absurd.

When we turn our eyes to this feature of the human character, we find it peculiarly interesting. Mankind are distinguished from the brutal tribes, and elevated to a higher rank, by the rational and moral faculties with which they are endowed; but they are still more widely distinguished from the inferior creation, and more highly exalted above them, by being made capable of religious notions and religious sentiments. The slightest knowledge of history is sufficient to inform us, that religion has ever had a powerful influence in moulding the sentiments and manners of men. It has sometimes dignified, and sometimes degraded, the human character. In one region or age it has been favourable to civilization and refinement; in another, it has occasionally cramped the genius, depraved the morals, and deformed the manners of men. The varieties of religion are innumerable; and the members of every distinct sect must view all who differ from them as more or less mistaken with respect to the most important concerns of man. Religion seems to be congenial to the heart of man; for wherever human society subsists, there we are certain of finding religious opinions and sentiments.

It must, therefore, be an important subject of speculation to the man and the philosopher to consider the origin of religion; to inquire, How far religion in general has a tendency to promote or to injure the order and happiness of society? and, above all, to examine, What particular religion is best calculated to produce a happy influence on human life?

We shall endeavour to give a satisfactory answer to each of these questions; referring to the article THEOLOGY the consideration of the dogmas of that particular religion which, from our present inquiries, shall appear to be true, and to have the happiest influence on human life and manners.

1. The foundation of all religion rests on the belief of the existence of one or more superior beings, who govern the world, and upon whom the happiness or misery of mankind ultimately depends. Of this belief, as it may be said to have been universal, there seem to be but three sources that can be conceived. Either the image of Deity must be stamped on the mind of every human being, the savage as well as the sage; or the founders of societies, and other eminent persons, tracing, by the efforts efforts of their own reason visible effects to invisible causes, must have discovered the existence of superior powers, and communicated the discovery to their associates and followers; or, lastly, the universal belief in such powers must have been derived by tradition from a primeval revelation, communicated to the progenitors of the human race.

One or other of these hypotheses must be true, because a fourth cannot be framed. But we have elsewhere (Polytheism, No. 2.) examined the reasoning which has been employed to establish the first, and shewn that it proceeds upon false notions of human nature. We should likewise pronounce it contrary to fact, could we believe, on the authority of some of its patrons, who are not ashamed to contradict one another, that the Kamchatkans and other tribes, in the lowest state of reasoning and morals, have no ideas whatever of Deity. We proceed, therefore, to consider the second hypothesis, which is much more plausible, and will bear a stricter scrutiny.

That the existence and many of the attributes of the Deity are capable of rigid demonstration, is a truth which cannot be controverted either by the philosopher or the Christian; for "the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead," (see Metaphysics, Part III. chap. vi. and Theology, No 8, 9.) But surely it would be rash to infer, either that every truth for which, when it is known, the ingenuity of man can frame a demonstration, is therefore discoverable by human sagacity, or that all the truths which have been discovered by a Newton or a Locke might therefore have been discovered by untaught barbarians. In mathematical science there are few demonstrations of easier comprehension than that given by Euclid, of the theorem of which Pythagoras is the reputed author; yet no man ever dreamed that a boy capable of being made to understand that theorem, must therefore have sagacity equal to the sage of Samos; or that such a boy, having never heard of the relation between the hypotenuse and other two sides of a right-angled triangle, would be likely to discover that the square of the former is precisely equal to the sum of the squares of the latter. Just so it seems to be with the fundamental truths of theology. There can hardly be conceived a demonstration less intricate, or more conclusive, than that which the man of science employs to prove the existence of at least one God, possessed of boundless power and perfect wisdom. And could we suppose that the human race had remained without any knowledge of God in the world, till certain lucky individuals had by some means or other made themselves masters of the rules of logic, and the philosophy of causes, there can be no doubt but that these individuals might have discovered the existence of superior powers, and communicated their discovery to their associates and followers. But this supposition cannot be admitted, as it is contradicted by the evidence of all history. No nation or tribe has ever been found, in which there is not reason to believe that some notions were entertained of superior and invisible powers, upon which depends the happiness or misery of mankind; and from the most authentic records of antiquity, it is apparent that very pure principles of theism prevailed in some nations long before the rules of logic, and the philosophy of causes, were thought of by any people under heaven.

The supposition before us is inadmissible upon other accounts. Some modern philosophers have fancied that the original progenitors of mankind were left entirely to themselves from the moment of their creation; that they wandered about for ages without the use of speech and in the lowest state of savagery; but that they gradually civilized themselves, and at last stumbled upon the contrivance of making articulate sounds significant of ideas, which was followed by the invention of arts and sciences, with all the blessings of religion and legislation in their train. But this is a wild reverie, inconsistent with the phenomena of human nature.

It is a well known fact, that a man blind from his birth, and suddenly made to see, would not by means of his newly acquired sense discern either the magnitude or figure or distance of objects, but would conceive everything which communicated to him visible sensations as inseparably united to his eye or his mind (see Metaphysics, No 49—53.). How long his sense of sight would remain in such an imperfect state, we cannot positively lay; but from attending to the visible sensations of infants, we are confident that weeks, if not months, elapse before they can distinguish one thing from another. We have indeed been told, that Chefelden's famous patient, though he was at first in the state which we have described, learned to distinguish objects by sight in the course of a few hours, or at the most of a few days: but admitting this to a certain extent to be true, it may easily be accounted for. The disease called a cata-ract does not always occasion total blindness; but let us suppose the eyes of this man to have been so completely dimmed as to communicate no sensation whatever upon being exposed to the rays of light; still we must remember that he had long possessed the power of locomotion and all his other senses in perfection. He was therefore well acquainted with the real, i.e. the tangible magnitude, figure, and distance of many objects; and having been often told that the things which he touched would, upon his acquisition of sight, communicate new sensations to his mind, differing from each other according to the distance, figure, and magnitude of the objects by which they were occasioned, he would soon learn to infer the one from the other, and to distinguish near objects by means of his sight.

The progenitors of the human race, however, if left to themselves from the moment of their creation, had not the same advantages. When they first opened their eyes, they had neither moved, nor handled, nor heard, nor smelled, nor tasted, nor had a single idea or notion treasured up in their memories; but were in all these respects in the state of newborn infants. Now, we should be glad to be informed by those sages who have conducted mankind through many generations in which they were mutum et turpe pecus to that happy period when they invented language, how the first men were taught to distinguish objects by their sense of sight, and how they contrived to live till this most necessary faculty was acquired? It does not appear that men are like brutes, provided with a number of instincts which guide them blindfold and without experience to whatever is necessary for their own preservation (see Instinct): On the contrary, all voyagers tell us that Religion. In strange and uninhabited countries, they dare not venture to taste unknown fruits unless they perceive that these fruits are eaten by the fowls of the air. But without the aid of instinct, or of some other guide equally to be depended upon, it is not in our power to conceive how men dropt from the hands of their Creator, and left from that instant wholly to themselves, could move a single step without the most imminent danger, or even stretch out their hands to lay hold of that food which we may suppose to have been placed within their reach. They could not, for many days, distinguish a precipice from a plane, a rock from a pit, or a river from the meadows through which it rolled. And in such circumstances, how could they possibly exist, till their sense of sight had acquired such perfection as to be a sufficient guide to all their necessary motions? Can any consistent thief suppose that the God whose goodness is so conspicuously displayed in all his works, would leave his noblest creature on earth, a creature for whose comfort alone many other creatures seem to have been formed, in a situation so forlorn as this, where his immediate destruction appears to be inevitable? No! This supposition cannot be formed, because mankind still exist.

Will it then be said, that when God formed the first men, he not only gave them organs of sensation, and souls capable of arriving by discipline at the exercise of reason, but that he also impressed upon their minds adequate ideas and notions of every object in which they were interested; brought all their organs, external and internal, at once to their utmost possible state of perfection; taught them instantaneously the laws of reasoning; and, in one word, stored their minds with every branch of useful knowledge? This is indeed our own opinion; and it is perfectly agreeable to what we are taught by the Hebrew lawgiver. When God had formed Adam and Eve, Moses does not say that he left them to acquire by slow degrees the use of their senses and reasoning powers, and to distinguish as they could fruits that were salutary from those that were poisonous. No: he placed them in a garden where every tree but one bore fruit fit for food; he warned them particularly against the fruit of that tree; he brought before them the various animals which roamed through the garden; he arranged these animals into their proper genera and species; and by teaching Adam to give them names, he communicated to the first pair the elements of language. This condescension appears in every respect worthy of perfect benevolence; and indeed without it the helpless man and woman could not have lived one whole week. But it cannot be supposed, that amidst so much useful instruction the gracious Creator would neglect to communicate to his rational creatures the knowledge of himself; to inform them of their own origin, and the relation in which they stood to him; and to state in the plainest terms the duties incumbent on them in return for so much goodness.

In what manner all this knowledge was communicated, cannot be certainly known. It may have been in either of the following ways conceivable by us, or in others of which we can form no conception. God may have miraculously stored the minds of the first pair with adequate ideas and notions of sensible and intellectual objects; and then by an internal operation of his own Spirit have enabled them to exert at once their rational faculties so as to discover his existence and attributes, together with the relation in which as creatures they stood to him their Almighty Creator. Or, after rendering them capable of distinguishing objects by means of their senses, of comparing their ideas, and understanding a language, he may have exhibited himself under some sensible emblem, and conducted them by degrees from one branch of knowledge to another, as a schoolmaster conducts his pupils, till they were sufficiently acquainted with everything relating to their own happiness, and duty, as rational, moral, and religious creatures. In determining the question before us, it is of no importance whether infinite wisdom adopted either of these methods, or some other different from them, both which we cannot conceive. The ordinary process in which men acquire knowledge is, by the laws of their nature, extremely tedious. They cannot reason before their minds be stored with ideas and notions; and they cannot acquire these but through the medium of their senses long exercised on external objects.

The progenitors of the human race, left to inform themselves by this process, must have inevitably perished thereafter they had acquired one distinct notion; and it is natural, it was the same thing with respect to the origin of religion, equally as whether God preserved them from destruction by an internal or external revelation. If he stored their minds at once with the rudiments of all useful knowledge, and rendered them capable of exerting their rational faculties, so as, by tracing effects to their causes, to discover his being and attributes, he revealed himself to them as certainly as he did afterwards to Moses, when to him he condescended to speak face to face.

If this reasoning be admitted as fair and conclusive, and we apprehend that the principles on which it proceeds cannot be considered as ill-founded, we have advanced so far as to prove that mankind must have been handed to originally enlightened by a revelation. But it is scarcely necessary to observe, that this revelation must have been handed down through succeeding generations. It could not fail to reach the era of the deluge. It is not absurd to suppose, that he who spake from heaven to Adam, spake also to Noah. And both the revelation which had been handed down to the postdiluvian patriarch by tradition, and that which was communicated immediately to himself, would be by him made known to his descendants. Thus it appears almost impossible that some part of the religious sentiments of mankind should not have been derived from revelation; and that not of the religious sentiments of one particular family or tribe, but of almost all the nations of the earth.

