but for the ACT; and, what is still more, for the continuance of it. Now, what the Christians fell into with so little reason, they would certainly forsake on the appearance of so great, as the displeasure of the Magistrate, and the crime and danger of disobeying lawful Authority. It is possible, indeed, that, in the heat of Persecution, some over zealous men might mistake their noncompliance with such commands as a necessary mark of their open profession of the Faith. But this was not generally the case; Their common practice was to give to Cæsar the things which were Caesar's; and to God, the things which were God's: Of this, we have sufficient evidence in the famous letter of Pliny the younger, before quoted. Trajan had forbidden the assemblies called Hetaria, which succeeded those of public worship, and were used by the Christians of Bithynia, to confirm and bind them to one another in the practice of virtue, by the external badge or ceremony of breaking bread; and we are assured by this vigilant Magistrate, that the Christians, under his jurisdiction obeyed the imperial Edict*.

From all this Letter it appears, that the only causes, which, on our Critic's principles, could possibly bring on and continue persecution (if persecution arose from nocturnal or clandestine assemblies), must be either FANATICISM OR DEBAUCHED PRACTICES: in the first case, their obstinacy would make them persist; in the other, their libertinage. To these agreeable conclusions, have our learned Civilian's principles reduced us for a solution of our difficulties and such is the flattering picture, he has exhibited of primitive Christianity. Could its most inveterate enemies desire more! or, if its friends should give credit to these fancies, would its enemies be content with less? Such are the disgraces which this converse proposition is ready to bring upon Christianity; disgraces of so complicated a stain, as not simply to dishonour our holy Faith, but even to justify the powers of Paganism in all the violences they offered to it.

-quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire, carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere, &c.-quibus peractis morem sibi disce dendi fuisse, rursusque coëundi ad capiendum cibum, promiscuun tamien & innoxium: quod ipsum facere desiisse post edictum meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetarias esse vetueram, Lib. x. Ep. 97. VOL. IV. For

F

For the Magistrate had a right to suppress the clandes tine meetings of Fanaticism and Debauchery.

But our Enemies will have no need to fly to consequences for the discharge of the pagan Magistrates; our Christian Chancellor himself proceeds directly to their acquittal. He frankly tells us, that their duty, as Magistrates, required them to animadvert on nocturnal as: semblies, where they bound themselves to one another, and employed the word SACRAMENTUM for a kind of tessera of union; the very appearance of guilt which had occasioned the decree against the infamous rites of Bacchus.

You will say, this is horrid, to make the Magistrate prosecute the primitive Christians by the same provision which obliged him to exterminate those monsters of society! But who can help it? Our Chancellor had but this one precedent for the prosecution of nocturnal assemblies; and if it be not the most honourable support of his hypothesis, it is not his fault.

But there was no proof (you will say) against the Christian, as there was against those Bacchanalian assemblies. What of that? Our Chancellor opines, that mere suspicion, in so delicate an affair, was sufficient to acquit the Magistrate of blame; nay, to make his conduct, in his care and jealousy for the State, very commendable. You shall have his own words. A jealous Governor therefore, and a stranger to the true principles of Christianity, was naturally open to such impres sions; and cOULD NOT BUT exert that caution and attention which the practice of their Country so warmly recommended. p. 579. Could Cicero himself have been more warm, not to say more eloquent, in.defending the Decree which dispersed the profligate crew of Bacchanals?

And now a very capital point of Ecclesiastical history is cleared up and settled. "The Ten Persecutions were begun and carried on, not, as had been hitherto supposed, upon the score of Religion, or mere opinion, but against bad Subjects, or, at least against those who were reasonably suspected of being such." And this is given to us by the learned Critic as the true defence of free and generous Antiquity, IN ITS PUBLIC CAPACITY:

just

just as in free Britain (where, indeed, we now find small difference, as to freedom, between its public and its private capacity, except to the advantage of the latter), when Papists complain of the penal laws, we reply, They are not inforced against erroneous Religionists, but against refractory Subjects, for refusing the Magistrate the common security for obedience.-There is indeed a difference; our answer to the Papists is a serious truth; and our Critic's apology for the pagan Persecutors, an idle and ridiculous fiction.

But as if he had not yet done enough for his beloved Antiquity, in thus blanching its TEN PERSECUTIONS; he goes on to clear it from the opprobrium of persecution in general; by charging the original of this diabolic practice on the Christian Church; where, indeed, the Freethinkers had very confidently placed it, till the Author of The Divine Legation restored it to its right owner, the Pagan Magistrate.- PERSECUTION FOR DIFFERENCE OF BELIEF ALONE (says our learned Civilian) OWES ITS NATIVITY TO MORE MODERN AGES; and ́ Spain was its country; where Priscillian, by some, is held to be the first sufferer for MÈRE OPINION.

