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The fame Cicero, who affected, in his own family, to appear a devout religionist, makes no fcruple, in a public court of judicature, of treating the doctrine of a future ftate as a ridiculous fable, to which no body could give any attention*. Salluft † reprefents Cæfar as fpeaking the fame language in the open fenate ‡.

But that all thefe freedoms implied not a total and universal infidelity and scepticifin amongst the people, is too apparent to be denied. Though fome parts of the national religion hung loose upon the minds of men, other parts adhered more closely to them: And it was the chief business of the fceptical philofophers to fhow, that there was no more foundation for one than for the other. This is the artifice of Cotta in the dialogues concerning the nature of the gods. He refutes the whole fyftem of mythology by leading the orthodox gradually, from the more momentous ftories, which were believed, to the more frivolous, which every one ridiculed: From the gods to the goddeffes; from the goddeffes to the nymphs; from the nymphs to the fawns and fatyrs. His master, Carneades, had employed the fame method of reafoning .

Upon the whole, the greatest and most observable differences between a traditional, mythological religion,

* Pro Cluentio, cap. 61.

+ De bello Catilin. Cicero (Tufc. Quæft.) lib. i. cap. 5, 6. and Seneca (Epift. 24.) as alfo Juvenal (Satyr. 2.), maintain that there is no boy or old woman fo ridiculous as to believe the poets in their accounts of a future ftate. Why then does Lucretius fo highly exalt his master for freeing us from thefe terrors? Perhaps the generality of mankind were then in the difpofition of Cephalus in Plato (de Rep. lib. i.) who while he was young and healthful could ridicule thefe ftories; but as foon as he became old and infirm, began to entertain apprehenfions of their truth. This we may obferve not to be unusual even at prefent.

Sext. Empir. adverf. Mathem. lib. viii.

religion, and a fyftematical, fcholaftic one, are two The former is often more reasonable, as confifting only of a multitude of ftories, which, however groundlefs, imply no exprefs abfurdity and demonftrative contradiction; and fits also so easy and light on men's mind, that, though it may be as univerfally received, it happily makes no fuch deep impreffion on the affections and understanding.

SECT. XIII. Impious conceptions of the divine nature in popular religions of both kinds.

The primary religion of mankind arifes chiefly from an anxious fear of future events; and what ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible, unknown powers, while men lie under difmal apprehenfions of any kind, may eafily be conceived. Every image of vengeance, feverity, cruelty, and malice must occur, and muft augment the ghaftlinefs and horror, which oppreffes the amazed religionift. A panic having once feized the mind, the active fancy ftill farther multiplies the objects of terror; while that profound darkness, or, what is worse, that glimmering light, with which we are environed, reprefents the fpectres of divinity under the most dreadful appearances imaginable. And no idea of perverse wickedness can be framed, which thofe terrified devotees do not readily, with-out fcruple, apply to their deity.

This appears the natural ftate of religion, when furveyed in one light. But if we confider, on the other hand, that spirit of praise and eulogy, which neceffarily has place in all religions, and which is the confequence of these very terrors, we must expect a quite contrary system of theology to prevail. Every virtue, every excellence, must be afcribed

to

to the divinity, and no exaggeration will be deemed fufficient to reach those perfections, with which he is endowed. Whatever ftrains of panegyric can be invented, are immediately embraced, without confulting any arguments or phanomena: It is esteemed a fufficient confirmation of them, that they give us more magnificent ideas of the divine objects of our worship and adoration.

Here therefore is a kind of contradiction between the different principles of human nature, which enter into religion. Our natural terrors prefent the notion of a devilish and malicious deity: Our propensity to adulation leads us to acknowledge an excellent and divine. And the influence of these oppofite principles are various, according to the different fituation of the human understanding.

In very barbarous and ignorant nations, fuch as the Africans and Indians, nay even the Japonese, who can form no extenfive ideas of power and knowledge, worship may be paid to a being, whom they confefs to be wicked and deteftable; though they may be cautious, perhaps, of pronouncing this judgment of him in public, or in his temple, where he may be fuppofed to hear their reproaches.

Such rude, imperfect ideas of the Divinity adhere long to all idolaters; and it may safely be affirmed, that the Greeks themselves never got entirely rid of them. It is remarked by Xenophon *. in praife of Socrates, that this philofopher affented not to the vulgar opinion, which supposed the gods to know fome things, and be ignorant of others: He maintained, that they knew every thing; what was done, faid, or even thought.

But

* Mem. lib. i.

But as this was a ftrain of philofophy † much above the conception of his countrymen, we need not be furprifed, if very frankly, in their books and converfation, they blamed the deities, whom they worshipped in their temples. It is obfervable, that Hérodotus in particular fcruples not, in many paffages, to afcribe envy to the gods; a fentiment, of all others, the moft fuitable to a mean and devilish natüre. The pagan hymns, however, fung in public worship, contained nothing but epithets of praife; even while the actions afcribed to the gods were the most barbarous and deteftable. When Timotheus, the poet, recited a poem to Diána, in which he enumerated, with the greatest eulogies, all the actions and attributes of that cruel, capricious goddefs: May your daughter, faid one prefent, become fuch as the deity whom you celebrate *.

But as men farther exalt their idea of their divinity; it is their notion of his power and knowledge only, not of his goodness, which is improved. On the contrary, in proportion to the supposed extent of his fcience and authority, their terrors naturally augment; while they believe, that no fecrecy can conceal them from his fcrutiny, and that even the inmost receffes of their breast lie

open before him. They muft then be careful not to form exprefsly any fentiment of blame and disapprobation. All must be applause, ravifhment, extacy. And while their gloomy apprehenfions make them afcribe to him measures of conduct, which, in human creatures, would be highly blamed, they muft ftill affect to praise and

It was confidered among the ancients, as a very extraordinary, philofophical paradox, that the presence of the gods was not confined to the heavens, but were extended every where; as we learn from Lucian. Hirmotimus five De fectis.

*Plutarch. de Superftit.

and admire that conduct in the object of their devotional addreffes. Thus it may fafely be affirmed, that popular religions are really, in the conception of their more vulgar votaries, a fpecies of dæmonifm; and the higher the deity is exalted in power and knowledge, the lower of courfe is he depreffed in goodness and benevolence; whatever epithets of praise may be beftowed on him by his amazed adorers. Among idolaters, the words inay be false, and belie the fecret opinien: But among more exalted religionifts, the opinion itself contracts a kind of, falfehood, and belies the inward sentiment. The heart fecretly detefts fuch measures of cruel and implacable vengeance; but the judgment dares not but pronounce them perfect and adorable. And the additional mifery of this inward ftruggle aggravates all the other terrors, by which thefe unhappy victims to fuperftition are for ever haunted.

*

Lucian obferves that a young man, who reads the hiftory of the gods in Homer or Hefiod, and finds their factions, wars, injuftice, inceft, adultery, and other immoralities fo highly celebrated, is much furprised afterwards, when he comes into the world, to obferve that punishments are by law inflicted on the fame actions, which he had been taught to afcribe to fuperior beings. The contradiction is ftill perhaps ftronger between the reprefentations given us by fome later religions and our natural ideas of generofity, lenity, impartiality, and juftice; and in proportion to the multiplied terrors of thefe religions, the barbarous conceptions of the divinity are multiplied upon us t. Nothing can preferve untainted the genuine princi-. ples of morals in our judgment of human conduct, but the abfolute necefiity of thefe principles to the existence of fociety. If common conception

* Necyomantia.

+ See NOTE [EEE.]

can

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