I have detained your Lordship with a tedious Story; and stil! I must beg your patience a little longer. We are not yet got to the end of a bad prospect.--While I, and others of my Order, have been thus vainly contending pro Aris with the unequal arms of Reason; we had the further displeasure to find, that our Rulers (who, as I observed above, had needlessly suffered those ties of Religion to be unloosed, by which, till of late, the passions of the People had been restrained) were struggling, almost as unsuccessfully, pro Focis with a corrupt and debauched Community.

General History, in its Records of the rise and decay of States, hath delivered down to us, amongst the more important of its lessons, a faithful detail of every symptom, which is wont to forerun and to prognosticate their approaching ruin. It might be justly deemed the extravagance of folly to believe, that those very Signs, which have constantly preceded the fall of other States, should signify nothing fatal or alarming to our own. On the other hand, I would not totally condemn, in such a dearth of Religious provision, even that species of piety, which arises from a national pride, and flatters us with being the peculiar attention of Heaven; who will avert those evils from his favoured People, which the natural course of things would otherwise make inevitable: For, indeed, we have seen (and, what is as strange as the blessing itself, the little attention which is paid to it) something very like such an extraordinary protection already exerted; which resists, and, till now, hath arrested, the torrent just ready to overwhelm us. The circumstance, I mean, is this:-That while every other part of the Community seems to lie in face Romuli, the administration of Public Justice in England, runs as pure as where nearest to its cœlestial Source; purer than Plato dared venture to conceive it, even in his feigned Republic.

Now, whether we are not to call this, the interposing hand of Providence; for sure I am, all History doth not afford another instance of so much purity and integrity in one part, coexisting with so much decay and so many infirmities in the rest: Or whether, profounder Politicians may not be able to discover some hidden

force,

force, some peculiar virtue in the essential parts, or in the well-adapted frame, of our excellent Constitution: -In either case, this singular and shining Phenomenon, hath afforded a cheerful consolation to thinking men, amidst all this dark aspect from our disorders and dis

tresses.

But the evil Genius of England would not suffer us to enjoy it long; for, as if envious of this last support of Government, he hath now instigated his blackest Agents to the very extent of their malignity; who, after the most villanous insults on all other Orders and Ranks in Society, have at length proceeded to calumniate even the King's Supreme Court of Justice, under its ablest and most unblemished Administration.

After this, who will not be tempted to despair of his Country, and say, with the good old man in the Scene, Ipsa si cupiat SALUS Servare, prorsus non potest, hanc FAMILIAM."

ATHENS, indeed, fell by degenerate manners like our own: but she fell the later, and with the less dishonour, for having always kept inviolable that reverence which she, and indeed all Greece, had been long accustomed to pay to her august Court of AREOPAGUS.

Of this

modest reserve, amidst a general disorder, we have a striking instance in the conduct of one of the principal: Instruments of her ruin. The witty ARISTOPHANES began, as all such Instruments do (whether with wit or without) by deriding Virtue and Religion; and this, in the brightest exemplar of both, the godlike SOCRATES. The Libeller went on to attack all conditions of Men. He calumniated the Magistrates; he turned the Public Assemblies into ridicule; and, with the most beastly and blasphemous abuse, outraged their Priests, their Altars, nay, the very established Gods themselves.But here he stopped; and, unawed by all besides, whether of divine or human, he did not dare to cast so much as one licentious trait against that venerable Judicature. A circumstance, which the Readers of his witty ribaldry, cannot but observe with surprise and admiration;—not at the Poet's modesty, for he had none, but at the remaining virtue of a debauched and

ruined People; who yet would not bear to see that clear Fountain of Justice defiled by the odious Spawn of Buffoous and Libellers.

Nor was this the only consolation which ATHENS had in its calamities. Its pride was flattered in falling by apostate Wits of the first Order: while the Agents of public mischief amongst us, with the hoarse notes and blunt pens of Ballad-makers, not only accelerate our ruin, but accumulate our disgraces: Wretches the most contemptible for their parts, the most infernal for their

manners.

