amicably owned one another's pretensions; and all that a new Religion claimed, was to be let into partnership with the rest, whose common practice was to trade in shares *. Yet, according to this great Philosopher, it was difficult, if not impossible—it was combating all men in too many respects—It was not proceeding on a sufficient number of principles necessary to be assented to, &c. But he can make Men, as well as Religions, change their natures when he wants them for some glorious mischief. It is his more usual way, and so it is of all his fellows, to make the People (the gross body of mankind) run headlong into Religion, without the least inquiry after evidence. But here we are told it is very difficult, if not impossible, to induce them to think well of a Religion which hath not the most plausible evidence for its support: That the not giving them this, is not proceeding on a sufficient number of principles, but combating all men in too many respects, &c. And this is all we can get out of him, FROM THE NATURE OF THINGS. But as he has raised a curiosity which he knew not how to gratify, I shall endeavour to supply his ignorance; and from this nature of things, shew the reader, 1. How the Religions of MOSES and JESUS must NECESSARILY SUPPOSE a dependency on some preceding. 2. How the ancient Religions of paganism must NECESSARILY NOT SUPPOSE any such dependency; and 3. How it came to pass, that more modern impostors, risen since the coming of Christianity, imitated the true, rather than the false Religions of ancient times, in this pretence to dependency. I. The PATRIARCHAL, the JEWISH, and the CHRISTIAN Religions, all professed to come from the * See Vol. II. book ii. p. 301. & seq. only only one GOD, the Creator of all things. Now as the whole race of mankind must be the common object of its Creator's care, all his Revelations, even those given only to a part, must needs be thought ultimately directed to the interest of the whole: consequently, every later Revelation must suppose the TRUTH of the preceding. Again, when several successive Revelations" are given by him, some less, some more extensive, we must conclude them to be the parts of ONE ENTIRE DISPENSATION; which, for reasons best known to infinite Wisdom, are gradually enlarged and opened: consequently every later must not only suppose the TRUTH of every preceding Revelation, but likewise their mutual RELATION and DEPENDENCY. Hence we see, there may be weighty reasons, why God, from the beginning, should have been constantly giving a succession of Dispensations and Revelations; as this Author (p. 22.) with a lewd sneer, seems to take a pleasure in observing. If therefore, what we call the true Revelation came from GOD, these Religions must needs be, and profess to be, dependent on one another. II. Let us see next how the case stood in the ancient Pagan world. Their pretended Revelations were not from the ONE GOD; but all from local tutelary Deities each of which was supposed to be employed in the care of his own Country or People, and unconcerned in every Other's department. Consequently, between earlier and later Revelations of this kind, there could be no more dependency, than there was opposition : But each stood on its own foundation, single, unrelated, and original. III. But when, by the propagation of the Gospel, the knowledge of the ONLY ONE GOD was spread abroad abroad over the whole earth, and the absurdities of Polytheism fully understood by the people, an Impostor, who would now obtrude a new Religion on the world, must of necessity pretend to have received it from that only one God. But the probability of his giving a Revelation now, being seen greatly to depend on his having given one before, our Impostor would be forced to own the truth of those preceding Religions, which professed to come from that GOD. And as the credit of the new Religion was best advanced by its being thought a finishing part of an incomplete Dispensation, he would, at the same time, bottom it on the preceding. Besides, as an Impostor must needs want that necessary mark of a divine Mission, the power of Miracles, he could cover the want no otherwise than by a pretended relation to a Religion which had well established itself by Miracles. And thus, in fact, MAHOMET framed the idea of his imposture. He pretended his new Religion was the completion of Christianity, as Christianity was the completion of Judaism; for that the world not being to be won by the mild and gentle invitations of Jesus, was now to be compelled to enter in by Mahomet. And so again, to complete the imitation, this last and greatest Prophet, as his followers believe him to be, is pretended to be foretold in the New Testament, as the Messiah was in the Old. Thus this notable observation, from whence the Author of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion endeavoured to deduce so discrediting a likeness between all false religion, and what we believers hold to be the true, comes, we see, just to nothing. But he has yet another flagrant mark of likeness, in reserve: And thus he goes on, from discovery to dis - 2 covery, covery.-In building thus upon PROPHECY (says he) as a principle, Jesus and his Apostles had the concurrence of all sects of Religion amongst the Pagans. Is it possible? Yes. For the Pagans universally built their Religion on DIVINATION. pp. 27, 28. As much as to say, the people of Amsterdam, in building their town-house upon piles, had (in the mode of laying a foundation) the concurrence of all the cities in England; who build theirs upon stone, or clay, or gravel. In the Jewish writings there are Prophecies of a future and more perfect Dispensation; which, Jesus claiming to belong to HIS, his Religion was properly built upon PROPHECIES. The Heathens made Gods of their dead benefactors, and then consulted them at their shrines, as Oracles; they inspected the entrails of beasts; they observed the flight of birds; they interpreted dreams and uncommon phænomena; and all these things they called DIVINATION. But what likeness is there between these things and Prophecies, the Prophecies on which Jesus founded his Religion? Just as much as there is between TRUTH and what these men call, FREETHINKING. But he has found a device to bring them related. 'Tis a master-piece; and the Reader shall not be robbed of it. They [the Pagans], says he, learnt that art [Divination] in schools, or under discipline, as the Jews did prophesying in the schools and colleges of the Prophets; where, the learned Dodwell says, the candidates for prophecy were taught the rules of divination practised by the Pagans, who were skilled therein, and in possession of the art long before them*. This idle whimsy of the learned Dodwell concerning the schools of the Prophets has been exposed, as it deserves, already. But for the sake of so extraordinary an * See Vol. IV. book iv. § 6. + Ibid. argument argument (an impiety, grafted on its proper stock, an absurdity), it deserves to be admitted, though it be but for a moment. The reasoning then stands thus: Divination was an art learnt in the schools; so was one kind of Prophecy, or the Jewish art of Divination: those who learnt this Jewish art of divination were taught the rules of pagan divination: THEREFORE, pagan divination and ANOTHER kind of Prophecy, such as foretold the coming of the Messiah, were things of the same kind. Incomparable reasoner! and deservedly placed at the head of modern Freethinking! But his learning is equal to his sense, and his premises just as true as his conclusion: The Pagans universally built their Religion on divination. I believe there are few school-boys, who would not laugh at his blunder, and tell him it was just otherwise, that the Pagans universally built divination on their Religion. All that was ever built on divination was now and then a Shrine or a Temple.-To return: III. But these prejudices, concerning local tutelary Deities, which made the introduction of a Theocracy so easy, occasioned as easy a defection from the Laws of it. 1. For these tutelary Deities owning one another's pretensions, there was always a friendly intercourse of mutual honours, though not always of mutual worship. For at first, each God was supposed to be so taken up with his own people, as to have little leisure or inclination to attend to the concerns of others.-Now this prejudice was the first source of the Jewish idolatry. 2. But the pretensions of these Gods being thus reciprocally acknowledged; and Some, by the fortu nate |