THE "And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, New-York: PRINTED FOR THE PROPRIETORS, AND SOLD BY 1810. POPE. No. 3. PROSPECTUS. THE object of this publication is, to present to the public such critical, moral, theological and literary essays, as may tend to correct false opinions, promote the progress of reason, and in crease the sum of human happiness. Truths, which we deem important, will be boldly advocated, and pernicious errors exposed in all their deformity. Bigotry and superstition, those tyrants, which have so long held the world in bondage, and destroyed the peace and repose of man, will meet with merited chastisement; and the mild, tolerant religion of virtue, which the Creator has wisely revealed to the consciences of all mankind, will be asserted and maintained. Of all subjects, correct religious opinions are the most important to the happiness of man; but, unfortunately, there are none in which deceit and imposture have been more successfully practised. Theologians, by their contempt of virtue, and by substituting in its place puerile, nonsensical creeds, have bewildered the mind ef man, and involved it in darkness, mystery and terror. The sincere enquirer after truth, checked in his progress by contradictory opinions, called orthodox by their respective votaries, and claiming divine authority under the cabalistic term mystery, finds himself under the necessity of making a choice of absurdities, or of retiring from a pursuit which promises so little satisfaction."The dreams of the timid and whimsical—the cheats of the cunning-the suborned villainies of the wicked-every tale, folly and contradiction huddled together, are called religion !— What violence to language! How a system, where never-ending and excruciating torments are pronounced the doom of the wicked, and according to which, all have been criminal can be benign and consolatory, outdoes all the labyrinths and repugnances of theology. When it |