16 Ere Time to shape and fashion drew 17 O God! how gracious, how divine, 18 I might as well go tell the fand, 19 Wilt thou not, Lord, avenge the good? 20 Loud are their hoftile voices heard To take thy facred name in vain : 21 Am I not griev'd? Doth not each word Wring my afflicted heart with pain? Doth not my zealous foul return 22 Yea, Lord! I feel my bofom burn, 23 Try me, dread Power! and fearch my heart; 24 If devious from thy paths I ftray, And wickednefs be found with me, THE No. LXI. HE deistical writers, who would fain perfuade us that the world was in poffeffion of as pure a fyftem of morality before the introduction of Christianity as fince, affect to make a great difplay of the vir tues of many eminent heathens, particularly of the philofophers Socrates, Plato, and fome others. When they set up these characters as examples of perfection, which human nature with the aids of revelation either has not attained to, or not exceeded, they put us upon an invidious task, which no man would voluntarily engage in, and challenge us to difcufs a question, which, if thoroughly agitated, cannot fail to strip the illuftrious dead of more than half the honours which the voice of ages has agreed to give them. 16 Ere Time to fhape and fashion drew 17 O God! how gracious, how divine, 18 I might as well go tell the fand, 19 Wilt thou not, Lord, avenge the good? Shall not blafphemers be destroy'd? Depart from me, ye men of blood, Hence murderers, and my fight avoid! 20 Loud are their hoftile voices heard To take thy facred name in vain : 21 Am I not griev'd? Doth not each word Wring my afflicted heart with pain? Doth not my zealous foul return 23 Try me, dread Power! and fearch my heart; Lay all its movements in thy view ; Explore it to its inmost part, Nor spare it, if 'tis found untrue. 24 If devious from thy paths I ftray, And wickednefs be found with me, THE No. LXI. HE deistical writers, who would fain perfuade us that the world was in poffeffion of as pure a fyftem of morality before the introduction of Christianity as fince, affect to make a great display of the virtues of many eminent heathens, particularly of the philofophers Socrates, Plato, and fome others. When they set up these characters as examples of perfection, which human nature. with the aids of revelation either has not attained to, or not exceeded, they put us upon an invidious task, which no man would voluntarily engage in, and challenge us to discuss a question, which, if thoroughly agitated, cannot fail to strip the illuftrious dead of more than half the honours which the voice of ages has agreed to give them. It is therefore to be wifhed that they had held the argument to its general terms, and shewn us where that system of ethics is to be found, which they are prepared to bring into comparifon with the moral doctrines of Chrift. This I take to be the fair ground whereon the controverfy fhould have been decided, and here it would infallibly have been brought to iffue; but they knew their weapons better than to truft them in fo close a conflict. The maxims of fome heathen philofophers, and the moral writings of Plato, Cicero, and Seneca, contain many noble truths, worthy to be held in veneration by pofterity; and if the deift can from these produce a fyftem of morality as pure and perfect as that which claims its origin from divine revelation, he will prove that God gave to man a faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong with fuch correctnefs, that his own immediate revelation added no lights to thofe, which the powers of reafon had already discovered. Let us grant therefore for a moment, that Chrift's religion revealed to the world no new truths in morality, nor removed any old errors, and what triumph accrues to the deift by the |