100 A WORD FOR PHILOSOPHY. 



referring to the same primary authority, it is scarcely possible to con- 

 ceive of greater variations than subsist among them, both with relation 

 to each other, and to the doctrines of their common founder. Ac- 

 curacy, therefore, requires that in speaking of them they should be 

 specifically denominated, and not be grouped under a generical ap- 

 pellative. Thus it is right to say, the religion of Rome, the religion of 

 Luther, the religion of Calvin, and the like ; for the religion of God's 

 Christ will convey but a very inadequate idea of their several characters 

 and tenets. Let us then see what that Roman religion was which 

 peculiarly excited the enmity of what is called the French school of 

 philosophy. 



It was a " system'' which, in the first place, demanded the renun- 

 ciation of all right of private judgment, ' and subjected the religious 

 opinions and practices of all the world to the determination of a foreign 

 mountebank priest which took from men the direction of their own 

 consciences, and put it into the hands of a caste, detached in all coun- 

 tries from their fellow-subjects, and universally connected by peculiar 

 claims and interests which uniformly discouraged all enquiries and 

 discussions tending, however remotely, to invalidate its own authority, 

 and exacted implicit submission in all points on which it had thought 

 fit to decide which taught doctrines the most irreconcileable to reason 

 and common sense, and enjoined observances the most trifling, de- 

 grading, and burdensome. It was a system, moreover, radically hostile 

 to every other, spurning all community or accommodation, annexing 

 extravagant ideas of merit to proselytism, and therefore, when allied 

 to power, infallibly leading to persecution : a SYSTEM, the influence of 

 which was traced in lines of blood through every page of modern 

 history ! Was it then no just object to the friends of reason and hu- 

 manity to loosen the hold of such a religion upon the minds of men ? 

 Was it not a necessary preliminary to every attempt for introducing 

 substantial improvements in the countries where it prevailed ; and if, 

 in the contest with a mass of opinion so powerfully supported, some 

 things were necessarily endangered which were worth preserving, was 

 not the prize adequate to the hazard ? 



A ''consistent Protestant 5 ' cannot certainly dispute these conclu- 

 sions ; but he may blame philosophers for not fairly examining Chris- 

 tianity at the source, and adopting it in such a form as shall approve 

 itself to a rational enquirer. Before he does this, however, he must 

 be prepared to admit that an enquiry conducted upon such a principle 