Thus the whole blame of PERSECUTION for Religion is thrown from the Gentile Persecutors, upon the suffering Church And Christianity, or for its follies or its crimes (as either insulting civil Society by its obstinacy, or polluting it by its vices), stands covered with confusion. So happy an advocate has our learned Civilian approved himself for the Cause to which, by a double tie, he had devoted and engaged his ministry.-

The length of these animadversions hindered them from finding a place in the body of this volume, amongst other things of the like sort. Except for this, he had no claim to be distinguished from his fellows. I had á large choice before me: for who has not signalized himself against the DIVINE LEGATION? Bigots, Hutchansonians, Methodists, Answerers, Freethinkers, and Fanatics, have in their turns been all up in arms against it. Quid dicam? (to use the words of an honest man in the same circumstances) Commune fere hoc eorum fatum est, quorum opera supremum Numen uti vult in Ecclesia, ut MATURE insidiis, accusationibus et crimi

F 2

nationibus

.

nationibus appetantur. The scene was opened by a false Zealot, and at present seems likely to be closed by a true Behmenist*. A natural and easy progress, from knavery to madness, where the Imposture fails: as the progress is from madness to knavery, where it succeeds. It was now time to settle my accounts with them. To this end I applied to a learned person, who, in consideration of our friendship, hath been prevailed upon to undergo the drudgery of turning over this dirty heap, and marking what he imagined would in the least deserve, or could justify any notice: for I would not have the reader conceive so miserably of me as to think I was ever disposed to look into them myself. He will find, as he goes along, both in the text and the notes, what was thought least unworthy of an answer. Nor let it give him too much scandal that, in a work which I have now put into as good a condition for him as I was able, I have revived the memory of the numerous and gross absurdities of these writers, part of whom are dead, and the rest forgotten: For he will consider, that it may prove an useful barrier to the return of the like follies, in after-times, against more successful Inquirers into Truth. The seeds of Folly, as well as Wit, are connate with the mind: and when, at any time, the teeming intellect gives promise of an unexpected harvest, the trash starts up with it, and is ever forward to wind itself about rising Truth, and hinder its progress to maturity. Were it not for this, I should refer the candid reader to what I take to be the best defence and support of the ARGUMENT OF THE DIVINE LEGATION, the succinct view of the whole and of all its parts, which he will find at the conclusion of the last of these Volumes. For, as Lord Verulam says excellently well, THE HARMONY OF A SCIENCE, SUPPORTING EACH PART THE OTHER, IS, AND OUGHT TO BE, THE TRUE AND BRIEF CONFUTATION AND SUPPRESSION of all THE SMALLER SORTS OF OBJECTIONS.

*Rev. Mr. William Law.

+ Vol. VI. of this Edit.

THE

DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES

DEMONSTRATED.

BOOK IV.

THE

SECT. I.

HE foregoing Volume * hath occasionally, and in the course of my main argument, shewn the reader, that it was always the practice of mankind to listen to, and embrace some pretended REVELATION; in neglect of what is called, in contradistinction to it, the RELIGION OF NATURE; that, I mean, which is only founded on our relation to the first Cause; and deducible from the eternal reason of things.

If ever a general propensity might be called a dictate of Nature, this surely may. That such a propensity there is, the Deist, or pretended follower of natural Religion, freely confesseth, nay, is forward to insist upon, as a circumstance of discredit to those Revelations, which we receive for true. Yet surely, of all his visionary advantages, none ever afforded him less cause of triumph; a consequence flowing from it, which is entirely subversive of his whole scheme.

For let me ask such a one, What could be the cause

*Books I. II. III.

† Σὺ δὲ τὸν λόγον ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναλαβὼν τῆς δεισιδαίμονα πλάνης, ἐπίσκε Και τὴν διάπλωσιν. φύσει μὲν ἦν καὶ αὐτοδιδάκτοις ἐννοίαις, μᾶλλον δὲ Θεοῦ διδάκτοις, καλόντι καὶ ὠφέλιμον τυ[χάνειν, τὸ σημαῖνον τὴς τὸ θεὸ προσηγορίαν τε κ ἐσίαν. πάλες γὰρ ἄνθρωποι κοινοῖς λογισμοῖς προειλήφεσαν, τὸ τῶν ὅλων Δημιεργέ, τέτο πάση λογική και νοερά ψυχή, φυσικαῖς ἐννοίαις ὑποσπείραις. * μὴν καὶ τῇ προαιρέσει τῇ κατὰ λόγον ἐκέχρηντο. Euseb. Præp, Evang. 1. ii. c. 6. Edit. Steph. pp. 45, 46.