BAYLE’S DICTIONARY.

PAPAL POWER.

The power which the popes have attained, is more admirable than the vast monarchy of ancient Rome; so that it may be said, this great city was to be in two different manners the spring of the most sublime qualities that are requisite for the foundation of a very great state. If this do not prove that the Romans equalled other nations in moral virtue, it shews at least that they had more courage and industry. It is an amazing thing that a church, which pretends to have no arms but the spiritual ones of the word of God, and which grounds her rights only upon the gospel, that teaches everywhere humility and poverty, should have been so bold as to aspire to an absolute dominion over all the kings of the earth. It is still more amazing that she should have been so successful in such a chimerical design. If ancient Rome, which pretended only to conquests and military virtue, subdued so many nations, it is a noble and glorious thing in the eyes of the world; but any one who reflects upon it will not wonder at it. It is much more surprising to see new Rome, pretending only to an apostolical ministry, arrive to so great a power, that the greatest monarchs have been forced to submit to it; for it may be said, that there is hardly any emperor who opposed the popes, but found himself

the worse for it at last. At this very day, the quarrels of the most potent princes with the court of Rome generally end to their confusion. We have such fresh instances of it, that I need not mention them. In the eyes of the world such a conquest is a more glorious work than those of the Alexanders and Cæsa’rs, and therefore Gregory VII, who was the chief promoter of it, ought to be placed among the great conquerors, who had the most eminent qualities.

The author of an able work, entitled L’Esprit des Cours de l’Europe, pretends that the popes’ conquests were not so difficult as I imagine. “I find nothing,” he observes, “that is very surprising in the pope’s greatness. By the help of some passages of holy writ, they have persuaded the world of their divinity. Is this a new thing? Is it not usual with men to suffer themselves to be imposed upon in point of religion? Above all things they love to deify their fellow creatures, as paganism makes it plain. Now, if it be once supposed that the popes could easily establish the divine privileges of their dignity, was it not natural for people to declare for them against all other powers? For my part, I am so far from admiring their elevation, that I wonder how they did not arrive at a universal monarchy. The great number of princes who have shaken off the Roman yoke, confounds me, and when I enquire into the reason of it, I can only think of these two causes, which are very general and well known,—that men do not always act according to their principles, and that this present life makes a deeper impression upon them than the future.”

Now suppose, with this ingenious writer, that the popes could easily make the world believe they were Gods upon earth, that is to say, that being the visible heads of the church, they might authoritatively declare what is heretical or orthodox, regulate ceremonies, and command all the bishops of the Christian world, will it therefore follow that they could easily

set up their authority over kings, and bring them under their yoke without any difficulty? I confess I do not see this consequence. On the contrary, it seems to me, that, in all appearance, their spiritual authority would run a great danger by their attempts upon the temporalities of kings. The Athenians were told one day: have a care that your concern for heaven do not make you lose the earth. The popes might have been told in a contrary sense; have a care that your great desire of getting the earth do not make you lose heaven: you will be deprived of the spiritual power, if you pretend to usurp the temporal. It is well known, that the most orthodox princes are more tender of their sovereignty than of religion; a thousand examples ancient and modern prove it; and therefore it was not likely they should suffer the church to invade their demesnes and rights. They would rather increase their authority to the prejudice of the church, than suffer the power of the church to increase to the prejudice of their temporal power. Princes, who understand the art of reigning, have generally the gentry and the soldiery at their command; and when that part of their subjects remain faithful to them, they need not be afraid of the clergy; their troops will fight for them against all sorts of enemies. The army of Charles V made war against Clement VII. The troops of France fought against Julius II for Lewis XII, and would have done the same for Lewis XIV against Alexander VII, not long before the peace of Pisa delivered the pope from the storm ready to fall upon him. I was at Mr Justel’s at Paris, in the year 1675, when it was affirmed, that the count de Vignori, governor of Triers, made this answer to the monks, who represented to him, that the convents he pulled down, to fortify the town, had been founded by Charlemagne:—“I only execute the king’s orders, and, if he should command me to raise a battery against the holy sacrament, I would do it. Francis Mendoza de Corduba was not so passionate in the answer he made to a letter of the emperor, the thirtieth of December, 1598; but he did not want much of it. He wrote to him, “that if his imperial majesty were with his power on the one side, and the holy father the pope with his excommunication on the other, commanding him once more to retire, he would not do it, since he had a master who had ordered him to perform his exploits, unless he were obliged by force of arms to act otherwise.” We may add, that kings and emperors are able to bestow favours and noble rewards upon so many people, that they may easily bring over to their party even prelates and monks, and put them upon writing against the pretensions of the court of Rome. This paper war, in all appearance, must needs be very prejudicial to the pontiffs, who usurp a temporal authority; for it is easy to shew, by several express texts of scripture, by the spirit of the gospel, by ancient tradition, and the practice of the first centuries, that the popes have no manner of ground to pretend to dispose of crowns, and to share, in so many things the rights of. sovereignty. Nay, this may serve to bring into question their spiritual authority; and, being thus upon the defensive, as to that point, they must needs be reduced to great straits. Nay, the very articles, which the people came to believe by degrees, will run a great hazard. Besides, the clergy, whom the court of Rome will force to abstain from marriage, will be thereby disposed to serve their princes, which is no inconsiderable thing.

But, in order to know, whether such conjectures about the obstacles the popes would meet in their way, are strong and well grounded, we must have recourse to experience, and consult history; whereby it will appear that they would probably be right as to the obstacles, though perhaps wrong in pretending that those obstacles would prove

insurmountable. Read Du Plessis’s book, entitled, Le Mystere d’Iniquit&ea;, ou l’Histoire de la Papauté, and you will find, in every chapter, the progress and the opposition. The popes cannot go forward, and get ground, but by overcoming the obstacles they meet with at every step. Armies and books, sermons, libels, and prophecies, have been made use of against them; nothing was left unattempted to put a stop to their conquests, and at last every thing proved insignificant. Why? Because they used all imaginable means to succeed in their designs. Their excommunications have been supported with arms and crusades, and by the tribunals of the inquisition: craft, violence, courage, and artifice, have concurred to protect them. Their conquests have cost the lives of as many men, or nearly as many, as those of the commonwealth of Rome. Many writers apply to new Rome what Virgil observes concerning the old:

Multa quoque et bello passus dum conderet urbem,
Inferretque Deos Latio ...

Virgil. Æn. lib. i, ver. 5.

Tants molis erat Romanam condere gentem.

Virgil. Æn. lib. i, ver. 33.

Much suffer’d he in war ...
Till settl’d, with his gods, on Latian ground:

So arduous was the task the Roman name to found.

Zipporah told Moses, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me;" Exod.iv. 25. ¹ but if the church of Rome were the spouse of Jesus Christ, he might tell her with much more reason, “Surely a bloody spouse art thou to me.”

I think this sufficient to justify my propositions. I am still persuaded, that the power the popes have attained to, is one of the greatest prodigies of human history, and one of those things which never happen twice. If it had never happened, I believe it could never be. Future ages would not afford a time so

proper for such an enterprize as past ages have been; and if that great structure should be destroyed, it were in vain to undertake to raise it up again. AU that the court of Rome can do now, with the greatest policy in the world, is to maintain herself. Her conquests are at an end. She dares not excommunicate a crowned head; and how often is she obliged to dissemble her resentment against the Catholic party, who deny the superiority and infallibility of the popes, and bum the books that are most favourable to them? If there was now an anti-papacy, I mean a schism, like those which have been so frequent in former times, when a pope set up against a pope, and a council against a council;

- - - infestisque obvia signis
Signa, pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis.

Lucan. Phars. lib. 1, v. 6.

Standards in hostile form 'gainst standards rais’d,
Eagles 'gainst eagles, piles to piles oppos’d.

She would not come off with honour, she would be confounded, and at her wit’s end. Such a contrast, in such an age as ours, would prove destructive. Observe by the bye, in order to have a right notion of the great obstacles above mentioned, that the popes were obliged to make themselves masters of many general councils. This was a very difficult task; for the more numerous a council is, the more it is like a ship tossed with contrary winds, and exposed to violent storms. The steering of such a ship requires the utmost art and skill; and if the best working is sufficient to bring it into the designed harbour, it is still wonderful.—Art. Gregory VII.

PARENTAL JOY.

Berenice, daughter, sister, and mother of some persons who carried the prize at the Olympian games, obtained by reason of such a singularity leave to assist

at those games, which had been forbidden other women by a public decree. Some say she obtained that privilege before her son was conqueror; they were satisfied to know that her father and her brothers had obtained that advantage, and to see her, accompanied by her victorious brothers, present her son ready to dispute those sorts of crowns. Pausanias’s narrative differs from this, and is perhaps better. He Pausan. lib. 5. pag. 153. ² says that the inhabitants of Elis made a law, whereby all the women that should dare to creep into the Olympic games, or to pass over the Alpheus on any occasion whatsoever, during the time that was forbidden them, were condemned to be cast headlong from a rock. There was but one who disobeyed that order, and her name was Callipatira according to some, and Pherenice according to others. After the death of her husband she pretended to be one of those that instructed young men in the exercises of the Olympic games, and under that disguise she presented herself in the field of battle with her son, whom she brought thither as an Athleta whom she had instructed, and who prepared himself for the combat. Having seen her son obtain the victory, she leaped over a barrier that served for an inclosure to the masters of the combatants, and discovered her sex by that action. She would have been proceeded against according to the laws, were it not that the judges thought they ought to acquit her, because they found that her father and her brothers, and now her son, had obtained the prizes of those games; so much glory for one family was the cause of that woman’s pardon; but they made a law that for the future the masters of the Athletæ should come naked to those shews. It must not be forgotten that this Berenice was the daughter of that Diagoras the Rhodian, who was so famous in the public games of Greece.

Art. Berenice.

PARTISANS.
(Religious.)

Francis de Beaumont, Baron Des-Adrets, was one of the noblemen of France, whose courage and military actions made the greatest noise in the religious wars, under the reign of Charles IX. He was of Dauphine, and had learned the profession of arms in Piedmont, which was the best and most famous school of war in that age. It is pretended, that the desire of revenging himself of the duke of Guise, who had been against him in a law-suit, made him declare for those of the Protestant religion. They add, that Catherine de Medicis wrote a letter to him to excite him to revenge, and even that she permitted him to make use of the Huguenots, that he might the better ruin that duke’s authority in Dauphine. The duke of Guise, governor of that province, had made La Mothe Gondrin his lieutenant there; he was his creature, and a person of great courage. Des-Adrets judging that he could not begin his undertakings more successfully, than by ridding himself of that gentleman, practised upon some people in Valence, and managed his intelligence in such a manner, that La Mothe Gondrin, overwhelmed by the sedition which was raised in that city, was stabbed there in cold blood. Thus Valence was the first town which the baron made himself master of, and where his dignity was increased; for, whereas he was before colonel of the legionaries of Lyonnois, Dauphine, Provence and Languedoc, he was chosen, the next day after the sedition, administrator of affairs, till the prince of Conde’s farther declaration. From that time he overran all the country, and understanding that the Protestant party had made themselves masters of Lyons, he went thither, and assumed al) the authority to himself, without much inquiring whether it would be

acceptable. With five hundred men he defeated the three thousand, which St Vital brought with him into the neighbourhood of that city, to ravage the country; he ransacked le Fores, secured Grenoble, where he compelled the whole parliament to go and hear a protestant sermon; he plundered and burnt the great charter-house, seized on Pont St Esprit, entered like thunder into the country of Avignon, and had, doubtless, taken the chief city of it, to treat it as the pope’s troops had treated the city of Orange, had he not been informed, within a league of Avignon, that the Catholics had made themselves masters of Grenoble. He marched that way immediately, and spread such a terror among the catholic troops, that Maugiron, who commanded them, fled into Savoy, and durst not return into Dauphine. Grenoble was soon reduced under our baron’s power, who treated that city more kindly than they had reason to expect. He was much more barbarous in other places, which he seized by main force, and where he exercised great cruelties by way of reprisals; for example, he treated the garrison of Monthrisson, which had surrendered at discretion, very cruelly. They represented to him in vain the laws of humanity; he would divert himself with seeing those miserable soldiers precipitated; they were brought to the top of the platform above the tower. Those who had not the courage to precipitate themselves were cast down headlong, and not so much as their chief was pardoned. Only one soldier was saved; twice he took a run from one end of the platform to the other, as if he designed to leap farther, but stopt short on the brink of the precipice. DesAdrets said to him, with a sharp tone, it was enough to have twice sounded the ford: the soldier replied boldly, that he would give him four times to do it. These words softened the baron’s ill-humour in such a manner, that he gave the brisk fellow quarter, who durst make use of his jests in such a pressing extremity. Some say that the baron’s soldiers, as barbarous as their general, received those who were thrown down from the tower, with horrid cries and shouts, on the points of their halberts and pikes. Here we must take notice of a great falsity of Maimbourg. After having mentioned the cruelties of Des-Adrets, he adds these words: “There were, indeed, some catholics, who, being justly incensed at so many horrid crimes, abused the right of reprisals, and treated them almost in the same manner, of their own authority, but there were but few who perished so.” He supposes, then, that Des-Adrets began to exercise these barbarities, and that the Catholics only followed his example, and made use of them by way of reprisals. But this is either gross ignorance, or prodigious insincerity; for historians least suspected of partiality towards those of the Protestant religion, confess ingenuously that the cruelties which were exercised at Orange, preceded those of Des-Adrets. Read Varillas' History of Charles IX , and you will find there, that, before the leaps of Mornac and Monthrisson, the Catholics had exercised the most enormous cruelties at Orange, and particularly that of precipitating people from the tops of rocks, or on pikes and halberts. Among other things, he more especially informs us that Fabricius Serbellone, a gentleman of Milan, of ancient family and of great experience, who gave himself over to most of the vices that prevail among his countrymen, being also endowed with their virtues, joined with the Catholics of Provence, whom the counts de Sommerive, de Suze, de Carces, &c. had gathered together, and persuaded them to make an attempt upon Orange. He invested that town when the whole garrison was gone out, and taking advantage of that favourable juncture, he gave an assault as soon as his battery had made a sufficient breach. During the assault, the Catholics that were left in Orange opened one gate to him. He went in through it, and his men were contented at first to kill every body they met in arms; but afterwards they renewed the examples of the most refined cruelty invented formerly by tyrants. They employed their ingenuity in contriving how to make those, who had been so unhappy as to escape their first fury, feel themselves die, and killed them gradually. Some were thrown headlong upon stakes, halberds, swords, and pikes; some were hung in the chimnies, and burnt with a slow fire. They took delight in cutting their privy parts; and their fury spared neither children, nor old and sick people, nor the reapers, though the latter had no other arms than their sickles. Women and maids did not come off with the loss of their honour, and with being prostituted to the rabble; for they were set for a mark to be shot at, and after hung upon the windows. The boys were kept, to complete the abomination; and to add derision to their outrage, the ladies, who rather chose to die than to satisfy the lewdness of the victors, were exposed stark naked for a public mockery, with horns thrust into those parts which modesty does not permit to name. Some of both sexes were larded with slips of paper cut out of Geneva bibles. The very Catholics who opened the gate were not spared; for after a place had been appointed for them, and they had been told that they would be safe in it with their wives and children, they were all cut to pieces. There were only a hundred and nine soldiers in the castle, who not being sufficient to defend it, desired to capitulate. All they proposed was granted them; but as soon as they came out, they were surrounded; and those who were not thought worthy of being killed by the soldiers, were thrown headlong from the top of a rock. After the plunder had been secured, the victors employed themselves in demolishing the walls of Orange; and Serbellone, thinking that it would be a piece of madness to leave, so near the country of Avignon, a considerable town, the sovereign whereof was a Calvinist, set fire to it, which quickly consumed the bishop’s palace, and three hundred houses, with those who had concealed themselves in them. The burning had gone on, had it not been for an extraordinary rain, which put it out in a moment, and disappointed those who stirred the fire.

It is observed in the relation of the sacking of Orange, that the castle, the bishop’s palace, and several other places were set on fire, and part of the walls pulled down at the solicitation of the count de Suze. He satisfied his avarice as well as his cruelty; for he took part of the best booty, and furnished his house with it. These are the men on whom we poor private people bestow so many panegyrics, upon account of their pretended zeal for religion, and the glory of God: the Monlucs, the Tavannes, the Suzes, and the Guises will be praised for ever among the votaries of the church of Rome; but what did they do for their religion but get wealth, plunder, and domineer? Was this a service done to God, for which they deserved to be rewarded? “O curas hominum, ô

quantum est in rebus inane!—O empty toils! O vanity of things.”

The victory which Des Adrets obtained against the count de Suze at Vaureas, rendered him master of Orange, and of the county of Venaissin, and made Avignon tremble a second time. He defeated all the pope’s troops; he entered into Provence, and overthrew all that appeared against him; nevertheless, there were some disappointments, or private jealousies, which made him fail of relieving Cisteron. This disgrace was followed by some others: the duke of Nemours, after the ill success of the siege of Lyons, won two battles against the baron Des Adrets; but durst not engage with him a third time; and found it more proper to use artifices to induce this formidable

leader of the Protestants to change sides. They endeavoured to prevail upon him by promises and threats; shewing him that he had great enemies in his party; and at last they staggered him in such a manner, that his conduct became more and more suspected by the prince of Conde and the admiral. The conclusion was, that they secured his person at Romans, the tenth of January, 1563. He did not come out of prison but by the treaty of peace which was concluded the same year; and then he professed his first religion, and afterwards bore arms against the other; but without any success or glory: for which he is not the only person who has given very bad reasons. This general showed no longer the same vigilance, activity, intrepidity, and presence of mind, which had been admired as prodigies whilst he served the Cause. All these great qualities, and the victories which he obtained over the Papists, did not hinder the Protestants from looking upon him as a Goliah, who dishonoured the battles of Israel by his barbarous conduct.

Besides what has been already said on this subject, I shall observe that it was said, that he taught his children to be cruel, and to bathe themselves in blood. The eldest, who was afterwards a Catholic, was very busy in the massacre of Paris. He died at the siege of Rochelle, with contrition for the great quantity of blood that he had shed. The Protestants are little concerned, whether this hearsay of Brantome be true or not; for they were the first who condemned this baron's cruel disposition, but every body is concerned not to suffer the licence of him who published, the Supplement to Moreri’s Dictionary. He says, “that after a great slaughter, Des-Adrets made his two sons bathe themselves in the blood of the Catholics.” Father Maimbourg supplied him with this gloss: both of them should be told, that they ought not to take so great a latitude in their paraphrases. Their

witness, grounded on hearsay, made use only of the word blood. What right had they to pretend that he spoke of human blood?

Des-Adrets died without honour, in an ignominious old age, equally despised by both parties, much unlike that baron Des-Adrets—quantum mutatus ab illo! who had been dreaded as far as Rome; for they were apprehensive there that he would fit out a fleet to pay the pope a visit.

With respect to his children, Brantome says, that the younger was the king’s page, of whom Mr Allard relates a very bold action. “The king ordered him one day to call his chancellor; this page found him at dinner, and, having told him that the king would speak with him, and the chancellor having answered, that ‘ after he had dined he would go and receive the king’s orders:’ ‘ How’ said the page, ‘ will you defer one moment when the king commands you?’ And thereupon he took one end of the table cloth, and threw all that was upon it to the ground. This story was told the king by the chancellor himself, and bis majesty, laughing, said only, ‘ that the son would be as violent and passionate as the father.’”

Des Adrets was at Turin during the massacre on St Bartholomew’s day, but soon returned into Dauphine, and, seeing the small account they made of him, he retired to la Frette, in the Graisivodan. He accompanied la Valette, who was sent into Dauphine against Lesdiguieres, in the year 1585. At last, being tired with so many fatigues, oppressed with age, and extremely disgusted with the world, he retired again to la Frette, where he lived a year with visible marks of bis return into the bosom of the church. He died therefore, a Catholic, after having made his will, the second of February, 1586, and was buried in a chapel of the parochial church, which belonged to his house. The countenance of Des Adrets discovered the fierceness of his temper. Thuanus,

who observed him so nicely, at Grenoble in the year, 1572, that he was able to delineate him by memory, so as any one might know him again, gives this description of him: “He was now quite grey headed, but of a vigorous and robust old age; he had fierce, sparkling eyes, a sharp nose, a lean visage, but flushed; so that you would say, as was observed in P. Corn. Sylla, that his face was sprinkled with a mixture of dirt and blood; for the rest of his bodily constitution, it was altogether military.”

Arts. Beaumont and Serbellone.

PASCAL
(His Mathematical Aptitude.)

The manner in which Pascal learned the mathematics seems to be miraculous. His father perceiving in him an extraordinary inclination to matters of reasoning, was afraid that the knowledge of the mathematics would hinder his learning the languages. He resolved therefore to keep him, as much as he could, from all notions of geometry; he locked up all the books that treated of it, and refrained even to speak of it in his presence, with his friends. Yet he could not refuse this general answer to the importunate curiosity of his son: “geometry is a science which teaches the way of making exact figures, and of finding out the proportions between them;” but at the same time he forbade him to speak or think of it any more. Upon this bare opening of the matter, the child set himself to muse at his house of recreation, and to make figures upon the chamber-floor with charcoal. He sought out the proportions of figures, he himself made definitions and axioms, and then demonstrations, and he carried his enquiries so far, that he came to the thirty-second proposition of the first book of Euclid; for faster having surprized him one day in the midst of his

figures, and having asked him what he was doing, he told him he was searching for such a thing, which was just that proposition of Euclid. He asked him afterwards, what made him think of this, and he answered, that it was because he had found out such another thing; and so going backward and using the names of bar and round, he came at length to the definitions and axioms he had formed himself.

M. le Pailleur learning what had been just said, advised M. Pascal, the father, who told him of it, no longer to constrain his son. M. Pascal followed this advice, and gave Euclid’s Elements to the child, who understood it all by himself alone, without ever needing any explanation, and he improved in it at first so far, that afterwards he was constantly present at the conferences which were held every week, where all the most ingenious men of Paris were assembled, either to bring thither their own works, or to examine those of others. Young Pascal kept his place there, as well as any other, either for examining or writing books. He carried thither, as often as any man, new things, and sometimes it happened, that he discovered faults in the propositions that were examined, which the rest did not perceive. Yet he employed only his time of recreation in the study of geometry, because he was then learning the languages which his father taught him. But finding in those sciences the truth, which he loved in all things with an extreme passion, he made such progress in the little time he spent upon them, that at the age of sixteen years he wrote a treatise on conic sections, which in the judgment of the most learned was accounted one of the greatest efforts of genius that can be imagined. M. Des Cartes, who had been in Holland for a long time, having read it, and having heard some say, that it was written by a child of sixteen years of age, chose rather to believe, that M. Pascal the father, was the true author of it, who

willingly robbed himself of that glory which justly belonged to him, to transfer it to his son, than to be persuaded, that a child of that age, was capable of writing a book with such strength of reason; and by this backwardness to believe a thing which was very true, he shewed that it was in effect incredible and prodigious. At the age of nineteen years he invented that admirable machine of Arithmetic, which was esteemed one of the most extraordinary things that was ever seen: and afterwards at the age of twenty-three years, having seen the Toricellian experiment, he invented and tried a very great number of other new experiments. We must not forget an early proof he gave of his great genius. “When he was yet but eleven years old, at table, a certain person having struck accidentally a fine earthen dish with a knife, he took notice, that it made a great sound, but as soon as the hand was laid upon it, the sound ceased. He wanted at the same time to know the cause of it; and this experiment having led him to make many others about sounds, he observed so many things about them, that he wrote a tract upon that subject, which was judged very ingenious and solid.”—Art. Pascal.

PEACE.
(The Opinion of Erasmus on)

Erasmus was a lover of peace, and knew the value of it. One of the finest dissertations that can be seen is that of Erasmus upon the proverb, “Want of experience makes war sweet.” He makes it appear therein that he had profoundly weighed the most important principles of reason and the gospel, and the most common causes of wars. He proves that the wickedness of some particular persons, and the folly of the people, are the source of almost every war, and that a thing so blamable in its causes, is commonly

followed by a very pernicious effect. He pretends that those, whose professions ought to lead them to dissuade from war, are the instigators of it. “If any one would examine this matter more thoroughly, he would find, that all the wars in Christendom have been owing either to folly or to malice. Some inexperienced young men, misled by the ill example of former reigns, inflamed by historical traditions, propagated from fool to fool, or hurried on by the persuasion of flatterers, the instigation of lawyers and divines, with the connivance, and perhaps, influence of bishops, have engaged themselves in wars, more out of rashness than malice, and, from so powerful a calamity, learn that war is an ill, which ought by all possible means to be avoided. Others precipitate themselves into wars from hatred, others from ambition, and some from a savageness of mind. Nor is our Iliad any thing else but a detail of the quarrels of foolish princes and their subjects.” He goes on, “laws, statutes, privileges, are all silenced by the din of arms; princes then find a hundred ways of attaining to arbitrary power; whence it happens that some of them cannot endure peace. Some there are whose sole motive to war is, that it gives them an opportunity of exercising their tyranny over their own subjects with the greater ease; for in times of peace, the authority of a senate, the dignity of magistrates, the love of the laws, are no small curb to a prince’s will. But in war, the management of all affairs is left to the caprice of a few. Those who are in their prince’s favour are raised, those in displeasure are trampled on; supplies are demanded in an arbitrary manner.; in a word, it is then they find themselves monarchs in reality. The chiefs in the mean time juggle together, till the poor people are totally robbed of their liberty. Can it be imagined that men of such a disposition would not willingly lay hold of the first opportunity of war which presented itself?” This dissertation is to be found in the adages of Erasmus, and has been printed apart under the title of Bellum.

Art. Erasmus.

PEDANTRY.

Some critics have contemned the Latin of Ovid. Passerat owns, that he had professed the Belles Lettres a long time before he explained any of Ovid’s pieces; and that because he found a reigning prejudice against that poet. Balzac was not ignorant of the whimsical taste of this Italian. “I knew,” says he, “that under the pontificate of Leo X., a Venetian gentleman that was much esteemed by Fracastor, and by whose name he called his Dialogue of Poesy, had a custom on his anniversary birth-day of solemnly burning the works of Martial, as an annual sacrifice to the manes and memory of Catullus. I knew equally well, that another refined critic of the same time maintained, that the corruption of the Roman language commenced in the person of Ovid, whose Metamorphoses he translated for the use of his son, that* he might learn the Fables without the danger of adopting Ovid’s way of speaking, and that in seeking out the riches of poetry, he might not endanger the nobleness of his own style by a contagious reading. Scaliger observes, that Peter Victorius and Lambinus contemned Ovid extremely.” Another learned critic complains in the same strain without mentioning any body.—Art. Ovid.

PERICLES.
(His Idea of Godlike.)

