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prieft, however, to make every thing fure and folid, ftill continued his inftructions; and began the next day with the ufual queftion, How many Gods are there? None at all! replies Benedict; for that was his new name. How! None at all! cries the priest. To be fure, faid the honeft profelyte. You have told me all along that there is but one God: And yesterday I eat him.

Such are the doctrines of our brethren the Catholics. But to thefe doctrines we are fo accuftomed, that we never wonder at them: Though in a futureage, it will probably become difficult to perfuade fome nations, that any human, two-legged creature could ever embrace fuch principles. And it is a thousand to one, but these nations themselves fhall have fomething full as abfurd in their own creed. to which they will give a moft implicit and most religious affent.

I lodged once at Paris in the fame hotel with an ambaffador from Tunis, who, having paffed fome years at London, was returning home that way. One day I obferved his Moorish excellency diverting himself under the porch, with furveying the fplendid equipages that drove along; when there chanced to pafs that way fome Capucin friars, who had never feen a Turk; as he, on his part, though accuftomed to the European dreffes, had never feen the grotefque figure of a Capucin: And there is no expreffing the mutual admiration, with which they infpired each other. Had the chaplain of the embaffy entered into a difpute with these Francifcans, their reciprocal furprize had been of the fame nature. Thus all mankind ftand ftaring at one another; and there is no beating it into their heads, that the turban of the African is not just as good or as bad a fashion as the cowl of the European. He is a very boneft

boneft man, faid the prince of Sallee, fpeaking of de Ruyter, It is a pity he were a Chriftian.

How can you worship leeks and onions? we fhall fuppofe a Sorbonnift to fay to a prieft of Sais. If we worship them, replies the latter; at leaft, we do not, at the fame time, eat them. But what ftrange objects of adoration are cats and monkies? fays the learned doctor. They are at least as good as the relics or rotten bones of martyrs, anfwers his no less learned antagonist. Are you not mad, infifts the Catholic, to cut one another's throat about the preference of a cabbage or a cucumber? Yes, fays the pagan; I allow it, if you will confefs, that those are ftill madder, who fight about the preference among volumes of fophiftry, ten thousand of which are not equal in value to one cabbage or cucumber *.

Every by-ftander will eafily judge (but unfortu nately the by-ftanders are few) that, if nothing were requifite to establish any popular fyftem, but expofing the abfurdities of other fyftems, every votary of every fuperftition could give a fufficient reafon for his blind and bigotted attachment to the principles in which he has been educated. But without fo extenfive a knowledge, on which to ground this affurance (and perhaps, better without it), there is not wanting a fufficient ftock of religious zeal and faith among mankind. Diodorus Siculus † gives a remarkable inftance to this purpofe, of which he was himself an eye-witnefs. While Egypt lay under the greatest terror of the Roman name, a legionary foldier having inadvertently been guilty of the facrilegious impiety of killing a cat, the whole people rofe upon him with the utmost fury and all the efforts of the prince were not able to fave him. The fenate and peo

* See NOTE [CCC].
+ Lib. i.

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ple of Rome, I am perfuaded, would not, then, have been fo delicate with regard to their national deities. They very frankly, a little after that time, voted Auguftus a place in the celeftial mansions; and would have dethroned every god in heaven, for his fake, had he feemed to defire it. Prefens divus habebitur Auguftus, fays Horace. That is a very important point: And in other nations and other ages, the fame circumftance has not been deemed altogether indifferent *.

Notwithstanding the fanctity of our holy religion, fays Tully †, no crime is more common with us than facrilege: But was it ever heard of, that an Egyptian violated the temple of a cat, an ibis, or a crocodile? There is no torture, an Egyptian would not undergo, fays the fame author in another place, rather than injure an ibis, an afpic, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile. Thus it is ftrictly true, what Dryden obferves,

"Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,
"Stock, ftone, or other homely pedigree,
"In his defence his fervants are as bold,
"As if he had been born of beaten gold."
ABSALOM and ACHITOPHEL.

Nay, the bafer the materials are, of which the
divinity is compofed, the greater devotion is he
likely to excite in the breafts of his deluded
votaries. They exult in their fhame, and make a
merit with their deity, in braving, for his fake,
all the ridicule and contumely of his
of his ene-

mies,

* When Loufs the XIVth took on himself the protection of the Jefuits' College of Clermont, the fociety ordered the king's arms to be put up over the gate, and took down the cross, in order to make way for it: Which gave occafion to the following epigram:

Suftulit hinc Chrifti, pofuitque infignia Regis :
Impia gens, alium nefcit habere Deum.
Tufc. Queft. lib. v.

+ Denat. Deor. 1. i.

mies.

Ten thousand Crufaders inlift themfeves under the holy banners; and even openly triumph in those parts of religion, which their adverfaries regard as the most reproachful.

It

There occurs, I own, a difficulty in the Egyptian fyftem of theology; as indeed, few fyftem of that kind are entirely free from difficulties. is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were ftill paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius fays was in fome parts of Italy; but the gods muft at last entirely ftarve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining. It is probable, therefore, that this wife nation, the most celebrated in antiquity for prudence and found policy, forefeeing fuch dangerous confequences, referved all their worship for the full-grown divinities, and ufed the freedom to drown the holy fpawn or little fucking gods, without any fcruple or remorfe. And thus the practice of warping the tenets of religion, in order to serve temporal interefts, is not, by any means, to be regarded as an invention of these later ages.

The learned, philofophical Varro, difcourfing of religion, pretends not to deliver any thing beyond probabilities and appearances: Such was his good fenfe and moderation! But the paffionate, the zealous Auguftin, infults the noble Roman on his fcepticifm and referve, and profeffes the most thorough belief and affurance*. A heathen poet, however, contemporary with the faint, abfurdly esteems the religious fyftem of the latter fo falfe, that even the credulity VOL. II. Gg

De civitate Dei, 1. iii. e. 17.

of

of children, he fays, could not engage them to believe it t.

Is it strange, when mistakes are fo common, to find every one pofitive and dogmatical? And that the zeal often rifes in proportion to the error? Moverunt, fays Spartian, & ea tempeftate, Judai bellum quod vetabantur mutilare genitalia.

If ever there was a nation or a time, in which the public religion loft all authority over mankind, we might expect, that infidelity in Rome, during the Ciceronian age, would openly have erected its throne, and that Cicero himself, in every fpeech and action, would have been its moft declared abettor.. But it appears, that, whatever fceptical liberties that great man might take, in his writings or in philofophical converfation; he yet avoided, in the common conduct of life, the imputation of deifm and profaneness. Even in his own family, and to his wife Terentia, whom he highly trufted, he was willing to appear a devout religionift; and there remains a letter, addreffed to her, in which he serioufly defires her to offer facrifice to Apollo and fculapius, in gratitude for the recovery of his health .

Pompey's devotion was much more fincere :In all his conduct, during the civil wars, he paid a great regard to auguries, dreams, and prophefies §. Auguftus was tainted with fuperftition of every kind. As it is reported of Milton, that his poetical genius never flowed with eafe and abundance in the fpring; fo Augustus obferved, that his own genius for dreaming never was fo perfect during that season, nor was fo much to be relied on, as during the rest of the year. That

+ Claudii Rutilii Numitiani iter, lib. i. 1. 386.

Lib. xiv. epift. 7.

In vita Adriani.
Cicero de Divin. lib. ii. c. 24.

great

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