the

Hypolitus the fon of Thefeus. But a punishment of this kind was not known among ancient Romans; and this fabulous story took its rife wholly from the fimilitude of names.

And here we may make one obfervation, that in the multitude of martyrologies, compofed wholly by the Chriftians themfelves, we almost always read of a great number of them coming of their own accord into the prison of their condemned brother, following him to execution, faving the blood as it flows from him, doing the fepulchral rites to his dead body, and performing miracles with his relics. Now, if the perfecution was levelled only at the religion, would not the authors of it have destroyed those who thus openly declared themselves. Chriftians, adminiftered comfort and affiftanceto their brethren under fentence, and were,. moreover, charged with working enchantments with their inanimate remains? would they not have treated them as we have treated feveral, different fects of proteftants, whom we have butchered and burnt by hundreds,without diftinction of age or fex? Is there amongst all the authenticated accounts of the antient perfecutions a fingle inftance like that of St. Bartholomew, and the maffacre in Ireland? Is.

there

there one that comes near to the annual festival, which is ftill celebrated at Toulouse, and which for its cruelty, deferves to be for ever abolished, where a whole city goes in proceffion to return thanks to God, and felicitate each other, for having, two hundred years ago, maffacred upwards of four thousand of their fellow fubjects?

- With horror I fay it, but it is an undoubted truth, that we, who call ourselves Chriftians, have been perfecutors, executioners, and afsaffins! And of whom? Of our own brethren: it is we who have razed an hundred towns to their foundations with the crucifix or bible in our hands, and who have continually perfevered in fhedding torrents of blood, and lighting the fires of perfecution, from the reign of Conftantine to the time of the religious horrors of the canibals who inhabited the Cevennes; horrors. which, praised be God, no longer exist.

Indeed we still fee at times fome miferable wretches of the more diftant provinces fent to the gallows on account of religion: fince the year 1745, eight perfons have been hanged of thofe called predicants or minifters of the gofpel, whofe only crime was that of having

prayed

prayed to God for their king in bad French; and giving a drop of wine, and a morfel of leavened bread, to a few ignorant pealants. Nothing of all this is known at Paris, where pleasure engroffes the whole attention, and where they are ignorant of every thing that paffes, not only in foreign kingdoms, but even in the more diftant parts of their own. trials in these cafes frequently take up lefs time than is used to condemn a deferter. The king wants only to be informed of this, and he would certainly extend his mercy on fuch occafions.

The

We do not find that the Roman Catholic piets are treated in this manner in any protestant country: there are above a hundred of them, both in England and Ireland, publickly known to be fuch, and who have yet been fuffered to live peaceable and unmolefted, even during the

laft war.

Shall we then always be the laft to adopt the wholesome fentiments of other nations? They have corrected their errors, when fhall we correct ours? It has required fixty years to make us receive the demonftrations of the great Newton: we have but just begun to dare to fave the

maffacred a great number of Hugonots, and the Hugonots in their turn have murdered a great number of Catholics, therefore there is no God: that certain bad men have made ufe of confeffion, the holy communion, and all the other facraments, as a means for perpetrating the most atrocious crimes, and therefore there is no God. For my part, I, on the contrary, fhould conclude from hence, that there is a God, who after this tranfitory life, in which we have wandered fo far from the true knowledge of him, and have feen fo many crimes committed under the fan&tion of his holy name, will at length deign to comfort us for the many dreadful calamities we have fuffered in this life; for if we confider the many religious wars, and the forty papal fchifms, which have almost all of them been bloody; if we reflect upon the multitude of impoftures, which have almost all proved fatal; the irreconcileable animofities excited by differences in opinions, and the numberless evils occafioned by false zeal; I cannot but believe that men have for a long time had their hell in this world.

CHAP.

All thofe falfe miracles by which you shake the credit due to real ones, the numberless abfurd legends with which you clog the truths of the gospel, ferve only to extinguish the pure flame of religion in our hearts. There are too many persons, who defirous of being instructed, but who have not the time for acquiring instruction, fay the teachers of my religion have deceived me, therefore there is no religion: it is better to throw my felf into the arms of nature than thofe of error; and I had rather place my dependance on her law than in the inventions of men. Others again unhappily go ftill greater lengths: they perceive that imposture has put a bridle in their mouths, and therefore will not submit even to the neceffary curb of truth: they incline towards atheism, and run into depravity, because others have been impoftors and perfecutors.

Such are undeniably the confequences of pious frauds and fuperftitious fopperies. Mankind in general reafon but by halves: it is certainly a very vicious way of arguing to say, that because the golden legend of Voraginus, and the Flower of Saints of the jefuit Ribadeneira, abound in nothing but absurdities, therefore there is no God: that the Catholics have

maf