Pericles a little before he died, said a very judicious thing, which has given Plutarch occasion to make a solid reflection upon the nature of God; but that author went too far; he overstrained the idea of infinite goodness; he affirmed that it could do no

harm, and he would rather impute evil to another cause. “When he was drawing on, and near his time,” writes Plutarch, “the best of the citizens, and those of his friends who were left alive, sitting about him, were discoursing of his virtue and authority, how great it was, and were reckoning up his famous actions and achievements, and the number of his victories; for he had gained nine battles, and there were no fewer than nine trophies, which he, as their chief commander and conqueror of their enemies had set up for the honour of the city and state. These things they talked of together among themselves; as though he did. not understand, or mind what they said, but had been utterly deprived of his senses; but he had listened all the while, and given good heed to all their discourse, and speaking out, said, that he wondered they should commend and take notice of those things in him, which were as much owing to fortune as to any thing else, and had happened to many other captains in former times, as well as to himself, and that at the same time they should not speak or make mention of that which was the most excellent and greatest thing of all: for said he, there was never any of all my fellow citizens that ever wore black, or put on mourning upon my account.”

Here follows Plutarch’s reflection: “To me it appears, that this one thing of him, made that otherwise childish and arrogant title which they gave him by nicknaming him Olympian, (that is, the Heavenly, or Godlike) truly become him: I mean his kind and courteous carriage, and pure and unblemished conversation in the height of power and place. According to the notions that we have of the gods themselves, in their kind; who because they are naturally the authors of all good things, and are not the authors of any evil, we think worthy to rule and govern the world. Not as the poets rudely fancy, who, confounding us with their foolish unmannerly

conceits and opinions, contradict themselves in their own poems and fictitious stories. First, they call the place wherein they say the gods make their abode, a secure and quiet seat, free from all hazards and commotions, not troubled with winds, nor darkened with clouds, but at all times alike, shining round about with a soft serenity and a pure light; inasmuch as such tempered station is most agreeable and suitable for a blessed and immortal nature to live in; and yet at the same time affirm, that the gods themselves are full of trouble, and enmity, and anger, and other passions, which no way become or belong even to men that have any understanding.” What Plutarch says here against the poets is very fine and solid; the rest is a deceitful beauty, and may be compared with poisoned flowers, that cover a serpent, “latet anguis in herba.” Perhaps it will be thought that I mean that there are in those words some seeds of the false doctrine of Epicurus, concerning the tranquillity of the gods, free from hatred and anger; but it is not that: Plutarch does not present us the poison of Epicurus, but that of Manicheism: we have seen elsewhere, that he positively declared for the doctrine of two principles. He mentions it again in this reflection upon Pericles’ answer. He does not believe, as Epicurus did, that God enjoys an idle rest; he ascribes to him action and providence; but it is only a bountiful providence, which distributes favours and happiness. It is not a providence which grows angry sometimes, which punishes and corrects, and oppresses mankind with miseries. He does not approve that Pericles should have had the sirname of the Olympian, that is to say, divine and heavenly, because his eloquence lightened, thundered, and fulminated, but because he never made use of his authority to revenge himself, and not one family ever put on mourning upon his account. Plutarch’s opinion was not the most common; most people knew the divinity of Jupiter better by thunder and lightning than by the distribution of benefits. The religious ceremonies of the Heathens were rather appointed to avert the anger of the gods, than to obtain favours from them; yet there was a general notion, which prevailed every where, that nothing is more agreeable to the divine nature than to do good. The epithet of optimus (best) went before that of maximus (greatest) when they praised Jupiter. “Sed ipse Jupiter, id est juvans pater, quern conversis casibus appellamus a juvendo Jovem a poetis pater Divumque, hominumque dicitur; a Majoribus autem nostris Optimus, Maximus, et quidem ante Optimus, id est beneficentissimus, quam Maximus: quia majus est, certeque gratius prodesse omnibus, quam opes magnus habere. Cicero, de Nat. Deor. liv. ii, cap. xxv. ³—But Jupiter, that is, helping father, whom we call so because he relieves us in our afflictions, is called by the poets the father of gods and men: but by our ancestors he was styled Optimus Maximus; the epithet optimus, which signifies the most gracious, being put first, because it is better to be good than great.” The philosopher Antipater defined God an animal, happy, immortal, and good to all men. Persæus, the disciple of Zeno, attending to Cicero, says, “that those were accounted gods who were the authors of useful inventions, and that the inventions were called by the names of gods: he does not style them the inventions of gods, but divine inventions.” It was also the way of obtaining the Apotheosis, if we believe Pliny: Plin. lib. ii. cap. vii. pag. m. 143, 144. ⁴ “It is god-like for one man to help another; it is the road that leads to eternal glory. In this way the Roman heroes travelled, and in this heavenly path the most excellent prince Vespasian, with his children, now walk, relieving those that are in misery. It was the custom of the ancients to shew their gratitude, by deifying those who had done great and good actions. For the names of all the other gods, and of the constellations I have above recited, take their rise from the good offices performed by men.” Others giving a more reasonable turn to it, have said that the gods had inspired men with the invention of arts. The Scythians told Alexander: “If thou be a god, thou must do good to men, and not take from them what is their own; si Deus es, tribuere mortalibus beneficia debes, non sua eripere.” Sound theology agrees with all these notions of the ancient Heathens. There are innumerable passages in the Scripture, whereby it appears that God is infinitely more inclined to use mercy than severity.

I have read in the voyage of Sir Francis Drake, that the inhabitants of New Albion took the English for gods, and paid divine honours to them, because when they shewed their wounds to them, they received plaisters and salves which cured them. On the contrary, the Spaniards were looked upon as gods in America, because they did a great deal of mischief with their cannons. Their ship was taken for a bird that brought them down from heaven; which shews that two opposite things lead men to the knowledge of God, vis. the power to do ill, which he exercises so severely, and the goodness wherewith he bestows a thousand benefits upon mankind. It may be a question, whether one of those two attributes be more knowable than the other. Tacitus pretends, that the gods are more inclined to punish men, than to let them be quiet. Tacit. Hist. lib. i. cap. iii. ⁵ “Nec enim unquam,” says he, “atro cioribus populi Romani cladibus magisve justis judi ciis approbatum est, non esse curse deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem. - - The dreadful calamities of the Roman people evidently [prove, that the gods desire not our quiet but our misery.” A journalist maintains that the effects of goodness are

more extended than the effects of punishment. Here are his words: “Of all the perfections of God, goodness would be most visible, if men would consider it. Is it not great goodness to have so ordered things, that all our necessary actions are attended with pleasure, and to have made us susceptible of pleasure a thousand ways? It is in vain to say that we are more susceptible of sorrow and pain; this is not true, and if it were true, we should not for all that forget the great goodness of God, since we might easily see that the pleasures we enjoy come from the laws he has established in nature, and that, on the contrary, most of our sorrows proceed from the ill use we make of our reason.” Note, by the by, that the difference he speaks of, and which he grounds upon the consequences of the ill use we make of liberty, could not satisfy a difficult adversary, who would say that this very thing, viz. the ill use a man makes of his reason, to vex himself to no purpose, is a great unhappiness, and ought necessarily to be placed amongst afflictions; so that if we make a parallel between the good and evil which Providence imparts to men, we must reckon the evils which proceed from the weakness of our reason, as well as sickness, hunger, thirst, &c.

I shall only add, that the Greek proverb, “Every thing that nourishes me is a god to me,” is more deceitfill than people think. See the answer which was made to Philip de Comines, and that of a surgeon to a monk of St. Denis. “It is certain that a certain disease was unknown in France before the reign of Charles VIII; the greatest part of that prince’s army died of it, because being not yet known, they knew no remedy for it, which shews that it was not the leprosy. Necessity put men upon finding some remedies to cure it, whereby many surgeons grew very rich. One of them, very thankful for his happiness, went one day to St Denis, and kneeled down before the statue of Charles VIII to thank him for it; but

monk having told him that he was mistaken, and that it was not the image of a saint—‘ Hold your tongue, father,’ said he, ‘ I know very well what I do; he is a true saint to me, since I have got by his means thirty thousand livres a year, so that it is a piece of (justice for me to thank him for it.’” The author of

Moyen de Parvenir makes the sum less, and names the surgeon. Here are his words: “You put me in mind of that monk of St Denis in France, who was an assuming fellow. When he saw Thierre de Hery upon his knees before the statue of Charles VIII, he told him, ‘ my friend, you are mistaken; that is not the image of a saint.’ ‘ I know it very well,’ said the surgeon, ‘ I am not so great a fool as you are, I know it is the statue of king Charles VIII, for whose soul I pray, because he brought a certain disease into France, whereby I have got six or seven thousand livres a year.’”

I will not conclude without quoting Virgil. He was very much disposed to deify his benefactors: his lands having been spared by a particular favour of Octavius, he styled him a god.

O Melibæe, Deus nobis hæc otia fecit:
Namque erit ille mihi semper Deus: illius aram
Sæpè tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.

Virgil Eclog. 1. ver. 6.

O Melibæus, 'twas a gód to us,
Indulg’d this freedom; for to me a god
He shall be ever; from my fold full oft
A tender lamb his altar shall imbrue.

Trapp.

Good Maturinus Corderius, out of a pious fraud, which may be well excused, made school-boys believe that those words were very pious. He translated them thus: Melibæus, that favour comes to us from the only wise god. Virgil had no such thought; he only meant Augustus.—Art. Pericles.

PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SIN.

Cardinal De Lugo is said to be the first author of the discovery of the philosophical sin. See the book in titled, “The Philosophism of the Jesuits of Marseilles,” there you will find the following words.

That which embarrasses De Lugo, in admitting actual sins purely philosophical in a savage, at least during the short time in which he supposes and maintains that he may be inculpably ignorant of God, is, that this savage may possibly die within this small time in his philosophical sins, and that he does not know what God may think fit to do with, nor what judgment he may pass upon such a sinner, nor in what rank he may place him for eternity. Some other Jesuits send him to the limbo of still born infants after a temporal punishment, proportioned to the philosophical sin, of what nature soever it be, whether parricide, incest, &c.; but De Lugo chooses rather to establish a new order of Providence. In this new order, God, rather than banish out of this world the philosophical sin, which is so necessary in it, and not to be embarrassed what to do in the next, with this sort of sinners, will work a miracle rather than let them die in this state. He will give them, before they leave this world, as much knowledge of the true God, as shall be necessary to qualify them for sinning theologically, or at least as much light as may be necessary to create a doubt in their minds that there may be a God, and wait and prolong their life till they have committed, with this knowledge or under this doubt, some sin which he may proceed against as a mortal sin, and punish it eternally in hell. That doubt alone, which he would neglect to remove, would render his sin eternally punishable, because, by sinning in this state, he would expose himself to the danger of offending him, who is the

author of his being. The thought is wholly new, and worthy of him who appears to be the first Jesuit who made the discovery of philosophical sin.” We may easily perceive that the author, who thus sets forth the doctrine of this Jesuit, mixes some touches of raillery in what he says: but after all, it is not strange that a doctor should be embarrassed, when he endeavours to reconcile the eternal damnation of man with the natural ideas, which clearly discover to us, that in order to an action’s having a character of morality, it is indispensably necessary that a per son committing this action know whether it be good or bad, or be ignorant of it through his own fault. It is an easy matter to stumble in such way, since we can hardly avoid making some false steps, even when we propose to acquit the judgments of God, of whatever seemingly makes them appear less equitable. The supposition of our De Lugo does not tend to diminish the number of the damned, but to render them more notoriously worthy of damnation.

Art. Lugo.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

Takiddin, a Mahometan author, said that the Caliph Almamon would be infallibly punished by God, for having disturbed the devotion of the Mussulmans by the introduction of philosophical studies. This thought has nothing singular in it: it has appeared in all the countries of the world, and in all ages, and at this very day we find an infinite number of people complaining of Des Cartes, and other modern philosophers of the first rank, as having occasioned the contempt which so many persons express for devotion and the mysteries of Christianity. A thousand things might be said upon this subject, both as to the fact itself, and the reason for it. Philosophers have been at all times suspected of having but tittle religion. The ancient rhetoricians, after having 2 2

said that among probable propositions, some were grounded upon what generally happens, and others upon the common opinion, alleged immediately these two examples: Mothers love their children—philosophers do not believe the existence of the gods. “Probabile est id quod fere fieri solet, aut quod in opinione positum est—In eo genere, quod fere solet fieri, probabile hujusmodi est: si mater est, diligit filium: si avarus est, negligit jusjurandum. In eo autem, quod in opinione positum est, hujusmodi sunt probabilia: Impiis apud inferos poenas esse praeparatas: Eos, qui philosophiae dent operam, non arbitrari deos esse. Cicero, de Inventione, lib. i. fol. m. 29. ⁶—That is probable which is confirmed by general experience, or which is commonly believed. Among the first sort, from general experience, are these examples following: a mother loves her child; a miser never regards an oath. Among the latter from common belief are these: infernal punishments are prepared for the wicked; philosophers do not believe there are any gods.” Apuleius observes, that almost all the ancient philosophers were accused either of denying the existence of the gods, or of applying themselves to magic. “These things are generally by the ignorant vulgar objected against the philosophers, that one part of them who are for enquiring into the first and simple causes of bodies are irreligious, and deny the being of the gods, as Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and other patrons of nature; that the others, who search more curiously into the conduct of Providence in the world, and worship the gods with greatest zeal, are commonly stiled magicians, as if they themselves had found out how to do those things which they find to be done; as formerly Epimenides, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Osthanes.” Apuleius, in Apologia, pag. 291. ⁷ Our Takiddin would not have delivered over to divine justice the great Almamon, that protector of learning, who introduced the study of philosophy, had he not observed the ill effect of that study. It had raised doubts in the minds of men; it had discovered to a great many people the fooleries of the Mahometan sect, and by that means the public worship, piety, and devotion had laboured under a surprising discouragement. Some learned men maintain that the Arabian philosophers professed only Mahometism outwardly, and laughed at the Koran in reality, because they found in it some things contrary to reason. A great many people are not to be beaten out of the notion that Des Cartes and Gassendus believed the real presence in the Eucharist, as little as the fabulous stories of old Greece. It is no less difficult to persuade the world, that the followers of those two great philosophers are good Catholics, and that, if they were allowed to teach publicly their principles, they would not quickly undermine all the foundations of the Romish religion. The Protestants have not a better opinion of Des Cartes’ doctrine. Generally speaking, the Cartesians are suspected of irreligion, and their philosophy is thought to be very dangerous to Christianity; so that, according to the opinion of a great many, the same persons who have removed in our age the darkness which the schoolmen had spread all over Europe, have increased the number of freethinkers, and made way for Atheism, or Scepticism, or the disbelief of the greatest mysteries of Christianity.

But irreligion is not only ascribed to the study of philosophy, but also to philology; for it is pretended that Atheism never began to discover itself in France till the reign of Francis I, and that the first appearance of it in Italy was when philological learning was revived there. “The less foreign learning we have,” says a Catholic writer, “the greater submission we express for the Christian faith; ‘ and the most learned ages,’ says Baronius, ‘ have often proved the most

unbelieving.’ The Aladmists appeared only under the reign of Almansor; who was the most learned monarch of his age; and I find no Atheists in France before the reign of Francis I, not in Italy till after the taking of Constantinople, when Argyropilus, Theodorus Gaza, Georgius Trebizontius, with the most celebrated men of Greece, retired to the dukes of Florence.” It is certain that most of the wits and learned philologers, who shined in Italy when the Belles Lettres began to revive there, after the taking of Constantinople, had but little religion; but on the other hand, the restoration of the learned languages and polite literature made way for the reformation, as the Monks and their adherents clearly foresaw, who continually inveighed against Reuchlin, Erasmus, and the other scourges of ignorance. Thus whilst the Roman Catholics deplore the fatal consequences of the study of good literature, the Protestants have all the reason in the world to praise God for it. They are not so much beholden to the new philosophy, which demonstratively overthrows transubstantiation, and all its dependencies, because the same weapons are made use of against the most essential doctrines. In a word, so unhappy is the fate of man, that the knowledge which frees him from one evil throws him into another. Drive away ignorance and barbarity, and you put an end to superstition, and the foolish credulity of the people, so profitable to their leaders, who afterwards employ their gain only to plunge themselves into idleness and debauchery; but by putting men in a capacity of discovering such disorders, you raise in them a desire of examining every thing, and at last they are so much for enquiring and Scanning, that they find nothing that will satisfy their miserable reason.

However it be, I have heard some wise men say, that the too common affectation of charging the Philosophers with impiety is Very imprudent; for how

great a scandal would it be for ignorant people, if they took the pains to consider it with due attention, to find that, according to the opinion of a great many divines, there is but little religion among great philosophers; that devotion is chiefly to be found among the vulgar, and that those who have most carefully examined the marks of the divine authority of the holy scripture, are commonly less pious and devout than others. It were much more edifying to teach, with Plutarch, that philosophy is a remedy for impiety and superstition; and with Origen, that no man can be truly pious without philosophy. “Omnino nec pium erga communem omnium Dominum esse absque philosophia quemquam censebat.” The mixture of good and evil that is to be found in all human things, appears on this occasion in a particular manner. The Arabian philosophers came to know by their philosophy that the Koran was a false revelation; but, on the contrary, many Jews forsook their religion, and embraced the Pagan philosophy, which discovered to them, as they pretended, that Moses had prescribed them needless laws. Thus the same principle, which is sometimes serviceable against error, is sometimes prejudicial to truth.—Art. Takiddin.

PIOUS CREDULITY.

An old man had been made to believe that Junius, the heretical preacher, had cloven feet, and he was not undeceived till he had viewed him from head to foot. It was in the presence of a great company, who were met in hopes of hearing a dispute between Junius and a Franciscan. The place and hour for the conference were appointed, but the Friar went back, under pretence of having forgotten something. I have a hundred times heard such kind of stories, but never saw them before supported by a printed and authentic testimony, which makes me set it down in Junius’s own words: “What I am going to relate is ridiculous,

but it is an instance of the folly and lying impudence of these persons. When we were in the field, expecting the coming of that Franciscan, a certain old man, breaking through the crowd, demanded to see me. Hearing a noise, 1 asked what was the matter, and finding that one desired to see me, I desired they would make way for him. Then he, casting his eyes downward, and surveying me from head to foot, broke out into these words: ‘ now I am convinced it is not true what was told me of you.’ Upon asking him what that was, he answered, ‘ he had been told that I had cloven feet.’”—Art. Junius.

PIOUS FRAUD.

I shall make a remark on the pious fraud which was published concerning the foundation of the convent of St Sulpice.

The ancient manuscript chronicle of Savoy imports that Amé, the second of the name, first earl of Savoy, and lord of Bugey, made a vow to found an abbey in his estates, in order to obtain issue, after which he had a son called Humbert, who falling sick, and being in danger of dying before the accomplishment of the vow, his father built and founded the abbey of St Sulpice, in Bugey, at the persuasion of the countess of Savoy, his wife.” The words of the chronicle are these.

“It happened one night that the countess, as she lay in bed, sighed several times; the earl enquired the reason of it.‘ Sir,’ said she, ‘ I fear the loss of our son Humbert.’ ‘ Why so?’ replied he: ‘ because,’ said the lady, ‘ you have made a vow to our Lord to found an abbey, in case God grant us issue, and you have forgotten to perform it, and seem not to care for it.’ Then the earl replied, ‘ doubt not but I shall shortly accomplish it, God willing.’ Then he sought for a proper place, and finding it, he built a fine abbey on a mountain, situated in Bugey, under the

name of the confessor St Sulpice, which he properly endowed, and established an abbot and monks to praise God for the issue he had granted him.” Paradin, in his history of Savoy, confirms this, and adds, “that when the abbey was finished, and the vow accomplished, the young prince of Savoy recovered;” placing the time of this foundation before the year 1118. Guichenon reflates all this very solidly. He says, “that he found in the archives of St Sulpice, that in the year 1130, fifteen monks of the order of Citeaux, and one Bernard, by permission of Hugh, abbot of Pontigni, with a design of doing penance there, and leading an austere life; and that Amé, the first earl of Savoy, who was preparing to go to the holy land, in Order to engage their stay, granted them letters and privileges.” As to the occasion of the foundation, it is certain that the historians of Savoy are mistaken in publishing “that it was after the birth of the young earl Humbert, son of the said Amé,” for the grants of earl Amé import the direct contrary, the first of which, dated at Yenne, in the presence of Pontius, bishop of Bellay, and Humbert, bishop of Geneva, has these words: “Be it known to all, who shall read or hear these presents, that I bestowed this gift at the time when I entertained the brotherhood in the mountains, that is, before I had a child by my wife;” and die second: “Be it known to all strangers as well as natives, that this grant was made before my wife Matilda had brought me any children.”

I cannot persuade myself that chance, or ignorance produced the falsehood which Guichenon has refitted. It is rather the effect of the artifice of the ecclesiastics. They bring water to their mill whatever way they can, and, to encourage the great to build monasteries, or give pious donations, they forge instances of fruitfulness, or recovery, or some other temporal advantage, which they ascribe to a liberal piety.

Art. Guichenon.

PIOUS IMPOSTURE.
(Motives of.)

The Franciscans fancy that the praises of their founder will not be so much suspected in the mouth of a monk of another order, and therefore they usually desire either a Benedictine or a Carmelite to preach in their churches at their great solemnities. He whom they employ to preach is sure to have his mind and body handsomely entertained, for he never returns to his convent before he hath been plentifully treated and sufficiently praised, and largely thanked for his eloquence; besides, they are ready to requite him upon occasion, for his order hath also its solemnities. A Cordelier’s sermon is requisite there, and is more effectual than one of the same order; he often is more extravagant in his encomium on the efficacy of the scapulary than a Carmelite; this is a mutual intercourse of good offices. It is not long ago that an ingenious man, and who is now a Protestant, told me that when he was a Benedictine, be was desired to preach in a convent of Franciscans, at the solemnity of the Portiuncula. They specified on what they would have him chiefly insist; he partly complied with their desire, but he gave his discourse a certain turn which did not please them. Some of them let him slily know it; he excused himself, and then asked them as among friends, whether it was reasonable to affirm in the pulpit so many falsehoods? “What then will you have us do?” replied they; “Will you have us starve?” which leads me to the third observation. There are several abuses in the Romish church, which in all likelihood will last as long as that church. It will be to no purpose to go from a learned age to one more learned; those things will not alter. It is true that they sprang in the times of ignorance; but ignorance was not the only cause, nor even the principal cause of their birth.

The wants of a society as well for food as commodious lodging, the interest they had to shew to the people an altar well set off, and rich church ornaments, all this required some wonderful descriptions to exalt the privileges of a certain saint, or of a certain chapel, or of some particular festival; it was a daily fund of subsistence, and when the anniversary feast came, then the order had its harvest and vintage. Now the wants that I speak of are not subject to the vicissitude of light and darkness; they are the same at all times, in an ignorant as well as in a learned age. Therefore, though knowledge is greater and more common, yet they produce still the same effects. Philosophical heads are puzzled whether they shall admire in this the long forbearance, or the long anger of heaven.—Art, Francis.

PIOUS SACRIFICE.

An eminent gentleman of the Romish church whose life was not very regular, but who openly professed to love ministers who had particular talents, and who seemed altogether charmed with M. du Bosc's A celebrated Protestant minister. ⁸ merit, having a mind to solemnize that day with a drinking bout, took two Cordeliers whom he knew to be good fellows, and made them drink so much that one of them died on the spot. The next day he went to see M. Du Bosc, and told him that he thought it his duty to sacrifice a monk to the public joy; that this sacrifice would have been more reasonable if it had been a Jesuit, but that this offering ought not to displease him, though it was but a Cordelier. That tragical accident whereof he was but the innocent cause, did nevertheless trouble the joy he had to find himself again with his family, and with his dock. He expressed it in the first sermon he made, having taken these words for his text:

“Here I am, O Lord, and the childen thou hast given me.”—Art. Bosc.

POETICAL LOVE.

Poets form to themselves imaginary mistresses. This will appear by the following narrative. “Racan and Malherbe one day were discoursing of their amours, to wit, of the design they had of making choice of some lady of great merit and quality, to be the subject of their verses. Malherbe named Madame de Rambouillet, and Racon Madame de Termes who was then a widow. They found that both of them were named Catherine; viz. the first whom Malherbe had chosen, Catherine de Vivonne, and Racan’s choice Catherine de Chabot. They spent all the afternoon in seeking anagrams for this name that might be soft enough for verse, and they found but three, Arthenice, Eracinthe, and Charintée; the first was judged the finest, but Racan having made use of it in his pastoral which he made immediately after, Malherbe despised the two others, and resolved to make use of Rodante. He was then married and far advanced in years, wherefore his amours produced but few verses, and among the rest, those which begin thus, ‘Chere beauté, que mon ame ravie,’ &c. ‘ Dear beauty, how my soul is ravished,’ &c; and these others which Boisset set to a tune: ‘ Ils s’en vont ces rois de ma vie.’ ‘ These kings of my life go away.’ He Wrote also some letters under the name of Rodante; but Racan who was thirty-four years younger than he, and a bachelor, changed his poetical love into a true and lawful one, and took some journeys into Burgundy for that end.”

Observe well the difference they make between a poetical love and a real one. At that age honest

Malherbe was fit only to love poetically; and yet if one had judged of him by his verses, one would have thought that he had a mistress who often made him

sigh, and who embraced him very closely, though he was so chilly that he numbered his stockings with the letters of the alphabet, lest he should put more upon one leg than upon the other; he confessed one day that he was come as far as the letter L. His infirmities were known and jested upon. If Malherbe had been still in a condition to have taken a real mistress, he would not have made choice of Madame de Rambouillet, whose quality, and much more her virtue, would hive left him no manner of hope. Rambouillet house which is become so famous, was truly a palace of honour; there was nothing but gallantry * there and no love. M. de Voiture giving one day his hand to Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, who was afterwards Madame de Montausier, was so bold as to kiss her arm; but Mademoiselle de Rambouillet showed so seriously that his boldness did not please her, that he had no inclination after that, to take the same liberty another time. We conclude from all this, that the mistresses of poets, I mean their Chloes, their Phyllises, &c. for whom they make so many love verses, are not always the objects they love. These are only poetical mistresses whom they make use of, that they may have a fixed subject to which they may apply their poetical flourishes.—Art. Malherbe.

POLITICAL EXCUSES.

After the death of Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, Acarnania had every thing to fear from the Ætolians, and did not confide much in that prince’s widow, who was guardian of her two sons; wherefore they implored the assistance of the Romans, which was not refused them. Word was sent to the Ætolians that they should not molest a people who alone had not assisted the Greeks against the Trojans. Justin, lib. 28. c. 1. ⁹ “Acarnanes quoque diffisi Epirotis adversus Ætolos

auxilium Romanorum implorantes, obtinuerunt à Romano senatu, ut legati mitterentur, qui denuntiarent Ætolis, præsidia ab urbibus Acarnaniæ deducerunt; paterenterque esse liberos, qui soli quondam adversus Trojanos, auctores originis suae, auxilia Græcis non miserint.—The Acarnanians distrusting the Epirotes, implored the assistance of the Romans against the Ætolians, and obtained from the senate an embassy to be sent to the Ætolians, to demand of them that they should withdraw their garrisons from the cities of Acarnania, and suffer a people to enjoy their liberty, who alone gave the Greeks no aid against the Trojans, from whom the Romans were descended.” Plutarch reports two as ridiculous facts as this. Plutarch de sera Numinis vindicta. ¹⁰ “Agathocles the tyrant of Syracuse, laughed at those of Corfu who asked him for what reason he ravaged their island: ‘ Because,' said he, ‘ your ancestors formerly received Ulysses' . And when the inhabitants of the island of Ithaca complained to him that his soldiers took their sheep: ‘ And your king,' said he to them, ‘ being arrived in our country, did not only take our sheep, but also put out our shepherd’s eye.'” But the following account is more ridiculous still: Montagne’s Essays, b. 2. c. 36. p. 763. ¹¹ “Mahomet, the second of that name, emperor of the Turks, in a letter to pope Pius the second, said, ‘I wonder the Italians should league against me, seeing we have our common original from the Trojans; and that it is my interest as well as theirs, to revenge the blood of Hector upon the Greeks, whom they favour against me.” Thus chimerical evils forged by the poets, have served as an apology for real evils. The Egyptian sultan who levied upon the Jews in consequence of the jewels and ear-rings borrowed of his ancestors on the departure of their forefathers from Egypt, may be added to these plausible pretences. Ed. ¹²

Art. Acarnania.

