CHA P. IX.

Of MARTYRS.

EVERAL Chriftians afterwards fuffered martyrdom; it is not eafy to fay on what particular account they were condemned; but I can venture to affert, that none fuffered under the firft Cæfars, merely on the account of religion, for they tolerated all beliefs; therefore, why should they seek out and prosecute an obfcure people, who had a worship peculiar to themfelves, at the time they licensed all others?

The emperors Titus, Trajan, Antoninus, and Decius, were not barbarians: how then can we imagine, that they would have deprived the Chriftians alone of that liberty, with which they indulged every other nation; or, that they would even have troubled them for having concealed myfteries, while the worshippers of Ifis, Mithra, and the Goddefs of Affyria, whose rites were all of them equally unknown to the Romans, were fuffered to perform them without hindrance? Certainly, the perfecutions the

Chriftians

Chriftians fuffered, muft have arifen from other causes, and from fome private pique, enforced by reafons of ftate.

For inftance, when St. Laurence refused to deliver to Cornelius Secularius, the Romant prefect, the money belonging to the Chriftians which he had in his cuftody; was it not very natural for the prefect and the emperor to be incenfed at this refufal? They did not know that St. Laurence had diftributed this money among the poor, in acts of charity and benevo lence; therefore they confidered him only as a refractory perfon, and punished him accordingly *.

We moft certainly have a proper deference for whatever the holy church has made the objects of our reverence; accordingly, we invoke the bleffed martyrs but at the fame time that we pay St. Laurence all due respect, may we not be permitted to doubt that St. Sixtus faid to him, "You will

follow me in three days." That, during this fhort interval, the prefect of Rome made him demand a fum of money of the Chriftians; that Laurence had time to affemble all the poor people in that city; that he walked before the prefect, to

Again, let us confider the martyrdom of St. Polyeuctes. Can he be faid to have fuffered on account of religion only? He enters a temple, where the people are employed in offering thanfgivings to their Gods, on account of the victory gained by the emperor Decius; he infults the priests, and overturns and breks in. pieces the altar and ftatues: is there a country in the world where so gross an infult would have been paffed over? The Christian who publicly · tore the edict of the emperor Dioclefian, and by. that act brought on the great perfecution against

fhew him the place where they were affembled; that he was afterwards tried and condemned to the torture; that the prefect ordered the fmith to make a grid-iron large enough to broil a man upon; that the principal magiftrate of Rome affifted in perfon at this ftrange execution; and lastly, that St. Laurence, while upon the grid-iron, called out to him, "I am done enough on this fide, let. "them turn me on the other, if you have a mind "to eat me." This fame grid-iron feems to have very little of the Roman genius in it; and befides,. how happens it that we do not find a word of this, Aory in any of the heathen writers ?

his brethren in the two laft years of this prince's reign, had not, furely, a zeal according to knowledge, but was the unhappy cause of all the difafters that befel his party. This inconfiderate zeal, which was often breaking forth, and was condemned even by several of the fathers of the church, was probably the occafion of all those perfecutions we read of.

Certainly, I would not make a comparison between the firft facramentarians and the primitive Christians; as error should never be ranked in the fame clafs with truth: but it is well known, that Farrel, the predeceffor of Calvin, did the very fame thing at Arles, which St. Polyeuctes had done before him in Armenia. The townfmen were carrying the ftatue of St. Anthony the hermit in proceffion through the ftreets,; Farrel and fome of his followers in a fit of zeal fell upon the monks who were carrying the image, beat them, made them take to their heels, and, having feized upon St. Anthony, threw him into the river. Affuredly Farrel deferved death for this flagrant outrage upon the public peace, but he had the good luck to escape by flight. Now, had he only told those monks in the open ftreets that he did E.6

not:

not believe that a raven had brought half a loaf to St. Anthony, nor that this hermit had had converfation with centaurs and fatyrs, he would have deferved a fevere reprimand for troubling the public peace; but if the night after the proceffion, he had quietly examined the story in his own room, no one could have found any fault with him for it.

But indeed can we fuppofe, that the Romans, after permitting the infamous Antinous to be ranked among their demi-gods, would have maffacred and thrown to wild beafts those against whom they had no other caufe of reproach, than having peaceably worshiped a juft deity? Or, would thofe very Romans, who worshipped a fupreme and all-powerful God ‡, mafter of all

We have only to open Virgil to be convinced that the Romans acknowledged one Supreme Being, the lord and mafter of all other heavenly beings.

"O! quis res hominumque deûmque "Eternis regis imperiis, & fulmine terres, "O pater, & hominum divûmque æterna poteftas, &c.

And