CHAP. VI.

If NON-TOLERATION is agreeable to the Law of NATURE and of SOCIETY.

HE law of nature is that which nature

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points out to all mankind. You have brought up a child, that child owes you a refpect as its parent, and gratitude as its benefactor. You have a right over the productions of the earth which you have raised by the labour of your own hands; you have given and received, a promise, that promise ought to be kept,

The law of fociety can have no other foundation in any cafe than on the law of nature. "Do not that to another which thou wouldest not he fhould do unto thee", is the great and univerfal principle of both throughout the earth now, agreeable to this principle, can one man fay to another, "Believe that which I believe, "and which thou thyfelf can't not believe, or

thou fhalt die ?" And yet this is what is every day faid in Portugal, in Spain, and at Goa. In fome other countries indeed, they now con[ tent themselves with faying, "Believe as I do, or I will hold thee in abhorrence; believe like me,

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6.6 or I will do thee all the evil I can wretch,.

thou art not of my religion, and therefore"thou haft no religion at all, and oughtest to “ be held in execration by thy neighbours, thy city, and thy province."

If the law of fociety directs fuch a conduct, the Japanese ought then to hold the Chinese in deteftation'; the latter the Siamefe, who should perfecute the inhabitants of the Ganges ;" and they fall upon thofe of India; the Mogul fhould put to death the first Malabar he found in his kingdom; the Malabar fhould poignard the Perfian; the Perfian maflacre the Turk and, altogether, should fall upon us Chriftians, who have fo many ages been cutting one another's throats.

The law of perfecution then is equally abfurd and barbarous; it is the law of tygers: it is even still more favage, for tygers denay, froy only for the fake of food, whereas we have butchered one another on account of a fentence or a paragraph.

СНАР,

CHAP. VII.

If NON-TOLERATION was known among the

T

GREEKS.

HE feveral nations with which history has made us in part acquainted, did all confider their different religions as ties by which they were united; it was the affociation of human kind. There was a kind of law of hofpitality among the Gods, the fame as amongst men. If a stranger arrive in any town, the first thing he did was to pay his adoration to the Gods of the country, even though they were the Gods of his enemies. The Trojans offered up prayers even to those Gods who fought for the Greeks.

Alexander made a journey into the defarts of Lybia, purpolely to confult the God Ammon, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Zeus, and the Latins that of Jupiter, though both countries had their Jupiter and their Zeus amongst themselves. When they fat down before any town or city, they offered up facrifices and prayers to the gods of that city or

town,

town, to render them propitious to their undertaking. Thus, even in the midst of war, religion united mankind; and though it might fometimes prompt them to exercife the moft inhuman cruelties, at other times it frequently foftened their fury.

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I may be mistaken, but it appears to me, that not one of all the civilized nations of antiquity, ever laid a restraint upon liberty of thinking. They had all a particular religion ; but they feemed to have acted in this refpect towards men in the fame manner as they did towards their gods; they all acknowledged one fupreme Being, though they affociated with him. an infinite number of inferior deities: in like manner, though they had but one faith, yet they admitted a multitude of particular systems.

The Greeks, for example, though a very religious people, were not offended with the Epicureans, who denied Providence and the exiftence of the foul; not to mention divers other fects, whofe tenets were all of them repugnant to the pure ideas we ought to entertain of a Creator, and yet were all of them tolerated.

Socrates, who came the nearest to the knowledge of the true God, is faid to have fuffered on that account, and died a martyr to the Deity; he was the only one whom the Greeks ever put to death on account of opinion. If this was really the cause of his being condemned, it does very little honour to perfecution, fince he was put to death for being the only one who gave true glory to God, whilft those who taught notions the most unworthy of the Deity were held in high honour therefore, I think, the enemies of toleration fhould be cautious how they lay a ftrefs upon the infamous example of his judges..

Moreover, it is evident from history, that he fell a victim to the revenge of an enraged party. He had made himself many inveterate enemies of the fophifts, orators, and poets, who taught in the public schools, and even of all the preceptors who had the care of the children of diftinction. He himself acknowledges in his dif course handed down to us by Plato, that he went from house to house, to convince these preceptors, that they were a fet of ignorant fellows; a conduct certainly unworthy of one who had been declared by an oracle the wifeft

off