POPISH POLICY.

Pope Sixtus V hated and dreaded the king of Spain, and therefore chose rather to see heresy supported in England, than Philip II become master of so good a country. Popes as sovereigns, follow the principles of a sovereign’s religion, and consequently they sacrifice the interest of the Romish religion to the interest of their private power. What would they be the better, for instance sake, for a king of Spain’s subduing the Protestants, if by that means he made himself so formidable to the court of Rome, that they should not dare to refuse the Spaniards any thing, for fear the year 1527, and the imprisonment of Clement VII should return again? It is a less disadvantage to the pope not to be acknowledged either in Holland or England, than if by such an acknowledgment any Catholic prince should be enabled to obtain all his demands at Rome, either by fair or foul means. If this principle of speculation be not sufficient to persuade, that Sixtus V did as much as in him lay to cross the enterprises of the king of Spain against Elizabeth, we shall soon find a practical argument which will complete the conviction. When Lewis XIV made such considerable and rapid progresses against the United Provinces in 1672, Cardinal Altieri (who was pope in reality, though another bore the name of pope Clement X) received this news with deep sorrow, because he did not love France, and because the Duke d’Estrée, ambassador of that crown, mortified him as much as he could. Of later days we have seen Innocent XI deaf to any thing that might have favoured the affairs of king James II, and a zealous promoter of any thing that was contrary to France. This was because he feared more the aggrandizing of Lewis XIV than he wished the enlarging of the Roman Catholic religion. He feared

being crushed under the overgrown power of that prince, and therefore was glad to see the Protestants in a condition to check and lessen it; whence we may be better acquainted with the happy situation of the affairs of the Protestants, since not only the eternal jealousy between France and the house of Austria, will ever make them find allies and protectors in states of contrary religion, but even the court of Rome, according to the exigency of occasions, will do what Sixtus did to the prejudice of the king of Spain, and Innocent XI to the prejudice of Lewis XIV. That court is no less concerned than the others in maintaining a balance of power in Christendom.

But why need I search after examples? It is sufficient to consider Sixtus himself with respect to Henry the great. It is certain that having taken notice how much the league added to the strength of the Spaniards, he shifted measures and favoured the Protestant party in France, and if death had not pre vented him, he would have used all his endeavours to take the crown of Naples from the king of Spain. He crossed the league so openly, that the Spaniards threatened to protest against him, and to provide by other means for the preservation of the church which he abandoned. His death filled those of the league with joy, one of their preachers proclaiming it to the Parisians in these words: “God has delivered us from an ill pope and politician; had he lived some time longer, people had wondered to hear the pope exclaimed against in the pulpits of Paris, which however must have been done.” It was not because he knew the great merit of Henry IV, or the false pretences of the league, that this pope took measures contrary to the interest of the Romish religion, but because the good successes of the heretics revenged him of the king of Spain, whom he hated.

Art. Elizabeth.

PREDESTINATION.

Father Rapin attacked the Jansenists on their weak side, in a Latin book published in the year 1658. His book is intitled “Dissertatio de nova doctrina, seu Evangelium Jansenistarum.” I confess I have not read it, and I think the most learned men in foreign countries may say the same, but a man of parts told me the turn which father Rapin had given it. He supposes a Jansenist who goes into the country of the infidels to preach the gospel to them, and who sincerely teaches his system concerning grace; viz. that the greatest part of mankind have been predestinated to everlasting punishments from all eternity, and the rest to the joys of heaven; that God, the author of this absolute predestination, being not willing to want some pretences to colour his decrees of damnation, declares to men that it is in their power to obtain salvation; that in order to it they need only obey his commands: he threatens them, he exhorts them, but at the same time he knows very well that it is impossible for them to do what he commands; that they cannot obey him for want of that efficacious grace which he refuses to all men excepting his elect, and without which they cannot mend their lives, nor even have a good thought. Father Rapin supposes that the infidels hearing such a gospel, are strangely surprised at such a description of God, and asks why he. sends preachers to those whom he knows to be incapable of being converted, unless he bestow upon them a grace which he is obliged to refuse them by reason of his eternal decrees. Father Rapin’s Jansenist answers, that God uses such a method to render men more inexcusable, and more obnoxious to bell torments. It is replied, that such a motive is not worthy of the Being infinitely good, and that this is not a proper way to make men inexcusable before the throne of God; that it may be

pleaded that none is bound to do an impossibility, and that never any lawgiver inflicts punishments, but upon supposition that the transgressors of the laws had it in their power to have observed them; for which reason lunatics are never punished. One may easily guess what a Molinist, who knows how to make the best of his argument, may say pro and con, having entered upon the discourse as I have related it. But besides many other good answers he might be told, that if a Jansenist were to preach to the infidels of Japan or China for the first time, he would not be such a fool as to begin with the doctrine that denies man’s free will, or with that of absolute predestination. He would preach as the Pelagians do, and as is recommended by one of our most rigid Pre destinarians, and he would lay aside his Jansenism and conceal it until his young disciples stand no longer in need of milk, and are capable of solid nourishment. They are mysteries which ought to be discovered to none but those that are initiated.

Art. Rapin.

PRISCILLIAN.

Priscillian, a Spanish heresiarch, lived in the fourth century. He was endowed with very fine qualities; he had a quick wit, and a great deal of eloquence and learning, he was laborious, sober, and, free from avarice. An eager thirst after knowledge, which induced him in his youth to study magic, made him listen to the rhetorician Delphidius and to a lady, who had embraced some errors of the Gnostics. He was infected with them, and employed his utmost skill to spread them. He gained over many people, especially women, who flocked to him; nay, some bishops followed his sect. This poison having spread itself in several towns, great endeavours were used to put a stop to it. A synod met at Sarragossa, at which the bishop of Aquitain assisted. Priscillian,

and all his adherents were condemned, for refusing to appear at it, and the secular arm was employed to expel them from all the towns. These Heretics were so little concerned at this condemnation, that they made Priscillian a bishop. He left Spain with Instantius and Salvianus, two prelates of his party, in order to go to Rome, and justify himself to the pope. As they passed through Aquitain, they gained many disciples. Euchrocia, the wife of the rhetorician Delphidius, received them at her country-house, and was so charmed with Priscillian, that she followed him every where. If we believe what some say, they began in the spirit, and ended in the flesh. Euchrocia was at first charmed with the outward devotion and pious discourses of this heretic; but by degrees he charmed her with something else; he lay with her, and got her with child. If it be said that the Latin words which I shall quote presently, signify that he lay with Pro cula, Euchrocia’s daughter, I will not obstinately deny it: perhaps it is the best sense that can be put upon those words. The outward devotion which Priscillian had affected for a long time, did not make him forget that young Procula was preferable to her mother. “They took their journey through Aquitain, where being splendidly received by the ignorant, they scattered the seeds of perfidiousness, and by wicked discourses perverted the minds of the good And pious people of Gascony. Being driven from Bourdeaux by the Dauphin, they stopped a little at the estate of Euchrocia where they infected some persons with their errors. Thence they proceeded on their intended journey, with a shameful and scandalous retinue, with other men’s wives and daughters, among whom was Euchrocia, and her daughter Procula; concerning whom it was reported that, being with child by Priscillian, she was delivered in the grass.” Sulp. Severus, pag. 165. ¹³ It was well for Delphidius that he died young; for he had not the misfortune to see the debauchery of his daughter, and the execution of his wife: every body knows that Euchrocia and Priscillian were put to death at the same time.

Several other females were seduced by these heretics, and left also to accompany them on their journey. Some wonder how Priscillian could draw in so many devout women, since his pretended devotion was attended with such offensive lewdness. He confessed at his trial that he had had lewd meetings with women in the night-time, and that he was stark naked when he prayed. But others say, that he drew in the fair sex by that very thing: it is Maimbourg’s opinion. I shall again set down his paraphrase upon the words of Sulpicius Severus. “When people are prepossessed with an opinion of a man’s holiness, they will blindly submit to all his orders, and look upon all his decisions as so many oracles, especially when they indulge the inclinations of corrupt nature: and therefore that profligate wretch found it no difficult thing to persuade his followers that, when the spirit which comes from God was perfectly united to them, by a certain form of prayer, which he taught them, they might lawfully give a full scope to the lusts of the flesh; and that God is not offended at it, since the flesh does not proceed from him, but from the wicked principle, as well as marriage. By virtue of that abominable doctrine, the women who did not love their husbands, left them against their will, and husbands likewise left their wives of whom they were weary; and all of them, and in general all his followers, prayed together as he did, as if they had been in the state of innocency, and then defiled themselves with all sorts of pollutions. Such is commonly the end of the new doctrines, enthusiasms, and new ways of praying, more fanatical than mysterious, of some men, who pretend

to be extraordinarily enlightened, and who, beginning with the spirit to deceive the world, seldom fail to end with the flesh.”

The pope refused to hear the Priscillianists, and so did St Ambrose; but the imperial court was more indulgent, and granted them a rescript, importing that their churches should be restored to them. They returned into Spain, where they had so great an interest, that Ithacius their accuser, being summoned to give an account of his conduct as a disturber of the peace of the church, fled into Gaul. He so exasperated the tyrant Maximus against these sectaries, that they were ordered to repair to the council of Bourdeaux. Instantius was condemned in it, and Priscillian, seeing the condemnation of his companion, desired to be referred to Maximus; which was granted him. His enemies followed him to the court, and prosecuted him so warmly, that he was condemned to death.

I will here give the character of Ithacius, the chief promoter of Priscillian’s death. That Spanish bishop was a debauched and impudent man, and sacrificed every thing to his passions. He plainly shewed, that he was not actuated by the love of truth, and that his violent persecutions of those heretics proceeded only from a principle of vanity. The first steps he made engaged him to go through with it; he was fond of obtaining a complete victory, and of showing his great interest and authority; the loss of his cause would have been intolerable to him: he left nothing unattempted with the tyrant Maximus, in order to triumph by the favour of the secular arm; and, because he was afraid of being thwarted in his design by wise and judicious men, he was so impudent and malicious as to accuse of Priscillianism all those whom he did not like. Whoever fasted, or applied himself to the reading of pious books, was cried down by this violent persecutor as an accomplice of that sect. He was so bold as to accuse St Martin of favouring these heretics,

because he exhorted him to leave off his prosecutions, and entreated Maximus not to shed the blood of those sectaries. Such are the abominable devices of most of those, who charge others with heresy: they are renewed in every age, and yet the world is imposed upon by them to this very day, as if they had never been practised before. Sulpicius Severus deserves to be highly commended for saying, that the Priscillianists were not more unacceptable to him than their accusers.

St Martin’s intercession proved so powerful that, whilst he was at Triers, these heretics were not brought to their trial; but as soon as he went away, some bishops gained Maximus, and prevailed with him to break his word to him. Priscillian was condemned to death, and then Ithacius, being fully satisfied, desisted from his accusation; that is, he did not appear against him before the judges, when the sentence came to be confirmed: a gross artifice, which Sulpicius Severus justly laughs at.

There is another thing to be observed in Ithacius, in which the most violent accusers resemble him. No bishop would have found it a more difficult thing than he to give an account of his own conduct, and yet be was the warmest in defaming and prosecuting others. This unaccountable behaviour has been observed by the heathens, who say that innocence is the most necessary qualification of an accuser. “Cognosce quam multa esse oporteat in eo qui alterum accuset.----Primum integritatem atque innocentiam

singularem. Nihil est enim quod minus ferendum sit, quam rationem ab altero vitae reposcere eum, qui non possit suae reddere. Cicero, in Verrem, lib. i, fol. 22, B. ¹⁴—Consider how many things are requisite in him who accuses another: first, integrity and singular innocence; for nothing is more intolerable than for him to call another to an account for his actions, who cannot give an account of his own.”

But those who set up for accusers, are generally the least concerned about it. There are persons whose books are fall of absurdities, contradictions, prophanations, innovations, and dangerous paradoxes and heresies, and yet they fail not to charge many people with heresy; and had they a Maximus at their disposal, we should hear of nothing but men deposed, proscribed, anathematised, to say no worse. It is probable these irregular and unjust proceedings will last as long as the world.

Pope Leo was not so nice as St Martin, for he approved Priscillian’s execution. Maimbourg acknowledges that heretics had not been punished with death till then; but he maintains “that they may be justly treated with that severity, as it has been frequently practised since.” The same Maimbourg adds, “that the greatest fault of Ithacius was his applying himself to a secular court in a cause merely ecclesiastical, and procuring the death of those heretics to the utmost of his power, which is contrary to the laws of the church; and therefore,” says he, “when the clergy implore the assistance of princes and magistrates against them, they always protest they do so earnestly wish for their amendment, that they do not desire they should be punished with death, but rather that they should find mercy, leaving it however to the judges to act according to the laws for the good of the church and state.” This is mere grimace; it is at least a conduct so opposite to the solemnity of a serious tribunal, that no one can think it strange that the Inquisition should be ridiculed upon that account. You require of princes, that they should make laws against heretics; you highly commend them, when they appoint a capital punishment for them; you deliver up to them those whom you declare to be heretics: you therefore, properly speaking, are the cause of their death. When you tell the magistrates that you are not for their being put to death, you act a farce. Why do you not

ask the same favour for assassins? For you say, that a heretic is worse than a poisoner and a murderer. Aristotle’s maxim, “posito uno absurdo multa se quuntur,—one absurdity established, a multitude succeed,” was never truer than in the present case: the absurdity of maintaining that men ought to be punished with the sword for their opinions, is attended with a thousand absurdities; and those who advance it fall into a thousand contradictions. It is to be observed that the inquisitors condemn people to death, and are not contented to declare that a man is a heretic.

In countries where the inquisition prevails, heretics are punished with burning. Now, as in such punishment, there are neither bones broken nor blood spilt, the question is, to know whether the maxim, “ecclesia non novit sanguinem,” expressed here in equivalent terms by St Leo, is in this respect observed, or only eluded. Bayle knew very well, that to ask this question is to answer it. Ed. ¹⁵—Art. Priscillian.

PROPHET.
(Honest one.)

Michael Stifelius a Lutheran minister in the village of Holtzdorff near Wirtemberg lived in the sixteenth century. He persuaded his hearers that the end of the world would come on the third of October, 1533, at ten in the morning. He had made this fine discovery by the computation of square numbers, but he gave it out as a revelation from heaven. A great number of country people suffered themselves to be so infatuated with this notion, that they neglected their work and spent their substance. The day appointed being come, Stifelius got into the pulpit and exhorted his hearers to be ready, for that the moment was at hand in which they were to ascend into heaven with the same clothes they had on. The

hour passed, but nothing appeared of what they expected, and Stifelius himself began to be in doubt, when suddenly a storm arose which revived his hopes and made him renew his exhortations: “Behold,” said he, “the prelude to the last judgment.” The storm lasted but a short time, and the peasants that were assembled there soon perceived that the sky was clear. Upon this they grew angry with their minister, dragged him out of his pulpit, bound him, and carried him to Wirtemberg, where they accused him as an impostor, and insisted upon some reparation being made to them. It is said that their pretensions and complaints were declared void, and that Stifelius by the interest of Luther, was re-established in his church. Hanard Gameren gives a pleasant account of this in the ninth Eclogue of his Bucolics. Tilman Bredenbach recites it entire, after having related the adventure in prose. I should not be very ready to believe these two authors, if I did not find it related by an eminent Protestant divine. It is true he does not mention Luther, nor the storm which roused the expectation of the auditory afresh; Spondanus tells this story with other circumstances. “Michael Stifelius,” says he, Spondan. ad ann. 1533, num. 15. ¹⁶ an apostate monk, born at Eslingen, prophesied that the end of the world would come in the month of October, 1532. He took Luther for that angel of the revelation who flew through the midst of heaven in order to preach the gospel to the inhabitants of the earth; and as for himself he fancied that he was the seventh angel, whose trumpet was to proclaim the end of the world. Revelat. x. ¹⁷ He was not inclinable to proclaim this coming of Jesus Christ, but the express command of God obliged him to it. Having communicated his thoughts to Luther, he wrote a book wherein he declared that in the tenth month of the year 1533, on the second day of the forty-second week, at eight o’clock of the morning, Jesus Christ would come upon earth to judge the world. He grounded his calculation upon those words, ‘Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum;’ and upon these, ‘ Videbunt in quem transfixerunt.’ The numeral letters of the first passage give 1532, those of the second, 1533. The year 1532 being elapsed, he was so obstinately persuaded that his prediction would be accomplished in the year 1533, that he was amazed at Luther’s advising him to have other thoughts, and at his not seeing a thing so evident. The 18th of October, which was St Luke’s day, not proving to be the day of judgment as he had positively affirmed it would, every body laughed at his predictions; nevertheless, though he was imprisoned at Wirtemberg, he severely reprimanded Luther for exhorting him to be more wise and to profit by the double experience of his mistake, and persisted all his life in the vain employment of changing his hypothesis by the superstitious virtue of numbers. He died in the year 1567, aged fourscore. Stifelius.

PRUDENTIUS.
(A singular passage by,)

Prudentius is very much blamed for desiring, not the glory of heaven, but the state of a man whose sufferings are not excessive. He says he will be contented, provided his soul be not cast into the deepest dungeon of hell, and desires no better fate after the resurrection.

Multa in thesauris patris est habitatio Christe,
Disparibus discreta locis, non posco beati
In regione domum: sint illic casta virorum
Agmina, pulvereum quae dedignanda censum
Divitias petiere tuas: sit flore perenni
Candida virginatus, animum castrata recisum.
At mihi Tartarei satis est si nulla ministri
Occurrat facies, avidae nec flamma Gehennae
Devoret hanc animam, mersam fornacibus imis.
Esto: cavernoso, quia sic pro labe necesse est

Corporeà, tristis me sorbeat ignis averno:
Saltem mirificos incendia, lenta vapores
Exhalent, æstuque calor languente tepescat.
Lux immensa alios, et tempora vincta coronis
Glorificent: me pæna levis clementer adurat.

Prudent, in Hamartigenia, p. 227.

In heaven, thy father's dwelling place, O Christ,
Are many mansions. In that happy region
I ask not to be plac'd: be there the souls
Of those, who, bravely scorning worldly gain,
Have sought thy riches: there be plac’d the chaste
Eunuchs in mind. For me, if heaven consent,
That no dark minister of hell approach me,
Nor its devouring flames enwrap my soul,
I'm satisfied. But since the stains of guilt
Require purgation in annealing fires,
O! let some milder flame with languid heat,
Gently exhale, and purge away my crimes:
Let others at a crown of glory aim,
I ask but lighter punishment at best.

Dr. Perkins, a Protestant divine, says this is an impious prayer, and that it ought not to be ascribed to Prudentius. He is not the only one who thinks that it is a piece added to his Hamartigenia; however it be, Victor Giselinus, a Catholic writer, highly condemns this prayer in a work that is very much commended by Possevin. Observe that it is to be found as a genuine piece in the most exact editions, whereas some verses that are accounted supposititious, have been left out. The prayer that is at the end of the Hamartigenia would likewise have been expunged, if there had been any reasons to believe that it was not genuine: but here is a heresy, of which he cannot be cleared by denying the thing; he believed the materiality of the soul.

Rescissa sed ista seorsum
Solvunt hominem perimuntque:
Humus excipit arida corpus,
Animae rapit aura Liquorem.

Prudent. Hymn. X. Cathemerin. ver. 9

When soul and body by the hand
Of death divided are,
The body to the dust returns,
The liquid soul to air.

The following verses make it plain that he means a material substance by “Animae liquorem:”

Non occidet, inquit,
Interior qui spirat homo: luet ille perenne
Supplicium, quod subjectos male rexerit artus.
Nec mihi difficile est Liquidam circumdare flammis
Naturam, quamvis Perflabilis illa feratur
Instar noti: capiam tamen, et tormenta adhibebo.

Prudent, contra Symmach. lib. ii. ver. 184.

Th’ interior man, he says, will never die,
But bear eternal punishment in hell.
I can conceive a liquid nature, tho’
Impassive as the wind, by flames encompass’d,
Suffer eternal burnings.

Mr le Clerc observes that these words of Prudentius, “Animae rapit aura liquorem,” naturally signify the mortality of the soul, and that an Epicurean could not express himself better. It is certain that this verse and the foregoing, explain a doctrine which is to be found in the books of several Pagan authors concerning the characters of death. “It is,” said they, “the resolution of a compound into its principles, each of which returns to the place from which it came, the body into the earth, the soul into the air or the aether.” If we consider how Lucretius expresses himself on this head, it will appear that Prudentius might be looked upon as his abridger.

Denique coelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi,
Omnibus ille idem pater est, unde alma liquenteis
Humorum guttas mater cum terra recepit
Foeta parit nitidas fruges, arbustaque laeta,
Et genus humanum
. . . .
Cedit item retro de terra quod fuit ante,
In terras; et quod missum ’st ex aetheris oris,

Id rursum cæli relatum templa receptant:
Nec sic interimit mors res, ut material
Corpora conficiat, sed cætum dissupat ollis.

Lucret. lib. ii, v. 990.

Lastly, we all from seed celestial rise,
Which heaven our common parent still supplies.
From him the earth receives enlivening rain,
And strait she bears bird, tree, and beast, and man.
And so each part returns when bodies die,
What came from earth to earth, what from the sky
Dropp'd down, ascends again, and mounts on high.
For death does not destroy but disunite
The seed, and change their order and their site.

Creech.

But though these two poets agree in their expressions, their notions are quite different. The return of the soul to its principle was a true death according to Lucretius, but not according to all other heathens, and less still according to Prudentius, who soon after explains himself so positively, that one cannot doubt of his believing the immortality of the soul.

I desire I may be allowed to say that Dr Perkins’s judgment seems too severe to those who have a regard to equity and charity. They think that this poet was willing to be deprived of happiness in heaven, and to suffer a moderate punishment after this life, because he looked upon himself as a man unworthy of the supreme beatitude, and too worthy of punishment. Is such a humility impious? May not one call it a sacrifice of himself to divine justice?

Art. Prudentius.

PYRRHONISM.

Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher, born at Elis in Peloponnesus, was a disciple of Anaxarchus, and accompanied him as far as India. Without doubt he then followed Alexander the great, whence we may

know in what time he flourished. He had been a painter before he applied himself to the Study of philosophy. His opinions did not differ much from those of Arcesilaus, for he almost taught, as well as he, the incomprehensibility of all things. He found in all things reasons to affirm and to deny, and therefore he suspended his assent after he had well examined the arguments pro and con, and reduced all his conclusions to a “non liquet, let the matter be further enquired into.” Hence it is that he sought truth as long as he lived; but he so contrived the matter as never to grant that he had found it. Though he is not the inventor of that method of philosophizing, yet it goes by his name: the art of disputing about every thing, without doing any thing else but suspending one’s judgment, is called Pyrrhonism (or scepticism): this is its most common name. It is justly detested in the schools of divinity, where it is dangerous with respect to that divine science; but it is not very dangerous with respect to natural philosophy or to the state. There is no harm in saying, that the souls of men are too narrow to discover anything in natural truths, in the causes which produce heat, cold, the flux of the sea, &c. It is enough for us to endeavour to find out some probable hypothesis, and to make a collection of experiments; and I am sure that there are very few good natural philosophers in our age, but are convinced that nature is an impenetrable abyss, and that its springs are known to none, but to the maker and director of them; so that all those philosophers are in that respect, Academics and Pyrrhonists. The civil life needs not be afraid of them; for the sceptics did not deny but that men ought to conform to the customs of their country, and practise moral duties, and resolve upon those things from a probable reason, without staying for certainty. They might suspend their judgment upon this question, whether such a duty was naturally and absolutely lawful; but they did not suspend it upon the question, whether it was to be practised on such and such an occasion, whence it follows that Pyrrhonism is only dangerous to religion; for it ought to be grounded upon certainty: the design, the effects, and use of religion, vanish as soon as the firm persuasion of its truth is blotted out of the mind. But, on the other side, we need not be uneasy at it; there never was and there never will be but a small number of men capable of being deceived by the arguments of the Sceptics. The grace which God bestows upon the faithful, the force of education in other men, and, if you will, ignorance, It is a saying of Simonides,“those men are not subtle enough to be deceived by such a one as I am.” Balzac said the same thing of the maids of his village. Agesilaus complained that he had to do with enemies who understood not the war; his stratagems were useless, he could not deceive inexperienced troops. See Plutarch in his Life, towards the end. ¹⁸ and the natural inclination men have to be peremptory, are an impenetrable shield against the darts of the Pyrrhonists, though that sect fancies it is now more formidable than it was anciently. Let us see upon what grounds it builds such a strange pretension.

About two months ago a learned man gave me a full account of a conference at which he had been present. Two abbots, one whereof had but common learning, the other was a good philosopher, grew so hot by degrees in their dispute, that they were like to fall out in earnest. The first had said somewhat coldly, that he forgave the heathen philosophers their floating in the uncertainty of their opinions, but that he could not comprehend how there could be any Pyrrhonists under the light of the gospel. To which the other answered, “You are in the wrong to reason in such a manner; if Arcesilaus should return into the world, and was to dispute with our divines, he would be a thousand times more formidable than he

was to the Dogmatists of old Greece; the Christian theology would afford him unanswerable arguments.” All the company heard this with great surprise, and desired the abbot to explain himself, and doubted not but he had vented a paradox which would turn to his confusion. He answered thus, applying himself to the first abbot: “I will not make use of the advantages which the new philosophy gives to the Pyrrhonists. The name of Sextus Empiricus was scarcely known in our schools; what he proposed with so great subtlety concerning suspending one’s judgment, was not less unknown there than the Terra Australis, when. Gassendus gave an abridgment of it, which opened our eyes. Cartesianism has put the last hand to the work, and none among good philosophers doubt now but that the Sceptics are in the right to maintain, that the qualities of bodies which strike our senses, are only mere appearances. Every one of us may say, ‘ I feel heat before a fire,' but not 'I know that fire is such in itself as it appears to me;' such was the style of the ancient Pyrrhonists. but now the new philosophy speaks more positively: heat, smell, colours, &c. are not in the objects of our senses; they are only some modifications of my soul; I know that bodies are not such as they appear to me. They were very willing to except extension and motion, but they could not do it; for if the objects of our senses appear to us coloured, hot, cold, smelling, though they are not so, why should they not appear extended and figured, at rest and in motion, though they had no such thing. Nay, the objects of my senses cannot be the cause of my sensations; I might therefore feel cold and heat, see colours, figures, extension, and motion, though there was not one body in the word. I have not therefore, one good proof of the existence of bodies. The only proof they can give me for it is, that God would deceive me if he imprinted in my soul the ideas I have of body, if there were no bodies, but that proof is very weak; it proves too much. Ever since the beginning of the world, all men, except perhaps one in two hundred millions, do firmly believe that bodies are coloured, and yet it is a mistake. I ask whether God deceives men with respect to those colours? If he deceive them in that respect, what hinders but he may deceive them with respect to extension. This latter illusion will not be less innocent nor less consistent than the former, with the most perfect being. If he do not deceive them with respect to colours, it is without doubt, because he forces them not to say, 'those colours exist out of my soul, but only it appears to me there are some colours there.' The same may be said with respect to extension: God does not force you to say that it exists, but only to judge that you feel it, and that it appears to you to exist. A Cartesian can as readily suspend his judgment about the existence of extension, as a peasant affirm that the sun shines, that the snow is white, &c. And therefore if we are mistaken in affirming the existence of extension, God will not be the cause of it, since you acknowledge that he is not the cause of that peasant’s error. Such are the advantages which the new philosophers would procure to the Pyrrhonists, but I will not take advantage of them.”