This conclusion, which we have deduced by fair reasoning from the benevolence of God and the nature of the man, is confirmed by the authority of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, which are entitled to more implicit credit than all the other records of ancient history.

When we review the internal and external evidence of the authenticity of these sacred books, we cannot for a moment hesitate to receive them as the genuine word of God. If we examine their internal character, they everywhere appear to be indeed the voice of Heaven. The creation of the world—the manner in which this globe was first peopled—the deluge which swept away its inhabitants—the succeeding views of the state of mankind mankind in the next ages after the deluge—the calling of Abraham—the legislation of Moses—the whole series of events which befell the Jewish nation—the prophecies—the appearance of Jesus Christ, and the promulgation of his gospel, as explained to us in the Scriptures—form one series, which is, in the highest degree, illustrative of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Supreme Being.

While it must be allowed that the human mind is ever prone to debauch the sublime principles of true religion by enthusiasm and superstition, reason and candour will not for a moment hesitate to acknowledge, that the whole system of revelation represents the Supreme Being in the most sublime and amiable light: that in it, religion appears essentially connected with morality: that the legislative code of Moses was such as no legislator ever formed and established among a people equally rude and uncultivated: that the manners and morals of the Jews, vicious and savage as they may in some instances appear, yet merit a much higher character than those either of their neighbours, or of almost any other nation, whose circumstances and character were in other respects similar to theirs: that there is an infinite difference between the Scripture prophecies and the oracles and predictions which prevailed among heathen nations: and that the miracles recorded in those writings which we esteem sacred were attended with circumstances which entitle them to be ranked in a very different class from those which enthusiasm and imposture have fabricated among other nations. See Miracle and Prophecy.

But as the evidence of the divine origin of the primeval religion rests particularly on the authority of the first five books of the Old Testament, it may be thought incumbent on us to support our reasoning on this subject, by proving, that the author of those books was indeed inspired by God. This we shall endeavour to do by one decisive argument; for the nature of the article, and the limits prescribed us, admit not of our entering into a minute detail of all that has been written on the divine legislation of Moses.

If the miracles recorded in the book of Exodus, and the other writings of the Hebrew lawgiver, were really performed; if the first-born of the Egyptians were all cut off in one night, as is there related; and if the children of Israel passed through the Red sea, the waters being divided, and forming a wall on their right hand and on their left—it must necessarily be granted, that Moses was sent by God; because nothing less than a divine power was sufficient to perform such wonderful works. But he who supposes that those works were never performed, must affirm that the books recording them were forged, either at the era in which the miracles are said to have been wrought, or at some subsequent era: There is no other alternative.

That they could not be forged at the era in which they affirm the miracles to have been wrought, a very few reflections will make incontrovertibly evident. These books inform the people for whose use they were written, that their author, after having inflicted various plagues upon Pharaoh and his subjects, brought them, to the number of 600,000, out of Egypt with a high hand; that they were led by a pillar of cloud through the day, and by a pillar of fire through the night, to the brink of the Red sea, where they were almost overtaken by the Egyptians, who had pursued them with chariots and horses; that, to make a way for their escape, Moses stretched out his rod over the sea, which was immediately divided, and permitted them to pass through on dry ground, between two walls of water; and that the Egyptians, pursuing and going in after them to the midst of the sea, were all drowned by the return of the waters to their usual state, as soon as the Hebrews arrived at the further shore. Is it possible now that Moses or any other man could have persuaded 600,000 persons, however barbarous and illiterate we suppose them, that they had been witnesses of all these wonderful works, if no such works had been performed? Could any art or eloquence persuade all the inhabitants of Edinburgh and Leith, that they had yesterday walked on dry ground through the Frith to Kinghorn, the waters being divided and forming a wall on their right hand and on their left? If this question must be answered in the negative, it is absolutely impossible that the books of Moses, supposing them to have been forged, could have been received by the people who were alive when those wonders are said to have been wrought.

Let us now inquire, whether, if they be forgeries, in any after period they could have been received as authentic at any subsequent period; and we shall soon find this supposition as impossible as the former. The books claiming Moses for their author speak of themselves as delivered by him, and from his days kept in the ark of the covenant; an Deut. xxxi. 24—ark which, upon this supposition, had no existence prior to the forgery. They speak of themselves likewise, not only as a history of miracles wrought by their author, but as the statutes or municipal law of the nation, of which a copy was to be always in the possession of the priests, and another in that of the supreme magistrate. Deut. viii. 19. Now, in whatever age we suppose these books to have been forged, they could not possibly be received as authentic; because no copy of them could then be found either with the king, with the priests, or in the ark, though, as they contain the statute law of the land, it is not conceivable that, if they had existed, they could have been kept secret. Could any man, at this day, forge a book of statutes for England or Scotland, and make it pass upon these nations for the only book of statutes which they had ever known? Was there ever since the world began a book of such statutes, and these, too, multifarious and burdensome, imposed upon any people as the only statutes by which they and their fathers had been governed for ages? Such a forgery is evidently impossible.

But the books of Moses have internal proofs of authenticity, which no other books of ancient statutes ever had. They not only contain the laws, but also give an historical account of their enactment, and the reasons upon which they were founded. Thus they tell us, Gen. xvii. the rite of circumcision was instituted as a mark of the covenant between God and the founder of the Jewish nation, and that the practice of it was enforced by the declaration of the Almighty, that every uncircumcised man-child should be cut off from his people. They inform us that the annual solemnity of the passover was instituted in commemoration of their deliverance, when God flew, in one night, all the first-born of the Egyptians; that the first-born of Israel, both of men and beast, were on the same occasion dedicated forever to God, who took the Levites instead of the first-born of Religion. the men*; that this tribe was consecrated as priests, by whose hands alone the sacrifices of the people were to be offered; that it was death for any person of a different tribe to approach the altar; or even to touch the ark of the covenant; and that Aaron's budding rod was kept in the ark in memory of the wonderful destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for their rebellion against the priesthood.

Is it possible now, if all these things had not been practised among the Hebrews from the era of Moses, with a retrospect to the signal mercies which they are said to commemorate, that any man or body of men could have persuaded a whole nation, by means of forged books, that they had always religiously observed such institutions? Could it have been possible, at any period posterior to the Exodus, to persuade the Israelites that they and their fathers had all been circumcised on the eighth day from their birth, if they had been conscious themselves that they had never been circumcised at all? or that the passover was kept in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, if no such festival was known among them?

But let us suppose that circumcision has been practised, and all their other rites and ceremonies observed from time immemorial, without their knowing any reason of such institutions: still it must be confessed, that the forger of these books, if they were forged, constructed his narrative in such a manner as that no man of common sense could receive it as authentic. He says it was death to touch the ark! As such an assertion was never heard of before, and as the ritual he was endeavouring to make them esteem sacred was oppressively multifarious; surely some daring spirit would have ventured to put his veracity to the test by moving the ark and even offering sacrifices; and such a test would at once have exposed the imposture. The budding rod, too, and the pot of manna, which, though long preserved, were never before heard of, must have produced inquiries that could not fail to end in detection. These books speak likewise of weekly sabbaths, daily sacrifices, a yearly expiation, and monthly festivals, all to be kept in remembrance of great things, particularly specified as done for the nation at an early period of its existence. If this was not the case, could the forger of the books have persuaded the people that it really was so? The enlightened reasoners of this nation would be offended were we to compare them with the ancient Israelites; but surely they will not say that we are partial to that people, if we bring them to a level with the most savage tribes of the Russian empire, who profess Christianity? Now, were a book to be forged containing an account of many strange things done a thousand years ago in Siberia by an Apollonius, or any other philosopher or hero, numbers of the barbarians inhabiting that country would, we doubt not, give implicit credit to the legend: But were the author, in confirmation of his narrative, to affirm, that all the Siberians had from that day to this kept sacred the first day of the week in memory of his hero; that they had all been baptized or circumcised in his name; that in their public judicatories they had sworn by his name, and upon that very book which they had never seen before; and that the very same book was their law and their gospel, by which for a thousand years back the actions of the whole people had been regulated—surely the grossest savage among them would reject with contempt and indignation a forgery so palpable.

If this reasoning be conclusive, the books of Moses must indubitably be authentic, and he himself must have been inspired by the spirit of God. But this point being established, the question respecting the origin of the primitive religion is completely answered. The writer of the book of Genesis informs us, that Adam and Noah received many revelations from the Author of their being, and that their religion was founded on the principles of the purest theism. How it degenerated among the greater part of their descendants into the grossest idolatry, has been shown at large in another place. See Polytheism.

II. Having thus answered the first question proposed of the influence of religious sentiments have a tendency to injure or to promote the welfare of society? This is a subject of the utmost importance; and if we prove successful in our inquiries, we shall be enabled to determine whether the governors of mankind ought carefully to support religious establishments, or whether the philosopher who calls himself a citizen of the world, and professes to feel the most eager desire to promote the interests of his species, acts consistently when he labours to exterminate religion from among men.

A celebrated French financier*, a man of abilities and virtue, who has published a book on the importance of religious opinions, labours to show that religious establishments are indispensably necessary for the maintenance of civil order, and demonstrates how weak the influence of political institutions is on the morals of mankind; but he refuses to review the history of past ages in order to discover how far religious opinions have actually been injurious or beneficial to the welfare of society; choosing rather to content himself with the result of a series of metaphysical disquisitions.

We admire the spirit which induced a man who had spent a considerable part of his life amid the hurry of public business, to become the strenuous advocate of religion; but we cannot help thinking that, notwithstanding the eloquence, the acuteness, and the knowledge of mankind which he has displayed, his refusing to admit the evidence of facts, concerning the influence of religion on society, may possibly be regarded by its enemies as a tacit acknowledgment that the evidence of facts would be unfavourable to the cause which he wishes to defend. The fallacy of general reasonings, and the utility of metaphysics for the purposes of life, are so universally acknowledged, that they have long been the theme of declamation. Though the abuses of religion, Triumphs as well as the abuses of reason, the perversion of any of the principles of the human mind, and the misapplication of the gifts of Providence, may have often produced effects hurtful to the virtue and the happiness of mankind; yet, after tracing religion to a divine origin, we cannot, for a moment, allow ourselves to think that the primary tendency of religion must be hostile to the interest of society, or that it is necessary to view it abstractly in order that we may not behold it in an odious light. Often has the sceptic attacked religion with artful malice; but perhaps none of his attacks has been so skilfully directed as that which has first ridiculed the absurdity of the most absurd superstitions, and... Religion, and afterwards laboured to prove that the most absurd system of polytheism is more favourable to the interests of society than the purest and most sublime theism. Instances in which the abuse of religion had tended to deprave the human heart, and had led to the most shocking crimes, have been affluently collected, and displayed in all the aggravating colours in which eloquence could array them, till at length even the friends of true religion have been baffled; and it has become a fashionable opinion, that nothing but self-interest or bigotry can prompt men to represent religion as the friend of civil order. But let us try if, by a candid consideration of what effects have resulted to society from religious principles, in general, without comparing these with regard to truth or falsehood, we can advance anything to vindicate the character of religion.

