In which the readers will find an essay on the pleasure of being impofed upon, with fome other very curious particulars.

HERE is a word very much in vogue with the people

TH

of taste and fashion, which, though it has not even the penumbra of a meaning, yet makes up the fum total of the wit, fenfe, and judgment of the aforefaid people of tafte and fashion. This word is HUMBUG. “D-mn it, "JACK, did you obferve how the Colonel HUMBUG'D "his Grace laft night?This peace will prove a con"founded HUMBUG upon the nation.-Thefe theatrical managers HUMBUG the town damnably." -Thefe fentences and the like you hear every night in all, polite Numb. II. Vol. II, F

company,

company; and no body is fit for the fociety of perfons of rank, who has not been HUMBUG'D DAMNABLY.

After a man has been fome ten or a dozen years of the University, he has at least a chance of understanding the vernacular; for tho' we have no profeffors of the English language at any of our academies, yet I am apt to think, our own tongue is in general as well understood by the natives, as the Greek or Latin, or in fhort any other tongue, the FRENCH only excepted. Upon the prefumption therefore of having a little fmattering of English, from the advantage of a liberal education, I will venture to affirm that this HUMBUG is neither an English word, nor a derivative from any other language.It is indeed a black-guard found, made ufe of by moft people of diftinction.It is a fine make-weight in converfation, and fome great men deceive themfelves fo egregiously as to think they mean fomething by it.—

"Doubtless the pleasure is as great
"In being cheated as to cheat,

fays an inimitable brother Caftle-builder.-Yes-and, he might have faid, a much greater. For 'tis fo exquifite a joy to the mind of man to be imposed upon—that if he cannot get fome kind juggler to do the work for him, he is never more happily imployed than when he is impofing upon himself.One of the greateft motives of our af fection to the charming and fofter fex, is because they cheat us fo dexteroufly." A man of your fenfe, Mr. "JENKINSON to be fo foolifh, Mr. JENKINSON-you "know there is nothing in nature that I hate fo much, as

being kifs'd and pull'd and hauli'd about fo."----We cannot but perceive the impofition,-we do,--and rejoice in the perception.

Never was there any age when the appetite of being cheated was more fully fatisfied than in this.-One uni

verfal,

verfal HUMBUG prevails at all the points of the compass.In one place you shall see a patriot finging of liberty to the mufick of his own chains.-In another an illiterate impious great man fupporting and improving religion and learning. Yonder goes Mr. CHISSLE the ftatuary,-he thinks himself a poet, and a little farther on proceeds Mrs PRISCILLA PUFF-WELL, a* plumper to an undertaker. She practices phyfic, and often makes the very corpfes fhe adorns. Step along till you come a fhop or two lower, there lives Mrs. TWEEDLE, the child's-fiddlemaker. She is an architect, talks of all the orders, will fhew you the entablature of a tobacco-ftopper, and like that old French-woman, the Abbe

plague take his

name, finds fault with St. Paul's, and abufes Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN.— -A thousand inftances of a fimilar nature are in my mind. But I hear St. Mary's bell ringing, and I dare not keep the young gentlemen of our Univerfity up any longer. To bed-to bed-to treat you like fchool-boys is an infallible way to make men of you. Away, left you interrupt your worthy paftors and mafters, fome of whom love the theme of discipline fo well, that I'll anfwer for't they'll talk of it till four o'clock in the morning,

CHIMERICUS CANTABRIGIENSIS.

*The bufinefs of a plumper is to bedizen a dead body, and make what the ladies call " a charming corps."

On the REALITY of RELIGION.

LETTER II,

AVING discovered in nature's works the will of its

HAV

great author, and what homage and obedience he expects from all fuch as by sense and reafon are qualified to find it out, we now pass on to enquire into the nature of the human frame, and the obligation every individual is under to act agreeably. Now fince men are dependent, they can only derive their happiness from the fame fource that they do their existence, their faculties, powers of action, and the like. Their intellectual powers therefore, if they confult them, will tell them, that in order to be ultimately happy, they must diligently advert to, and as faithfully observe and practice, his will, in all its parts. This they are to do out of a sense of his authority over them and their depen-. dence upon him. Because if the will be abfolutely unconcerned, there is no merit at all in the action; nor is the man accountable for what follows; that is, he is no fubject of rewards and punishments, but firictly and literally on the fame footing, and to be ranged under the fame class, with neceffary and mechanical causes.

Or the thing may be placed and viewed in this light; A, for inftance, goes to church, or performs fome religious act in order to avoid certain penalties, which otherwise would have reached him, in this world or the next; fince therefore the escaping those penalties is the fole excitement to such particular act, it will fecure him against the infliction of them. Because every purfuit deferves that for the fake of which it was principally, if not entirely, undertaken. But tho' what was done to procure happiness, or avert misery, gives a right to the means, yet has it no concern with what will happen in time to come; fince the obtaining or avoiding prefent, and not future, happiness or mifery, was what

A

A defign'd by it. And whoever attains the end of action, has nothing more to expect from it.

any

Hence it is man's intention, or views of acting, which gives his performance all its worth and credit with others, Therefore if we look not up to God, and propose his acceptance as the main end of our acting, however agreeable the matter of fuch act may be, ftill have we done nothing that will recommend us to his favour, and make us fuitable objects of that beneficence which he denies to none who are in a proper plight and difpofition for receiving the effects of it; fince whatever in reafon entitles to one or to the other muft be done out of fincere obedience to his will, and in humble confidence of pleafing him. From the above I would obferve,

Ift, That divine acceptance only follows thofe actions which were begun, continued, and finally completed and perfected on the Deity's account, or are the result of certain habits formed with a view to it, which in fuch a cafe have all the merit with the principle they are built on,

2. That liberty is so neceffary in the great affair of falvation, that without it no individual has the leaft ground to expect his fervices fhall be received; that is, religious obfervances or acts of worship are regarded by the author of our beings no otherwise than as they flow from full conviction and a free choice.

3. That tho' coactive power may oblige to outward conformity, yet as it is not fitted to produce inward correfponding difpofitions, every biass of this kind clapped on the will is both unneceffary and improper; because such means can never obtain the end they drive at. Whence, all coercion and restraint in matters respecting God's favour and displeafure cannot be right; therefore, by the terms, they must be wrong. Whence,

4thly, The unalienable right of worshipping God according to conscience, or in fuch manner, and by fuch forms, as each one thinks will be moft agreeable to him. And