Immediately the same abbot, who was a philosopher, declared to the other, that if he would have the better of a Sceptic, he must, before all things, prove that truth may certainly be known by some marks. “They are commonly called criterium veritatis. You will, justly maintain against him, that evidence is a certain character of truth, for if evidence were not that character, we should have none. Let it be so, will he say, it is what I would have you be at: I will shew you several things of the greatest evidence, which you reject as false. I. It is evident that things which differ not from a third, differ not from each other; it is the basis of all our reasonings, all our syllogisms

are grounded upon it; nevertheless we are assured by the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity, that this is a false axiom. You may invent as many distinctions as you please, but you will never be able to shew that that maxim is not contradicted by this great mystery. II. It is evident that there is no difference between individuum, nature, and person: nevertheless, the same mystery has convinced us, that persons may be multiplied, and that individuums and natures will not cease for all that to be one. III. It is evident that for a man to be really and perfectly a person, it is enough to unite together a human body and a reasonable soul; but the mystery of the Incarnation has taught us that this is not sufficient. Whence it follows that neither you nor I can be sure whether we are persons; for if it was essential to a human body and a reasonable soul, united together, to constitute a person, God could never cause that thus united they should not constitute a person: we must therefore say that personality is merely accidental to them. But every accident may be separated from its subject several ways; God therefore may hinder us several ways from being persons, though we are made up of a body and a soul; and can any one assure us that he does not make use of some such means to strip us of our personality? Is he obliged to reveal to us the several ways he disposes of us? IV. It is evident that a human body cannot be in several places at one time, and that its head cannot be penetrated, with all its other parts, under an indivisible point: nevertheless the mystery of the Eucharist teaches us, that those two things happen every day, Note, that this is the discourse of an abbot. I am obliged to give the reader notice of this in this second edition, because I know that several persons of the Protestant religion have been offended to see the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation paralelled with the doctrine of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation.—Note in Second Edition. ¹⁹ whence it follows that neither you nor I can be sure whether we are distinguished from other men, and whether we are not at this very moment in the seraglio of Constantinople, in Canada, and in Japan, and in every town of the world, under several circumstances in each place. Would God, who does nothing in vain, create several men, when one man only, created in several places, and Clothed with several qualities, may suffice? This doctrine deprives us of the truth we find in numbers, for we know no longer what two or three are; we know not what identity and diversity are. If we judge that John and Peter are two men, it is only because we see them in distinct places, and because the one has not the accidents of the other; but that ground of distinction becomes null from the doctrine of the Eucharist. It may be that there is but one creature in the world, multiplied in several places by production, and by the diversity of qualities: we cast up long accounts in arithmetic, as if there were many things distinct; but this is only a vain imagination. We are not only ignorant whether there are two bodies in the world, but we do not so much as know whether there is a body and a spirit; for if matter is penetrable, it is plain that extension is only an accident of the body, and so the body, according to its essence, is a substance not extended; it is, therefore, capable of all the attributes which we conceive in a spirit, as the understanding, the will, the passions, and the sensations: so that we are left without any rule whereby we may discern whether a substance is spiritual by its nature, or whether it be corporeal. V. It is evident, that the modes of a substance cannot subsist without the substance which they modify; but the mystery of Transubstantiation has taught us that this is false. All our ideas are confounded by it; we can no longer define a substance, for if an accident can subsist without any subject, a substance may in its turn subsist dependantly upon another substance, as accidents do; a spirit may subsist after the manner of bodies, as in the Eucharist, matter exists after the manner of spirits; the latter may be impenetrable, as matter is penetrable in the Eucharist. Now, if by coming from the darkness of Paganism to the light of the Gospel, we have learned the falsity of so many evident notions, and of so many certain definitions, Those who hold Transubstantiation place the essence of matter in the faculty of receiving extension, and so with the essence of every thing: nothing is actual; every thing is a passive capacity; but that capacity way consist with a spirit, &c. which confounds all definitions. ²⁰ what will it be when we shall come from the darkness of this life to the glory of heaven? Is it not very likely that we shall then learn the falsity of a thousand things which appear to us undeniable? Let us make a good use of the rashness of those who lived before the Gospel, and who affirmed that some evident doctrines were true, the falsity whereof has been revealed to us by the mysteries of our theology.

“I come now to morals. I. It is evident that evil ought to be prevented, if it be possible, and that it is a sinful thing to permit it when it can be prevented. Nevertheless, our theology shews us, that this is false: it teaches us that God does nothing but what becomes his perfections, when he permits all the disorders that are in the world, and which he might easily have prevented. II. It is evident that a creature which does not exist, cannot be an accomplice of an ill action. III. And that it is unjust to punish that creature as an accomplice of that action. Nevertheless, our doctrine concerning original sin shews us the falsity of those evidences. IV. It is evident that what is honest ought to be preferred before what is profitable, and that the more holy a being is, the less freedom he has to prefer what is profitable to what is honest. Nevertheless, our Divines tell us, that it being in God’s

choice to make a world perfectly well regulated, and adorned with all virtues, and a world like ours, wherein sin and disorder prevail, preferred the latter to the former, as being more consistent with the interest of his glory. If you tell me that the duties of the Creator ought not to be measured by ours, you will fall into the net of your adversaries. They would have you there; the main thing they aim at is, to prove that the absolute nature of things is unknown to us, and that we know only some relations they have one to another. We know not, say they, whether sugar be sweet in itself; we only know that it seems to us to be sweet when we taste it. We know not whether a certain action be honest in itself and by its nature, we only believe that with respect to such a one, and by reason of certain circumstances, it has the appearance of honesty; but it is another thing in other respects, and under other relations. See, therefore, how you expose yourself, by telling them that the ideas we have of justice and honesty are liable to exception, and are relative. Besides, I would have you to observe, that the more you raise the rights of God to the privilege of acting contrary to our ideas, the more you destroy the only means left you to prove that there are bodies, viz. that God does not deceive us, and that he would do it if the corporeal world did not exist. To shew a people a thing which does not exist out of their minds would be a deceit; but they will answer you, distinguo, . . I distinguish; if a prince did so, concedo, . . I grant it; if God did it, nego, . . I deny it; for the rights of God are quite different front those of kings. Besides, if the exceptions you make to the principles of morality are grounded upon the incomprehensible infinity of God, I can never be sure of any thing, for I shall never be able to comprehend the whole extent of the rights of God. I conclude, therefore, that if truth was to be known by any mark, it would be by evidence; but evidence is no such mark, because it suits with falsities; therefore, my conclusion.”

The abbot, to whom this long discourse was directed, had much ado to forbear interrupting him; he heard him with great uneasiness, and when he perceived that every body was silent, he fell into a great passion against the Pyrrhonists, and spared not the abbot for having mentioned the objections which they take from the systems of Divinity. This abbot replied modestly, “that he knew very well those objections were very inconsiderable and mere sophisms; but that it is reasonable, that those who so much despise the Pyrrhonists should not be ignorant of the state of things.” He went on and said, “you believed hitherto that a Pyrrhonist could not puzzle you; answer me, therefore: you are forty-five years of age—you do not doubt it, and if there be any thing that you are sure of, it is that you are the same person to whom the abbey of . . . . was given

two years ago. I am going to shew you that you have no good reason to be sure of it: I argue from the principles of our theology. Your soul has been created; God must, therefore, at every moment renew its existence, for the conservation of creatures is a continued creation. How do you know but that God permitted this morning your soul to relapse into nothing, which he had continued to create till then, ever since the first moment of your life? How do you know but that he has created another soul, modified as yours was? That new soul is that which you have now. Shew me the contrary; let the company judge of my objection.” A learned divine who was there, answered and acknowledged “that the creation being once supposed, it was as easy for God to create a new soul at every moment, as to reproduce the same; but that the ideas we have of his wisdom, and especially the light which his word affords us, are sufficient to

assure us that we have the same numerical soul to day, which we had yesterday, the day before, &c. and he concluded that it was needless to dispute with the Pyrrhonists, and that their sophisms could not easily be eluded by the mere force of reason; that before all things they should be made sensible of the weakness of reason, that they may have recourse to a better guide, viz. faith.”

A modern author, who made a more particular study of Pyrrhonism than of any other sect, looks upon it as a party the least contrary to Christianity, and that will receive the mysteries of our religion with the greatest docility. He confirms his opinion by some reasons, and then he speaks thus. La Mothe le Vayer, de la Vertu des Payens, tom. v. pag. 220. ²¹ “It is not without reason that we believe the system of the Sceptics, which is grounded upon an ingenuous acknowledgment of human ignorance, to be less contrary to our belief than any other, and the fittest to make one receive the supernatural light of faith. We say nothing herein but what is agreeable to the best theology, seeing that of St Dionysius teaches nothing in more express terms than the weakness of our minds, and their ignorance, especially with respect to divine things. Thus that great doctor explains what God himself said by the mouth of his prophets, that ' he made his retreat in darkness? For tins being so, we cannot come near him without entering into that mysterious obscurity, whence we draw this important instruction, that he cannot be known but obscurely, covered with enigmas or clouds, and as the schools say, by being ignorant of him. But as those who have always professed humility and ignorance will be better pleased than others with that spiritual obscurity, the Dogmatists, on the contrary, who never feared any thing so much as to appear ignorant, are

presently lost in it; and being so presumptuous as to believe that they are clear-sighted enough to overcome all manner of obscurity, their blindness increases so much the more, as they fancy that they move forward in a darkness into which human nature cannot penetrate. However, I am of opinion that scepticism is of no little use to a Christian soul, when it loses by such means all those magisterial opinions which St Paul so much detests.

When a man is able to apprehend all the ways of suspending his judgment, which have been laid open by Sextus Empiricus, he may then perceive that that logic is the greatest effort of subtilty that the mind of man is capable of; but he will see at the very same time, that such a subtilty will afford him no satisfaction: it confounds itself, for if it were solid, it would prove that it is certain that we must doubt. Therefore there would be some certainty, there would be a certain rule of truth. That system would be destroyed by it; but you need not fear that things would come to that; the reasons for doubting are doubtful themselves; one must therefore doubt whether he ought to doubt. What chaos! what torment for the mind! It seems, therefore, that this unhappy state is the fittest of all to convince us that our reason is the way

to wander, since, when it displays itself with the greatest subtilty, it throws Us into such an abyss. What naturally follows is to renounce that guide, and

beseech the Cause of all things to give us a better.

It is a great step towards the Christian religion, which requires of us that we should expect from God the knowledge of what we are to believe and do, and that we should captivate our understanding to the obedience of faith. If a man be once convinced that he

can expect no satisfaction from his philosophical enquiries, he will find himself better disposed to pray to God, to ask him the persuasion of the truths which he ought to believe, than if he should flatter himself

with a good success in reasoning and disputing. It is, therefore, a happy disposition to faith to know the defects of reason. Hence it is that Pascal and some

others have said, that to convert libertines, they must be made sensible of the weakness of reason, and taught to mistrust it.

However, there are some learned men who maintain that there can be nothing more opposite to religion than Pyrrhonism. La Plaeette, Traité de la Conscience, pag. 377. ²² “It is the total extinction not only of faith, but also of reason, and there is nothing more impossible than to reclaim those who run themselves into such an excess. The most ignorant men may be instructed, the most conceited may be convinced, and the most incredulous may be persuaded. But it is impossible, I will not say to convince a sceptic, but to reason close with him, for it is not possible to urge him with any argument but what is a sophism, and even the grossest of all sophisms, I mean a begging the question. In effect, there is no argument that can be conclusive, but by supposing that whatever is evident is true, that is to say, by supposing what is in question. For Pyrrhonism, properly speaking, consists only in not admitting that fundamental maxim of the Dogmatists.”

Observe that La Mothe le Vayer excludes the Pyrrhonists from the favour he bestowed upon several ancient philosophers: what he says thereon contains some facts which belong to this article. “I despair of the salvation of Pyrrho, and of all his disciples, who entertained the same opinions concerning the Deity as he. Not that they professed themselves to be Atheists, as some have believed. One may see in Sextus Empiricus that they admitted the existence of the gods, as the other philosophers did; that they paid the common worship to them, and denied not their providence. But besides that, they never

acknowledged a first cause, whereby they would have despised the idolatry of their time; it is certain that they believed nothing concerning the Divine nature, but with a suspension of mind, and confessed nothing of what we have said but in a doubting way, and only to accommodate themselves to the laws and customs of their age, and of the country where they lived. And, consequently, seeing they have not had the least light of that implicit faith, on which we have grounded the hopes of the salvation of some heathens, who enjoyed it together with an extraordinary grace of God, I cannot see how any sceptic or Pyrrhonist of that kind, could avoid going to hell.” It must be confessed that, considering the tendencies of Bayle, he concludes this long passage with a very consolatory quotation. Ed. ²³

Art. Pyrrhonism.

PYTHAGORAS.

Pythagoras is the first of the ancient sages who took the name of philosopher. Before him, those who excelled in the knowledge of nature, and made themselves conspicuous by an exemplary life, were called sages, σοφοί. That title appearing to him too assuming, he took another, which showed that he ascribed not to himself the possession of wisdom, but only the desire of possessing it. He therefore called himself philosopher; that is to say, a lover of wisdom. The professors of the science of nature and of morals, have retained that name ever since. Cicero tells us the native country of that new title, what gave occasion to it, and its signification. “A quibus ducti deinceps omnes, qui in rerum contemplatione studia ponebant, sapientes et habebantur, et nominabantur: idque eorum nomen usque ad Pythagorae manavit ætatem: quem, ut scribit auditor Platonis Ponticus Heraclides, vir doctus in primis, Phliuntem ferunt venisse, eumque cum Leonte, Principe Phliasiorum,

doctè et copiosè disseruisse quædam: cujus ingenium, et eloquentiam cum admiratus esset Leon, quæsivisse ex eo qua maximè arte confideret: at illum artem quidem se scire nullam, sed esse philosophum: admiratum Leontem novitatem nominis, quæsisse, quinam essent Philosophi, et quid inter eos, et reliquos inter esset Pythagoram autem respondisse, similem sibi videri vitam hominum, et mercatum eum, qui haberetur maximo ludorum appuratu totius Graeciae celebritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam, et nobilitatem corona peterent: alii emendi aut vendendi quaestu, et lucro ducerentur: esset autem quoddam genus eorum, idque vel maximè ingenuum, qui nec plausum, nec lucrum quaererent, sed visendi cauda venirent, studioseque perspicerent, quid agiretur, et quo modo: item nos quasi in mercatus quandam celebritatem ex urbe aliqua, sic in hanc vitam ex alia vita, et natura profectos; alios gloriae servire, alios pecuniæ: raros esse quosdam, qui, cæteris omnibus pro nihilo habitis, rerum naturam studiosi intuerentur: hos se appellare sapientiae studiosos, id est philosophos; et ut illic liberalissimum esset, spectare, nihil sibi acquirentem, sic in vita longe omnibus studiis contemplationem rerum, cognitionemque praestare. Nec verò Pythagoras nominis solum inventor, sed rerum etiam ipsarum amplificator fuit. Cicer. Tuscul. Quaest. lib. v, cap. iii. ²⁴—From whom all afterwards, who studied nature, were accounted and called'wise men; and that name continued till the time of Pythagoras, who, according to Ponticus Heraclides, the disciple of Plato, and a very learned man, is said to come to Phlius, and to have disputed on some points with Leon, the prince of that place, in a learned and copious manner. Leon admired his parts and eloquence, and asked what art he chiefly excelled in; to which Pythagoras made answer, ‘ that he knew no art, but was a philosopher:’ Leon, wondering at the novelty of the name, enquired, 'who philosophers were, and what difference there was between them and others?’ Pythagoras replied, 'that the life of man seemed to him to resemble that fair, which was kept by all Greece with the celebration of games. For as there, some sought for glory by the exercise of the body, and nobility by obtaining a crown; and others aimed at profit and gain in buying and selling; but a third sort, who were people of the best fashion, neither wanted applause nor gain, but came only to see and consider what was doing, and in what manner: so likewise we are come from another life and nature into this life, as from some city to the celebration of a fair; and some hunt after glory, and others money; and some few, despising every thing else, diligently study nature; these are called lovers of wisdom, that is philosophers: and as in the other case, it is more noble to look on than to acquire any thing, so in life, the knowledge and contemplation of nature is preferable to all other studies.’ Pythagoras not only invented the name, but improved the science itself.”

Pythagoras flourished in the time of Tarquin, and not in that of Numa. The mistake of those who say that he came over into Italy in the time of Numa, is glorious to him; for the only reason which has made them fancy so, is that they could not believe that Numa should have been so able a man, and so great a philosopher, had he not been a disciple of Pythagoras. He made himself very illustrious by his learning and virtue, and proved a very useful man in reforming and instructing the world. His eloquence must needs have been very powerful, seeing his exhortations moved the inhabitants of a great city, plunged in debauchery, to avoid luxury and good cheer, and to live according to the rules of virtue: nay, he prevailed upon the ladies to part with their fine clothes and all their ornaments, and to make a sacrifice of them to the chief deity of the place.

“He came to Crotona,” says Justin, Justin lib. xx, cap. iv. ²⁵ “and by his authority reclaimed the people, who were sunk in luxury, and brought them to a frugal way of living. He daily recommended virtue, and laid open the vice of luxury, and showed the misery of those cities that were infected with it: he inspired the multitude with such a love to frugality, that it was extremely rare to see any of them extravagant. He frequently instructed the married women, separately from their husbands, and children from their parents. The former he taught chastity and obedience to their husbands; and the latter modesty, and the love of learning. In the mean time he inculcated frugality on all, as the parent of virtue, and by continual exhortations, prevailed on the ladies to part with their fine clothes, and all their other ornaments as instruments of luxury, to bring them to the temple of Juno, and dedicate them to that goddess, declaring that they looked on chastity, and not on clothes, as the true ornaments of women. What reformation was wrought amongst the young men, evidently appears from the conquered obstinacy of the women.” The last words of this author are somewhat satirical, for he reasons thus: If Pythagoras was able to overcome the obstinacy of women, you may judge of the progress he made in the reformation of young men. It is certain that the love of fine clothes is a passion of so great resistance, that nothing will so much reflect back the darts of a preacher. See the efficacy of Capistran’s sermons against gamesters; but it is not said that he had the same success against jewels. Connecte made more conquests against head dresses with stones thrown by children, than with rhetorical figures. These Christian preachers could not do what a heathen philosopher did. But however let us not forget the actions of the Roman ladies in the time of Camillus.

Pythagoras engaged his disciples to practise the

most difficult things; for he made them undergo a noviciate of silence, which lasted two years at least; but he made it last five years for those whom he knew to be most inclined to speak. It was a hard discipline: the most difficult victory that can be gotten is to have the mastery of one’s tongue. See among Cato’s distiches the encomium bestowed on those who know how to be silent when it is fit they should be so. Servius mentions the noviciate of five years, and here is what Apuleius observes concerning that which was imposed for the space of five years on such disciples as were not so discreet as others.

“The Pythagoreans were not entirely to forbear speaking, nor were all to be silent for the same space of time. A short time was thought sufficient for those that were reserved; but the space of five years was imposed on them who were more inclined to talk.” Apul. in Florid. ²⁶

He made them live in common; they renounced their property to their patrimony, and brought all they had to the feet of their master. An ill construction was put upon their union, and it proved very fatal to them. That society of students being looked upon as a faction which conspired against the state; sixty of them were destroyed, and the rest ran away. “Three hundred young men,” says Justin, Justin, lib. xx. cap. iv. ²⁷ “formed into a society by a kind of oath, lived together by themselves, and were looked upon as a private faction by the state, who intended to burn them as they were assembled in one house. Almost sixty of them perished in the tumult, and the rest went into banishment.” We can neither learn from this passage of Justin, nor from what follows, whether the storm was excited during the life of Pythagoras; but according to Polybius, the Pythagoreans were burnt in Magna Græcia, some time before the war, which Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, made against the Crotoniates; it seems, therefore, that they were not burnt during their master’s life;

for there are one hundred and twenty years between the expulsion of Tarquin, and that war of Dionysius against Crotona.

One of his greatest cares was to correct the abuses committed by married persons; he believed that without this, the public peace and liberty, a good form of government, and other such things about which he was very zealous, would not be able to make private men happy. It is said that this philosopher, being arrived in Italy, shut himself up in a subterranean place, having desired his mother to keep an account of what should happen. When he had been in that place as long as he thought fit, his mother delivered her table-book to him, as it had been agreed between them. He found in it the dates and other circumstances of what had passed: he came out of that place with a pale and lean face; he called the people together, and assured them that he came from hell, and to persuade them of the truth of it, he told them what had passed in the city. All his hearers were so moved with what he said, that the whole assembly fell groaning and crying; and they doubted no longer but he was a divine person, and they gave him their wives to instruct them. It was without doubt on that occasion that he frighted ill husbands, by telling them that those who refuse to pay the matrimonial duties, to their wives, are tormented in hell with great severity. In all likelihood he spoke also of the punishments that are inflicted upon intriguing women, and we ought to believe that it was one of the reasons which moved the Crotoniates to send their wives to his school. Observe the contradiction of that great master. He taught the metempsychosis on the one hand, without confining himself to the three removings mentioned by Pindar; Olymp. Od. II. ²⁸ and on the other hand he was so bold as to say, that he had seen in hell the souls of Homer, Hesiod, &c. very much tormented.

The metempsychosis destroyed hell, as he declares it in Ovid:

O genus attonitum gelidæ formidine mortis,
Quid Styga, quid tenebras, et nomina vana timetis,
Materiem vatum, falsique pericula mundi?
Corpora sive rogus flamma, seu tabe vetustas
Abstulerit, mala posse pati non ulla putetis.

Ovid. Met. lib. xv, ver. 153.

Why thus frighted at an empty name,
A dream of darkness, and fictitious flame?
Vain themes of wit! which but in poems pass,
And fables of the world that never was.
What feels the body when the soul expires,
By time corrupted or consum'd by fires.

Dryden.

But he rather chose to acquire authority, and make himself fit to extirpate debauchery by contradicting himself, than to follow a coherent method of teaching, which would not have proved so useful.

I wonder that a philosopher, so learned in astronomy, geometry, and the other parts of mathematics, should take delight in delivering his finest precepts under the veil of enigmas. That veil was so thick that it has afforded the interpreters a large field of conjectures, and as many mystical senses as they pleased. That symbolical way of teaching was very much in use in the eastern countries and Egypt. Whence Pythagoras without doubt acquired it. He came from his travels loaded with the learning he had got in all the countries he went through. It is thought that he made a plentiful harvest among the Jews, and that he learned a great many things of Ezekiel and Daniel. Nay, it is pretended that his Tetractys is the same thing with the name Tetragrammaton, a name not to be pronounced, and full of mysteries, as the Rabbins say. Others assert, “that the Tetractys, that great object of veneration, and by which they used to swear, was only a mysterious way of teaching by numbers.” But we must

not forget to say, that Pythagoras and his successors had two ways of teaching, the one for those that were initiated, and the others for strangers and profane men. The first was clear and perspicuous, the second was symbolical and enigmatical. See the Xlllth chapter of a book of John Schefferus, professor at Upsal, intitled, “De natura et constitutione Philosophise Italicae,” printed at Upsal in the year 1664, in 8vo.

They who explain, in a literal sense, the order he gave to abstain from eating of beans allege, amongst other reasons, that Pythagoras was instructed by the Egyptians, and even suffered himself to be circumcised, that he might be admitted to their most secret mysteries: now the Egyptians abstained from beans; they sowed none; and if they found any that had grown up without being sown, they would not touch them. The priests carried the superstition farther, they durst not so much as look upon them, they accounted them unclean, and had rather chosen to eat the flesh of their fathers; whence they conclude that Pythagoras, who had been their disciple, forbad the eating of beans in a literal sense. Several grave authors among the ancients thus understood that prohibition. Some say he chose rather to be killed by those that pursued him, than to make his escape through a field of beans, so great was his respect or abhorrence for that plant! I think Aristoxenus is the only author who says, that Pythagoras would eat them often; but learned men do not much value the testimony of Aristoxenus; they believe he was mistaken, and look upon that Pythagorean abstinence as a certain matter of fact, and enquire into the reasons of it. Aristotle gives four or five reasons for it; one of which is, because beans were made use of in the election of magistrates. Those that pretend that the prohibition was a moral precept, and that Pythagoras understood it only in an allegorical sense, fancy that he forbad thereby

by his disciples to meddle with the government. This is grounded upon the customs of some cities, wherein every one gave his vote with beans, when they proceeded to the election of magistrates.

Few men, in those times, travelled in so many places as he did. He is looked on by some as a great magician, but Mandæus clears him from that accusation. I might observe a great many other things; but I must be short; nevertheless I shall say something of the metempsychosis. They say that Pythagoras boasted of a special privilege about it; for he asserted that he could remember in what bodies he had been before he was Pythagoras. But he went no farther back than the age of the city of Troy; he had been first Æthalides, who was reputed the son of Mercury, and it being in his choice to demand of that god whatever he would, he begged of him that he might remember every thing after his death. Some time after, he was Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus at the siege of Troy; after the death of Euphorbus, he was Hermotimus, and then a fisherman at Delos named Pyrrhus, and at last Pythagoras, a man who remembered all these transmigrations, and what he had suffered in hell, and what other souls suffer there. Here is a little contradiction; for if the souls of men go from one body into another, they do not go to hell. Our philosopher, according to Ovid, goes no higher than Euphorbus.

Morte carent animae, semperque priore relictâ
Sede, novis domibus vivunt, habitantque receptae.
Ipse ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli
Panthoides Euphorbus eram: cui pectore quondam
Haesit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridae.
Cognovi clypeum laevae gestamina nostrae
Nuper Abantæis, templo Junonis in Argis.

Ovid. Metam, lib. xv, ver. 158.

Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats
In other forms, and only changes seats.

In Trojan wars (for I the fact retain).
Euphorbus, I, Pauthous’ sou, was slain
By Menelaus ... at Argos I beheld
In Juno’s fane and knew my former shield.