Notions of Deity in general, of various orders of divinities, of their moral character, of their influence on human life, of a future state, and of the immortality of the human soul, constitute the leading articles of religion. Let us view these together with the rites to which they have given rise; and we may perhaps be enabled to form some well-grounded notions on this important point.

1. Having proved that the first religious principles entertained by men were derived from revelation, it is impossible to suppose that they could produce effects injurious to society. If religion of any kind has ever lessened the virtue or disturbed the peace of men, it must have been that religion which springs from a belief in a multitude of superior powers actuated by passions, and of whom some were conceived as benevolent and others as malicious beings. That such sentiments should have produced vices unknown in societies where pure theism is professed, will be readily admitted. Even the few atheists who live in Christian or Mahometan countries are restrained by the laws, by a desire to promote the honour of the sect, and by many other considerations, from indulging in practices which the example of the false gods of antiquity sanctioned in their votaries. But in determining the present question, we must not compare the virtues of the pagan world with those of individual atheists in modern Europe, but with those of nations professing atheism; and such nations are nowhere to be found. We can however easily conceive, that in a society unawed by any notions of God or a future state, no such laws would be enacted as those which restrain the sensual appetites; of which the criminal indulgence was one of the greatest stigmas on the pagan worship of antiquity. In such societies, therefore, those vices would be practised constantly to which paganism gave only an occasional sanction; and many others, in spite of the utmost vigilance of human laws, would be perpetrated in secret, which the most profligate pagans viewed with horror. Confidence, though acting with all her energy, would not be able to command any regard to the laws of morality: No virtue would be known; social order would be nowhere observed; the midnight assassins would everywhere be found; and in the general scramble mankind would be exterminated from the face of the earth.

The worst species of paganism, even that which prevails among savages who worship evil spirits, affords greater security than this. It is indeed shocking to think that demons should be worshipped, while deities, who are regarded as being all benevolence, are treated with contempt: And it has been asked, If the influence of such religious sentiments on the moral practice of the more idolaters must not naturally be, to cause them to treat their friends and benefactors with ingratitude, and to humble themselves with mean submission before a powerful enemy?

They do not appear to have produced such effects on the morality of the savages by whom they were entertained. The benevolent deities were neglected, only because their benevolence was unnecessary. A voluntary favour merits a grateful return: a designed injury provokes resentment. But when you become, by accident, the instrument of any man's good fortune, the world will scarce consider him as owing you any obligation: the stone which bruises your foot excites only a momentary emotion of resentment. Those gods who could not avoid doing good to men might not receive a profusion of thanks for their services; and yet a favour conferred by a human benefactor commands the warmest gratitude. But those rude tribes appear to have had so much wisdom as to confer a less absolute malice on their malevolent deities, than the benevolence which they attributed to their more amiable order of superior beings: though the latter could not possibly do them anything but good, and that constantly; yet the former were not under an equally indissoluble necessity of persevering in depressing them under calamities. On their malevolent deities they conferred a freedom of agency which they denied to the benevolent. No wonder, then, that they were more assiduous in paying their court to the one than to the other. They might with as much propriety have thought of being grateful to the boar or stag whose flesh supported them, as to deities who were always benevolent, because they could not possibly be otherwise. Though negligent of such deities, this can scarcely be thought to have had any tendency to render them ungrateful to benefactors like themselves. And yet, it must not be doubted, that the American Indians, among whom such religious sentiments have been found to prevail, are said to be very little sensible to the emotions of gratitude. An Indian receives a present without thinking of making any grateful acknowledgments to the bestower. He pleases his fancy or gratifies his appetite with what you have given, without seeming to consider himself as under the smallest obligation to you for the gift.

It may be doubted, however, whether this spirit of ingratitude originates from, or is only collateral with, that indifference which refuses adoration and worship to the benevolent deities. If the former be actually the case, we must acknowledge that those religious notions which we now consider, though preferable to general atheism, are in this respect unfriendly to virtue. But if the Indians may be thought to owe the ingratitude for which they are distinguished to the opinion which they entertain of the existence of a benevolent order of deities, whose benevolence is necessary and involuntary, their ideas of the nature of their malevolent demons do not appear to have produced equal effects on their moral sentiments. However submissive to those dreaded beings, they are far from showing the same tame and cowardly submission to their human enemies; towards them Religion. them they seem rather to adopt the sentiments of their demons. Inveterate rancour and brutal fury, inhuman cruelty and inconceivable cunning, are displayed in the hostilities of tribes at war; and we know not, after all, if even these sentiments do not owe somewhat of their force to the influence of religion.

Yet let us remember that these same Indians have not been always represented in so unamiable a light; or, at least, other qualities have been ascribed to them which seem to be inconsistent with those barbarous dispositions. They have been described as peculiarly susceptible of conjugal and parental love; and he who is so cannot be destitute of virtue.

2. But leaving the religion of savages, of which very little is known with certainty, let us proceed to examine what is the natural influence of that mixed system of theology which represents to the imagination of men a number of superior and inferior divinities, actuated by the same passions and feelings with themselves, and often making use of their superior power and knowledge for no other purpose but to enable them to violate the laws of moral order with impunity. This is the celebrated polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, and most other nations of antiquity (see Polytheism). Could its influence be favourable to virtue?

At a first view every person will readily declare, that such a system must have been friendly to profligacy. If you commit the government of the universe, and the inspection of human society, to a set of beings who are often disposed to regard vice with a no less favourable eye than virtue, and who, though there be an established order by which virtue is discriminated from vice, and right from wrong, yet scruple not to violate that order in their own conduct; you cannot expect them to require in you a degree of rectitude of which they themselves appear incapable. A Mercury will not discourage the thievish arts of the trader; a Bacchus and a Venus cannot frown upon debauchery; Mars will behold with savage delight all the cruelties of war. The Thracians indeed, one of the most barbarous nations of antiquity, whose ferocity was little if at all inferior to that of the Indians who have been distinguished as cannibals, was the favourite nation of Mars; among whom stood his palace, to which he repaired when about to mount his chariot, and arm himself for battle. Even Jupiter, who had been guilty of so many acts of tyrannical caprice, had been engaged in such a multitude of amorous intrigues, and seemed to owe his elevated station as monarch of the sky, not to superior goodness or wisdom, but merely to a superior degree of brutal force, could not be feared as the avenger of crimes, or revered as the impartial rewarder of virtues.

That this system had a pernicious effect on morals, and that, as compared with pure theism, it was injurious to society, cannot be denied; but yet, when contrasted with atheism, it was not without its favourable effects. It was so connected with the order of society, that, without its support, that order could scarce have been maintained. The young rake might perhaps justify himself by the example of Jupiter, or Apollo, or some other amorous divinity; the frail virgin or matron might complain of Cupid, or boast of imitating Venus; and the thief might practise his craft under the patronage of Mercury: But if we take the whole system together, if we consider with what views those deities were publicly worshipped, what temples were raised, what rites instituted, what sacrifices offered, and what festivals consecrated; we shall perhaps find it necessary to acknowledge that the general effects even of that mixed and incoherent system of polytheism which prevailed among the Greeks and Romans were favourable to society. To state a particular instance; the ancilia of Mars and the fire of Vesta were thought to secure the perpetuity of the Roman empire. As long as the sacred ancile, which had been dropped from heaven for that benevolent purpose, was safely preserved in those holy archives in which it had been deposited; and as long as the sacred fire of Vesta was kept burning, without being once extinguished, or at least suffered to remain for an instant in that state; so long was Rome to subsist and flourish. And, however, simple and absurd the idea which connected the prosperity of a nation with the preservation of a piece of wood in a certain place, or with the constant blazing of a flame upon an hearth; yet no fact can be more certain, than that the patriotism and enthusiastic valour of the Romans, which we so much extol and admire, were, in many instances, owing in no inconsiderable degree to the veneration which they entertained for the ancilia and the vestal fire.

A numerous series of facts occur in the Roman history, which show the happy effects of their religious views by a series of opinions and ceremonies on their sentiments concerning social order and the public welfare. How powerful was the influence of the sacramentum administered to the soldiers when they enlisted in the service of their country? The promises made, the idea of the powers invoked, and the rites performed on that occasion, produced so deep and so awful an impression on their minds, that no danger, nor distress, nor discontent, could prompt them to violate their engagements. The responses of the oracles, too, though the dictates of deceit and imposture, were often of singular service to those to whom they were uttered; when they inspired the warrior, as he marched out to battle, with the confidence of success, they communicated to him new vigour, and more heroic valour, by which he was actually enabled to gain, or at least to deserve, the success which they promised. Again, when in times of public distress, the augur and the priest directed some games to be celebrated, certain sacrifices to be offered, or some other solemnities to be performed, in order to appease the wrath of the offended deities; it is plain that the means were not at all suited to accomplish the end proposed by them; yet still they were highly beneficial. When the attention of the whole people was turned entirely to those solemnities by which the wrath of heaven was to be averted, they were roused from that despondency under which the sense of the public distress or danger might have otherwise caused them to sink: the public union was at the same time more closely cemented, and the hearts of the people knit together; and when persuaded, that by propitiating the gods they had removed the cause of their distress, they acquired such calmness and strength of mind as enabled them to take more direct and proper measures for the safety of the state.

Could we view the ancient Greeks and Romans acting in public or in private life, under the influence of that system of superstition which prevailed among them; could we perceive how much it contributed to the maintenance of civil order; could we behold Numa and Lycurgus establishing their laws, which would otherwise have met with a very different reception, under the sanction of divinities; could we observe all the beneficial effects which arose to communities from the celebration of religious ceremonies, we should no longer hesitate to acknowledge, that those principles in the human heart by which we are susceptible of religious sentiments, are so eminently calculated to promote the happiness of mankind, that even when perverted and abused, their influence is still favourable.

