"'There was none of the doctrines of our Saviour (says the late Archbishop of York) ** calculated for the gratification of men's idle curiosities, the busying and amusing them with airy and useless speculations; much less were they intended for an exercise of our credulity, or a trial how far we could bring our reason to submit to our faith; but as on the one hand they were plain and simple, and such as by their agreeable-ness to the rational faculties of mankind, did highly recommend themselves to our belief; so on the other hand they had an immediate relation to practice, and were the general principles and foundation, on which all human and divine virtues were naturally to be superstructed.'
* Boyle's Lect., p. 26,
** Sermon before the Queen on Christmas Day, 1724.
"Does not every one see, that if the religion of nature had been put instead of Christianity, these descriptions would have exactly agreed with it? The judicious Dr. Scot affirms, 'God never imposes laws on us pro imperio, as arbitrary tests and trials of our obedience. The great design of them (says he,) is to do us good, and direct our actions to our own interest. This, if we firmly believe, will infinitely encourage our obedience; for when I am sure God commands me nothing but what my own health, ease, and happiness requires; and that every law of his is both a necessary and sovereign prescription against the diseases of my nature, and he could not prescribe less than he has, without being defective in his care of my recovery and happiness; with what prudence and modesty can I grudge to obey him?'
"Nay, the most considerate men, even among the Papists, do not scruple to maintain there's nothing in religion but what is moral. The divines of Port Royal for instance, say, 'All the precepts, and all the mysteries that are expressed in so many different ways in the holy volumes, do all centre in this one commandment of loving God with all our heart, and in loving our neighbors as ourselves: for the Scripture (it is St. Austin who says it) forbids but one only thing, which is concupiscence, or the love of the creature; as it commands but one only thing, which is charity, and the love of God. Upon this double precept is founded the whole system of the Christian religion; and it is unto this, say they, according to the expression of Jesus Christ, that all the ancient law and the prophets have reference; and we may add also, all the mysteries, and all the precepts of the new law; for love, says St. Paul, is the fulfilling of the law.' And these divines likewise cite a remarkable passage of St. Austin on this subject, viz., 'He that knows how to love God, and to regulate his life by that love, knows all that the Scripture propounds to be known.' And might add the authority of a greater man, and a Papist too, * who says, 'Religion adds nothing to natural probity, but the consolation of doing that for love and obedience to our Heavenly Father, which reason itself requires us do in favor of virtue.'"
* Archbishop of Cambray: Lettres sur la Religion,
p. 258, a Paris.
Tindal was a solid, rather than a brilliant writer: but he perfectly knew what he was about; and the work from which we quote, was well conceived and carefully executed. His ground was skilfully chosen, his arguments were placed on an eminence where his friends could see them, and where his enemies could not assail them. Dr. Leland, in his view of Deistical writers, is quite in a rage with him, because he discredits Book Revelation, to set up Nature's Revelation. His real offence was, that he did prove that Nature was the only source of truth and reason—the criterion by which even Divine Revelation must be judged. He carried men back to the gospel of nature, by the side of which the gospel of the Jewish fishermen did not show to advantage. Tindal did put something in the place of that which he was supposed desirous of removing. How unwilling Christians of that day were to admit of improvement in religion, is shown by the number of attacks Tindal's work sustained. The Bishop of London published a "Second Pastoral Letter" against it; Dr. Thomas Burnet "confuted" it; Mr. Law "fully" answered it; Dr. Stebbing "obviated the principal objections" in it. "The same learned and judicious writer," observes Leland, a second time entered the lists, in "answer to the fourteenth chapter of a book, entitled 'Christianity as Old as the Creation.'" Mr. Balgny issued a "Second Letter to a Deist," occasioned by Tindal's work. Mr. Anthony O'Key gave a short view of the whole controversy. Dr. Foreter, Dr. John Conybeare, "particularly engaged public attention" as Dr. Tindal's antagonists. Mr. Simon Brown produced a "solid and excellent" answer; and Dr. Leland, with many blushes, tells us that he himself issued in Dublin, in 1773, two volumes, taking a wider compass than the other answers.
"Christianity as Old as the Creation" is a work which Freethinkers may yet consult with advantage, as a repertory of authorities no longer accessible to the readers of this generation. What these authorities allege will be found to have intrinsic value, to be indeed lasting testimonies in favor of Rationalism. In passing in review the noble truths, Tindal insists that it is impossible not to wonder at the policy, or rather want of policy displayed by Christians. Tindal is an author whom they might be proud of, if they were really in love with reason. Tindal's opponents have shown how instinctively the children of faith distrust the truths of Nature. After all the "refutations," and "confutations" and answers made to the great Deist, Tin-dal's work has maintained its ground, and the truths he so ably and spiritedly vindicated, have spread wider since and taken deeper root.
J. W. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
DAVID HUME
Lord Brougham has rendered service not only to "Letters," but also to Freethought, by his admirable "Lives," incomparably the best we have, of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Gibbon, etc. From Lord Brougham we learn (whose life in this sketch we follow) that David Hume, related to the Earl of Hume's family, was born in Edinburgh, in April, 1711. Refusing to be made a lawyer, he was sent, in 1734, to a mercantile house in Bristol. The "desk" not suiting the embryo historian's genius, we find him in 1737 at La Flèche, in Anjou, writing his still-born "Treatise on Human Nature;" which in 1742, in separate Essays, attracted some notice. Keeper and companion to the Marquis of Annandale in 1745, private secretary to General St. Clair in 1747, he visited on embassy the courts of Vienna and Turin. While at Turin he completed his "Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding," the "Treatise on Human Nature" in a new form. Returned to Scotland, he published his "Political Discourses" in 1752, and the same year his "Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals." The "Essays, Moral and Metaphysical," are the form in which we now read these speculations. In 1752, Hume became librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. In 1754 he published the first volume of his "History of England." In 1755, appeared his "Natural History of Religion." In 1763 he accompanied the British ambassador to Paris. In 1765 he became charge d'affaires.