Supposing the Bible to have been written by divine inspiration, at the times, and by the persons mentioned in it, still it is next to impossible, that it could have been transmitted down to the present time pure and uncontaminated, even if there had been but one nation and one language upon earth. The variety of translations and editions it has passed through in the course of near 1800 years, if it has existed so long, (which I am inclined to disbelieve of many parts) and the continual improvements and alterations in human language, during that period, amount to a presumptive proof that the sense has been unavoidably mistaken, or wilfully perverted. A confirmation of this remark is open to all: let any one take the trouble of comparing different copies of the Bible, printed in the last and present centuries, or even in the same year, and he will often find a striking disagreement. Admitting that the Bible contains the only doctrine by which we can obtain salvation and everlasting life, which of the numberless professions that have sprung out of it are we to embrace? One sect tells us that there is no salvation out of the pale of their church. Another tells us, that unless we believe and practise their doctrines, we shall surely be damned. Let us believe, therefore, in whatever particular profession we may, we shall be damned according to the principles of the others. How gracious and beneficent is the Christian system! so perfect and pure that it creates so many different, distinct, and opposite denominations of believers; all of them right, infallibly right, in their own opinions, and proving their doctrine by the clear, in-contestible authority of divine revelation! Many, as an excuse for countenancing a doctrine which they confess may not be true, say, that if the Christian religion be false, it is still very hurtful to attempt to overturn it; as we have no better guide, and no other method to restrain the passions and regulate the conduct of mankind; as it is the most perfect and beneficial system that could be devised. To determine this, we must look at its effects.