The ideas which prevailed among the nations of the heathen world concerning a future state of retribution were, it must be confessed, not very correct. Some of the poets, we believe, have represented them in no unfair light: both Homer and Virgil have conducted their heroes through the realms of Pluto, and have taken occasion to unfold to us the secrets of those dreary abodes. The scenes are wild, and fanciful; the rewards of the just and virtuous are of no very refined or dignified nature: and of the punishments inflicted on the guilty, it is often hard to say for what ends they could be inflicted; whether to correct and improve, or for the gratification of revenge or whim: they are often so whimsical and unsuitable, that they cannot with any degree of propriety be ascribed to any cause but blind chance or wanton caprice. A great dog with three tongues, a peevish old boatman with a leaky ferry boat, demanding his freight in a fury tone, and an uxorious monarch, are objects too familiar and ludicrous not to degrade the dignity of those awful scenes which are represented as the mansions of the dead, and to prevent them from making a deep enough impression on the imagination. The actions and qualities too, for which departed spirits were admitted into Elysium, or doomed to the regions of suffering, were not always of such a nature as under a well-regulated government on earth would have been thought to merit reward, or to be worthy of punishment. It was not always virtue or wisdom which conducted to the Elysian fields, or gained admission into the society of the immortal gods.—Ganimede was for a very different reason promoted to be the cup-bearer of Jove; and Hercules and Bacchus could not surely plead that any merits of that kind entitled them to seats in the council, and at the banquets of the immortals. That doctrine, likewise, which represented mortals as hurried by fate to the commission of crimes, which they could no more abstain from committing than the sword can avoid to obey the impulse of a powerful and furious arm plunging it into the breast of an unrelenting antagonist, could not but produce effects unfavourable to virtue; and it afforded a ready excuse for the most extravagant crimes.

Yet, after all, he who attentively considers the ideas of the Greeks and Romans concerning the moral government of the world and a future state of rewards and punishments, will probably acknowledge, that their general influence must have been favourable to virtue and moral order. Allow them to have been incorrect and dashing at absurdity; still they represent punishments prepared for such qualities and actions as were injurious to the welfare of society; whilst, for those qualities which rendered men eminently useful in the world, they hold forth a reward. Though incorrect, their ideas concerning a future state were exceedingly distinct; they were not vague or general, but such as might be readily conceived by the imagination, in all their circumstances, as really existing. When a man is told that for such a deed he will be put to death, he may fludder and be alarmed, and think of the deed as what he must by no means commit; but place before him the scene and the apparatus for his execution, call him to behold some other criminal mounting the scaffold, addressing his last words in a wild scream of despair to the surrounding spectators, and then launching into eternity—his horror of the crime, and his dread of the punishment, will now be much more powerfully excited. In the same manner, to encourage the soldier marching out to battle, or the mariner setting sail under the prospect of a storm, promise not merely in general terms, a liberal reward; be sure to specify the nature of the reward which you mean to bestow; describe it so as that it may take hold on the imagination, and may rise in opposition to the images of death and danger with which his courage is to be affaile.

If these phenomena of the human mind are fairly stated, if it be true that general ideas produce no very powerful effects on the sentiments and dispositions of the human heart, it must then be granted, that though the scenes of future reward and punishment, which the heathens considered as prepared for the righteous and the wicked, were of a somewhat motley complexion; yet still, as they were distinct and even minute draughts, they must have been favourable to virtue, and contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the support of civil order.

Another thing of which we may take notice under this head, is the vast multiplicity of deities with which all the Greek and Roman mythology peopled all the regions of nature. Flocks and fields, and woods and oaks, and flowers, and many much more minute objects, had all their guardian deities. These were somewhat capricious at times, it is true, and expected to have attended with attention paid them. But yet the faithful shepherd, and the industrious farmer, knew generally how to acquire their friendship; and in the idea of deities enjoying the same simple pleasures, partaking in the same labours, protecting their possessions, and bringing forward the fruits of the year, there could not but be something of a very pleasing nature, highly favourable to industry, which would animate the labours, and cheer the festivals, of the good people who entertained such a notion: nay, would diffuse a new charm over all the scenes of the country, even in the gayest months of the year.

From all of these particular observations, we think ourselves warranted to conclude, that notwithstanding the mixed characters of the deities who were adored by the celebrated nations of antiquity; though they are in many instances represented as conspicuous for vices and frolics; however vain, absurd, and morally criminal, some of the rites by which they were worshipped may have been, and however incorrect the notions of the heathens concerning the moral government of the universe and a future state of retribution; yet still, after making a just allowance for all these imperfections, the general influence of their religious system was rather favourable than unfavourable to virtue and to the order and happiness of society. It was not without good reason that the earliest legislators generally endeavoured to establish their laws and constitutions on the basis of religion; government needs the support of opinion; the governed must be impressed with a belief that the particular establishment, to which they are required to submit, is the best calculated for their security and happiness, or is supported on some such solid foundation, that it must prove impossible for them to overturn it, or is connected with some awful sanction, which it would be the most heinous impiety to oppose. Of these several notions, the last will ever operate on most men with the most steady influence. We are frequently blind to our own interest; even when eager for the attainment of happiness, we often refuse to take the wisest measures for that end. The great bulk of the people in every community are so little capable of reasoning and foresight, that the public minister who shall most steadily direct his views to the public good will often be the most unpopular. Those laws, and that system of government, which are the most beneficial, will often excite the strongest popular discontent. Again, it is not always easy to persuade people that your power is superior to theirs, when it is not really so. No one man will ever be able to persuade a thousand that he is stronger than they all together; and therefore, in order to persuade one part of his subjects or army that it is absolutely necessary for them to submit to him, because any attempts to resist his power would prove ineffectual, a monarch or general must take care first to persuade another part that it is for their interest to submit to him; or to impress the whole with a belief that, weak and pitiful as he himself may appear, when viewed singly in opposition to them all, yet by the assistance of some awful invisible beings, his friends and protectors, he is so powerful, that any attempts to resist his authority must prove presumptuous folly. Here, then, the aid of religion becomes requisite. Religious sentiments are the most happily calculated to serve this purpose. Scarce ever was there a society formed, a mode of government established, or a code of laws framed and enacted, without having the religious sentiments of mankind, their notions of the existence of superior invisible beings, and their hopes and fears from those beings, as its fundamental principle. Now, we believe, it is almost universally agreed, that even the rudest form of society is more favourable to the happiness of mankind, and the dignity of the human character, than a solitary and savage state. And if this, with what we have asserted concerning religion as the basis of civil government, be both granted, it will follow, that even the most imperfect religious notions, the most foolish and absurd rites, and the wildest ideas that have been entertained concerning the moral government of the universe by superior beings, and a future state of retribution, have been more advantageous than atheism to the happiness and virtue of human life. We have already granted, nor can it be denied, indeed, that many of the religious opinions which prevailed among the ancient heathens, did contribute, in some degree, to the depravation of their morals; and all that we argue for is, that on a comparative view of the evil and the good which resulted from them, the latter must appear more than adequate to counterbalance the effects of the former.

But if such be the natural tendency of those principles by which the human heart is made susceptible of religious sentiments, that even the enthusiasm and absurd superstition are productive of beneficial effects more than sufficient to counterbalance whatever is malignant in it of a pure, their influence on society—purely a pure rational religion, the doctrines of which are founded in undeniable and true truth, and all the observances which it enjoins calculated to promote by their direct and immediate effects some useful purposes, must be in a very high degree conducive to the dignity and the happiness of human nature. Indeed one collateral proof of the truth of any religion, which must have very considerable weight with all who are not of opinion that the system of the universe has been produced and hitherto maintained in order and existence by blind chance, will be its having a stronger and more direct tendency than others to promote the interests of moral virtue and the happiness of mankind in the present life. Even the testimony of thousands, even miracles, prophecies, and the sanction of remote antiquity, will scarce have sufficient weight to persuade us, that a religion is of divine origin, if its general tendency appear to be rather unfavourable than advantageous to moral virtue.

III. We shall therefore, in the next place, endeavour to determine, from a comparative view of the effects produced on the character and circumstances of the effects of society by the most eminent of these various systems of different religion which have been in different ages or in different countries established in the world, how far any system, one of them has in this respect the advantage over the rest; and, if the utility of a system of religion were to be received as a test of its truth, what particular system might, with the best reason, be received as true, while the rest were rejected.

1st. The principle upon which we here set out is, that all, or almost all, systems of religion with which we are acquainted, whether true or false, contribute more or less to the welfare of society. But as one field is more fruitful, and one garden less overgrown with weeds than another; so, in the same manner, one system of religious opinions and ceremonies may be more happily calculated than others to promote the truest interests of mankind. In opposition to those philosophers who are so vehement in their declamations against the civilization inequality of ranks, we have ever been of opinion, that refinement and civilization contribute to the happiness of human life. The character of the solitary savage is, we are told, more dignified and respectable than that of the philosopher and the hero, in proportion as he is more independent. He is indeed more independent; but his independence is that of a stone, which receives no nourishment from the earth or air, and communicates none to animals or vegetables around it. In point of happiness, and in point of respectability, we cannot hesitate a moment, let philosophers say what they will, to prefer a virtuous, enlightened, and polished Briton, to any of the rudest savages, the least acquainted with the restraints and the sympathies of social life, that wander through the wild forests of the western world. But if we prefer civilization to barbarism, we must admit, that in fore of this view Christianity has the advantage over every other religious system which has in any age or country prevailed. prevailed among men; for nowhere has civilization and useful science been carried to such a height as among Christians.

It is not, indeed, in any considerable degree that the absurd superstitions of those rude tribes, who can scarcely be said to be formed into any regular society, can contribute to their happiness. Among them the faculty of reason is but in a very low state; and the moral principle usually follows the improvement or the depravation of the reasoning faculty. Their appetites and merely animal passions are almost their only principles of action: their first religious notions, if we suppose them not to be derived from revelation or tradition, are produced by the operation of gratitude, or grief, or hope, or fear, upon their imaginations. And to these, however wild and fanciful, it is not improbable that they may owe some of their earliest moral notions. The idea of superior powers naturally leads to the thought that those powers have some influence on human life. From this they will most probably proceed to fancy one set of actions agreeable, another offensive, to those beings to whom they believe themselves subject. And this, perhaps, is the first distinction that savages can be supposed to form between actions, as right or wrong, to be performed or to be avoided. But if this be the case, we must acknowledge, that the religious notions of the savage, however absurd, contribute to elevate his character, and to improve his happiness, when they call forth the moral principle implanted in his breast.

