It is much the fame with regard to most of those points, in which the proteftants and us at prefent differ; fome of them are of little or no confequence, others again are more ferious; but even in these latter, the rage of difputation is fo far fubfided, that the proteftants now-a-days, no longer preach upon controverfial points in any of their churches.

Let us then feize this period of difguft or fatiety for fuch matters, or rather, indeed, of the prevalence of reafon, as an epocha for reftoring the public tranquility, of which it seems. to be a pleafing earnest. Controverfy, that epidemical malady is now in its decline, and requires nothing more than a gentle regimen. In a word, it is the intereft of the ftate, that these wandering fects, who have fo long lived as aliens to their father's houfe, on their returning inafubmiffive and peaceable manner, fhould meet with a favourable reception; humanity seems to demand this, reafon advifes it, and good policy can have nothing to apprehend from it.

CHAP. VI.

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

HE law of nature is that which nature

TH

points out to all mankind. You have brought up a child, that child owes you a respect as its parent, and gratitude as its benefactor. You have a right over the productions of the earth which you have raifed by the labour of your own hands; you have given and received a promife, 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 should 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'ft not believe, or "thou shalt die ?" And yet this is what is every day faid in Portugal, in Spain, and at Goa. In fome other countries indeed, they now content themselves with faying, "Believe as I do,

I will hold thee in abhorrence; believe like me,

"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 oughteft 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 fhould perfecute the inhabitants of the Ganges; and they fall upon thofe of India; the Mogul fhould put to death the firft Malabar he found in his kingdom; the Malabar should poignard the Perfian; the Perfian maflacre the Turk; and, altogether, should fall upon us Christians, 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: nay, it is even ftill more favage, for tygers deftroy only for the fake of food, whereas we have butchered one another on account of a fentence or a paragraph.

CHAP.

CHAP. VII.

If NON-TOLERATION was known among the

TH

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 thofe Gods who fought for the Greeks.

Alexander made a journey into the defarts of Lybia, purposely 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 midft of war, religion united mankind; and though it might fometimes prompt them to exercise the moft inhuman cruelties, at other times it frequently foftened their fury..

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 respect 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 fyftems.

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.

5

Socrates,