To conclude. Great Men, my Lord, are sent for the Times; the Times are fitted for the rest, of common make. ERASMUS and the present CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND (whatever he may think) were sent by Providence, for the sake of humanity, to adorn two periods, when RELIGION at one time, and SOCIETY at another, most needed their support; I do not say, of their great talents, but of that HEROIC MODERATION So necessary to allay the violence of public disorders; for to be MODERATE amidst party-extremes, requires no common degree of patriotic courage.

Such characters rarely fail to perform much of the task for which they were sent; but never without finding their labour ill repaid, even by those in whose service it was employed. That glory of the Priesthood left the World, he had so nobly benefited, with this tender complaint," Hoc tempore nihil scribi aut AGI

potest quod not pateat CALUMNIA; nec raro fit, ut "dum agis CIRCUMSPECTISSIME utramque partem of"fendas, quum in utraque sint qui PARITER INSANI"ANT." A complaint, fated, alas! to be the motto of every Man who greatly serves his Country.

I have the honour to be,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's most obliged,

most obedient and faithful Servant,

February 2, 1765.

W. GLOUCESTER.

DEDICATION

TO THE FIRST EDITION OF

BOOKS IV. V. VI. OF THE

OF THE DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES;

1740.

TO THE JEWS.

SIRS,

THE purpose of this Work being to prove the DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES, it will, I hope, have so much merit with you, as to engage your serious attention to the following Address; which, from the divinity of Moses's Law, as in this work demonstrated, attempts to shew you, how, by necessary consequence, it follows, that the Religion of JESUS is also divine.

But, while I am laying my conclusions before you, let me beseech you not to suffer yourselves to be prejudiced against the evidence, by such kind of fallacies as these; Both Jews and Christians confess, that the religion of Moses came from GOD: but one only, of these two Sects, believe the divinity of that of JESUS: the safest way, therefore, is to adhere to what both sides own to be true. An argument, which however like, hath not in all its parts, even so much force as what the idolatrous Romanists are wont to urge against the Reformed-That as both parties hold salvation may be had in the church of Rome, and only one party holds it

may

may be had in the churches of the Reformed, it is safest to adhere to Popery: which I dare say you laugh at for its impertinence, how much soever you may have deluded others by the same kind of sophistry*. For if the Roman Catholics, or you, will not take our word for Christianity or Reformation, why do you build any thing upon it, in favour of Popery or Judaism? Both of you will say, perhaps, "because we are prejudiced in the former conclusion; but that the mere force of evidence extorts the latter from us even against ourselves." This is easily said; and may, perhaps, be easily believed, by those who, taking their Religion from their ancestors, are apt to measure Truth only by its antiquity. But genuine Christianity offering itself only to the private judgments of men, every sincere enquirer believes as he finds cause. So that if either you or they would give yourselves the trouble to examine our motives, it would appear, that the very same reasons which force us to conclude that Christianity in general, and the Reformed religion in particular, are true, force us at the same time to conclude that the Jewish was from God; and that salvation may be obtained, though with much difficulty, in the church of Rome. Either, therefore, the whole of our conclusion is prejudice, or no part of it is so.

As I would not have you harden your habitual obstinacy in favour of your own Religion, by bad arguments; so neither will I use any such to draw you over

to ours.

: I shall not therefore attempt that way to bring you to the truth, which some amongst us, little acquainted, as should seem, either with your Dispensation, or the Christian, imagine they have discovered: Who, taking it for granted that the Mosaic Law can be defended only by the Gospel of Jesus, pretend you must first acknowledge our Religion, before you can support your own: and so, which is very hard, will not allow you to have

This, the miserable Uriel Acosta tells us, was one of the principal arguments that induced him to embrace Judaism.-. Fræterea veteri fœderi fidem dabant tam Judæi quam Christiani ; novo autem fœderi soli Christiani. Exemplar humanæ vitæ, p. 346. in fin. Amica Collat. Phil. a Limborch.

any