But if the social state be preferable to a state of wild and solitary independence, even the rude superstitions of unenlightened tribes of savages are in another respect beneficial to those among whom they prevail. They usually form, as has been already observed under this article, the basis of civil order. Religious opinions may lead the great body of the community to reverence some particular set of institutions, some individual, or some family, which are represented to them as peculiarly connected with the gods whom they adore. Under this sanction some form of government is established; they are taught to perform social duties, and rendered capable of social enjoyments. Not only Numa and Lycurgus, but almost every legislator who has sought to civilize a rude people, and reduce them under the restraints of legal government, have endeavored to impress their people with an idea that they acted with the approbation, and under the immediate direction of superior powers. We cannot but allow that the rude superstitions of early ages are productive of these advantages to society; but we have already acknowledged, and it cannot be denied, that they are also attended with many unhappy effects. When we view the absurdities intermixed with the systems of religion which prevailed among most of the nations of antiquity, we cannot help lamenting that so noble a principle of human nature as our religious sentiments should be liable to such gross perversion; and when we view the effects which they produce on the morals of mankind, and the forms of society, though we allow them to have been upon the whole rather beneficial than hurtful, yet we cannot but observe, that their unfavorable effects are by far more numerous than if they had been better directed. What unhappy effects, for instance, have been produced by false notions concerning the condition of human souls in a future state. Various nations have imagined that the scenes and objects of the world of spirits are only a shadowy representation of the things of the present world. Not only the souls of men, according to them, inhabit those regions; all the inferior animals and vegetables, and even inanimate bodies that are killed or destroyed here, are supposed to pass into that visionary world; and, existing there in unsubstantial forms, to execute the same functions, or serve the same purposes, as on earth. Such are the ideas of futurity that were entertained by the inhabitants of Guinea. And by these ideas they were induced, when a king or great man died among them, to provide for his comfortable accommodation in the world of spirits, by burying with him meat and drink for his subsistence, slaves to attend and serve him, and wives with whom he might still enjoy the pleasures of love. His faithful subjects vied with each other in offering, one a servant, another a wife, a third a son or daughter, to be sent to the other world in company with the monarch, that they might there be employed in his service. In New Spain, in the island of Java, in the kingdom of Benin, and among the inhabitants of India, similar practices on the same occasion, owing no doubt to similar notions of futurity, have been prevalent. But such practices as these cannot be viewed with greater contempt on account of the opinions which have given rise to them, than horror on account of their unhappy effects on the condition of those among whom they prevail. A lively impression of the enjoyments to be obtained in a future state, together with some very false or incorrect notions concerning the qualities or actions which were to entitle the departing soul to admission into the scene of those enjoyments, is said to have produced equally unhappy effects among the Japanese. They not only bribe their priests to solicit for them; but looking upon the enjoyments of the present life with disgust or contempt, they used to dash themselves from precipices, or cut their throats, in order to get to paradise as soon as possible. Various other superstitions subsisting among rude nations might here be enumerated, as instances of the perversion of the religious principles of the human heart, which render them injurious to virtue and happiness. The austerities which have been practised, chiefly among rude nations, as means of propitiating superior powers, are especially worthy of notice.—When the favorite idol of the Banians is carried in solemn procession, some devotees prostrate themselves on the ground, that the chariot in which the idol is carried may run over them; others, with equal enthusiasm, dash themselves on spikes fastened on purpose to the car. Innumerable are the ways of torture which have been invented and practised on themselves by men ignorantly striving to recommend themselves to the favour of heaven. These we lament as instances in which religious sentiments have been so ill directed by the influence of imagination, and unenlightened erring reason, as to produce unfavourable effects on the human character, and oppose the happiness of social life.—Though we have argued, that even the most absurd systems of religion that have prevailed in the world, have been upon the whole rather beneficial than injurious to the dignity and happiness of human nature; yet if it shall not appear, as we proceed farther in our comparative Religion. tive view of the effects of religion on society, that others have been attended with happier effects than these superstitions which belong to the rude ages of society, we may scarce venture to brand the infidel with the appellation of fool, for refusing to give his assent to religious doctrines, or to act under their influence.

2d, The polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, and other heathen nations in a similar state of civilization, we have already considered as being, upon the whole, rather favourable than unfavourable to virtue; but we must not partially conceal its defects. The vicious characters of the deities which they worshipped, the incorrect notions which they entertained concerning the moral government of the universe and a future retribution, the absurdity of their rites and ceremonies, and the criminal practices which were intermixed with them, must have altogether had a tendency to pervert both the reasoning and the moral principles of the human mind. The debaucheries of the monarch of the gods, and the fidelity with which his example in that respect was followed by the whole crowd of the inferior deities, did, we know, dispoise the devout heathen, when he felt the same passions which had affected their power over the gods, to gratify them without scruple. It is a truth, however, and we will not attempt to deny or conceal it, that the genius of the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans was friendly to the arts; to such of them especially as are raised to excellence by the vigorous exertion of a fine imagination; music, poetry, sculpture, architecture, and painting, all of these arts appear to have been considerably indebted for that perfection to which they attained, especially among the Greeks, to the splendid and fanciful system of mythology which was received among that ingenious people.—But we cannot give an equally favourable account of its influence on the sciences. There was little in that system that could contribute to call forth reason. We may grant indeed, that if reason can be so shocked with absurdity as to be roufed to a more vigorous exertion of her powers, and a more determined assertion of her rights in consequence of surveying it; in that case, this system of mythology might be favourable to the exercise and improvement of reason; not otherwise.

The connection of paganism with morality was too imperfect for it to produce any very important effects on the morals of its votaries. Sacrifices and prayers, and temples and festivals, not purity of heart and integrity of life, were the means prescribed for propitiating the favour of the deities adored by the Pagans. There were other means, too, besides true heroism and patriotism, of gaining admission into the Elysian fields, or obtaining a seat in the council of the gods. Xenophon, in one of the most beautiful parts of his Memoirs of Socrates, represents Hercules wooed by Virtue and Pleasure in two fair female forms, and deliberating with much anxiety which of the two he should prefer. But this is the fiction of a philosopher desirous to improve the fables of antiquity in such a way as to render them truly useful. Hercules does not appear, from the tales which are told us of his adventures, to have been at any such pains in choosing his way of life. He was received into the palace of Jove, without having occasion to plead that he had through life been the faithful follower of that goddess to whom the philosopher makes him give the preference; his being the son of Jove, and his wild adventures, were sufficient without any other merits to gain him that honour. The same may be said concerning many of the other demi-gods and heroes who were advanced to heaven, or conveyed to the blissful fields of Elysium. And whatever might be the good effects of the religion of Greece and Rome in general upon the civil and political establishments, and in some few instances on the manners of the people, yet still it must be acknowledged to have been but ill calculated to impress the heart with such principles as might in all circumstances direct to a firm, uniform tenor of virtuous conduct.

But after what has been said on the character of this religion elsewhere (see Polytheism), and in the second part of this article, we cannot without repetition enlarge farther on it here. Of the Jewish religion, however, we have as yet said little, having on purpose referred to this place whatever we mean to introduce under the article, concerning its influence on society.

3d, When we take a general view of the circumstances in which the Jewish religion was established, the Judaism, effects which it produced on the character and fortune of the nation, the rites and ceremonies which it enjoined, and the singular political institutions to which it gave a sanction, it may perhaps appear hard to determine, whether it were upon the whole more or less beneficial to society than the polytheism of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. But if such be the judgment which preconceived prejudices, or a hasty and careless view, have induced some to form of this celebrated system; there are others who, with equal keenness, and sounder reasoning, maintain, that it was happily calculated, not only to accomplish the great design of preparing the way for the promulgation of the Gospel, but likewise to render the Jews a more refined and virtuous people, and a better regulated community, than any neighbouring nation. In the first place, the attributes of the Deity were very clearly exhibited to the Jews in the establishment of their religion. The miracles by which he delivered them from servitude, and conducted them out of Egypt, were striking demonstrations of his power; that clemency with which he forgave their repeated acts of perverseness and rebellion, was a most convincing proof of his benevolence; and the impartiality with which the observance and the violation of his laws were rewarded and punished, even in the present life, might well convince them of his justice. A part of the laws which he dictated to Moses are of eternal and universal obligation; others of them were local and particular, suited to the character of the Jews, and their circumstances in the land of Canaan. The Jewish code, taken altogether, is not to be considered as a complete system of religion, or laws calculated for all countries and all ages of society. When we consider the expediency of this system, we must take care not to overlook the design for which the Jews are said to have been separated from other nations, the circumstances in which they had lived in Egypt, the customs and manners which they had contracted by their intercourse with the natives of that country, the manner in which they were to acquire to themselves settlements by extirpating the nations of Canaan, the rank which they were to hold among the nations of Syria and the adjacent countries, together with the difficulty of of restraining a people so little civilized and enlightened from the idolatrous worship which prevailed among their neighbours: All these circumstances were certainly to be taken into account; and had the legislator of the Jews not attended to them, his institutions must have remained in force only for a short period; nor could they have produced any lasting effects on the character of the nation. With a due attention to these circumstances, let us descend to an examination of particulars.

Although in every religion or superstition that has prevailed through the world, we find one part of its institutions to consist in the enjoining of certain festivals to be celebrated by relaxation from labour, and the performance of certain ceremonies in honour of the gods; yet in none, or almost none besides the Jewish, do we find every seventh day ordained to be regularly kept holy. One great end which the legislator of the Jews had in view in the institution of the Sabbath was, to impress them with a belief that God was the maker of the universe. In the early ages of the world a great part of mankind imagined the stars, the sun, the moon, and the other planets, to be eternal, and consequently objects highly worthy of adoration. To convince the Israelites of the absurdity of this belief, and prevent them from adopting that idolatry, Moses taught them, that those conspicuous objects which the Gentile nations regarded as eternal, and endowed with divine power and intelligence, were created by the hand of God; who, after bringing all things out of nothing, and giving them form, order, and harmony, in the space of six days, rested on the seventh from all his works. Various passages in the Old Testament concur to show, that this was one great end of the institution of the Sabbath. The observance of the Sabbath, and detestation of idolatrous worship, are frequently inculcated together; and, again, the breach of the Sabbath, and the worship of idols, are usually reprobated at the same time. Another good reason for the institution of a Sabbath might be, to remind the Jews of their deliverance from bondage, to inspire them with humanity to strangers and domestics, and to mitigate the rigours of servitude.

The purposes for which the other festivals of the Jewish religion were instituted appear also of sufficient importance. The great miracle, which, after a series of other miracles, all directed to the same end, finally effected the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt, and their actual departure from that land of servitude, might well be commemorated in the feast of the passover. To recall to the minds of posterity the history of their ancestors, to impress them with an awful and grateful sense of the goodness and greatness of God, and to make them think of the purposes for which his almighty power had been so signally exerted, were surely good reasons for the institution of such a festival. The feast of Pentecost celebrated the first declaration of the law by Moses, in the space of fifty days after the feast of the passover. It served also as a day of solemn thanksgiving for the blessings of a plentiful harvest. On the feast of tabernacles, they remembered the wanderings of their ancestors through the wilderness, and expressed their gratitude to heaven for the more comfortable circumstances in which they found themselves placed. The feast of new moons served to fix their calendar, and determine the times at which the other festivals were to be celebrated; on it trumpets were sounded, to give public notice of the event which was the cause of the festival; no servile works were performed, divine service was carefully attended, and the first fruits of the month were offered to the Lord. The Jewish legislator limited his festivals to a very small number, while the heathens devoted a considerable part of the year to the celebration of theirs. But we perceive the occasions upon which the Jewish festivals were celebrated to have been of suitable importance; whereas those of the heathens were often celebrated on trifling or ridiculous occasions. Piety and innocent recreation shared the Jewish festival; the festivals of the heathens were chiefly devoted to debauchery and idleness.