“O happy memory,” says Lactantius very pleasantly; “O rare memory of Pythagoras. O our wretched forgetfulness, who know nothing of our pre-existence: but perhaps it happened by some particular mistake, or favour, that he only never touched the river of Lethe, nor tasted the waters of oblivion. The vain old man forsooth (as idle old women use to do) invented those stories as if he were talking to credulous children. Had he judged rightly of those to whom he told them, had he looked upon them as men, he would never have been so bold as to forge such lies. But his ridiculous vanity deserves contempt.” Lactantius should have known that Pythagoras ascribed his memory to the favour of the gods; he might have read it in Heraclides; and it will be said, that without this we might easily fancy that Pythagoras prevented the objection which other men would raise against him, because they did not remember any preexistence; but if we consider the thing another way, we shall find nothing in it that is against likelihood. He had 'acquired so great a reputation, and made so many experiments of the blind docility and great credulity of his hearers, that he might easily flatter himself that what he would say, concerning his memory, would not be disbelieved. If you desire to know his several transmigrations since the death of Pythagoras, you need but read the following words, and you will see that he was a courtezan at the third change. “But as it is well known that Pythagoras himself said he was at first Euphorbus; so afterwards, according to Clearchus and Dicæarchus, he became Pyrander, then Callicleas, and after that a beautiful courtezan called Alce.” Aul. Gell. lib. iv, cap. xi. ²⁹ As for the rest, he invented not the metempsychosis:

he learned it of the Egyptians, which made him spoil the fine doctrine he had heard of Pherecydes, about the immortality of the soul, wherewith he had been so moved, that he gave over the trade of an athlete, or wrestler, all of a sudden to study philosophy. I think that it was by reason of this opinion, that he disapproved the sacrificing of beasts, and it is observed that he adored an altar on which no sacrifice had ever been offered, as a place which had never been profaned or polluted.

I have not mentioned the native country of Pythagoras, because there are several opinions about it; some say he was a Tyrrhenian, others a Syrian, others affirm that he was born in the isle of Samos, others in the isle of Cephalonia, &c. The heathen philosophers never said any thing finer than what he said concerning God, and the end of all our actions; and it is likely that he had carried his orthodoxy much farther, had he had the courage to expose himself to martyrdom. He acknowledged the unity of God; for he said that unity was the principle of all things, and that out of it came the subject it made use of as its matter, and that out of its action upon that matter came out numbers, figures, elements, the visible world, &c.

According to Plutarch, he admitted of two independent principles, unity and binary, and ascribed to the first the Divine essence, goodness, and understanding; and to the second the nature of a demon, evil and matter. The worst of it is, that Pythagoras, considering God as the mover of the universe, and the soul of the world, affirmed that our souls are portions of God. There is an objection against this doctrine of Pythagoras to be found in Tully, which cannot be answered.“Nam Pythagoras, qui censuit (Deum) animum esse per naturam rerum omnem intentum et commeantem, ex quo nostri animi caperentur, non vidit distractione humanorum animorum discerpi et dilacerari Deum: et cùm miseri animi essent

quod plerisque contingeret, turn Dei partem esse mise ram: quod fieri non potest. Cur autem quicquam ignoraret animus hominis, si esset Deus? quomodo porrò Deus iste, si nihil esset nisi animus, aut infixus, aut infusus esset in mundo.—For Pythagoras, who thought God to be an active soul, pervading the whole universe, and that our minds were parts of him, did not consider that, by the distinction of human minds God was divided and separated: and that as many of them were miserable, so a part of God was miserable, which is impossible. But why should the mind of man be ignorant of any thing if it were God? And bow could God, were he only a spirit, be fixed or infused in the world?” St Epiphanius ascribes to that philosopher a wild opinion; viz. that God has a corporeal and organised nature, being nothing else but heaven, and making use of the sun and moon as two eyes, and so of the other parts of the firmament. But here is a thought which is absolutely true: Clemens Alexandrinus compares it with St Paul’s words. “None but God is wise,” said Pythagoras. The author of the Jewish antiquities seems to be very well satisfied with the doctrines of several philosophers, especially of Pythagoras, concerning the nature of God; and he doubts not but they had spoken more soundly still, had they not been afraid of persecution: for as Plato says, it is not safe to tell ignorant men the truth concerning the divine nature. We must not forget an observation of Plutarch; when he shows the conformity there was between the thoughts of Numa and those of Pythagoras, he says, that Numa would not have the Deity to be represented by any images, and that God, according to Pythagoras, is an impassible nature, which does not fall under our senses, and can only be the object of the understanding. Plut. in Numa, pag. 65. ³⁰

As for the end of our actions and studies, nothing

can be more admirable, nor more Christian, than what Pythagoras said about it; for he taught that the study of philosophy should tend to make men like God. “Ad divinam similitudinem ducunt, Pythagoræque philosophise finem perfectissimum ostendunt.” This is an encomium bestowed on a piece of poetry, which contains the doctrines of that philosopher. They consist of two parts, which may be very well compared to the purgative and unitive ways so much talked of by our mystics. “Hierocles,” says Scheffer, Joan. Scheffer. de natura et constitutione Philosophiæ Italicae, cap. x, pag. 78. ³¹ “who left most learned commentaries upon the golden verses of Pythagoras, in the beginning of his discourse concerning the Pythagorean philosophy, calls it ‘ purgation and perfection.’ Which two, intimating a twofold use and purpose of it, as I have shown in another place, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans seem to have had two kinds of philosophy; the one purgative, the other perfective; the former to cleanse from evils, to separate from matter and body, and to free from bonds and prison: the latter to perfect, raise, and exalt; and as Hierocles speaks, to introduce the form of the first state, and to render one like God. This Hierocles himself declares in the following words; ‘ The golden verses contain the chief doctrines of all speculative and practical philosophy, whereby one may purify and make himself like God.’” The author whom I have quoted, alleges several other passages, whereby it appears that, according to that philosopher, the acquisition of truth was the only way to attain to likeness of God; but that the truth cannot be known, unless it be enquired after with a purified soul, and such as has overcome the passions of the body. I add to this the testimony of the anonymous author, who wrote the life of Pythagoras. He says, “that the followers of that philosopher taught, that men make themselves perfect three ways. 1. By conversing with the gods; for during that commerce they abstain from every evil action, and become like the Gods as much as such a thing is possible. 2. By doing good to others; for it is God’s property; it is an imitation of God. 3. By going out of this life. The best presents which heaven gave to men, according to Pythagoras, are to speak truth, and do good offices: ‘ those two things said he, ‘ resemble the works of God.’”

The circumstances of the death of Pythagoras are variously reported. He lived at Crotona, in Milo’s house with hi? disciples, and was burnt in it. A man whom he refused to admit into his society, set the house on fire. It is likely that he had not a good physiognomy; for Pythagoras received none for his disciples, but those whose look he liked, after he had examined it according to the rules of art. “He first considered the physiognomy of young men who offered themselves to be his disciples; that is, he examined their manners and dispositions by the features of their countenance, and the habit of their body: and such as were tried and approved by him, were immediately admitted into the society.” Some say that he was suspected of endeavouring to usurp the sovereignty; and that to prevent his design, the Crotoniates set his house on fire. He made his escape through the flames, and went out of the city; but as he was going into a field of beans, he stopped, and chose rather to be killed than to spoil the beans. According to Dicæarchus, he fled to the temple of the Muses at Metapontum, and died there of hunger, after he had fasted forty days. Others say that at his return from the isle of Delos, whither he went to shut the eyes of his master Pherecydes, and to bury him, he himself put a stop to his life, by abstaining from food. According to some writers, he brought all his disciples to the assistance of the Agrigentines against the Syracusans; and having been worsted, he was killed whilst he was running about a field of beans; which does not very well

agree either with the eighty years which they say he lived, or with the ninety, much less still with the ninety-nine, or one hundred and four years mentioned by others. See upon this the learned collections of Menagius. He has not forgotten to quote Arnobius, who affirms that Pythagoras was burnt alive in a temple. Justin intimates that he died without any violence at Metapontum, whither he retired after he had been twenty years at Crotona, and that he died there, being so much admired, that his house was converted into a temple, and that he was honoured as a god. Valerius Maxim us does not say so much of him; but he is none of those who say he was ill used. “Cujus ardentun rogum plenis venerationis oculis Metapon tus aspexit: oppidum Pythagoræ quam suorum cine rum nobilius clariusve monumento. Val. Max. lib. viii, cap. vii, num. 2, in ext. ³²—Whose funeral pile Metapontus beheld with eyes full of veneration: the city was more noted and famous for the ashes of Pythagoras than their own.” St Epiphanius was grossly mistaken when he said that Pythagoras died in the country of the Medians.—Art. Pythagoras.

Q.
(Latin pronunciation of.)

Ramus was no sooner made Regius Professor in Paris, than he showed a desire of perfecting the sciences, and went about it with more eagerness, notwithstanding the hatred of his restless enemies, who were so malicious as to pretend, that the manner after which he and his colleagues pronounced the letter q was an innovation, for which he deserved to be prosecuted. Some ecclesiastics complied with that reformation, though the Sorbonnists were displeased with that innovation; and a beneficed man was used very ill by them upon that account, for they got him deprived of

his revenues. He made his application to the parliament; and the royal professors, being afraid that he would sink under the credit of the faculty of divinity, for being so bold as to pronounce the Latin tongue according to their reformation, thought themselves obliged to assist him: they went to the court, and represented in so lively a manner the shamefulness of such a trial, that the accused person was acquitted.

“What new disturbances Freigius, in Vita Rami, pag. 24. ³³ did an innovation in pronunciation produce? In the year 1550, the Royal Professors having begun to introduce a purer pronunciation of the Latin tongue, there were other professors, especially those of the Sorbonne, who took it highly amiss that the pronunciation anciently made use of by the French should be disapproved of, and could not bear to be obliged to unlearn, when they were old men, what they had learned when they were boys. The first dispute of this kind was about the sound of the letter q. The Royal Professors pronounced it as it ought to be, with the following vowel u; quisquis, quanquam; but the Sorbonne adhered to the custom then in use; kiskis kankam. The members of the Sorbonne had endeavoured to deprive a clergyman of very ample revenues, for making use of the genuine pronunciation: the contest was brought before the parliament of Paris, and there was great danger that the unfortunate man would be deprived of the benefits of his theological studies for a grammatical heresy, as they called it. But the Royal Professors, and amongst them Peter Ramus, assembling themselves together in a body, flew to the court, and having exposed the strangeness of their proceedings, that lawyers, whose business it was to dispute about the king’s laws, should debase themselves into critics on the laws of grammar, they so prevailed upon the judges, that they not only acquitted the divine, but by a tacit assent, established for ever an impunity to all

controversies about grammatical pronunciation. Kis, and kalis, and kantus, and miki, and such like Goth isms and barbarisms were used in the academy of Paris, in the presence of the Royal Professors; and if any of them refused to make use of these barbarisms, he was very ill-treated, as one who took upon him to infringe the customs of the college. Quis, qualis, quantus, and mihi, were then restored to the genuine Roman pronunciation in the Royal school, and people were ashamed to contradict openly the Royal Professors, who were in a manner considered as the voice of the king himself.” This is such a strange and incredible thing, that I did not think fit to omit any word of the author who relates it. He maintains another immediately after, which I am more amazed at, and I would fain see the monuments of it in the archives; otherwise I would not advise any body to give an entire credit to it, any more than to the trial about kankam and kiskis. The thing is this; the public authority was made use of to force many doctors of Paris to renounce this assertion, which they obstinately maintained: ego amat is as good a phrase as ego amo: I will quote Freigius for it. “Incredibile prope dictu est, sed tamen verum et editis libris proditum, in Parisiensi Academia Doctores exitisse, qui mordicus tuerentur ac defenderent, ego amat, tam commodam orationem esse quam ego amo; ad eamque pertinaciam comprimendam consilio publico opus fuisse.—It is almost incredible to tell, but nevertheless true, and also in print, that there were doctors in the academy of Paris, who asserted and maintained most obstinately, that ego amat was as proper speech and as good grammar as ego amo; and they were forced to have the assistance of public authority before they could overcome their obstinacy.” Notwithstanding my incredulity, I shall observe that there happened many things in the XVIth century in the faculty of theology, at Paris, at which they blush now when they think of them. They have been laughed at for it indeed to some purpose.—Art. Ramus.

QUALITIES.
(Good and bad.)

Rangouze, a French author in the reign of Louis XIV, whose good qualities are unknown to me; for such a name cannot be given to the industry wherewith an author knows how to make his epistles dedicatory, and his flatteries turn to a good account. Not but that such an industry, though very bad, morally speaking, may hold a considerable rank among those qualities which are said to be good, whether they be natural or acquired. All languages may be said to be more or less barren; which particularly appears with respect to such things as are deprived of the perfection that belongs to them. If that perfection be a moral virtue, those things are said to be bad; if it be a physical virtue, they are also accounted bad. On the other hand, those things are indifferently called good, that have the moral virtue of their kind, and the physical virtue that belongs to them. An unjust judge is called a bad judge; and an ignorant painter is called a bad painter; a wise and equitable judge is said to be a good judge; and he who can make fine pictures is said to be a good painter. Here we are sensible that we want words, since we are obliged to make use of the words good and bad, to denote a thousand things of a very different nature. It is therefore no wonder that I should place the industry of the Sieur Rangouze in the number of good things, though I do not allow it to be a moral virtue. It is a good thing in the same sense, as we say a good memory, good sight, good ears, good nose, &c. when those faculties have the perfection which nature intended for them. Every science, without excepting that of tricking and cheating, is a kind of perfection; a subtle wit is a natural advantage, as stupidity and foolishness

are great imperfections. Morally speaking, the science of cheating is neither good nor bad; but physically speaking, it is a very good quality, an advantage, a perfection. The simplicity of a man who can neither cheat others, nor avoid being cheated, is, physically speaking, an imperfection, and a bad quality. If the art of cheating be reduced into practice, it becomes, morally speaking, a very ill thing, and a crime fit to be punished; but when some robbers are broken upon the wheel, whose industry and other natural qualities had attained to the highest degree of perfection in their kind, we admire for all that, the physical good that was in them; and we abhor only the ill use they made of it. We may therefore say in general that the art of growing rich, either in the finances or by trading is a good thing, and a natural advantage, which deserves to be esteemed, when separated from the ill use men may make of it. The same ought to be said of a man’s industry, who grows rich by the productions of his pen, and by the art of dealing in epistles dedicatory and books which he sends up and down. It cannot be denied that such a man has a sort of wit, and a kind of sagacity and discerning, which is a natural perfection, that may be admired in some respects, though it ought to be despised and condemned, by reason of its abuses and its ill consequences. Equitable men do not equally censure that sort of authors; they do not pour all the satirical strokes, which Furetiere collected in his “Somme Dedicatoire,” upon those who, having a great family and no estate or pension upon the public, cannot maintain themselves any other way than with the help of their pen. This serves to excuse the multitude of their dedications, and it is not so much a wonder that their works should be divided into many tomes, dedicated to so many different persons, and that the second editions should be dedicated to a new Mæcenas, as it is that they should be able to maintain honourably their wives and children with their pen, and that the subsistence of a large family should depend altogether upon it. A very ingenious man has laid down a rule in vindication of those who apply themselves to trifling things, which reaches the authors whom I am speaking of. These are his words: “besides, it is well known that we have sometimes very solid reasons to apply ourselves to some works that do not appear to be solid, and that a private and unknown duty prevails often without any injustice upon a public and notorious one. That man whom you blame, has perhaps good reason to believe that, in order to recover his health which is very much impaired, to secure himself from poverty, to maintain his family, whose only support he is, it is better for him to compose songs, than moral and political treatises. If it be so, I make bold to say that he is obliged to write songs out of a moral and political principle, and it is a great piece of injustice to blame the occupations of other men, without knowing their motives and circumstances.” Pelisson, Discours sur les Œuvres de M Sarrazin, pag. m. 39 et 40. ³⁴

Rangouze was endowed with his good quality. Costar supplies me with the proof of it. “I am far from intending to make a comparison with the Sieur de Rangouze, whose eloquence has procured him fifteen or sixteen hundred pistoles within these eight months, and who may be styled the Cherilus of our age in prose.—Cherilus incultis qui versibus et male natis Retulit acceptos regale numisma Philippos. According to the Gospel—'a tree is good that bears so good fruit.’ The tree of the garden of the Hesperides, so much talked of by the poets, was not so valuable, since, according to a Greek scholiast of great authority, 'it bore golden apples only in its season, and not all the year,'” Here is another witness, to wit, Madame de Scuderi. She speaks of an author, “who had three dedicatory epistles ready

made for the same book, for three persons very different in quality and merit; being resolved to use that which would turn to the best account, and employing a third person to manage the business, and accordingly, he dedicated the book to him who paid most for it, though he was a man of less merit than the other two.” She says afterwards, “than an author who is dead, having prepared an epistle, which might be looked upon as a great panegyric, suppressed it, when he heard that the person, to whom he intended to dedicate his book, was out of favour.” She adds, “that a man of Dauphiné having made a panegyric upon cardinal Richelieu, and finding him dead at his arrival, turned it into a panegyric upon the queen-mother, Anne of Austria. I have also been informed, that an author who had very much, and very justly praised a man that was alive, deprived him of all the praises he had bestowed upon him, though that man had done nothing that deserved it, except that he died without being able to reward the author according to his expectation. All these instances are very singular. But I have been told a pleasant story of one Rangouze, who made a collection of letters, and caused them to be printed, without numbering the pages. So that the bookbinder placed at the beginning of the book such a letter as the author thought fit, and by that means, all those whom he presented with his book, finding their names at the beginning of it, thought themselves the more obliged to him for it. This seems to be a very neat contrivance, and that man was as fond of dedicating books as an eminent physician of Italy, who, having written upon the aphorisms of Hippocrates, dedicated each book of his Commentaries to one of his friends, and the Index to another.” Now let us see what Sorel says: “Rangouze’s letters may very well be called golden letters, since he boasted to write none for less than twenty or thirty pistoles; for he seldom made any but for persons of the highest quality, and who were able to pay well for them. They were all a kind of short encomium upon those to whom they were directed, containing an account of their best qualities and most remarkable actions, and several compliments for those who afforded him but little matter to enlarge upon. We have seen some ingenious people wonder how that man, who was no scholar, had been able to write so many different letters upon praises that were almost alike. I scruple not to take notice of him, because his books may serve to inform those who are ignorant of the characters and fortunes of the great men of the kingdom.” Sorel, Bibl. Franc. pag. m. 11° ³⁵—Art. Rangouze.

QUIETISM.

The Indian Bramins have very odd opinions about non-entity, and their morality has a great affinity with the visions of our Quietists. They assert “that the world is but an illusion, a dream, a deceit, and that bodies, to exist truly, must cease to be in themselves, and be confounded with nothingness, which by its simplicity makes the perfection of all beings.” Their morality is yet more overstrained than that of our Stoics; for they carry the apathia, or indifferency, to which they refer all holiness, so far, that a man must become a stone or a statue to acquire the perfection of it. They do not only teach that a wise man ought to have no passions, but also that he ought not to have any desire. So that he ought continually to apply himself to desire nothing, to think on nothing, to feel nothing, and to remove all thoughts of virtue and sanctity so far from his mind, that there remains nothing in him contrary to the perfect quiet of the soul. “It is,” say they, “that profound drowsiness of the mind, that quiet of all the powers, that continual suspension of the senses, which makes the happiness

of man: in that state he is no more subject to change; there is no more any transmigration for him, any vicissitude, any fear of things to come; because, properly speaking, he is nothing, or, if he be any thing, he is wise, perfect, happy; in a word, he is God, and perfectly like the god Fo, which certainly comes somewhat near to folly. It is against this ridiculous doctrine that the Chinese philosophers display all the strength of their eloquence. They look upon a perfect indifferency as a monster in morality, and as the overturning of the civil society.” Father Charles Le Gobien, in his Preface to the Histoire de l'Edit. de l'Emp. de la Chine. ³⁶

I omit the solid and short refutation that follows in father Gobien; but I desire you to observe that this monster of indifferency is the darling doctrine of the quietists, and that, according to them, one’s true felicity consists in nothingness. “Then in the threefold silence of words, thoughts, and desires, finding ourselves in a spiritual sleep, in a mystical drunkenness, or rather in a mystical death, all the suspended powers are recalled from the circumferences to the center. God, who is that center, makes the soul feel him by divine touches, by a taste, by illapses, by unspeakable suavities. Its affections being thus moved, it lets them rest quietly . . and finds a delicious repose which sets it above all delights and extasies, above the finest manifestations, and divine notions and speculations; we cannot tell what we feel, nor what we are.” La Bruyere Dialogue 2, sur le Quietisme, pag. 33, et seq. ³⁷ Do not imagine that M. La Bruyere has made any amplification: you will see his book supported with proofs. You will find this passage of Molino’s in it. “It is then that the Divine Spouse, suspending its faculties, lulls it in a sweet and calm sleep; it is in that drowsiness that it enjoys with an inconceivable calm, without knowing wherein its

enjoyment consists.” Molinos Guid. Spirit, b. iii. ch. xiii. apud Bruyere. ³⁸ You will find there,—that “a spiritual soul ought to be indifferent to all things, either for the body of the soul, or for temporal or eternal goods, and leave what is past in forgetfulness, and things to come to the Providence of God, and deny itself the present.” Madame Guyon, Moien Court, apud Bruyere Dial. v. page 171. ³⁹—That “the resignation of the soul ought to be such as to act without any knowledge, like one that ceases to be.” Regie des Associez a l’enfance de Jus, apud Bruyere, page 172. ⁴⁰—That “the soul feels, sees, and knows itself no more: it sees, comprehends, and distinguishes nothing in God; there is no more love, light, or knowledge.” Madame Guyon, in the Book of Torrents, apud euud. ibid. ⁴¹—That “the soul not feeling itself, is not at the trouble of seeking or doing any thing; it remains as it is, which is sufficient. But what does it? Nothing, nothing, and always nothing.”—That “the indifferency of this lover is so great that it cannot incline towards enjoyment, nor towards privation. Death and life are equal to it, and though its love is incomparably stronger than ever it was, yet it cannot desire paradise, because it remains in the hands of its spouse as things that are not. This ought to be the effect of the most profound annihilation.”—That “the perfect prayer of contemplation puts man beside himself, delivers him from all creatures, makes him die and enter into the rest of God; he is in admiration that he is united to God, without doubting that he is distinguished from God. He is reduced to nothing, and knows himself no more; he lives, and lives no more: he operates, and operates no more; he is, and is no more.”

We do not want persons in Europe, any more than

in China, to confute those foolish visions eloquently; but to the shame of our age and our climate, they have found apologists amongst us, who make themselves formidable. Observe, that the doctrine of the Bra mins is less dreadful in some respects than that of our Mystics, for the latter place indifferency, and the perfect quietness, in a transformation of the soul into God, which they explain by the notions of the consummation of marriage. “The essential union,” say they, Madame Guyon, explicat. du Cant. des Cant. pages 3, 4, Dial. vii. page 239. ⁴² “is the spiritual marriage, where there is a communication of substance, where God takes the soul for his spouse, unites it to himself, not personally, nor by any act or means, but immediately reducing all to an unity. The soul ought not, nor can any more make any distinction between God and itself; God is the soul, and the soul is God, since by the consummation of the marriage it is returned into God, and finds itself lost in him, without being able to distinguish or find itself again. The true consummation of the marriage makes the mixture of the soul with its God . The marriage is made when the

soul finds itself dead, and expired in the arms of the spouse, who seeing it more disposed, receives it to union with himself; but the consummation of the marriage is made only when the soul is so melted, annihilated, and disappropriated, that it can altogether run into its God without any reserve. Then is made that admirable mixture of the creature with its Creator, which reduces them to unity . . If any saints

or any authors have established this Divine Marriage in a less advanced state than this which I describe, it is because they took the betrothing for the marriage, and the marriage for the consummation.”

The absurdity of this doctrine as to metaphysics is monstrous, for if there be any thing certain in the clearest ideas, it is absolutely impossible that a real change

should be made, either of God into a creature, or of a creature into God. Ovid and the other Pagan poets were not so senseless as to mention such a metamorphosis. What might not one say against this cant of the Quietists, “That a soul is no more in itself, nor by itself; that it is relapsed and swallowed up in God by a fundamental and central Presence;" La Bruyere, Dial. 7, page 261, ⁴³ that it admires God “in his abyssal and super-eminent bottom.” The abbot d’Estival, confer. mystic. apud eund. Dial. ii. page 35. ⁴⁴ “Can any body forgive them, that state of deification, wherein all is God, without knowing that it is so; Madame Guyon, in the Book of Torrents, apud eund. Dial. vii, page 258. ⁴⁵ . . . that state of essential union wherein the soul becomes immutable, and has lost means . . that union not only essential, but immediate, and without means, more substantial than the hypostatic union; . . that central union with God, that has no need of Jesus Christ for a Mediator.” La Bruyere, Dial. vi. page 222, 223. ⁴⁶ This kind of Eutychianism multipliable in infinitum would appear horrible to Eutyches himself. But if one would excuse all these things, can any body forgive them the obscene images they make use of, which are so proper to expose religion, and outdo in a manner all the licence of the ancient heathen poets? Can any one forgive them what they assert, that in order to lead a soul to the state of death, which is a preparation to deification, “God permits that the senses should extrovert,” that is to say, “debauch themselves, which appears a great impurity to the soul. And yet the thing is seasonable, and to do otherwise, is to purify one’s self in another manner than God commands, and to sully one’s self.” Some faults are “committed in that extroversion, but the confusion, which the soul receives by it, and the care of making use of it, make the corruption wherein it rots the more rapid, and hastens its death.” Can any thing be more dangerous to good morals? It is likely I shall have some occasion to shew that the pretended essential union of those persons may very well be called Seneca’s Paradise.

A spider serves the Bramins for an emblem to explain their opinion. “They express this in a cabalistic and mythological manner. For they pretend that a certain immense spider was the first cause of things, which wrought the web of this universe of matter drawn out of her own bowels, and disposed it with wonderful art. That she, from the summit of her work, continually observes, orders, and regulates the motion of every part. At last, when she has satisfied herself with the pleasure of adorning and contemplating 'her web, she gathers up the thread she had spun, and so absorbs all again into herself, and the whole nature of created things vanishes. Thus the modern Bramins represent the beginning, order, and end of the world.” This comparison of the author of the world to a spider, who, having diverted herself with making her web, draws in and devours the same · threads that came out of her own bowels, plainly represents the doctrine of the Stoics. The extravagancy of that idea cannot be sufficiently wondered at. Physics, metaphysics, and morals, afford us a hundred solid arguments to confute it: doubtless I shall have occasion to touch upon this matter. I shall only observe here, that a man is very excusable when the consideration of the follies, which the eastern nations have believed for so many ages about the original of the world, moves him to ascribe them to the wrath of heaven, and raises his astonishment at the duration and greatness of it.

