of the Koran. A philosophic theist might
subscribe the popular creed of the Mahometans; a creed too sublime,
perhaps, for our present faculties. What object remains for the fancy,
or even the understanding, when we have abstracted from the unknown
substance all ideas of time and space, of motion and matter, of
sensation and reflection? The first principle of reason and revolution
was confirmed by the voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to
Morocco, are distinguished by the name of _Unitarians_; and the danger
of idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The
doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is strictly
embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle, with the common
difficulties, _how_ to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom
and responsibility of man; _how_ to explain the permission of evil under
the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness.

The God of nature has written his existence on all his works, and his
law in the heart of man. To restore the knowledge of the one, and
the practice of the other, has been the real or pretended aim of
the prophets of every age: the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his
predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself; and the chain
of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the promulgation
of the Koran. During that period, some rays of prophetic light had
been imparted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand of the elect,
discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace; three
hundred and thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission
to recall their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and four
volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six legislators of
transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive
revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The
authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and
Mahomet, rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates
or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The
writings of the patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of
the Greeks and Syrians: the conduct of Adam had not entitled him to the
gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts of Noah were
observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of the
synagogue; and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by the
Sabians in his native land of Chalda