because he has far more inducements to the former than to the latter.

But as it may be replied, that fuch kind of reafoning is deceitful and unfatisfactory; that experience at last must decide the queftion, and not arguments drawn from the nature of man, and from the motives which may be supposed to influence him; to experience our author appeals: from which, he fays, we shall foon find that more good than evil is done in the world, otherwife the world could not fubfift, and civil fociety muft difband.

6

Let us take, for example,' fays he, one of a middle ftation, who paffeth his days quietly, in all appearance, and lives in tolerable credit and repute; for, of fuch perfons, the • bulk of fociety confifts. He hath then a calling or occupation, in which he spends, at least, half of the waking hours of his life. Thus, at the very firft account which we take of him, we must fet down half of his actions as good, at leaft, not bad. I will not fay that these are what we call • moral virtues, or religious deeds; and yet fo far as they are ⚫ done honeftly, in obedience to God and to fociety, and with a view to live reputably, and without being a burthen to others, fo far they undoubtedly partake of the nature of

• virtue.

He has a family, a wife, and children, and fervants, and " he takes care of them. A thousand good actions are necesfary to perform this, and to live orderly and decently at home, which must be added to the account. He has dealings with others who employ him and truft him; confequently he is, in all probability, honeft in his dealings. Here likewise many good actions are to be fuppofed. He has friends and acquaintances and relations who eftcem him, and are willing to do him fervice; confequently he behaves himself well towards them, elfe he would be deferted and flighted.

We may add to this, that he performs fome acts of charity; that his heart has ached for the miseries of others, and his hand hath relieved them; that he has undertaken ⚫ offices, expenfive and troublesome to himself, through friendfhip, or gratitude, or pity, or good-nature, or honour. Add to this, that he has religion, that he frequents the public worship of God, that when he commits faults he condemns himself, and is fenfible of his deviations, and forry ⚫ for his defects.

Since the generality of men are nearly fuch as we have ⚫ been representing, and perform many more good than bad actions; not only humanity and charity, but juftice and

common

• common honefty, forbid us to fay of mankind in general, that they do far more evil than good. He who doth far more evil than good must be remarkably and fcandalously ⚫ wicked.

It may be faid, that both writers of morality, and the fcriptures themselves, reprefent mankind in general as fin⚫ners and prone to evil; and, in a word, worfe than we • have described hem. But then it must be observed, that they confider men in quite another view, namely, as obliged to live according to the dictates of right reason, and to the precepts of God, which when they do not, they become finners. For it is not the performing more good than bad actions, that denominates a man good in the moral and religious fenfe; and though he may frequently practise what is right, and honeft, and humane, and honourable, and reafonable, yet if he perfifts in any one evil habit, and is wilfully deficient in any one moral duty, he is confidered in a ftate of enmity with virtue and religion, till repentance and reformation reftores him to the condition whence he is ⚫ fallen. If he be a ftubborn and a deliberate tranfgreffor, he is confidered as a violator of the law, and a defpifer of the authority of the law-giver; as in civil fociety, if a man ⚫ commits a capital crime, his having observed all the rest of the law, will not exempt him from punishment.

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The fcriptures frequently forbid rafh judgments and cenforiousness, and a misrepresentation of other mens actions. and hard thoughts concerning them, and yet teach all men, with relation to God and to his holy will and commandments, to acknowlege themselves finners, and incapable of being juftified in his fight by their own righteousness. Therefore, though humility commands us to think lowly of • ourselves, and of others, and of human nature, and to own that man is not worthy of the leaft of God's mercies, yet charity forbids us to think fo ill of the whole race, as to • fuppofe that they are always doing evil, and that their best actions proceed from bad motives.'

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Our author goes on to obferve, that many perfons who had no good-will to revealed religion, have taken a perverse delight in blackening human nature, and that many weak and ignorant Chriftians have done, and daily do, the fame thing; joining together, with different views, and affifting each other in abufing and flandering mankind. He gives a fhort view of what thefe vilifiers of God's fair creation have said, and likewise the fubftance of what has been advanced by the advocates for human nature; and clofes the differtation with

Dd4

fhewing

fhewing, briefly, in what sense, and in what inftances, charity thinketh no evil.

In his fourth differtation, he confiders the love of praise and reputation, and the proper bounds and degrees of that love, His difcourfe upon this fubject confifts of two parts; in the first of which he fhews, that we may love the praise of men in fome degree; and in the second, that our love of it should be moderate. In the fifth, he difcourfes on the history and character of Balaam, from these words, Numb. xxii. 12. And God faid unto Balaam, thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curfe the people, for they are bleffed. He introduces this differtation with obferving, that the hiftory of Balaam, recorded by Mofes, is extraordinary in all its parts; that it contains difficulties which have exercised the abilities, and divided the opinions, of religious enquirers; that it has been matter of cavilling and fport to unbelievers; and that it affords moral inftruction of great importance, and of general use. Upon thefe accounts he endeavours to explain and vindicate it, and then makes such practical inferences from it as the matter fuggefts.

The first point which offers itself to confideration is, How came Mofes to the knowlege of all these transactions? To which our author anfwers, that as there is no intimation given, fo there is no reafon to imagine, that he had his knowlege by revelation. He had it then, we are told, by information, which he might easily obtain, concerning an event in his own time, and in the neighbourhood. Balaam himself muft have related to the Moabites what befel him on his journey; and when the spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he delivered his prophecies concerning the people of Ifrael, and other nations, the Moabites, who ftood by, took down his difcourfes, or he himself might afterwards commit them to writing; and fo they came into the hands of Mofes.