It is surprising that these mystical Christians and these Heathens should have had so exactly the same notions, that one would think they had agreed among

themselves to vent the same follies, some in the east and some in the west. What a wonderful concert there is between people who never saw and never heard of one another! I am going to cite a passage, which will show us that some mystical men have taught the transformation of all things into God, and an identification which would reduce the Creator and the creatures to a kind of nothingness, that is, to an eternal inaction. These mystical men supposed the doctrine of the Trinity, and ascribed the whole action to the three persons, and so they believed that the divine essence itself did nothing; and that when the soul is transformed into God’s essence, and raises herself above the three persons, it enjoys as great a rest as if it were annihilated. Ruysbroch shall be my witness. Ruysbrocbius, in Libro de vera Contemplat. c. xix. p. 445. ⁴⁷ “Therefore,” says he, “let every one, in order to prevent their being seduced and led away into error, diligently attend to my description of these false prophets. Those of the first kind affirm themselves to be the divine essence, superior to the persons of the divinity, and therefore to be inactive as if they were not in being; because the divine essence is at rest, and the Holy Ghost only operates. They hold themselves therefore to be superior to the Holy Ghost itself, and to be in no want of the Holy Ghost, or of its influence; for they say that not only no creature, but not even God himself can add to, or take from them in any respect. Some also have embraced such an opinion, that they affirm their souls to be created out of the divine substance, and that after death they are again to return whence they came, as a glass of water taken out of a fountain, if it is poured again into the fountain, is the same with what it was formerly. They say, moreover, that if any one were to traverse the whole heavens, he would find no difference or distinction among angels, souls, glories, or rewards; for that they believe nothing to be there but a certain simple and happy essence, void of all action; they add farther, that after the day of judgment, all men universally, the bad as well the good, together with God himself, will make up only one and the same divine essence, which will enjoy an absolute rest and inaction to all eternity. And for this reason that they will neither know, understand, will, love, think, return thanks for, nor praise; no, not so much as desire to have any thing. For they will have themselves to be superior and independent of God, and in no respect wanting to seek or to find God; but in short, absolutely exempt from all things, and this they call a perfect poverty of spirit.” Observe, that there are philosophers who agree that what the Querists say of the falsity of the notions under which the Deity is commonly represented, is very reasonable; and that the figures which the sacred writers have made use of to represent the Deity to us, require rectification.

Arts. Brachmans, Dioscorides, Taurellus.

RACAN.

“The Marquis de Racan,” says Menage, “being in garrison at Calais, he made these four verses at nineteen years of age:

Estime qui voudra la mort épouvantable,
Et la face l’horreur de tous les animaux;
Quant à moy je la tiens pour le poinct desirable
Où commencent nos biens, et finissent nos maux.

Some time after, being at Paris, and repeating those verses as his own to his friend Ivrante, his friend told him that he should not impose upon him, that he knew very well those verses were the first quatrain of Mathieu’s book, intitled &lsq;Les Tablettes de la vie et de la mort.’ M. de Racan who had never seen that book, denied obstinately and for a considerable time, that Mathieu had made those verses, until Ivrante

brought Mathieu’s book and showed him the verses, at which M. de Racan was not a little amazed. I do not question the truth of this story, being fully persuaded that M. de Racan, who told it me often in the presence of several people, is a very sincere man. But I doubt very much of what Leonardo Salviati says in the first book of his Avertimenti della Lingua Italians, that a poet of his time who had never seen cardinal Bembo’s sonnets, had made some exactly like them.” You see that M. Menage makes a great difference between Racan’s adventure and those of the other poets whom he names. He finds something in the first that is more extraordinary; I should judge otherwise of it, if I were to say what I think of it. Few people are ignorant that well-bred children are taught some moral and pious maxims, and that care is taken even before they can read, to get by heart some sententious staves of verses. The Protestants pitch upon some passages of David’s psalms, or as the Catholics do, upon some quatrains of Pibrac, or of another poet of the same nature, which are never wanting in any country. Without doubt, little Racan when he was but five or six years of age, heard his governess or his mother repeat some of those fine quatrains, or some of Mathieu’s, which are generally bound up with Pibrac. The traces that were imprinted on his brain sunk in, and remained so several years; afterwards they appeared again and seemed to him an object entirely new, without rousing up the remembrance of the author, or of the book which had occasioned them; he therefore thought himself to be the author of those four verses, though at the bottom they were only an imperfect reminiscence. If a man would carefully examine himself, he would find upon a thousand occasions, that what he takes to be his own invention, is a thing that he has heard or read without remembering the circumstance.—Art. Racan.

RADZIVIL.
(The cause of his conversion.)

When the reformation began to be established in Lithuania, Christopher Radzivil being very sorry that a prince of his house had embraced it, went to Rome and paid all imaginable honours to the pope. The pope being likewise willing to gratify him, presented him with a box full of relics when he went away. Having returned home, and the news of those relics being spread abroad, certain monks came to him some months after, and told him that there was a man possessed of the devil, that the wicked spirit had been exorcised in vain, and that hitherto all the exorcisms had proved ineffectual. They begged of him that he would lend the precious relics he had brought from Rome, for the relief of that poor man. The prince readily granted their request; the relics were carried into the church with a solemn pomp and a procession of all the monks. At last they were placed upon the altar, and on the day appointed, an innumerable multitude of people crowded in to see the show, and after the usual exorcisms, the relics were made use of; at that very moment the pretended devil went out of the body of the man, with the usual gestures and grimaces. Every body cried out ‘ a miracle,' and the prince lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven to return thanks that he had brought a thing so holy, and which could do such miracles.

Some few days after, as he was full of admiration and transported with joy, extolling the virtue of his relics, he perceived that a young gentleman of his house who had the keeping of that rich treasure, smiled and made some gestures, whereby it appeared that he derided his discourse. The prince grew angry and would know the reason of his derision; the gentleman being assured that no harm should come to him, told the prince in private, “that upon

his return from Rome, he lost the box of relics of which he had the keeping, and that not daring to speak of it for fear of being punished, he got one like it, and filled it with little bones of beasts and such trifles as he could get that were like the relics which he had lost; so that seeing so much honour paid to that vile heap of filth, and even that they ascribed to it the virtue of driving away the devil, he had good reason to wonder at it.

The prince gave credit to what he said, but being willing to be more particularly informed of the cheat, he sent for the monks the next day, and desired them to enquire whether there was any other demoniac who wanted the assistance of his relics. Some few days after, they brought him another man possessed with the devil, who acted the same part with the first. The prince ordered him to be exorcised in his presence; but because all the exorcisms that are commonly made use of on such an occasion proved ineffectual, he told the monks that he would have the man to stay in his palace till the next day, and that they should retire. After they were gone, he put the pretended demoniac into the hands of his Tartarian grooms, who at first exhorted him to confess the cheat, as they were ordered to do; but because he obstinately persisted in it with horrid and furious gestures, six of them laid on him with whips and scourges, and put him into such condition that he was forced to implore the prince’s mercy, who forgave him as soon as he had confessed the truth. When the night was over, the prince sent for the monks, in whose presence the poor fellow flung himself at his feet, and protested that he neither was, nor ever had been possessed with the devil; but that those monks had persuaded him to counterfeit a demoniac. Im mediately the monks desired the prince not to believe what he said, and told him that it was a trick of the devil who spoke through that man’s mouth.

But the prince answered, that if his Tartars had been able to force the devil to tell the truth, they would be able to extort it from the mouth of the monks; so that the monks finding themselves pressed so hard, confessed the imposture, and said they had done it with a good intention, and to prevent the progress of heresy.

The prince thanked God with all his heart, that he had been graciously pleased to discover such an imposture to him; and suspecting a religion that was supported with such diabolical devices, though they went by the name of pious frauds, he declared that he would no longer depend upon any body for his salvation, and betook himself to the reading of the Holy Scriptures with a wonderful assiduity: and having spent half a year in reading and praying, he made a wonderful progress in piety and in the knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel, and then he and all his family made an open profession of our religion, in the year 1564.” These are the words of Mr Drelincourt, minister of the church of Paris, in the answer he published in the year 1663, to the letter which prince Ernest, landgrave of Hesse had written to the five ministers of Paris. Mr Drelincourt adds, “Your highness may believe it if you please; but I protest, as if I were before the throne of God, that this story was told me in this manner by the minister of prince Ja nusius Radzivil; nay, he gave me in writing part of what he told me, and explained to me viva voce." Art. Radzivil.

RAGE.
(Singular instance of.)

Antony Codrus Urceus, one of the most learned and most unfortunate men of the fifteenth century, was an Italian. He was so sensibly afflicted with the loss of his manuscripts, that he not only uttered extreme blasphemies, but also like a savage retired to

the woods, and all human society became insupportable to him. He lost what he had prepared for the press, in the following manner. He lived at Forli, in an apartment of the palace; his chamber was so dark as to require a candle at noon-day; and happening to go out and leave it burning, his papers took fire, and his library was reduced to ashes. As soon as he heard this ill news, he ran in a distracted manner towards the palace, and stopping at his chamber door, cried out, “Jesus Christ, what crime have I been guilty of? Which of your followers have I ever offended, that you treat me so cruelly? Mind well what I am going to say, I speak deliberately and with a composed mind. If by chance I address myself to you when at the point of death, do not hear me, for I have resolved to pass my eternity in hell. Quodnam ego tantum scelus concepi Christe, quem ego tuorum unquam laesi, ut ita inexpiabili in me odio debaccheris? Audi ea (pergebat ad quoddam conversus simulachrum) quas Tibi mentis compos et ex animo dicam. Si forte cum ad ultimum vitae finem pervenero supplex accedam ad te opem oratum, neve audias neve inter tuos accipias oro; cum infernis diis in aeternum vitam agere decrevi.” Spizelius, in Felice Literato, pag. 12. He cites Barthol. Bononiensis in Vita Codri. ⁴⁸ Those who heard these blasphemies endeavoured to comfort him, but in vain; he left the town and ran to a forest. “Adeo insuper ira et indignatio hominem oppresserat, ut extra portam urbis egressus, amentiae frenos non ante imposuerit, quam in vastum sese nemus proripuisset, in gentique cum molestia ibi totos dies transegisset. Spizelius, pag. 13. ⁴⁹”

It is reported that he devoutly implored the mercy of God. The author whom I cite Spiz ⁵⁰ mentions our Urceus’s prayer. “Ultima tandem aliquando appropinquante hora miser ille oculis ac manibus ad coelum sublatis; qui coelum incolis, (exclamavit) fer

quaeso opem peccatori, noli me, qui tuum in sinum confugio supplicem rejicere. Si unquam peccantem hominem voti reum fecisti, sic mihi extrema oranti dextram ab alto porrigas oro. This unhappy man, when his last hour drew near, lifted up his eyes and hands to heaven, crying out, ‘ O thou who dwellest in heaven, help a sinner I beseech thee, and do not reject me while I thus fly in a supplicant manner to thy bosom. If ever thou didst hear a miserable sinner, stretch out I beseech thee, thy right hand to me from on high, now that I am making my last prayer.’ After having uttered these words, he saw a tall man with a torch in each hand, and trembling all over his body; astonished at this vision he sprung out of his bed, and asked the apparition what he did there at such an unseasonable hour, and conjured him not to do him any mischief. ‘ Whoever thou art who thus walkest alone in so dreadful a shape, and at this midnight time when mortals are oppressed with sleep, do not approach to hurt me, who am the friend of God. Speak what thou wantest, and whither thou wouldst go?’ Having said this, he sprung out of his bed as if he would avoid the spectre which was rushing upon him.” My author breaks off here; he did not know whether Urceus perished upon this occasion or not; but Pierius Valerianus, who hath not forgotten him in his catalogue of unfortunate learned men, expresses himself thus concerning him: “Codrus autem Urceus Ravenas multae, variaeque doctrinae vir, eruditissimis plerisque scriptis, quae nunc edita sunt, omnibus innotuit. Is quoque sánguinaria peremptus est morte, ab adversae factionis latronibus fædissimè trucidatus. Pierius Valerianus de Litteratorum Infelicitate, lib. i, pag. 21, 22. ⁵¹ Urceus Codrus was a man of great and various erudition, as appeared to all the world by his many learned performances which are now published. He too was killed in a base and bloody manner by the assassins of the contrary faction.”—Art. Urceus.

REASONS AGAINST A CHANGE IN RELIGION.

Nihusius reasoned strongly against a change of religion. His arguments may be thus summed up: —When we find ourselves by birth and education in a certain communion, the inconveniences we therein undergo, are not a warrantable reason for quitting it, unless we can be gainers by the change; that is, remove to another where we may be easier. For to what purpose should we abandon the communion that gave us being and education, if in so doing we only change the distemper? Let us put this case to the trial: I agree to do so: let us imitate those poor patients, who when weary of the bed, think they shall be much better by being set in an easy chair. Let us leave the church of Rome and embrace Protestantism; but then as these sick persons are no sooner undeceived in finding the easy chair of no service to them, than they go to bed again; so ought we to resume the profession of Popery, as soon as we find that the Protestant doctors do not remove our difficulties: they allege nothing to us but disreputable reasons; nothing that is convincing, nothing that is demonstrative; they prove and they object; but both their proofs and their objections are answered: they reply, and meet with replies again; there is no end of this. To what purpose then should we form a schism? Did we meet with any thing in the church we were born in, that is more inconvenient? We there wanted demonstrations; we had nothing offered to us that could fix our mind upon a foundation of certainty; we still found objections against all the doctrines and all the replies, in infinitum. This was our great disadvantage, and we meet with the same among the Protestants; we ought not therefore, to 5 3

stay among them. Let us return to that body that has on its side the advantage of possession; and if we must be ill lodged, is it not better to be so in our own country and in our father’s house, than in the inns of foreign countries? Besides, the controversy is attended with more inconveniences on the Protestant side than on the Popish; the latter has all its enemies before it; the same arms that serve it for attacking and repulsing one, are of use for attacking and repulsing others. But the Protestants have enemies both before and behind them; they are like a ship engaged between two fires; Popery attacks them on one side, and Socinianism on the other. The arms they make use of against Popery, do them hurt instead of doing them service in their controversy with the Socinian, for this heretic turns upon them all the arguments they had made use of against the church of Rome; so that a Protestant coming off from the attack of a Papist, and preparing to attack a Socinian, is obliged to change his armour, or at least part of it.

These, without doubt, were the chimeras with which Nihusius fed himself and which influenced him to think, that in order to convince the Protestants that they had done wrong in abandoning the church of Rome; it was sufficient to ask of them a demonstrative proof of their belief; a proof that admits of no reply, any more than of a mathematical demonstration. He knew very well that they would never take him at his word. Most divines agree that the controversies of religion cannot be carried to that height of evidence; a famous minister has lately informed us, that to assert that the Holy Spirit gives us an evident knowledge of the truth of religion, is not only a dangerous error, but a doctrine hitherto rejected by the Protestants. He maintains that a faithful soul embraces these truths without the evidence of reason, and even without knowing that it is evident that God has revealed them; and he says that

they are pernicious innovators, who assert that at least the Holy Spirit makes us see evidently the testimony which God has given to these truths. I am very sure that Nihusius did not expect to have a demonstrative argument offered him. What did he think of then, when he promised to return to Lutheranism upon that condition? Did he act the part of a grave man? But we must confess, that Nihusius did not always ground his thoughts upon chimeras. He made a bad application of a good principle, which is this: “we ought not to depart from the place where we are, if the change be useless.” The minister I have been now mentioning, makes use of that axiom. He is a rigid predestinarian, and a great particularist, and groans under a load of objections to which his system is exposed; but he does not change his hypothesis, because he finds that none relieves him from the oppression. He would find nothing to satisfy his reason in the hypothesis of the Molinists, nor in the other loose ways of explaining grace; so chooses to continue where he is, rather than take another situation that would not cure him. This is wisely judged.

Art. Nihusius.

REFORM OF THE SAINTHOOD.

The celebrated Dr Launoi, of the College of Divinity of Paris, boldly attacked several false traditions, such as the arrival of Lazarus and Magdalen in Provence; the apostleship of Dionysius, the Areopagite, in Gaul; the cause of the retreat of St Bruno, the founder of the Carthusians; the vision of Simon Stoch; the privileges of the Sabbatin bull, &c. They whose interest it was to maintain these opinions raised terrible outcries against him. He was, according to them, an enemy to religion. “It is scarcely possible to conceive what a load of envy these writings at first drew upon him; for though he was a defender of the ancient, and, consequently, the genuine tradition, and as himself

often used to say, in allusion to a passage in Ter tullian, vindicated its authority from the times; yet they who had believed from their youth the legends he had expunged, or who found their account in imposing them upon the credulity of other people, could not bear the loss of them with any patience, but cried out as violently against all attempts of this kind, as if the most important fundamentals of religion had been attacked.” He was not in the least affected with their clamours, but went on still, and undeceived not only the learned, but also some of the vulgar. He vigorously attacked the Monks in two other points; for he demonstrated the falsity of the pretended privileges, by virtue whereof they refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of bishops, and confuted the arguments on which they ground their claim to the administration of the sacrament of penance. Here follows what the abbot De Marolles said of him: “he found the art of discovering the most hidden truths, and the lovers of them are as much pleased with him for it, as those who are unqualified to discover or value them are uneasy at his having made such glorious conquests. However, they can reproach him with nothing, and it has not hitherto been possible for his adversaries to convict him of the least falsehood, or of one wrong inference, from the testimonies of the writers concerning the points he has examined. It is true, what we have seen of him is inconsiderable in comparison of what we ought to expect from him, applying himself as he does to the most serious studies upon important subjects; but the most learned will always benefit themselves by the reading of his works, either by his method, or the certain discovery of truths, for which pure religion will have no less reason to glory, than infamous superstition to be concerned at it.”

It is worth observing what Guy Patin said upon it. “I give you notice, that I have delivered a little

packet to a young man of Lyons . . . You will find

in it, among others, M. de Launoi’s book, wherein he undertakes to prove, that there never was such a saint as Renatus, nor any bishop of Angers of that name. It is the same who has written against Dionysius, the Areopagite, asserting that he never came into France, and against the scapulary of the Carmelites, and against Magdalen, pretending the she never came into Provence. He is a doctor of divinity, a Norman, a man of mean look, but learned, and especially in ecclesiastical history. Some here call him a desperate and damned spirit, whom all should avoid; who turns every year a saint out of paradise, and it is to be feared, will at last expel God himself. Yet hitherto nobody has answered him. One of his friends told me, that he had long been a pensioner in the college of the Jesuits, who made use of him to approve their books; but that at last they had discarded him for refusing to give his approbation to a new doctrine they had a mind to publish.” What follows is curious; I have it from M. Menage, and it is he who speaks. “M. de Launoi, doctor of Divinity of the faculty of Paris, pretends that several of our saints never existed, which occasioned M. Feramus to say of him:

Ta quoque, Launoi, veri indagator et index
Addita qui fastis Numina falsa doces.

In search of truth, Launoi knows no restraint,
Nor spares his pen one legendary saint.

I made this Greek epigram upon it:

Τὸν Λαυνοῖον ὁρας, ὃς συρφετον Οὐρανιώνων
Ῥίψε, ῶοδός τεταγὼν ἀπο Βηλου Θεσπεσιοιο.

Launoi kicks down the scoundrels from above,
As Vulcan once was serv’d by Homer’s Jove.

They say this last verse is taken out of Homer, speaking of Jupiter, who kicked Vulcan out of heaven. But that is the very beauty of my epigram: it would

be ridiculous, were this verse my own; and I dare say it is thought very pretty for that application, on which M. Daillé, the father, who was particularly conversant with Homer, has often congratulated me.” The abbot Faydit has not observed that it is only the last verse which M. Menage has borrowed from Homer; he has quoted part of the first, as if it were to be found in the Iliad, and which is worse, he pretends that Jupiter turned out the whole rabble of the gods. It is certain that Homer says no more than “that Jupiter taking Vulcan by the foot, threw him down from heaven.”

If it was not for fear of making too many digressions, I would say that it were to be wished that several learned men were suffered to do what M. de Launoi has done. The false saints are no less multiplied than the pretenders to nobility: so that as princes from time to time issue out commissions of inquiry, in order to reduce the usurpers of quality to their proper Plebeian state, the clergy should appoint some commissioners, as rigid as Boisseau, to examine the titles and patents of saintship. If the troops of the church triumphant should come to muster before honest commissaries, there would be found a great many faggots, not amongst the soldiers, but amongst the great officers, I mean among the saints who are daily invoked. The kalendar wants more to be reformed on that account, than with respect to the precession of the equinoxes; and whereas a bare defalcation of ten days was sufficient for this last reformation, the other would require a subtraction by hundreds and thousands. It is a long time that the year has been unable to afford a day for each saint; they must be heaped one upon another in the same places, so that we may now say with Juvenal:

. . . Nec turba deorum
Talis ut est hodie, contentaque sidera paucis
Numinibus miserum urgebant Atlanta minori
Pondere.

Juven. Sat. 4. xiii. ver 6.

E’er gods grew numerous, and the heav’nly crowd,
Press’d wretched Atlas with a lighter load.

Creech.

How many senators should we find in the celestial court vitio creati, should we proceed vigorously? See how many volumes the acta sanctorum already amount to. One might apply to them this common distich:

Scripts giganteæ quorum sub pondere molis
Tristior Encelado bibliopola gemit.

Such monst’rous works the bookseller bemoans,
And with Enceladus’s torture groans.

I would have this understood without prejudice to the esteem which is due to their learned compilers.

I must even acknowledge, to their honour, that they reject a great many fables, and that their sincerity exposes them every day to the same complaints which were made against M. de Launoi. See father Papebroch’s answer to the “Exhibitio Errorum” of Sebastian of St Paul, a Carmelite; you will there find that this Jesuit has cashiered many intruders out of the kalendar, and that upon very solid reasons. These intruders are not saints of a modern, but of very ancient date. Cardinal Bessarion, seeing at Rome the canonization of some persons, whose lives he thought none of the best, cried out, “that these new saints made him call in question the old ones.” “Affe che questi santi moderni mi fanno assai dubitare delli passati.” But we may say, that there is infinitely more certainty in the modern, than in many of the ancient saints. We cannot doubt that the former lived on earth; and we have almost demonstrative proofs that the latter never did. A witty man said the other day, in good company, “that if he were to address the saints, he had rather chuse the new comers, Capistran, for instance, or Thomas de Villeneuve, than St Catherine or St Alexis.” The judgment which

Melchior Canus gave about the legendary writers has been approved at last. He said “that the lives of the ancient philosophers had been written with more judgment than those of the Christian saints. They are now more nicely examined; the acts of the new saints are not filled with so many absurdities, yet they are not so carefully examined as they ought to be.”

A canon of Passaw, a good preacher, and professor of divinity in the fifteenth century, said in one of his sermons, “that if there were as many holy days as minutes, the year would not afford one for each saint,” and he quotes Durandus, bishop of Mande, who observes, “that there are above five thousand saints for every day.” The author who quotes the sermon of the German canon adds, that All-Saints day was appointed to supply the want of days in the year, and to prevent the displeasure of those saints who might he angry for having no honour paid them. “Therefore since the saints of the pope’s canonization are grown infinite, All-Saints day is contrived as a supplementary worship of them. Because, as they are supposed to be very fond of being worshipped, and to have a particular regard for their votaries, that there may be no room left for any of them to resent the not being taken notice of, this feast of All-Saints is esteemed a supplementary worship, not only of the higher, but also of the lower, and every particular class of saints. And this, according to the same William Durandus, bishop of Mande, is a sort of expiatory commemoration, necessary to appease all the saints, who have not been particularly recorded. These are his words: ‘Their numbers are too great to allow of particular holy days for them,’ and therefore, as the same author has observed before, ‘ in order to supply the want of these,’ says he, ‘ the general feast of All-Saints was instituted.’” Those who make it their business to draw parallels will not fail to remember, upon this occasion, the precaution of the Athenians,

who consecrated an altar to the unknown gods, because they were afraid of neglecting the worship of some revengeful deities, whose names and qualities they were ignorant of. They thought they had lately suffered for it, so that to play a sure game, they resolved to pay their homage even to the deities unknown to them. This was the way to forget none of the gods.

Launoi furnished so many pleasant stories, that several other persons diverted themselves with relating in the same way. Here is one of M. de Vignuel-Marville; it is as good as that I have mentioned out of the Menagiana. “M. de Launoi was a terrible critic, formidable both to heaven and earth; he has unshrined more saints than have been canonized by ten popes. He suspected the whole martyrology, and examined all the saints, one after another, as they do the quality in France. The curate of St Eustachius in Paris said, ‘ When I meet Dr Launoi, I make a very low bow to him, and I speak to him with my hat off, and with the greatest reverence, for fear he should take away my St Eustachius, who has nothing to depend upon.' These last words are very true; and here is a passage of the Valesiana which confirms them: ‘ The life of St Eustachius is likewise a heap of fables, and I am very much surprised that the largest parish of Paris should have parted with the name of one of the most famous and illustrious martyrs we have, to take that of an unknown and very suspicious saint?'” M. Ancillon heard M. Daillé say, “that one day meeting him in M. Cramoisy’s shop, a bookseller in Paris, they expressed a great friendship and esteem for one another, and that as they parted, M. de Launoi told him, ‘Sir, I strike every month one saint out of the breviary; do you strike an error out of it?'” If M. de Launoi spoke in that manner, it was only in jest, for the number of saints he pretended to degrade will bear no comparison

with the months of his life; but he might, without any exaggeration, have affirmed the saints who are doubtful or fabulous, to be as numerous as the minutes of his long life. See the excellent History of the Church, published by M. Basnage in 1699, in two volumes, folio. There we find so many fabulous saints and martyrs degraded, that in comparison of that ocean, M. de Launoi’s attempt is no more than a rivulet.

To give a small specimen of the judgment which the Monks formed of the genius of this Sorbonne doctor, I shall recite a few lines of father Baron: “Whoever has had any intimate, acquaintance, either with his person or writings, even the best friend he has must join with me in my judgment, or rather wish concerning him. It were much to be wished, that a too great fondness for his own notions and ill habits, which was grown natural to him, of censuring others, right or wrong, had not so far corrupted his great parts. Whence arose this mischief at last, to mention no more, that he seems to have been ambitious of a great, rather than of a good name, and desirous of eclipsing men of superior learning, without having sufficiently at heart that maxim of the physicians, which a wise divine will never forget, 'alter not a wrong method which has succeeded rightly.’ For he has had the assurance to attack some traditions generally received by the faithful ever since the primitive times, which, without contradicting their creed, were even subservient to their piety, and this he has done on far slenderer grounds than those on which they were founded, purely for the sake of getting himself a name by his great censoriousness, and taking away that of others who are much better entitled to it, at least, according to the most likely opinion.” In the next leaf he opposes the character of Thomas Aquinas to that of this Sorbonnist, and declares that Thomas would have made a scruple of conscience, and been

ashamed of those things which M. de Launoi gloried in. “The angelical doctor,” adds he, “would never have disturbed the French in their belief, that St Dio nysius, the Areopagite, was their first apostle; he would never have robbed the inhabitants of Provence of the glory they claim from the arrival of St Magdalen, nor the Cannelites of their descent from Elias; and of the scapulary of Simon Stoch, nor the monasteries of their exemptions. He had better things to write; and even though he had met with some doubts, and a want of probability in these matters, he would have let them alone, and paid a due respect to those traditions which promote piety without doing prejudice to religion. Disputes of this kind he would have referred to those condemned by the apostle, which produce strife, and not edification.”