The Hebrews had other solemn seasons of devotion besides the weekly Sabbath and these annual festivals. Every seventh year they rested from labour: they were then neither to plough, to sow, nor to prune; and whatever the earth produced spontaneously that year belonged rather to strangers, orphans, and the poor, than to the proprietors of the ground. On this year insolvent debtors were discharged from all debts contracted by purchasing the necessaries of life; and the great end of this release from debts contracted during the preceding five years, appears to have been to prevent the Hebrew from flying to the Gentiles and forsaking his religion when embarrassed in his circumstances. None but native Israelites and proselytes of righteousness were admitted to this privilege; it was refused to strangers, and even to proselytes of the gate. The jubilee was a festival to be celebrated every fiftieth year. It produced the same effect with the sabbatical year as to rest from labour and the discharge of debts; with this addition, that in the year of the jubilee slaves obtained their freedom, and the lands reverted to the old proprietors. On the year of the jubilee, as on the sabbatical year, the lands were to rest uncultivated, and lawsuits were now to terminate. The chief design of this institution appears to have been, to preserve the order of ranks and property originally established in the Hebrew state. None but Israelites or circumcised converts could enjoy the benefit of this institution; nor could even these hope to regain their estates on the year of the jubilee, if they sold them for any other purpose but to supply their necessities. The law relative to usury was evidently founded on the same plan of policy with respect to property. To almost any other nation such a law, it must be confessed, would have been unsuitable and unjust; but as the Jews were not designed for a trading nation, they could have little occasion to borrow, unless to relieve distress; and as an indulgence to people in such circumstances, the Jew was forbidden to exact usury from his brother to whom he had lent money.

The Jewish legislator, we may well think, would be disposed to adopt every proper method to prevent his nation from falling away into the idolatry of heathen nations. Probably one reason of the distinctions between clean beasts which they were permitted to eat, and unclean beasts, the eating of which they were taught to consider as pollution, was to prevent them from convivial intercourse with profane nations, by which they might be seduced to idolatry. We do not readily sit down at table with people who are fond of dishes which Religion, we regard with abhorrence. And if the Jews were taught to loathe the flesh of some of those animals which were among the greatest delicacies of the Gentiles, they would naturally of consequence avoid fitting down at meat with them, either at their ordinary meals or at those entertainments which they prepared in honour of their deities; and this we may with good reason consider as one happy mean to preserve them from idolatry. Besides, the Jews were permitted, or rather enjoined, to eat animals which the Gentiles reverenced as sacred, and from which they religiously withheld all violence. Goats, sheep, and oxen, were worshipped in Egypt (see Polytheism and Pan); and several learned writers are of opinion, that Moses directed his people to sacrifice and eat certain of the favourite animals of the Egyptians, in order to remove from their minds any opinions which they might have otherwise entertained of the sanctity of those pretended deities. Many of the observances which Moses enjoined with regard to food, appear to have been intended to inspire the Israelites with contempt for the superstitions of the people among whom they had so long sojourned. They were to kill the animal which the Egyptians worshipped; to roast the flesh which people ate raw; to eat the head, which they never ate; and to dress the entrails, which they set apart for divination. These distinctions concurred with the peculiarities of their dress, language, government, customs, places and times of worship, and even the natural situation of their country, by which they were in a manner confined and fortified on all sides, to separate them in such a manner from neighbouring nations, that they might escape the infection of their idolatry. And if we reflect both on the design for which Providence separated the Israelites from other nations, and on the probability that, in the state of society in which mankind were during the earlier period of the Jewish history, the Jews, by mixing with other nations, would rather have been themselves converted to idolatry than have converted idolatrous nations to the worship of the true God; we cannot but be satisfied, that even this, however it may at first appear, was a benefit, not a disadvantage; and in the author of their legislation wisdom, not caprice.

But not only in the distinctions of meats, and between clean and unclean animals, does the legislator of the Jews appear to have laboured to fix a barrier between them and other nations, which might preserve them from the contagion of idolatry—we shall not err, perhaps, if we ascribe many particulars of their worship to this design in the institution. The heathens had gods who presided over woods, rivers, mountains, and valleys, and to each of these they offered sacrifices, and performed other rites of worship in a suitable place. Sometimes the grove, sometimes the mountain top, at other times the bank of the river or the brink of the spring, was the scene of their devotions. But as the unity of the divine nature was the truth the most earnestly inculcated on the children of Israel; so in order to impress that truth on their minds with the more powerful efficacy, they were taught to offer their sacrifices and other offerings only in one place, the place chosen by the Lord; and death was threatened to those who dared to disobey the command. To confirm this idea, one of the prophets intimates, that when idolatry should be abolished, the worship of God should not be confined to Jerusalem, but it would then be lawful to worship him anywhere.

The whole institutions and observances of the Jewish religion appear to have been designed and happily calculated to impress the minds of the people with reverence, &c., and respect for the Deity. All the festivals in which either commemorated some gracious dispensation of his providence towards their ancestors, or served as a day of thanksgiving for the constant returns of his goodness to those who celebrated them, and all the other rites designed to fortify them against idolatry, served at the same time to impress their hearts with awful reverence for the God of Jacob. Various other particulars in the institutions of the Jewish economy appear to have been directed solely to that end. Into the most sacred place, the Holy of Holies, none but the high priest was admitted, and he only once a year. No fire was used in sacrifice but what was taken from the altar. Severe punishments were on various occasions inflicted on such as presumed to intermeddle in the service of the sanctuary in a manner contrary to what the law had directed. All the laws respecting the character, the circumstances, and the services, of the priests and the Levites, appear plainly to have a similar tendency.

In compliance with the notions of Deity which naturally prevailed among a gross and rude people, though no visible object of worship was granted to the Jews, yet they were allowed in their wanderings through the wilderness to have a tabernacle or portable temple, in which the sovereign of the universe sometimes deigned to display some rays of his glory. Incapable as they were of conceiving aright concerning the spiritual nature and the omnipresence of the Deity, they might possibly have thought Jehovah careless and indifferent about them, had they been at no time favoured with a visible demonstration of his presence.

The sacrifices in use among the Gentiles in their worship of idols were permitted by the Jewish legislature; but he directed them to be offered with views very different from those with which the Gentiles sacrificed to their idols. Some of the sacrifices of the Jewish ritual were designed to avert the indignation of the Deity; some to expiate offences and purify the heart; and all of them to abolish or remove idolatry. Lustrations or ablutions entered like wise into the Jewish ritual; but these were recommended and enjoined by Moses for purposes widely different from those which induced the heathens to place so high a value upon them. The heathens practised them with magical and superstitious ceremonies; but in the Jewish ritual they were intended simply for the cleansing away of impurities and pollutions.

The theocratical form of government to which the Jews were subject, the rewards which they were sure of receiving, and the punishments which they were equally likely to suffer in the present life, had a powerful effect to remove superstition and preserve them from idolatry, as well as to support all the social virtues among them. They were promised a numerous offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey, long life, and victory over their enemies, on the condition of their paying a faithful obedience to the will of their heavenly Sovereign; plague, famine, disease, defeats, and death, were threatened as the punishments to be inflicted on those who violated violated his laws; and these sanctions, it must be allowed, were happily accommodated to the genius of a rude and carnal-minded people, attentive only to present objects, and not likely to be influenced by remote and spiritual considerations.

There were other rites and prohibitions in the Mosaic law, which appear to have had but little connection with religion, morals, or policy. These may be more liable to be objected against, as adding an unnecessary weight to a burden which, though heavy, might yet have been otherwise borne in consideration of the advantages connected with it. Even these, however, may perhaps admit of being viewed in a light in which they shall appear to have been in no way unfavourable to the happiness of those to whom they were enjoined. They appear to have had none of them an immoral tendency: all of them had, in all probability, a tendency to remove or prevent idolatry, or to support, in some way or other, the religious and the civil establishment to which they belonged.

From these views of the spirit and tendency of the Jewish religion, we may fairly conclude it to have been happily calculated to promote the welfare of society. In comparing it with other religions, it is necessary to reflect on the peculiar purposes for which it was given; that its two principal objects were to preserve the Jews a separate people, and to guard them against the contagion of the surrounding idolatry. When these things are taken into consideration, every candid mind acquainted with the history of ancient nations will readily acknowledge that the whole system, though calculated indeed in a peculiar manner for them, was as happily adapted for the purposes for which it had been wisely and graciously intended, as it is possible to imagine any such system to be. It would be unhappy, indeed, if, on a comparison of pure theism with polytheism, the latter, with all its absurdities, should be found more beneficial to mankind than the former. The theism of the Jews was not formed to be disseminated through the earth; that would have been inconsistent with the purposes for which it is said to have been designed. But while the Jews were separated by their religion from all other nations, and perhaps, in some degree, fixed and rendered stationary in their progress towards refinement, they were placed in circumstances, in respect to laws, and government, and religion, and moral light, which might with good reason render them the envy of every other nation in the ancient world.

IV. The Christian religion next demands our attention. It is to be considered as an improvement of the Jewish, or a new superstructure raised on the same basis. If the effects of the Jewish religion were beneficial to those among whom it was established, they were confined almost to them alone. But is the spirit of Christianity equally pure and benevolent? Is its influence equally beneficial and more diffusive than that of Judaism? Does it really merit to have triumphed over both the theism of the Jews and the polytheism of the heathens?