Balaam,' fays he, in his prophecies foretold the fate and fortunes of feveral nations, and many events which did not come to pafs till after many ages. His predictions have been exactly fulfilled, and this is a fure proof, that he was a prophet, and that Mofes hath given us a faithful account of his prophecies. It ferves alfo to confirm the truth of fome extraordinary things in the character and the adventures of this extraordinary person.

Balaam feems to have been a worshipper of the true God: he was a priest and a prophet, and he dwelt in Mefopatamia, by the river Euphrates, at a confiderable distance from the Moabites. His reputation was great, and extended

• through

through the nations round about him, and he was thought to have such intereft in heaven, that whomsoever he blessed, 6 was blessed, and whomsoever he curfed, was cursed.

The king of Moab, therefore, terrified at the approach of the Ifraelites, at the rapidity of their conquefts, and at the deftruction of the warlike nations of the Amorites, and ⚫ of other people, confulted with his neighbours the Midianites, what they fhould do for their common fafety. It was agreed upon, that they should fend an embaffy to Balaam, and prevail with him, by the force of intreaties, joined to the stronger force of presents, to come and curfe the Ifraelites in a religious and a folemn manner.

It was a general notion, that the priests and prophets could fometimes, by prayers and facrifices, duly and skilfully applied, obtain fuch favours from the gods, and that their imprecations were efficacious. This feems to have been a < very antient notion, founded, it may be, upon the prayers, benedictions, and imprecations of the patriarchs, of men who had the prophetic fpirit, and foretold the fates of their • pofterity.

These methods of applying to the gods, and of execrating and devoting an enemy in time of war, were practifed by the < Romans afterwards, with great folemnity, and doubtless by others. Thus fome nations, wife enough in many respects, < yet thought that the Deity could be influenced by fuch artifices, and brought to hate one people and love another. The gentiles, beftowing human vices upon their Deities, ac• counted them to be as fordid as themselves; and used to say that gifts had a prevailing charm over gods, as well as

$ over men.

This art of religious execration, obferved by Rome-pagan, hath been kept up by Rome-Chriftian, where the holy pontiff, and his ecclefiaftics, denounce the most horrible, infa'mous, and prophane curfes, against the difobedient, against fchifmatics and heretics, with all the pomp and grimace of paganifm, and with the fame efficacy and fuccefs. Their pagan ancestors, to give them their due, were much more. reasonable petitioners, and only defired, that their enemies might be conquered; but these pious Chriftians prayed for the eternal damnation of their adverfaries, and devoutly hoped, that their curfes were ratified in heaven and in hell.

But to return to Balaam; that nothing should detain him, the embaffadors brought him prefents, and were willing to pay him beforehand. Upon which we may observe, that the temper of the eaftern nations, and of the Greeks, was,

and

and is, in general, extremely mercenary. Antient writers <fhew it to have been fo in various inftances: the pagan poets have not fcrupled to charge the diviners, and footh-fayers with avarice and rapacioufnc fs; and Balaam's character is manifeftly of this kind, and he ftands recorded as a man greedy of lucre.'

Dr. Fortin goes on with the hiftory of Balaam, as recorded in Numbers, and makes fome fhort reflections upon it; after which he comes to confider the great difficulty of all, viz. the affair of the afs. That God is able to work fuch a miracle, none but an atheift, he fays, can doubt: that he fhould have done it for a purpose fo flender, in all appearance, he owns, is a fuppofition which may perplex even a fober and religious enquirer, and throw him into a state of doubt and hesitation.

The end and defign of this miracle,' fays he, as far as we can discern, was to fhew the mercenary prophet, that his paffions had blinded and ftupified him; that he had not even the sense and difcernment of a brute; and that it would ⚫ be a dangerous and a vain attempt for him to prétend to prevaricate, and not to fay to Balak what God fhould put in his mouth. This might have been accomplished by other * methods, and the fame inftruction given to him, without * changing the order of nature in this moft ftrange manner. • But what follows is ftill, perhaps, more wonderful; for the

prophet, inftead of being terrified beyond measure at the • voice and reproof of the beaft, continues to be very angry, ⚫ and threatens to kill her; which is downright frenzy, and ⚫ the behaviour of a man altogether befide himself, and as fuch • incapable of correction and inftruction.

One folution there is to thefe difficulties, which, if it might be admitted, would, in a great measure, remove them. I would by no means infift upon it, as upon a certainty; but yet it may be offered as a conjecture not forced, or improbable, or irreligious, or contrary to the reverence which is due to the facred writings. It is this; Balaam faw ⚫ and did these things in a trance or vision, in fuch a vision as • other prophets frequently had on other occafions. Several ⚫ confiderations may be offered in behalf of this interpretation.

Firft, it is no new opinion. Maimonides, a learned and judicious commentator amongst the Jews, and several of his brethren, have adopted it, as alfo fome Chriftian writers; tho', indeed, the ftream of interpreters runs against us. This may ferve to take off the prejudice of novelty. Secondly, < this interpretation may be fo ftated, as not to deny and deftroy the hiftorical fact, but only to remove that part and

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