historicalgeogra00psal

The Authors Travels, a 07
time and place were agreed upon. When the
day came, there appeared a great multitude of
learned Men to hear us : And in the prefence of
them all UAmalvy made me this offer. That if
I could fliew greater Evidence for my Religion
than he could (hew for his, he was ready to renounce
his own Religion , and embrace mine 5
and in return for this frank offer, I promifed him
to do the fame thing, if he could give me clearer
demonftrations for the truth of his Religion, than
I could for mine. Having thus fettled the Preliminaries,
I was firft to give an account of the
and our manner of worfhipping
God we ador'd,
him, which I did as well as I could extempore j
but when I told him, that we are commanded
by our God to offer up Infants in facrifice to him,
he ftopp'd me, and ask'd. Does not this favour
of Cruelty in your God > To which I anfwer'd^
That it was indeed moft cruel to require fuch
Humane Sacrifices ^
but from hence I took occafion
to retort the Argument upon him, by (hewing
that his God was yet more cruel, according
to his Opinion of him : For if it be cruel to deprive
Men of this temporal Life, tho' by this
means they are admitted to eternal Life •, certainly
it is infinitely more cruel to create Men
on purpofe to make them eternally miferable,
and to condemn them to this Mifery before they
are born, without any refpeO: to the Good or
Evil they (hall do, and fo to facrifice them to
the Devil. To' this retortion he could- not anfwer,
and fo I proceeded farther to inform hin?,
that our God did appear to us in the fhape of
an Elephant, an Ox, &c, and that under thefe
fh^pes we worihipp'd him. Againfl: this Apparition
of God under fuch Figures, he obje£led,
That it was impofTible that God who was Omnipotentj