If we consider the doctrines and precepts of the Christian religion, nothing can be more happily calculated to raise the dignity of human nature, and promote the happiness of mankind. The happiness of the individual is best promoted by the exercise of love and gratitude towards God, and resignation to his providence; of humanity, integrity, and good will towards men; and by the due government of our appetites and passions. Social happiness again proceeds from the members of society entertaining a disinterested regard for the public welfare; being actively industrious each in his proper sphere of exertion; and being strictly just and faithful, and generously benevolent in their mutual intercourse. The tenor of the gospel inculcates these virtues; it seems everywhere through the whole of the Christian code to have been the great design of its Author to inspire mankind with mild, benevolent, and peaceable dispositions, and to form them to courteous manners. Christianity again represents the Deity and his attributes in the fairest light; even so as to render our ideas of his nature, and the manner in which he exerts his power, consistent with the most correct principles of morality that can be collected from all the other religions that have prevailed in the earth, and from the writings of the most admired philosophers. The ritual observances which Christianity enjoins are few in number, easy to perform, decent, expressive, and edifying. It inculcates no duties but what are founded on the principles of human nature, and on the relation in which man stand to God, their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; and it prefers accurate rules for the regulation of the conduct. The assistance of the spirit of God is promised in this sacred volume to those who assiduously labour to discharge the duties which it enjoins; and it exhibits a striking example of spotless purity, which we may safely venture to imitate. The gospel teaches that worldly afflictions are incident to both good and bad men; a doctrine highly conducive to virtue, which consoles us in distress, prevents despair, and encourages us to persist firmly in our integrity under every difficulty and trial. Christianity represents all men as children of the same God, and heirs of the same salvation, and levels all distinctions of rich and poor, as accidental and insignificant in the sight of him who rewards or punishes with impartiality according to the merits or demerits of his creatures. This doctrine is highly favourable to virtue, as it tends to humble the proud, and to communicate dignity of sentiment to the lowly; to render princes and inferior magistrates moderate and just, gentle and condescending, to their inferiors. It farther requires husbands to be affectionate and indulgent to their wives, wives to be faithful and respectful to their husbands, and both to be true and constant to each other. Such is the purity of the gospel, that it forbids us even to harbour impure thoughts; it requires us to abandon our vices, however dear to us; and to the cautious wisdom of the serpent it directs us to join the innocent simplicity of the dove. The Christian dispensation, to prevent a perseverance in immorality, offers pardon for the past, provided the offender forsake his vicious practices, with a firm resolution to act differently in future. The sanctions of the gospel have a natural tendency to exalt the mind above the paltry pursuits of this world, and to render the Christian incorruptible by wealth, honours, or pleasures. The true Christian not only abjures from injustice towards others, but even forgives those injuries which he himself suffers, knowing that he cannot otherwise hope for forgiveness from God. Such are the precepts, such the spirit, and such the general tendency of the gospel. Even those who refused to give credit to its doctrines and history have yet acknowledged the excellence Religion. excellence of its precepts. They have acknowledged, that "no religion ever yet appeared in the world of which the natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind as the Christian; and that the gospel of Christ is one continued lesson of the strictest morality, of justice, benevolence, and universal charity." These are the words of Bolingbroke, one of its keenest and most insidious opponents. Without examining the effects of this religion on society, we might almost venture to pronounce with confidence, that a religion, the precepts of which are so happily formed to promote all that is just and excellent, cannot but be in the highest degree beneficial to mankind. By reviewing the effects which it has actually produced, the favourable opinion which we naturally conceive of it, after considering its precepts, cannot but be confirmed.

One circumstance we must take notice of as rather unfavourable to this review. It is really impossible to do justice to Christianity by such a discussion of its merits. The virtues which it has a natural tendency to produce and cherish in the human heart, are not of a noisy ostentatious kind; they often escape the observation of the world. Temperance, gentleness, patience, benevolence, justice, and general purity of manners, are not the qualities which most readily attract the admiration and obtain the applause of men. The man of Ross, whom Mr Pope has so justly celebrated, was a private character; his name is now likely to live, and his virtues to be known to the latest posterity; and yet, however disinterested his virtues, however beneficial his influence to all around him, had his character not attracted the notice of that eminent poet, his name would perhaps ere this time have been lost in oblivion. Individuals in private life seldom engage the attention of the historian; his object is to record the actions of princes, warriors, and statesmen. Had not the professors of Christianity in the earlier ages of its existence been exposed to persecutions, and unjust accusations from which they were called on to vindicate themselves, we should be strangers to the names and virtues of saints and martyrs, and to the learning and endowments of the first apologists for Christianity. We can therefore only trace the general influence of the institutions of Christianity on society. We cannot hope to make an accurate enumeration of particulars. In many of the countries in which it has been established, it has produced a very favourable change on the circumstances of domestic life. Polygamy, a practice repugnant to the will of our Creator (see Polygamy), who has declared his intentions in this instance in the plainest manner, by causing nearly equal numbers of males and females to be brought into the world, was never completely abolished but by Christianity.

The practice of divorce, too, though in some cases proper and even necessary, had been so much abused at the time of our Saviour's appearance in the world, that he found reason to declare it unlawful, unless in the case of adultery. The propriety and reasonableness of this prohibition will sufficiently appear, if we consider, that when divorces are easily obtained, both parties will often have nothing else in view at the period of marriage than the dissolution of their nuptial engagements after a short cohabitation; the interests of the husband and the wife will almost always be separate; and the children of such a marriage are scarce likely to enjoy the cordial affection and tender watchful care of either parent. The husband in such a case will naturally be to his wife, not a friend and protector, but a tyrant; fear and deceit, not love, gratitude, or a sense of duty, will be the principles of the wife's obedience.

In another instance, likewise, Christianity has produced an happy change on the circumstances of domestic life; it must be acknowledged to have contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery, or at least to the mitigation of the rigour of servitude. The customs and laws of the Romans in relation to slaves were cruel and severe. Masters were often so inhuman as to remove aged, sick, or infirm slaves, into an island in the Tiber, where they suffered them to perish without pity or assistance. The greater part of the subjects of many of those republics which enjoyed the most liberty, groaned under tyrannical oppression; they were condemned to drag out a miserable existence in hard labour, under inhuman usage, and to be transferred like beasts from one master to another. The hardships of slavery were eased, not by any particular precept of the Gospel, but by the gentle and humane spirit which breathed through the general tenor of the whole system of doctrines and precepts of which the Gospel consists. It must indeed be allowed, that a trade in slaves is at present carried on by people who presume to call themselves Christians, and protected by the legislature of Christian states; but the spirit of the Christian code condemns the practice, and the true Christian will not engage in it.

Partly by the direct and conspicuous, partly by the secret and unseen, influence of Christianity since its promulgation in the world, the hearts of men have been gradually softened; even barbarians have been formed to mildness and humanity; the influence of selfishness has been checked and restrained; and even war, amid all the pernicious improvements by which men have sought to render it more terrible, has assumed much more of the spirit of mildness and peace than ever entered into it during the reign of heathenism.

If we review the history of mankind with a view to their political circumstances, we shall find, that by some means or other, it has happened, since the time when the Gospel was first preached, that both systems of legislature and forms of government have been raised to much greater perfection, at least in those parts of the world into which the religion of Jesus has made its way, and obtained an establishment.

The popular government of the Romans, notwithstanding the multiplicity of their laws, and the imperfections of their political constitution, was, no doubt, happily enough adapted to promote the increase of the power and the extension of the empire of Rome. In Greece there were various republics, the wisdom and impartiality of whose laws have been highly celebrated. But we apprehend that there is a sufficient number of well authenticated facts to warrant us to affirm, that since Christianity has been propagated, and has had sufficient time to produce its full effect on arts, manners, and literature, even under governments the form of which might appear less favourable than the celebrated models of antiquity to the liberty and happiness of the people in general, these actually have been much better provided for than under the laws of Athens or Sparta, or even of Rome in the days of the consuls. It is just just and happy observation of Montesquieu, who has attributed so much to the influence of climate and local circumstances, that "the mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage with which an arbitrary tyrant punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty. It is the Christian religion (says he) which, in spite of the extent of empire, and the influence of climate, has hindered despotism from being established in Ethiopia, and has carried into Africa the manners of Europe. The heir to the empire of Ethiopia enjoys a principality, and gives to other subjects an example of love and obedience."

Nor far from hence may be seen the Mahometan shutting up the children of the king of Sennar, at whose death the council sends to murder them in favour of the prince who ascends the throne. Let us set before our eyes (continues that eloquent writer), in the third chapter of the 24th book of his spirit of Laws, on one hand the continual massacres of the kings and generals of the Greeks and Romans, and on the other the destruction of people and cities by the famous conquerors Timur Beg and Jenghiz Khan, who ravaged Asia; and we shall perceive, that we owe to Christianity in government a certain political law, and in war a certain law of nations, which allows to the conquered the great advantages of liberty, laws, wealth, and always religion, when the conqueror is not blind to his own interest."

These are the reflections of no common judge in this matter, but one who had long studied the history of nations, and observed the phenomena of the various forms of society, with such success as few others have attained.

But on no occasion has the mild influence of Christianity been more eminently displayed, or more happily exerted, than in softening and humanizing the barbarians who overturned the Roman empire. The idolatrous religion which prevailed among those tribes before their conversion to Christianity, instead of disposing them to cultivate humanity and mildness of manners, contributed strongly to render them fierce and blood-thirsty, and eager to distinguish themselves by deeds of savage valour. But no sooner had they settled in the dominions of Rome, and embraced the principles of Christianity, than they became a mild and generous people.

We are informed by Mosheim, who was at pains to collect his materials from the most authentic sources, that in the 10th century Christian princes exerted themselves in the conversion of nations whose fierceness they had experienced, in order to soften and render them more gentle. The mutual humanity with which nations at war treat each other in modern times, is certainly owing, in a great measure, to the influence of the mild precepts of the Gospel. It is a fact worthy of notice, too, that during the barbarous ages, the spiritual courts of justice were more rational and impartial in their decisions than civil tribunals.

How many criminal practices which prevailed among heathen nations have been abolished by their conversion to Christianity! Christians of all nations have been observed to retain the virtues and reject the vicious practices of their respective countries. In Parthia, where polygamy prevailed, they are not polygamists; in Persia, the Christian father does not marry his own daughter.

By the laws of Zoroaster the Persians committed incest until they embraced the Gospel; after which period they abstained from that crime, and observed the duties of chastity and temperance, as enjoined by its precepts. Even the polished and enlightened Romans were cruel and blood-thirsty before the propagation of the Gospel. The breaking of a glass, or some such trifling offence, was sufficient to provoke Vidius Pollio to cast his slaves into fish-ponds to be devoured by lampreys. The effusion of human blood was their favourite entertainment; they delighted to see men combating with beasts, or with one another; and we are informed on respectable authority, that no wars ever made such havoc on mankind as the fights of gladiators, which sometimes deprived Europe of 20,000 lives in one month. Not the humanity of Titus, nor the wisdom and virtue of Trajan, could abolish the barbarous spectacle. However humane and wise in other instances, in this practice those princes complied with the custom of their country, and exhibited splendid shows of gladiators, in which the combatants were matched by pairs; who, though they had never injured nor offended each other, yet were obliged to maim and murder one another in cold blood. Christian divines soon exercised their pens against these horrid practices; the Christian emperor Constantine restrained them by edicts, and Honorius finally abolished them. It would be tedious to proceed through an enumeration of particulars; but wherever Christianity has been propagated, it has constantly operated to the civilization of the manners of mankind, and to the abolition of absurd and criminal practices. The Irish, the Scotch, and all the ancient inhabitants of the British isles, were, notwithstanding their intercourse with the Romans, rude barbarians, till such time as they were converted to Christianity. The inhuman practice of exposing infants, which once prevailed so generally over the world, and still prevails among some Pagan nations, even under very humane and enlightened legislatures, yielded to the influence of Christianity.

