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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1778 Excerpt:... gardless of speculative truth, tolerated all the superstitions of the human mind not directly subversive of civil government. A farther support was added to gentile error, by that philosophic pantheism invented by the learned and contemplative, as a cover for the absur dities of the vulgar polytheism; The connection of the subject, as well as the order of the argument, now leads us into some detail of the civil establishment of paganism: and from an induction of circumstances, to place the strength and power of that establishment in its true light; contrasted with the apparently obscure and inadequate means by which it was subverted, and the christian religion was demonstrated to be The Power And Wisdom Of God. Paganism had this great advantage of revealed religion, that it was prior to it iii point of time; and was in full pofleffiori of the human heart, when the law and the gospel put in their pretensions. The question of the priority of theism to idolatry, is easily decided by the authority of profane history, as well as by the evidence of scripture. From both it is apparent, that the first religion of mankind was that pure theism, which was derived Originally from the author of our nature. This religion, before the flood, was untainted with idolatry: the specific enormities mities of the first race of men were practical and moral consisting in the abuse of those blessings, which resulted from the happy constitution of the earth. The religion of Adam consisted in filial obedience to the will of God, who imposed one restraint adapted to the compound nature of man, and designed to inure him td assert the supremacy of reason over his animal passions. We know the violation, and we feel the consequences of it in the subjection of reason to appetite, and in th...