religions, three, viz., Judaism, Christianity, and Islamism. The
first builds upon the Law and the Prophets; or, perhaps, sufficiently
upon the Pentateuch; the second upon the Gospel; the last upon the
Koran. No other religion can be said to rest upon a book; or to
need a book; or even to admit of a book. For we must not be duped
by the case where a lawgiver attempts to connect his own human
institutes with the venerable sanctions of a national religion, or
the case where a learned antiquary unfolds historically the record
of a vast mythology. Heaps of such cases, (both law and mythological
records,) survive in the Sanscrit, and in other pagan languages. But
these are books which build upon the religion, not books upon which
the religion is built. If a religion consists only of a ceremonial
worship, in that case there can be no opening for a book; because
the forms and details publish themselves daily, in the celebration
of the worship, and are traditionally preserved, from age to age,
without dependence on a book. But, if a religion has a doctrine,
this implies a revelation or message from Heaven, which cannot, in
any other way, secure the transmission of this message to future
generations, than by causing it to be registered in a book. A book,
therefore, will be convertible with a doctrinal religion:--no book,
no doctrine; and, again, no doctrine, no book.

Upon these principles, we may understand that second consequence
(marked β) which has perplexed many men, viz., why it is that the
Hindoos, in our own times; but, equally, why it is that the Greek
and Roman idolaters of antiquity, never proselytized; no, nor could
have viewed such an attempt as rational. Naturally, if a religion
is doctrinal, any truth which it possesses, as a secret deposit
consigned to its keeping by a revelation, must be equally valid
for one man as for another, without regard to race or nation. For