Let us likewise remember, in honour of Christianity, that it has contributed eminently to the diffusion of much knowledge, the preservation and the advancement of learning. When the barbarians overspread Europe, what must have become of the precious remains of polished, enlightened antiquity, had there been no other depositaries to preserve them but the heathen priests? We allow that even the Roman clergy during the dark ages did not study the celebrated models of ancient times with much advantage themselves, and did not labour with much affluence to make the laity acquainted with them. It must even be acknowledged, that they did not always preserve those monuments of genius with sufficient care, as they were often ignorant of their real value. Yet, after all, it will be granted, it cannot be denied, that had it not been for the clergy of the Christian church, the lamp of learning would, in all probability, have been entirely extinguished, during that night of ignorance and barbarity in which all Europe was buried for a long series of centuries, after the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman empire.

Such is the excellence of the Christian system, and its tendency to meliorate the human character, that even its beneficial influence has not been confined to those who have received its doctrines and precepts, and who have professed themselves Christians; it has even produced not only many converts, but also many benefactors. many happy effects on the circumstances and the characters of Pagans and infidels, who have had opportunities of beholding the virtues of Christians, and learning the excellence of the morality of the gospel. Those virtues which distinguished the character of the apostate Julian were surely owing in no inconsiderable degree to his acquaintance with Christianity; and it is an undeniable fact, that after the propagation of Christianity through the Roman empire, even while the purity of that holy religion was gradually debauched, the manners of those Pagans who remained unconverted became more pure, and their religious doctrines and worship is immoral and absurd.—We might here adduce a tedious series of facts to the same purpose. Whenever Christians have had any intercourse with Pagan idolaters, and have not concealed the laws of the gospel, nor thrown by their conduct that they disregarded them, even those who have not been converted to Christianity have, however, been improved in their dispositions and manners by its influence. The emperor, whose virtues we have mentioned as arising, in a certain degree, from his acquaintance with Christianity, in a letter to an Heathen pontiff, desires him to turn his eyes to the means by which the superstition of Christians was propagated; by kindness to strangers, by sanctity of life, and by the attention which they paid to the burial of the dead. He recommends an imitation of their virtues, exhorts him to cause the priests of Galatia to be attentive to the worship of their gods, and authorizes him to strip them of the sacerdotal function, unless they obliged their wives, children, and servants, to pay attention to the same duties. He likewise enjoins works of beneficence, desires the priest to relieve the distressed, and to build houses for the accommodation of strangers of whatever religion; and says it is a disgrace for Pagans to disregard those of their own religion, while Christians do kind offices to strangers and enemies. This is indeed an eminent instance of the happy influence of Christianity even on the sentiments and manners of those who regarded the Christian name with abhorrence.

Upon the whole, then, may we not, from the particulars here exhibited concerning the influence of this religion on the manners and happiness of men in society, conclude that Christianity is infinitely superior to the superstitions of Paganism? as being in its tendency uniformly favourable to the virtue and the happiness of mankind, and even to the system of religion and laws delivered by Moses to the children of Israel; because, while the religion of the Jews was calculated only for one particular nation, and it may almost be said for one particular stage in the progress of society, Christianity is an universal religion, formed to exert its happy influence in all ages and among all nations; and has a tendency to dispel the shades of barbarism and ignorance, to promote the cultivation of the powers of the human understanding, and to encourage every virtuous refinement of manners.

V. Another religion, which has made and still makes a conspicuous figure in the world, remains yet to be examined. The religion of Mahomet is that which we here allude to. Whether we consider through what an extensive part of the globe that religion prevails, the political importance of the nations among whom it is professed, or the striking peculiarity of character by which it is distinguished from all other religious systems—it is for all these reasons well worthy of particular notice. Like the Jewish religion, it is not merely a system of religious doctrines and general moral precepts; it forms both the civil legislature and the religious system of those nations among whom it is professed; and, like it too, it would appear to be calculated rather for one particular period in the progress of mankind from rudeness to refinement, than for all ages and all states of society.

The history of its origin is pretty well known, and we have had occasion to enlarge upon it under a former article (see Mahomet and Mahometanism). We are not here to trace the impostures of the prophet, or to consider the arts by which he so successfully accomplished his designs; but merely to consider the morality of his religion, and its influence on civil order and the happiness of society.

If we view the state of the nations among whom it is established, we cannot hesitate a moment to declare it friendly to ignorance, to despotism, and to impurity, and of manners. The Turks, the Persians, and the Malays, impurity, are all Mahometans; and in reviewing their history and considering their present state, we might find a sufficient number of facts to justify the above assertion: and we must not neglect to observe, that, as those nations are not known to have ever been since their conversion to Mahometanism under a much happier government, or in a much more civilized state than at present, it cannot be, with any degree of fairness, argued, with respect to Mahometanism as with respect to Christianity, that it is only when its influence is so opposed by other causes as to prevent it from producing its full effects, that it does not conduct those societies among which it is established to a high state of civilization and refinement.

One, and that by no means an inconsiderable, part of the Koran, was occasionally invented to solve some difficulty with which the prophet found himself at the time perplexed, or to help him to the gratification of his ruling passions, lust and ambition. When he and his followers were, at any time, unsuccessful in those wars by which he sought to propagate his religion, to prevent them from falling away into unbelief, or sinking into despondency, he took care to inform them that God suffered such misfortunes to befall believers, as a punishment for their sins, and to try their faith. The doctrine of predestination, which he assiduously inculcated, had a happy effect to persuade his followers to rush boldly into the midst of death and danger, at his command. He prevailed with Zeyd to put away his wife, married her himself, and pretended that his crime had the approbation of heaven; and, in the Koran, he introduces the Deity approving of this marriage. Being repulsed from the siege of Mecca, he made a league with the inhabitants; but on the very next year, finding it convenient to surprise the city, by violating this treaty, he justified his perfidy by teaching his followers to disregard promises or leagues made with infidels. In some instances again, we find absurd prohibitions enjoined for similar reasons: his officers, having on some occasion drunk to excess, excited much riot and confusion in the camp, he prohibited the use of wine and other intoxicating liquors among his followers in future. Now, though it must be acknowledged that many evils arise from the use of these liquors, yet we cannot but think that, that, when used in moderation, they are in many cases beneficial to men; and certainly as much allowed by God as opium, which the Mahometans have substituted in their place.

Mahomet is allowed to have copied from the Christian and the Jewish religions, as well as from the idolatrous superstitions which prevailed through Arabia, and thus to have formed a motley mixture of reason and absurdity, of pure theism and wild superstition. He considered also the circumstances of his country, and the prejudices of his countrymen. When he attended to the former, he was generally judicious enough to suit his doctrines and decisions to them with sufficient skill; the latter he also managed with the greatest art; but he entered into accommodation with them in infancies when a true prophet or a wise and upright legislator would surely have opposed them with decisive vigour. Where the prophet indulges his own fancy, or borrows from the superstitions of his countrymen, nothing can be more ridiculous than that rhapsody of lies, contradictions, and extravagant fables, which he delivers to his followers. Amazing are the absurdities which he relates concerning the patriarchs, concerning Solomon, and concerning the animals that were assembled in Noah's ark.

But in the whole tissue of absurdities of which his system consists, there is nothing more absurd, or more happily calculated to promote impurity of manners, than his descriptions of heaven and hell; the ideas of future rewards and punishments which he sought to impress on the minds of his followers. Paradise was to abound with rivers, trees, fruits, and shady groves; wine which would not intoxicate was to be there plentifully served up to believers; the inhabitants of that happy region were all to enjoy perpetual youth; and their powers of enjoyment were to be enlarged and invigorated, in order that so many fine things might not be thrown away upon them. "Instead of inspiring the blest inhabitants of paradise with a liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and friendship (says Mr Gibbon), Mahomet idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines, artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of sensual luxury.—Seventy two hours, or black-eyed girls of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged for 1000 years, and his faculties will be increased 100 fold, to render him worthy of his felicity." It must be acknowledged that he allows believers other more refined enjoyments than these; thus they are to see the face of God morning and evening; a pleasure which is far to exceed all the other pleasures of paradise. The following is his description of the punishments of hell: The wicked are there to drink nothing but boiling stinking water; breathe nothing but hot winds; dwell for ever in continual burning fire and smoke; eat nothing but briars and thorns, and the fruit of a tree that riseth out of the bottom of hell, whose branches resemble the heads of devils, and whose fruits shall be in their bellies like burning pitch.

All that we can conclude from a general view of the religion of Mahomet, from considering the character of the prophet, or from reviewing the history of the nations among whom it has been established, is, that it is one tissue of absurdities, with a few truths, however, and valuable precepts incongruously intermixed; that a great part of it is unfavourable to virtuous manners, to wise and equal laws, and to the progress of knowledge and refinement. It often inculcates in a direct manner sentiments that are highly immoral; it substitutes trifling superstitious observances in the room of genuine piety and moral virtue; and it gives such views of futurity as render purity of heart no necessary qualification for fearing God.

Surely, therefore, even the deist, who rejects all but Mahometan natural religion, would not hesitate to prefer Christianity to Judaism, and even Judaism, to the religion of Mahomet. Judaism, calculated for a peculiar people, was undoubtedly much more sublime and much more happily framed to render that people virtuous and happy in the circumstances in which they were placed; and Christianity we find to be an universal religion, suited to all circumstances and to all the stages of society, and acting, wherever it is received, with more or less force to the support of civil order, virtuous manners, improvement of arts, and the advancement of science. However, as Mahometanism forms in some measure a regular system, as it has borrowed many of the precepts and doctrines of Judaism and Christianity, not indeed without corrupting and degrading them; and as it has contributed considerably to the support of civil government, although in a very imperfect form, in those countries in which it has obtained an establishment; for all these reasons we cannot but give it the preference to the superstitions of Paganism.

The whole result of our inquiries under this article, therefore, is, 1. That as man, by the constitution of his mind, is naturally fitted for acquiring certain notions concerning the existence of invisible superior beings, and their influence on human life; so the religious ideas which we find to have in all ages of the world, and in all the different stages of the progress of society, prevailed among mankind, appear to have originated partly from the natural exertions of the human imagination, understanding, and passions, in various circumstances, and partly from supernatural revelation.

2. That though religious opinions, together with the moral precepts, and the rites of worship connected with them, may appear to have been in numerous instances injurious to the virtue and happiness of society; yet, as they have often contributed to lead the mind to form moral distinctions, when it would otherwise in all probability have been an entire stranger to such distinctions; and as they have always contributed in an essential manner to the establishment and the support of civil government—it must therefore be acknowledged that they have always, even in their humblest state, been more beneficial than hurtful to mankind.

3. That when the different systems of religion that have prevailed in the world are comparatively viewed with respect to their influence on the welfare of society, we find reason to prefer the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans to the ruder, wilder, religious ideas and ceremonies that have prevailed among savages; Mahometanism, perhaps in some respects, to the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans; Judaism, however, to Mahometanism; and Christianity to all of them.