JTEWTOWN TO MONTGOMERY. 8 1 



in his own age lord Herbert was alfo juftly 

 efteemed a prodigy of learning, but in his literary 

 purfuits we obferve the fame eiithufiafm, affectation, 

 and eccentricity, as were apparent in all his other 

 iadlions. He was the author of feveral works : A 

 life of Henry VlII. ; Memoirs of his own Life ; 

 a treatife " De Religione Gentilium, Errorumque 

 apud eos Caufis ;'* and a work which he efteemed 

 fo excellent, as even to infert its title in his epitaph, 

 « De Veritate." 



This nobleman is faid to have been the firft 

 author -who formed Deifm into a fyftem, and endea- 

 voured to alfert the fufficiency, univerfality, and ab- 

 folute perfedion of natural religion, without the 

 neceflity of any extraordinary revelation. He at- 

 tempted to prove that the light of reafon, and the 

 innate principles implanted in the human mind, were 

 fufficient to difcover the great dodrines of morality, 

 to regulate our anions, and conduct us to happinefs 

 in a future ftate. But at one moment he enforces 

 the belief of a Deity in terms of the higheft venera- 

 tion, and inculcates the neceflity of a future ftate, 

 and the doftrine of rewards and punifhments, and 

 at another labours to undermine the truth of the 

 only religion which afcertams the exiftence and 

 attributes of a fuperintending Deity, and fubftantiates 

 by moral and hiftorical proof the certainty of future 

 retribution.— All his pofitions have been ably re- 

 futed by Locke, Leland, and others. 



VOL. II. G But 



