their Laws, mentioned above, but from the testimony of one of the most knowing Writers of Antiquity, I mean Plutarch; who, in his Tract of Superstition, speaking of the unruly temper of the People, says they ran headlong into all the follies which the makers of Graven images propagated; and in the mean time, turned a deaf ear to their Lawgivers, who endeavoured to inform them better *. This forced even Solon himself to establish the Templeworship of Venus the Prostitute †. But the reform was seen to be so impossible, that Plato lays it down as an axiom in his Republic, That nothing ought to be changed in the received Religion which the Lawgiver finds already established; and that a man must have lost his understanding to think of such a project. All they could do, therefore, when they could not purify the SOUL of Religion, was more firmly to constitute the BODY of it, for the service of the state. And this they did by NATIONAL RITES AND CEREMONIES. Nay; when the visible folly of a superstitious Rite, would have enabled them to abolish it, they sometimes for the sake of turning it to the civil service chose to give it the public sanction. This, Cicero confesses where he says-Equidem adsentior C. Marcello-existimoque jus augurum, etsi Divinationis opinione principio con

* Φιλοσόφων δὲ καὶ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΩΝ ἀνδρῶν καταφρονῶσιν, ἀποδεικνύντων τὴν τ8 θεᾶ σεμνότητα μετά χρηςότη και μεγαλοφρο σύνες, μετὰ βίας και κηδεμονίας.

* πανδήμε Αφροδίτης. Athenæi Deip. l. xiii.

stitutum

stitutum sit, tamen postea REIPUBLICE CAUSA

conservatum ac retentum

*

Indeed, in course of time, though insensibly, the genius of the Religion, as we observed before t followed that of the civil Policy; and so grew better and purer, as it did in ROME; or more corrupt and abominable, as it did in SYRIA. But had the Legislators given an entire NEW RELIGION, in the manner they gave Laws, we should have found some of those, at least, nearly approaching to the purity of natural Religion. But as we see no such, we must conclude they FOUND Religion, and did not MAKE it.

On the whole then, I have proved, what the most judicious HOOKER was not ashamed to profess before me, That "a POLITIQUE USE of Religion there is. "Men fearing GOD are thereby a great deal more "effectually than by positive Laws restrayned, from

doing evil; inasmuch as those Laws have no "further power than over our outward actions only; "whereas unto men's inward cogitations, unto the

privie intents and motions of their hearts, Religion "serveth for a bridle. What more savage, wilde, "and cruell than man, if he see himselfe able, either by fraude to over-reach, or by power to over-beare, "the Laws whereunto he should be subject?

26

"Wherefore in so great boldness to offend, it

"behoveth that the World should be held in awe, "not by a VAINE SURMISE, but a TRUE APPRE

HENSION of somewhat, which no man may think "himselfe able to withstand. THIS IS THE POLI

TIQUE USE OF RELIGION *."-Thus far this great man; where he takes notice how certain Atheists of his time, by observing this use of Religion to Society, were fortified in their folly of believing that Religion was invented by Politicians to keep the World in awe. An absurdity, I persuade myself, now so thoroughly exposed, as to be henceforth deemed fit only to go in rank with the tales of Nurses, and the dreams of Freethinkers.

I HAVE now at length gone through the two first Propositions:

1. THAT THE INCULCATING THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, IS NECESSARY TO THE WELL-BEING OF CIVIL SOCIETY.

2. THAT ALL MANKIND, ESPECIALLY THE MOST WISE AND LEARNED NATIONS OF ANTIQUITY, HAVE CONCURRED IN BELIEVING, AND TEACHING, THAT THIS DOCTRINE WAS OF SUCH USE TO CIVIL SOCIETY.

The next Book begins with the proof of the third; namely,

* Eccl. Pol. Book V. sect. ii.

3. THAT

3. THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN, NOR DID MAKE PART OF, THE MOSAIC

DISPENSATION.

Hitherto we have been forced to move slowly, to feel for our way in the dark, through the thick confusion of many irrational RELIGIONS, and mad schemes of PHILOSOPHY, independent of, and inconsistent with, one another: Where the labour of the search, perhaps, has been much greater to the Author, than the pleasure will be to the Reader, in finding this CHAOS reduced to some kind of order; the PRINCIPLES developed, from whence the endless diversity and contradiction have arisen; and the various USE that may be made of these Discoveries for our demonstration of the truth of revealed Religion.

We now emerge into open day:

Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo,
Majus opus moveo."

And having gotten the PROMISED LAND in view, the labour will be much easier, as the Discoveries will be more important, and the subject infinitely more interesting: For having now only one single System and Dispensation to explain, consistent in all its parts, and absolute and perfect in the Whole, which though, by reason of the profound and sublime views of its Author, these perfections may not

be

be very obvious, yet, if we have but the happiness to enter rightly, we shall go on with ease, and the prospect will gradually open and enlarge itself, till we see it lost again in that IMMENSITY from whence it first arose.

Full of these hopes, and under the auspices of these encouragements, let us now shift the Scene from GENTILE to JEWISH Antiquity; and prepare ourselves for the opening of a more august and solemn Theatre.

END OF THE THIRD BOOK.