If all the circumstances set forth by this Jacobin were true, no doubt but John de Launoi was deservedly condemned as one, who, to make himself talked of, and to satisfy his ill nature, would oppose many general opinions, which had obtained time out of mind, to the advancement of piety, without detriment to faith, and were grounded upon proofs of infinitely more weight than his objections. This last circumstance alone would be sufficient to condemn an author, let his motives on other accounts be ever so just; for, undoubtedly, a long possession deserves so much respect, as to oblige us to maintain it, every thing else being equal. But if it be just to maintain it, when its title is not inferior to the pretensions of the innovators, how much must it be more so, to forbear all attempts to overthrow it, when its reasons are by far the strongest? But this is not the case of our Sorbonne doctor: the traditions he opposes have no good title, and his arguments against them are unanswerable. Now in this case, it is plain there is all the right in the world to bring the most general

and ancient opinions to a trial, especially when their falsity keeps up a criminal devotion. I desire it may be observed, that the reasonings of this doctor were of such force as to undeceive abundance of people; but yet the abuses have not been removed: things remain still upon the same foot in Provence, and elsewhere. They tell you still the same stories they told your ancestors, and you see there is the same worship and the same ceremonies. This proves the difference there is betwixt private persons and the public. Particular people are most of them one time or other undeceived, and yet the practice of the public remains the same. Cicero says, “there was not an old woman so silly as to give credit to the stories which were formerly believed concerning hell,” and he makes use of this remark to prove that fabulous traditions vanish away in time, but that true doctrines, and such as are grounded upon the nature of things, are confirmed by age, and that this was the cause of the long continuance and increase of the worship of the gods. “Videmus, ceteras opiniones fictas, atque vanas diuturnitate extabuisse. Quis enim Hippocentaurum fuisse, aut Chimaeram putat? quæve anus tam excors inveniri potest, quae illa, quae quondam credebantur, apud inferos portenta extimescat? Opinionum enim commenta delet dies; naturae judicia confirmat. Itaque, et in nostro populo, et in cæteris, Deorum cultus, religionumque sanctitates existunt indies majores, atque meliores.” Cicero de Natura, Deor. lib. ii. cap. ii. ⁵² Juvenal also complains, “that the ancient doctrine concerning hell was no longer believed.

Esse aliquos Maneis, et subterranea regna,
Et contum et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras,
Atque una transire vadum tot millia cymba,
Nec pueri credunt, uisi qui nondum aere lavantur.
Sed tu vera puta.

Juven. Sat. II. ver. 149.

Ghosts, Stygian lakes, and frogs with croaking note,
And Charon wafting souls in leaky boat,
Are now thought fables, to fright fools conceiv'd,
Or children, and by children scarce believ’d.
Yet give thou credit.

Tate.

Thus you see a great change in the opinions of private persons, and yet the public worship was still the same, both in Juvenal’s and Cicero’s time. There were still the same feasts, processions, and sacrifices, not only in honour of the celestial gods, but also in honour of Pluto and Proserpine, and the other infernal deities. This sort of inconstancy on one hand, and constancy on the other, will always be more or less observable. Some doctors, of quicker sight and greater courage than their brethren, will undeceive abundance of private persons, and yet cause no change in the public ceremonies. The ritual will last longer than the faith on which it is built. Too many people will find it their interest to maintain it, and will be industrious enough to succeed, though they can give no better reasons for it than those alleged to Cotta, in Cicero’s book before cited. Among other things, they urged to him the apparitions of some deities; and to prove the truth of these apparitions, they alleged the foundations of some temples, a decree of the senate, a proverb. “I expected some arguments,” replies he, “and you bring only popular stories.—Tum Lucilius: An tibi, inquit, fabellae videntur? Nonne ab A. Posthumio aedem Castori et Polluci in foro dedicatam, nonne S. C. de Vatieno vides? Nam de Sagra, Graecorum etiam est vulgare proverbium; qui quae affirmant, certiora esse dicunt, quam illa quae apud Sagram. His igitur auctoribus nonne debes moveri? Tum Cotta, Rumoribus, inquit, mecum pugnas, Balbe: ego autem à te rationes requiro.— To this, Lucilius replied: what, can you esteem these things fables? Do not you see a temple in the Forum

dedicated to Castor and Pollux by A. Posthumius, and a decree of the senate concerning Vatienus? and as to Sagra, the Greeks have a common proverb among them, who when they would assert a thing, say it is more certain than any thing in Sagra. Are not these authorities therefore sufficient to convince you? To which Cotta rejoined: O Balbus, you fight me with popular stories; but I expect you will give me reasons.” M. de Launoi might have made use of the same answer, and of several others; but as I have already said, there were too many people interested in opposing the innovation, and maintaining the common tradition. It looks as if they had well weighed the consequences of the principle which Cicero has put into the mouth of one of his speakers: I mean that they seem to have learned how to prove the truth of a tradition from its standing the test of time, and maintaining its ground for so many ages. It is laid down in Cicero, that an opinion ill-grounded can never grow old. And observe, by the bye, that the argument drawn from antiquity is made use of in Cicero to prove a falsity, for it is there alleged to maintain the reality and existence of the false gods of Paganism. It is, therefore, a principle which may lead into error, and yet the maxim, “Opinionum commenta delet dies,” might have been long since urged against the false worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans, since there has been no country for many ages wherein their religion, their Jupiter and their Juno, their Venus and their Neptune, &c. are acknowledged and adored. And thus their cause is lost, when once it is supposed that, sooner or later, time will destroy false doctrines. You may please to observe that this principle can never be admitted as a certain proof, without first determining the duration sufficient to distinguish truth from error. If a thousand years suffice, every opinion which is a thousand years old is true; but if no time be fixed, it is in vain to conclude that a doctrine which has lasted four thousand years must be taken for certain: nobody knows what is to come, or whether the fifth millenary may not put a period to what has resisted the four preceding ones.

I have one thing farther to observe. There is no likelihood that those who follow the steps of John de Launoi can do any service, whilst things are only carried on by way of a literary dispute. The patrons of false devotion will never recede; they find their account too much not to abate an ace, and they are powerful enough to secure themselves from any violence. The court of Rome will second and support them. The Romish church seems to have adopted the religion of the god Terminus, of the Roman republic. This god never yielded a tittle; no, not to Jupiter himself; which was a sign, said they, that the Roman people should never recede, nor yield an inch of ground to their enemies. If any pope should be willing to sacrifice something to the re-union of the Schismatics, some insignificant devotions, some superannuated traditions, he might apprehend as great a murmur against him as the Heathens made against the scandalous peace of the emperor Jovian. The Jesuits, with all their power, have not been able to hinder the inquisition of Toledo from condemning several volumes of the “Acta Sanctorum;” and it is certain that storm was raised only by the solicitations of the Carmelites and other monks, who were angry with father Papebroch and his assistants, for having rejected several acts and old traditions as apocryphal. They are to be condemned for having merited this thunder-stroke, and will do well to deserve others. The character of a Capaneus in this respect would be a very good one. But by these sorts of encounters with the inquisitors, they will render themselves unserviceable with respect to the reformation of public abuses; their criticisms, were they much more severe,

could be of no farther use than for the instruction of private persons. The disease is past cure. You see father Mabillon has laid down some very good rules concerning the worship of some saints, and the judgment to be made of relics. What did he get by it? he was answered,“physician, heal thyself.” Reform first the worship paid, in some houses of your order of St Benedict, to saints as dubious as any. He was told of the injury he did to the church, and the advantage he gave the Protestants. Is not this shutting the door against all his good designs? M. Thiers sets up against false relics, he examines where the bodies of the martyrs lie, he publishes some dissertations upon the holy tear of Vendome, and upon St Firmin. All this is lost labour. The king’s council suppressed his book about St Firmin, as the bishop of Amiens had condemned a letter, which he had published upon the same question: see the “Nouvelles de la République des Lettres,” and the third part of the “Bibliotheca volante.” The fruits of a discreet zeal are destroyed in the bud. They build upon this principle, that it is dangerous to abrogate old customs, that boundaries ought not to be removed, and that, according to the old proverb, “we should leave the minster where we find it.” The prosperity of the Christian Rome, just like that of the Pagan Rome, is founded upon the preservation of ancient rites. Consecrations must be complied with, religion will allow no alteration in them. “Sed ilia mutari vetat religio, et consecratis utendum est.—In our days,” said a sub-prior of St Antony, “let us beware of innovations.” This reasoning in favour of Catholic saints and relics is precisely similar to that which an English prelate opposed to the repeal of some grossly absurd ecclesiastical Statutes, when a motion was some years ago made by earl Stanhope, to get rid of them.—Ed. ⁵³

Art. Launoi.

RELIGION.
(Of learned and of prudent men)

A Divine of Wirtemberg affirms that Reinesius, who went to the Lutheran churches, and communicated with the Lutherans, spoke so ill of their divines, and of their doctrine, and liturgies, that he was worse than a professed adversary. Hence he concludes, either that he was of the religion of prudent men, or that he favoured it; for he openly declared that he followed a certain religion in certain points, and another religion in other points. That divine had explained in another place what he meant by the religion of prudent men. Here is the substance of bis discourse.

“A Dutchman said one day, that the religion of Grotius was that of learned men. Being asked what religion it was, he answered, ‘ they believe what they please.’ Kromaier, a divine of Leipsic, held it for a certain thing that Grotius had followed the religion of prudent men, which is a mixture of many religions, and is made up of several doctrines suited to our taste and interest. It is called the religion of prudent men, because the wise men of this world pitch upon it with great prudence, as they think, and keep it as long as they please; it is also called the political and philosophical religion. It goes by the first of these two names, because the politicians make choice of it; for they are men who will be free in that point, and who turn themselves all manner of ways. It is styled philosophical, because it frees a man from the obligation of believing; and it is well known that a philosopher submits to no human authority, and will not swear to the words of any master; “liber homo philosophus nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri.” The author mentions two other epithets; he says that this religion of prudent men is called “eclectic,” or “eclogistic.” I wonder he said nothing of the sect of the

eclectic philosophers, founded by Potamon of Alexandria, who lived in the time of Augustus, who were neither Platonists, nor Stoics, nor Peripatetics, nor of any other particular sect; but they took out of every one of them what they liked best, and left the rest Such is the notion of the religion ascribed to Reinseius. It was a religion of choice, a mosaic work, a work made up of in-laid pieces. There are more people than is commonly believed, who form such a religion to themselves, and do not boast of it. They might be called in Latin miscelliones.—Art. Reinesius.

RELIGION.
(Of a Sovereign.)

In regard to the spirit, the heart, and the religion of a sovereign, Plutarch testifies, that those who governed in Lacedemon, acknowledged no other justice than that which tended to the advantage and aggrandizing of the state. It was among them the rule and the measure of law and honesty, if a thing were useful to the public, it immediately passed for lawful. I believe Plutarch says the truth; but he ought not to have confined his observations to the city of Sparta alone. Those of Athens and Thebes had no better principles; and generally speaking, they are the maxims of all states: the only difference is in the degrees; some save appearances better than others. However, Agesilaus was quite abandoned to this iniquitous morality. Being suspected to have induced Phebidas to surprise the citadel of Thebes in full peace, and by a fraud, which made all Greece exclaim, he represented, " that they ought first to examine whether the action was of advantage to the state; and that every person ought, in his private capacity, to do what tended to the advantage of the state. He obtained that Phebidas should be acquitted, and that a garrison should be sent into the Citadel. In his Egyptian expedition,

did he not abandon Tachos, who had hired his assistance, and embrace the interests of Nectanebus, for this reason alone, because it was more for the interest of the Lacedemonians to support the latter than the former? an action which, under the mask of public good, was downright treachery, as Plutarch himself has observed. In conversation, Agesilaus talked of nothing but justice; his discourses upon this subject were the finest in the world. Hearing that a certain thing was pleasing to the “great king,” he demanded, “how is he greater than I, if he is not more just?” Fine theory! but his practice did not answer it, when his kingdom was in question. I am apt to believe that, for private views, he could not easily have acted against conviction; and this is the reason why I pretend he had the religion of a sovereign. How many kings and princes are zealous for their religion, just, and honest in themselves; but if it be thought for the public good to annoy their enemies, most of them, if not all, follow the maxims of Lacedemon! I believe a book entitled, “The Religion of a Sovereign,” would sell well; it would cause the “Religio Medici” to be forgotten.

Two days ago, I heard a person of merit say, “that an Italian prince, demanding too advantageous conditions, in negotiating a treaty of peace with a powerfill monarch, who had taken most of his dominions from him, the envoy of that monarch answered him; 'but what security will you give the king, my master, if he comply with all your demands?’ 'Answer him,’

replied the prince, ' that I engage my word to him, not in quality of a sovereign, for as such I must sacrifice every thing to aggrandize myself, and lay hold of every opportunity of contributing to the glory and advantage of my dominions; tell him then, that I engage my word to him, not in this quality (which would be to promise nothing) but as a gentleman and an honest man.’” Though this language does not answer

the ideas of those who have introduced in the style of the chancery the set form, “we promise upon the faith and word of a king;” yet it is very sincere and very just.

Let us make two remarks more. First, I distinguish between the belief of Urban VIII, and that of Mapheus Barbarini. The religion of a sovereign, as such, and religion, personally speaking, are two things.

My other remark is this. Agesilaus had a very great respect for his gods; he would not suffer their temple to be plundered nor prophaned, either in Greece, or in the country of the barbarians; and he reckoned those as sacrilegious, who ill treated an enemy that took refuge in a temple. During the march of his troops, he lodged always in the most sacred temples, to have the gods witnesses of his most private domestic actions. This was his personal religion, but as soon as he looked upon himself as a king, the good and the advantage of his kingdom were his chief divinity, to which he sacrificed virtue and justice, divine and human laws. I cannot tell whether all those that cite this sentence thus translated from Euripides,

Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia
Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas,

comprehend all the energy of it: one may see in it the spirit of those that acquire kingdoms, and of those that govern states; they fall sometimes into superstition. Look upon Agesilaus’s particular conduct; it is very regular, “aliis rebus pietatem colas;” he does not swerve from equity, but as he is a king, “regnandi gratia violandum est.” As a man, he will tell you sincerely, “amicus usque ad aras;” but if he speak according to his thought as a sovereign, he will tell you, “I will observe the treaty of peace so long as the good of my kingdom requires it; I will laugh at my oath as soon as the maxim of state will have it so. If he would rather have the Persians violate the truce, than to begin to violate it himself, it is because he

hoped for a great profit from that conduct of the Persians. Our good Agesilaus, who would have thought it a sin against good morality, if he had been well clothed, and if he had made good cheer, made no scruple to be the usurper of a kingdom. Thus certain casuists damn women without remission that dress themselves too delicately: they can neither suffer their ribbons nor their jewels; but they do not only permit men to revolt, and to engage themselves in a civil war, but even exhort them to it.—Art. Agesilaus.

RELIGIOUS MURDER.

Peter de la Place was born in the country of Angoulême: he was in his youth so well educated in learning, that he alone of all his brothers resolved to follow the study of the law, in which he made such proficiency, that before he was twenty-two years of age, he composed a paraphrase on actions, and about that time began to frequent and practise at the bar of the parliament of Paris, where he acquired the character of a sensible, well-spoken, and conscientious man; for which reason, Francis I chose him for his advocate in bis Court of Aids, at Paris. He executed that office with the greatest integrity, and therefore Henry II chose him, himself, out of many, to be his first president in the Court of Aids. He inwardly embraced the faith of the reformed churches in the year 1554, and professed it openly after the death of Francis II: but the troubles that arose soon after, obliged him to retire, for the security of his person, to his own house in the country of Picardy. The calm returning in the year 1562, he went to the king to clear himself of several malicious aspersions which some enemies had thrown upon him; and after his majesty was satisfied with his defence, he paid his respects to the prince of Condé, who immediately committed to him the charge and superintendency of all his household

affairs; which he undertook with such zeal, that in all things relating to the prince, he spared neither his substance, nor children, nor even his own person, so much was he devoted to his service. The disturbances which broke out again five years after, made him retire once more from Paris to the castle of Vé, in Valois, where he suffered great persecution. The reformed church, having enjoyed some rest, he returned to his own house, and notwithstanding the opposition of a certain person, who during the war had been possessed of his place, he entered again upon his office of president, and exercised it without blemish, being respected by all honest men, and feared by the wicked, till the massacre of St Bartholomew; at which he was killed in the manner following: “Captain Michael, arquebusier to Charles IX, went to the house of Peter de la Place at six o'clock in the morning. He was armed with an arquebuse on his shoulder, and a pistol at his girdle, and as a signal that he was one of the massacreers, wore a napkin about his left arm. The first words he spoke were, that the duke of Guise had killed, by the king's order, the admiral and several other Huguenot lords: and as all the rest of the Huguenots, whatever quality they were of, were destined to death, he was come to the house of the said M. de la Place to save him from that calamity. But that he desired they would show him the gold and silver that was in the house. The answer of M de la Place made the captain blaspheme, and obliged him to tell him that he ordered him to come and speak with the king. La Place then doubting there was some great sedition in the city, slipt out at a back door of his house, designing to retire to a neighbour's house. In the mean while, most of the servants disappeared, and the captain, having got a thousand crowns, as he was going away, was entreated by Madame des Maretz, daughter to the said La Place, to conduct her and her husband M. des Maretz to the house of some Catholic friend, which he agreed to, and actually did. After that, the said M. de la Place, having been refused access at three different houses, was forced to return to his own, where he found his wife in a very melancholy condition. P. de Farnace, p. 20. ⁵⁴ He exhorted her to patience, then ordered the servants that remained in the house to be called, who being come into his chamber, as he had used every Sunday to make a form of exhortation to his family, he went to prayer, then began to read a chapter of Job, with the exposition or sermon of Calvin, and discoursed a little upon the justice and mercy of God: ‘ who,’ said he, Hike a good father, exercises his elect with divers chastisements, that their minds may not be fixed on the things of this life?’ . . . Then he went to prayer again, preparing both himself and all his family, to endure all sorts of torments, and even death itself, rather than do any thing against the honour of God. Having ended his prayer, they came to tell him that M. de Senescay, prevost de 1’hôtel, with several of his archers were at the gate demanding, by the king’s order, that the gate might be opened, and saying that he came to preserve the person of the said de la Place, and to hinder the house from being plundered by the populace: whereupon the said M. de la Place commanded the gate to be opened for him, who being entered, told him the great slaughter that was made of the Huguenots throughout the whole city, and by the order of the king, adding these words mingled with Latin, that there would not be left one single man, ‘ qui mingat ad parietem.’ Nevertheless, that the king had expressly commanded him to take care that no injury be done him, but to bring him to the Louvre, because his majesty wanted to be informed by him of several things relating to the affairs of the Protestants, of which he had had the management, and therefore that he should prepare himself to go to the king. M. de la Place answered, that he should always think himself extremely happy to have the opportunity, before he left this world, of giving an account to his majesty of all his actions and behaviour; but that it was impossible for him then to go to the Louvre, considering the horrible massacre that was committed in the city, without running the greatest and most manifest hazard of his life, but that it was in his power to assure his majesty of his person, by leaving in his house such a number of his archers as he should think fit, till the fury of his people was abated. Senescay consented to it, and left with him one of his lieutenants, called Toutevoye, and four of his archers. A little while after Senescay was gone, the president Charon, then prevost of the merchants of Paris, came to the house, where, after he had talked some time in secret, he left at his departure four archers of the city, with those of Senescay. Senescay returning about two o'clock in the afternoon, declared to him that he had a very positive and repeated order from the king to bring him, and that there must be no farther delay. P. de Farnace, p. 21, et seq. ⁵⁵ All the remonstrances of La Place being to no purpose, he begged of him at last to accompany him in person; to which Senescay replied, that having other affairs upon his hands, he could not conduct him above fifty paces. Ibid, p. 25. ⁵⁶ The wife of the said De la Place threw herself at the feet of the said Senescay, to beseech him to go with her said husband: but upon that, the said M. de la Place, who never showed the least sign of fear, lifted up his wife, reproving her, and telling her, ‘ it was not to the arm of flesh, but to God only she must have recourse.’ Then turning about, he perceived in the hat of his eldest son a paper cross, which he had put there through infirmity, thinking to save himself by that means, for which he chid him severely, commanding him to take off from his hat that mark of sedition, and evincing to him that the true cross we must wear, was tribulation and affliction, which God sent upon us as a sure earnest of the felicity and life eternal that he has prepared for his people. After that, finding himself very much pressed by the said Senescay to set out in order to go to his majesty, being entirely resolved upon death, which he saw was prepared for him, he took his cloak, embraced his wife, and earnestly recommended to her above all things to have the honour and fear of God before her eyes, and so he went away very cheerful. When he was come as far as Glass-house-street, over against Cock-street, certain murderers, who had waited for him with naked daggers about three hours, killed him like an innocent lamb, in the midst of ten or twelve archers of the said Senescay who conducted him, and his house was pillaged for the space of five or six days together. The body of the said Sieur de la Place, whose soul was taken up into heaven, was carried to a stable by the town house, where the face was all covered with dung, and the next morning it was thrown into the river." P. de Farnace, p. 17, et seq. 6 3 ⁵⁷—Art. Place.

RELIGIOUS POLICY.
(Of Spain, Portugal, &c.)

The Spaniards and Portuguese have omitted nothing that the subtilest and severest politics can invent to maintain a party. They have made use of every means for the support of Christianity, and the destruction of Judaism; and they cannot be accused without injustice, of having committed the church to the protection of heaven, with the dispositions of such as quickly expect every thing from the efficacy of their prayers. No one would say, on the contrary, that they

have followed the advice which a Heathen poet has given about a business of agriculture:

Non tamen ulla magis praesens fortuna laborum est,
Quam si quis ferro potuit rescindere summum
Ulceris os. Aliter vitiam vivitque tegendo:
Dum medicas adhibere manus ad vulnera pastor
Abnegat, aut meliora deos sedet omina poscens.

Virgil. Georgic. 1. 3. v 452.

Or else one would be apt to say, that they have squared their conduct by the reproaches which Cato made to the Romans, when he blamed them for confiding in the assistance of the gods who, added he, “never hear the prayers of the slothful, for sloth is a sign of the anger of heaven.” Lastly, one may say, that the lesson which they are most apt to practise is the latter part of the axiom, which a modern has set down in these words: “we must, as it were, wholly abandon ourselves to providence, as if all human prudence were useless; and we must govern ourselves by the dictates of human prudence, as if there were no providence.” Without doubt they would laugh at an author, who should blame them for using Christianity like an old palace, so much decayed that it wants props on every side; and Judaism like a strong fortress, which one must cannonade and bombard continually, in order to weaken it. We may justly condemn certain ways of maintaining the good cause; but when all is done, as good as it is, it will not do without assistance: and distrust is the mother of safety.

Lubienietzki, a Socinian, disputed a long time with the Hamburgh ministers; who so frequently solicited the authorities to make him depart, that he received frequent orders to retire; and it was in vain to say that his Danish majesty honoured him with his protection, or that he was innocent: for he was forced to yield to the storm. However, some years after he returned to Hamburgh, believing that nobody would think of him more; but he was mistaken: one of the

faculty of divinity was so vigilant and vehement, as to renew the instances with the magistrates; and the people had been so exasperated, by representing Lubienietzki as a public pest, that he durst hardly stir out of hrs lodgings. There is hardly a Catholic or Protestant but will praise this conduct of the Lutheran ministers. If you allege to them that it is expressing too much diffidence of their cause, they have good answers ready. They will tell you that diffidence is the mother of security, and when Jesus Christ promised his church that the gates of hell should not prevail against her, he meant not to exclude human means, which are most proper to preserve orthodoxy; I mean the edicts of princes, which stop the mouth of the heterodox, and stifle the knowledge of objections which might be made against the holy doctrine: if you reply that after all, they behave themselves as if they had not read the book of Esdras, Esdras, Book III, ch. 3 and 4. ⁵⁸ in which the force of truth is rendered superior to all others, whether that of wine, or a king, or of women; and that on the contrary, they believe it unable to subsist in the places where it sways, if it be left exposed to the attacks of three or four fugitives; they will answer you that the heart of man is more inclined to ill than good, and that therefore error is more capable of seducing him than truth of undeceiving him; so that Christian prudence does not suffer us to allow heretics the proposing their arguments. I question whether there ever was any subject more fecund in replies and answers; it may be turned several ways in every sense, and hence an author will maintain to you to-day, that truth need only to show itself to confound heresy; and to-morrow, that if heresy be suffered to expose its subtilties, it will quickly corrupt the people. One day, you shall have the truth represented as an immoveable rock; another, you shall be told that it ought not to be hazarded in dispute, as being a rencounter in which it would dash itself in pieces with respect to the hearers. What are we to do in this volubility of reasoning? There are some who preserve truth as they do a piece of china, and seem to be convinced, that as it has the transparency, so it has the brittleness of crystal—Arts. Acosta and Lubienietzki.

RELIGIOUS RESIGNATION.

John de Ruysbroeck, in Latin Rusbrochius, was so called from the village of Ruysbroeck in Brabant, between Brussels and Hall, where he was born. He was first curate and then rector of the church of St Gudula at Brussels, and afterwards founder and first prior of a convent of canons regular of the order of St Augustin at Groendal, in the forest of Soignies, two leagues from Brussels; and lastly reformer of the order in all the Low Countries. He was a man of no learning, but very devout and contemplative, and altogether internal; and went so far into the depths of mystical divinity, that he passed for one of the great masters in that science. He was called a Dionysius Areopagita. He wrote several books in Dutch, the manuscripts of which are kept in the monastery of Groendal, with the Latin version of some of them translated by William Jordan, his contemporary, and of the same fraternity with the author. By reason of his ignorance, it was thought that he was to be accounted one of those who have written by inspiration, or without any other assistance save that of a profound meditation. He retired into a remote corner of the forest, and there expected the inspirations from above, and as he received them, he wrote them in his pocket-book. The character of this mystical divine may be learnt from his submission to the divine will, which extended even to the torments of hell; that is he found nothing was better than to be willing to suffer whatever God should be pleased to send,

death, or life, or even the pains of hell. In this manner he explained himself one day, when some body attempted to inspire him with the fear of infernal pains. “When Gerhard perceiving Ruysbroeck professed faith, love, and trust in God, would sometimes try to excite in him the fear of the divine judgment, and of hell, by quoting several passages of scripture to that effect; the man was so far from being moved thereby, that his love to God seemed to be more inflamed; and at last he would answer: 'M. Gerhard, assure yourself that from my heart I am willing to suffer whatever the Lord shall be pleased to lay on me, whether it be death or life, or even the intolerable pains of hell. For I judge nothing more pleasant, or better, or more to my advantage, nor do I seek or desire any thing else, than that my beloved Lord God may always find me willing and prepared to comply with the good pleasure of his will.' This briefly discovers the principles of the man. Arnold. Hist. Theol. Mystic. p. 308. ⁵⁹” Mr Arnold, from whom I have taken what I have related, says that Ruysbroeck was not so much as other mystics occupied in squaring his actions according to the law from a principle of the servile fear of punishment, but all his endeavour and study was the exercise of a free evangelical virtue, manifesting itself by the filial spirit that operates in every true believer.

We may observe by the bye, that there is no doctrine for which the mystics are so much exclaimed against, as for that of consenting to their own eternal damnation.

Ruysbroeck died the second day of December, 1381, at the age of eighty-eight years.—Art. Ruysbroeck.

RELIGIOUS SLANDER.

We must own that, both on the side of the Catholic and of the Protestant, there has prevailed a cruel custom of loading with infamy those who have changed

their religion, and of employing all manner of abuse for that purpose. Their whole life was sifted, even back to their infancy; all the sins of their youth were brought together; every part of their behaviour was pried into; loose reports, facts which might be true, and such as could admit of a bad construction, were all assembled and blended together, when minds, full of suspicion and distrust, examined them without mercy, and an infinite number of satires composed after this manner, were dealt about in the world. We need not ask, “cui bono, to what purpose?” for it is manifest enough that both sides proposed two or three considerable advantages by this proceeding. They hoped that the conduct of deserters would give no scandal, provided they represented these deserters as persons who had sold themselves to iniquity, and were void both of honour and conscience. By this they would prevent its being believed, that the uncertainty of the doctrines which they maintained, and the reasons alleged by the other side had prevailed with those deserters to abjure their religion. They would lessen the triumph of their adversaries, by maintaining that they had only gained proselytes who were ruined and infamous in their character. In short, by exposing to infamy those who had revolted, they proposed to raise a greater horror against revolting; and to frighten any who should think of apostatizing; it being probable that those who were afraid of satire, would not dare to lay themselves open to it by changing their religion, when so many formidable examples might teach them that their party would fully execute this threatening.

Quid me commorit (melius non tangere clamo)
Flebit et insignia tota cantabitur urbe.

Horace, Sat. I, lib. ii, ver. 45.

For if he does, he shall repent the wrong:
The warning's fair, his vices shall be shown,
And life exposed to all the cens'ring town.

Creech.

But if the advantage were visible in those respects, the loss was not less visible on other accounts; and thus it is surprising that the foresight of the bad consequences of this resentment did not temper it. Nothing could harden the adverse party in their errors more than the lash of these personal satires. Each side imagines that the followers of the other are slaves to a blind prejudice, and a passionate obstinacy; and does not each confirm the other in such an opinion, when they blacken the character of the man who has left them, and employ against him not a modest, civil, and charitable answer to the motives which he publishes, but a violent answer, and personal defaming invectives? That side which has won a proselyte gives no credit to the stories published by the side which he has left, but looks upon them as base calumnies, and thus they persuade themselves more and more that nothing prevails on the other side but passion and obstinacy, without the least mixture of an evangelical temper. Surely to persecute a convert with libels, is the way to alienate him wholly. Perhaps he would have returned into the pale of the church, had he been calmly and civilly admonished of his fault; his return would have been a triumph which might have been advantageously opposed to the victory which their enemies boasted of; but that advantage is lost if they irritate this weak brother. He cannot but be very sensible of his innocence with regard to some points in the satires which defame him. Thenceforward he conceives a bad opinion of his ancient brethren, and of the motive by which they act. If the truths which they divulge make him uneasy, the lies serve not a little to make him more so; he contracts a hatred against their persons which disposes him to hate their opinions; so that he who was at first only an outward convert, now becomes one inwardly. Anger produces this effect. It is probable that Spondanus, for instance, possessed with this passion, by reason of the

terrible calumnies which were spread about against him, banished every idea which might recommend to him his former religion. He grew a staunch Catholic out of a resentment against the Protestants. Du Perron’s discourses could not so much confirm him in the Romish religion as his own resentment.

It will be in vain to object to me in the words of the Psalmist, “Imple faciem eorum ignominia, quærent nomen tuum Domine,—Lord, cover their face with reproach, and they will seek thy name.” I will answer, that when we make this prayer, we ought to leave the issue of it to Providence, and not assign it to the pens of satirical writers. They are very unfit persons to bring back into the way of truth those whom they defame for having turned aside from it. They have not well understood that an evangelical spirit is a fire which ought to enlighten and warm, but. not to burn, calcinate, and stigmatize. We must say the same thing of this fire that a Spanish author said of the fire of virtuous love: “Arde y no quema, alumbra y no danna; quema y no consume; resplende y no lastima, purifica y no abrasa; y aun calienta y no congoxa.----It glows, but scorches not; it enlightens, but hurts not; it burns, but consumes not; it glitters, but dazzles not; it refines, without destroying; and though it be hot, yet it is not painful.”

As to the profit which may arise from the art of being formidable by satire, it is a disputable point. I would not deny that when people observe that their failings are supported, while they appear zealous for their religion, but that, if they leave it, these failings will furnish matter for dematory libels, they may be restrained from abjuring, by the fear of slander. A satirist may strike with terror those who are not conscious of their innocence.

Ense velut stricto, quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita fudant præcordio culpa.

Juven. Sat. 1, ver. 165.

But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on every part,
And pain and anguish seize the vicious heart.

He may even alarm the mind of a good man, who is desirous of an honest fame. We know too well the power of calumny, and that the testimony of a good conscience does not secure us against the credulity of mankind. But after all, is it not a considerable advantage to keep weak members within the pale of the church; and should we not imagine that the fear of slander will be but a weak barrier to those whom other passions animate to revolt, and who may depend upon being cordially received by the opposite party, and on being reputed by them as virtuous persons, and undeservedly calumniated? The change of religion is a marvellous wash in the eye of converters. They may be said to claim the right of promising' what God promises in the Bible—“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Observe, that in order to weaken the strength of satires, the adverse party made them pass for an artifice, and at last pretended that this mine having taken air, had no effect. Let us quote a modern author.

“This declamation . . . is not more serviceable

to this author’s design, which is to blacken the reputation of all those who are converted to the end, that the fear of being ranked among defamed persons might hinder others from turning Catholics. I own that when the Protestant party bethought themselves of this stratagem, some people at first were simple enough to be deceived by it, and to be kept in their errors for fear of losing their reputation. But that artifice is become entirely useless, because all the world knows at this time that reasonable people, whether they be Catholics or Protestants, give no longer any credit to calumnies of this nature, since

they have become general, and spare nobody. Every body knows that he who returns to the Catholic religion thereby loses with the Protestants the character of a good man, and is as much despised by them as he was formerly valued. So that they who declaim on this head have the misfortune of being minded by nobody, and of having lost their time in whetting satirical weapons which wound no one and return upon themselves.”—Art. Spondanus.

RELIGIOUS WARS.

Macon is a city of France upon the Saone, in the duchy of Burgundy. Caesar mentions it, who calls it Matisco. About five hundred years ago, by an ordinary transposition of letters, Matisco was changed into Mastico, from whence came the name Mascon, which is now pronounced Macon. This city was treated cruelly during the disorders which the wars about religion produced in France in the 16th century. The Reformed set up a church there in 1560, and they multiplied there so fast, that they easily made themselves masters of the city, when the massacre at Vassi obliged them to consult their own safety. It was about the beginning of May, 1562, that they made themselves masters of it, without much violence or effusion of blood. Three days after, they heard that the images were broken down in the city of Lyons, and it was impossible for the ministers and elders of the city to hinder the common people of Macon from doing the like, and from that time the exercise of the Romish religion was suppressed there. Tavannes made several attempts to retake this city, but without success: at last, by the help of secret intelligence, he surprized it, August 19, 1562. He made himself master of it, after some hot skirmishes with the inhabitants in the streets. All sorts of plunderings and cruelties were committed, and then

happened the celebrated leaps of Macon. I shall use the very words of the historian: Beza, Hist. Eccles. lib. xv. pag. 429. ⁶⁰ “The exercise of the Romish religion was presently restored there, and the priests and monks returned to their former state, together with the brothel houses. To complete the misfortunes, St Poinct, a man of a sanguinary and cruel temper, ( whose mother had declared in open court, to clear her conscience, that he was the son of a priest, whom she named ) was left by Tavannes, governor of the city, who for his pastime, after he had feasted the ladies, was used to ask whether the force, which was from that time called ‘ the force of St Poinct was ready to be acted. This was, as it were, the watch word, upon which his people were wont to bring out of prison one or two prisoners, and sometimes more, whom they carried to the bridge of the Saone; and he being there with the ladies, after he had asked them some ’pretty and pleasant questions, he caused them to be thrown down headlong, and drowned in the river. It was also a usual thing to give false alarms, and upon that pretence to drown or shoot some prisoner, or any other whom he could catch, of the reformed religion, charging them with a design to betray the city.” He was killed by one Achon, with whom he quarrelled, as he was returning from his house near the city, whither he had carried about 20,000 crowns of plunder. It was a little after the pacification of the month of March, 1563. D’Aubigné D’Aubig. Hist. tom. i. page 216. ⁶¹ admirably describes the barbarity of the man, under the picture of a school, wherein, during the last service at table, while the fruit and sweetmeats are eating, the young men and maids were taught to see the Huguenots put to death without pity. He says elsewhere, “that St Poinct played the buffoon at the execution of his cruelties, and that, at the conclusion of his feasts, he entertained the ladies with the pleasure of seeing some persons leap from the bridge into the water.” The conduct of this governor was much more cruel than that of Lucius Flaminius, who gave order, during the time of dinner, that a criminal should be put to death in his presence, to please the object of his infamous amours, who had never seen any person killed. Plutarch in Flamin. p. 379. ⁶² But on the other side, the conduct of these ladies of Macon was much more to be blamed than that of the vestals, whom a Christian poet has so much censured for the pleasure they took in seeing the gladiators killed.

. . . . . . . . . . . consurgit ad ictus:
Et quoties victor ferrum jugulo inserit ilia,
Delicias, ait esse suas, petusque jacentis
Virgo modesta jubet con verso pollice rumpi.

Prudentius, lib. ii. in Symmach. ver. 1095.

Nor turns the modest virgin from the sight,
But, with strange cruelty, enjoys the light,
And, when at length she sees the prostrate foe,
By signals bids the victor strike the blow.

I doubt not but St Poinct alleged, in his excuse, the leaps of the soldiers of Montbrison by Des Adrets, See the Article Partizans. ⁶³ as the latter pleaded in his excuse the cruelties that were exercised at Orange. Thus we see how one bad example draws on another, almost without end: “abyssus abyssum invocat;” wherefore they are most to blame who set the example, and in justice they should be punished for all the crimes which follow. D’Aubigné had not well consulted the dates, when he says, “that the baron Des Adrets, being offended with the sacking of Orange, and the throwing men headlong at Mâcon, marched to Pierrelate, made himself master of several towns,

and at last came to Montbrison.” For it appears by Theodore Beza that Pierrelate and other towns had been subdued by Des Adrets before the 26th of June, and that the soldiers of Montbrison leaped the 16th of July, and that Macon was taken by Tavannes the 19th of August.

For the honour of the French name, and of the Christian name, it were to be wished that the memory of these inhuman proceedings had been utterly abolished, and that all the books which mention them had been thrown into the fire. Those who seem to find fault with histories, because they serve only to teach the readers all sorts of crimes, have in some respects much reason to say so, with regard to the history of the religious wars; for it seems well calculated to nourish in the minds of men an irreconcileable hatred, and it astonishes me to see that the French of different religions have lived, since the edicts, in so much brotherly love, though they had continually in their hands the histories of our civil wars, wherein they meet with nothing but sacking of towns, profanation of holy things, massacres, overturning of altars, assassinations, perjuries, and outrageous actions. This good correspondence had been less worthy of admiration, if all private persons had been ignorant of the stories which each party objects to the other. May it not, therefore, be said to me, that I seem to have a design to revive the passions of men, and to add fuel to the fire of hatred, by spreading every where in my work the cruellest actions that the history of the sixteenth century mentions; an abominable century, and, in comparison of which, the present generation might pass for the golden age, as much a stranger as it is to true virtue. It is fit I should clear up this difficulty. I say then, that 1 am so far from having any design to excite in the breasts of my readers these storms of wrath, that I should willingly consent that this sort of events might never be remembered, provided that

by this means every one would learn better things, and do his duty better, without indulging his passions; but as these things are dispersed in a great number of books, I would not lay myself under a restraint, in hopes the affectation of saying nothing of them in this might do any good, and I thought myself at liberty to make use of whatever lay in my way, and to follow the connection there may be between subjects. I ought not to forget either, that as every thing has two handles, so it were to be wished, for very good reasons, that the memory of these terrible barbarities were carefully preserved. Three sorts of persons ought to view them every day, and consider them well. Those who govern should employ a page every morning to say to them: “Disturb no person for his opinions in religion, and extend not the power of the sword over conscience. See what Charles IX and his successor got by it. It is a miracle that the French monarchy was not destroyed by their zeal for the Catholic religion. Such miracles do not happen every day, and depend not upon them. They would not suffer the, edict of January to continue, and after more than thirty years’ desolation, and a torrent of blood, and many thousand perjuries and conflagrations, they were obliged to grant one more favourable.” Those who conduct ecclesiastical affairs are the second sort of people, who ought to remember well the sixteenth century. When they hear any one speak of toleration they fancy they hear a most frightful and monstrous opinion, and to interest the secular power on the side of their passions, they cry, “that this is to deprive the magistrates of the best flower of their crown, if they are not allowed at least to imprison and banish Heretics.” But if they would duly consider what is to be feared from a religious war, they would be more moderate. “You will not,” may we say to them, allow this sect to pray to God in its own way, nor preach its opinions; but take heed, if you come to an open war, lest, instead of speaking or writing against your opinions, they overturn your temples and endanger your own persons. What have you gained in France and Holland by advising persecution? Trust not to your great numbers. Your sovereigns have neighbours, and consequently your sectaries will not want protectors and assistants, though they were Turks. Lastly, let those turbulent divines, who take so much pleasure in innovations, continually have in view the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The reformers were the innocent cause of them, for, according to their principles, there was no medium: they must either suffer the Papists to be damned eternally, or convert them to Protestantism. But that people, who are persuaded that an error does not damn at all, should have no regard to possession, and rather disturb the public peace than suppress their own private opinions, is a thing that cannot be too much detested.

There is no probability that any party should arise among the Protestants to reform their religion after the same manner as they reformed the Romish church, that is, as a religion we must necessarily forsake except we will be damned. Thus the disorders that might be feared from any innovating party, would be less terrible than those of the last century; the animosities would be less violent than at that time, especially since none of the parties could destroy any sensible object of superstition in the other; there would be no topical deities or tutelar] saints to be broken, or coined into money; no reliques to be thrown away, no pixes or altars to be overturned. There might, therefore, be some differences between Protestant and Protestant, without fearing all the outrages that appeared in the quarrels between Protestant and Catholic; but still the mischief would be fatal enough to deserve our endeavours to prevent it.

To conclude, the leaps of Mâcon have been more

immortalized than those of the isle of Caprea. And yet a famous historian has inserted them in his work, and the place was shown as one of the curiosities of the isle. " Carnificinæ ejus (Tiberii) ostenditur locus Capreis, unde damnatos post longa et exquisita tormenta praecipitari coram se in mare jubebat, excipiente classiariorum manu et contis atque remis elidente cadavera, ne cui residui spiritus quidquam in esset.— In Caprea they shew the place where Tiberius exercised his cruelties; when after long and exquisite tortures, he ordered the condemned to be thrown headlong into the sea, a body of mariners receiving them in their falls, and dashing to pieces their bodies with poles and oars, to prevent their escaping alive.” But in short, I do not believe that the ancients are to be compared with the moderns, in transferring the same things from one book to another, and so the leaps of Macon are to be read in more places, and have more monuments for pledges of their immortality than those of the emperor Tiberius. It was not for the credit of those who made use of such a punishment in the sixteenth century that they followed the steps of such a tyrant. Art. Macon.

RETIREMENT OF AUTHORS.

Few persons know how to retreat in time, or can say with Horace:

Est mihi purgatam crebro qui personet aurem:
Solve senescentem maturè sanus equum, ne
Peccet ad extremus ridendus et ilia ducat.

Hor. Epist. 1, lib. i.

The voice of reason cries with piercing force,
Loose from the rapid car yon aged horse,
Lest in the race divided, left behind,
Jaded he drag his limbs, and burst his wind.

Francis.

Poets and orators ought to be most careful of withdrawing from their business at a proper time, because they stand most in need of the warmth of imagination; yet it too frequently happens that they persist in their career till the lowest decline of age. They think the public is obliged to drink the very dregs of their pretended nectar. But if formerly the legislators limited the time wherein people might marry, (for they prohibited it to women of fifty and men of sixty years of age) and if they supposed that, after a certain age, it was time to leave off thinking of procreation, either because of the extinction, or the weakness of the faculties, every author ought, for the same reason, to set bounds to himself in the production of books, which is a kind of generation, for which every age is by no means proper. Poets should leave Apollo’s service betimes. I add, that if they feel the return of any poetical fit, they should take it for a temptation of an evil genius, and put up the same prayer to the goddesses of Parnassus that one of their brethren addressed to the Goddess of Love:

. . . parce, precor, precor,
Mon sum qualis eram bonæ
Sub regno Cynaræ. Desine, dulcium
Mater sæva Cupidinum,
Circa lustra decern flectere mollibus
Jam durum imperiis: abi
Quò blandæ juvenum te revocant preces.

Hor. Od. 1, lib. 4, ver. 2.

O spare for pity, Venus, spare!
I am not what I was
In lovely Cynara’s easy reign,
When heat warm'd every vein,
And manly beauty fill’d my face.
Cease, queen of soft desires,
To bend my mind grown stiff with age,
Nor fifty years engage
To crackle in thy wanton fires;
But youth and beauty hear.

Creech.

The service of the Musés is in many things like the service of the ladies; it is better to leave it too soon than too late. It is said that certain kings ordered some of their domestics to tell them every day, “remember such a business.” If it be allowable to compare little things with great ones, old poets should have somebody to tell them every morning, “Remember your age.” Horace boasts of having had such advice given him.—Arts. Afer and D’Auraz·

RHYNSAULT.

This story is related in an ample manner, not without some flourishes of rhetoric, by Pontus Heuterus; the substance of it is thus:—Rhynsault, a very brave captain of duke Philip the good, had obtained for a recompense of his services the government of a place. There he fell in love with his landlady, a woman of singular beauty and modesty. He talked to her of love, and swore to be secret and constant to her. She answered that her conscience would not suffer her to violate her conjugal faith, and that he ought to remember the sacred laws of hospitality, and place his inclinations on some other where he might do it lawfully. There were a great many rich maids to be found much preferable to herself for beauty; he might choose one suitable to his temper, and marry her and get children in a legitimate way. This answer serving only to augment his passion, he attacked her on another side; he offers her a large sum of money, and promises to make her go finer than any of her neighbours and relations, and to procure her husband a beneficial and honourable post. His promises making no impression, he raises another battery; he imprisons the husband on pretence of rebellion, and when the wife applied to him as the only means of saving the prisoner’s life, he answered that the crime was manifest,

and that he could not avoid putting him to death, unless the mercy of the sovereign interposed. “I promise to obtain it,” continues he, “provided you will immediately grant me the favour I have asked of you so often.” This proposal made her blush, weep, sigh, raised a combat between conjugal love and virtue, and struck her dumb. He takes advantage of her irresolution, and satisfies his lust. She from time to time presses him to perform his promise; he puts her off with a thousand lies, and at last causes the prisoner’s head to be cut off privately, and made the wife believe she would have him delivered out of prison, on presenting the gaoler a paper which he gave her. She runs to the prison, and there found her husband had lost his life by the hands of the executioner. The sight of such an object struck her speechless, but soon after she returned to the governor and loaded him with all the reproaches that a just indignation could suggest. He makes a hundred excuses and offers to marry her, and promises her a magnificent fortune. She rejected these offers, and related the whole adventure to some relations, who advise her to wait the arrival of duke Charles, and to demand justice of him. That prince having had proof of the governors crimes ordered him to marry the widow; she had an aversion to it which could not be surmounted without a great deal of solicitation. The marriage contract was drawn, and the wife was to inherit all the estate of her husband, if he died before her without children. The ceremony of the marriage was performed in due form, and then the duke asked the woman if she was content?” “Yes,” said she. “But,” replied he, “I am not so.” He then sent the governor to prison, and two hours after he caused him to be beheaded in the same room where the first husband had lost his head. A copy of the sentence of death was delivered to the woman, and she was sent to see that the double crime of a seducer did not go unpunished. She, however, fell' into a melancholy which ended her days a little while after.—Art. Burgundy.

ROMAN WRITERS.
(Judgment on.)

Priolo was no great admirer of Cicero; he admired Livy and found him so inimitable, that despairing to copy his excellences, he resolved to imitate Tacitus. He was extremely fond of Seneca, and preferred Lucan to Virgil, and the tenderness of Catullus to the majesty of Horace. Rhodius his good friend and his panegyrist, wonders at the oddness of his taste. “Senecam deperibat: nescio quo malo genio M. Tullium ingentem virum, Romanae eloquentiae patrem, non admiratus est: cæteros ad unguem tenebat. Tit. Livium inimitabilem praedicabat, ideoque desperans, nobis posterisque Tacitum repraesentavit. Lucanum praeferebat Virgilio: quis hoc credat? Et teneras Catulli amationes Horatianae majestati.” It is certain that this judgment is wrong; for a man who prefers Livy to Tacitus, should place Cicero above Seneca, and Virgil above Lucan. The eloquence and character of Cicero, Livy, and Virgil, are much of the same kind. Those authors do not affect to be bright; they cast without any affectation, a light which adorns the whole work; but does not dazzle the reader as those of some other writers, who instead of letting every ray pass through its proper medium, have recourse to a kind of dioptric in order to collect together an infinite number of rays to cast the greater light. It is their chief study; it was the method of Seneca, the two Plinys, and Tacitus. Lucan in like manner, toils and labours hard to express himself in an uncommon manner, and to appear great and lofty. It must be confessed that they were men of very great parts, and perhaps they would

have taken a more natural course, if they had lived in the time of Cicero, Livy, and Virgil; but they began to study when the true taste began to be depraved. It was with the Romans as it is with those who are used to drink excellent wines; their taste grows dull, nothing will serve their turn but brandy or the strongest liquors. A majestic, natural, and uniform eloquence, became insipid when people were used to it: they were for witty strokes and flights; the day-light was not sufficient for them, they wanted flashes of lightning: the French begin to be sick of the same distemper. Seneca and Tacitus complied with the common taste, they were afraid of being slighted if they should write like the authors of the golden age: however it be, their style is quite different from that of Livy. How comes it then that Priolo so much admired that historian and Seneca at the same time? How could he prefer Lucan to Virgil, and Seneca to Cicero? There is no uniformity in such a judgment, but we must not dispute about tastes; we must be contented with the matter of fact.—Art. Priolo.

SADDUCEES.

Sadducees, a sect which arose among the Jews two hundred years or thereabouts, before the birth of the Messias. It is thought that Sadok, a disciple of Antigonus Sochæus, was the founder of it. He and Baithus, who was also a disciple of the same Antigonus, put a wrong sense on the doctrine which their master taught them; they concluded that there is neither paradise nor hell, that there are neither rewards nor punishments after this life, from his exhorting them to serve God, not like mercenaries who act only in hopes of getting by it, but like those generous servants who are faithful and obedient to their masters without expecting any reward. This fine

maxim ill interpreted by those two disciples of Antigonus, set them up for heads of a party. They founded two pernicious sects, which utterly subverted religion; and foreseeing that they should be put to death, if they ventured to declare publicly all the consequences arising from their principles, they durst not reject the authority of the Scriptures, they only rejected the traditions. Those who embraced the sect of Sadoc were called Sadducees; they made already a considerable figure in the time of Jonathan, brother to Judas Maccabeus, that is, about the year of Rome, 600; for Josephus informs us that there were at that time three sects among the Jews, vis. that of the Pharisees, that of the Sadducees, and that of the Essenes. He adds that the Sadducees rejected the doctrine of predestination, and taught, that man is the only cause of his own prosperity or adversity, according as he makes a good or an ill use of his free-will. He says in another place that the Sadducees and Pharisees had many quarrels between them, and that the rich people sided with the Sadducees, but the vulgar stood for the Pharisees. The latter prescribed many rites as being transmitted and handed down to them from their ancestors, though they were not written in the law of Moses; on the contrary, the Sadducees rejected all doctrines and ceremonies not contained in the Scripture. We read in the same passage of Josephus, that the high priest Hircanus, who had been a disciple of the Pharisees, forsook and abused them, having declared for the sect of the Sadducees at the suggestion of his favourite Jonathan, who was one of diem. We are told in another place by the same historian, that the Sadducees did not believe the immortality of the soul, nor that God concerned himself with evil, either to do it or to take notice of it.

Josephus farther observes that the number of the Sadducees was not considerable, but that they were

generally invested with the highest dignities, notwithstanding which they had no great interest, for few things were done according to their advice; and those among them who exercised the magistracy were obliged to comply, though against their will, with the decisions of the Pharisees, otherwise they would not have been tolerated by the populace. Josephus makes two observations, which I think will give a great light in the matter; one of them is, that the Sadducees were not severe in inflicting punishments; the other is, that the Sadducees showed great severity in the functions of judicature; lastly, he says that there was no good understanding among them, that they lived like wild beasts, and that friends were not better used in their conversation than if they had been Strangers. It is not easy to reconcile this with what he says in another place, that this sect was not beloved by the meaner sort of the people but by the rich; for the latter do not much agree with morose and peevish humours, but are for introducing the sweets and conveniences of life in all places where they have any intercourse. We ought perhaps to suppose that what he says concerning the discord of the Sadducees and their clownish conversation, signifies nothing more than that they accounted it a virtue to take the liberty of disputing with their masters. It was almost an unavoidable consequence from their principles, since they boldly rejected the authority of tradition, and did not care whether the several texts of the Scripture had been explained by the ancients in such a manner or not; this being laid down, a disciple had as much right to contradict his master, as the latter had to contradict his predecessor, and so on.

The Sadducees are often mentioned in the Holy Scripture, but though it inform us Willemur in Dissertat. Philologica de Sadduceis. ⁶⁴ that they denied

the resurrection of the dead arid the existence of angels and spirits, and that the Pharisees believed both, yet it gives us a worse character of the Pharisees than of the Sadducees. I shall examine what has been said of the immortality of the latter, and will make it appear that no good proofs can be given of it. Mr Willemer charges them with cruelty, and to prove it he says that they induced king John Hircanus to persecute the Pharisees violently. He refers us to the eighteenth chapter of the thirteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities. I have consulted that passage, wherein I find only that Hircanus, a disciple of the Pharisees and very well beloved by them, entirely lost their friendship. They conceived a great hatred against him, and because upon a certain occasion they gave him great reason to be angry with them, he forsook their sect and embraced that of the Sadducees, at the instigation of Jonathan his favourite. He abolished the ordinances of the Pharisees, and severely punished those who observed them; at last he put an end to the sedition which those two sects had raised, and spent the remaining part of his life in peace and felicity. Mr Willemer adds that Alexander Janneus being flattered and instigated by the Sadducees, was more cruel than his father Hircanus, and that having extricated himself out of a thousand difficulties in which he had been entangled by the Jews, he caused eight hundred of the chief men among the Pharisees to be crucified, and that before they expired, he ordered their wives and children to be murdered in their sight. During those executions he gave a grand entertainment to his concubines and to the chief men among the Sadducees. This author refers us to the twenty-second chapter of the thirteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, where I do not find that the Sadducees are mentioned in the least. As for the author of the Cabbala Historica quoted by him, I have not been able to consult him; but though he should say what Mr Willemer alleges out of his book, can we believe him? Can the testimony of a man who lived at so great a distance from those times, be valid in opposition to the silence of Josephus? The German author goes on thus: “At last queen Alexandra by her husband’s advice, and with die assistance of the Pharisees, undertook to restrain the turbulent spirit of the Sadducees by severities, but could not reduce them to reason, nor prevent the new broils which they occasioned in the state between Hircanus and Aristobulus; and when Herod had rid himself of those two princes, the Sadducees made use of their interest with him to commit all manner of crimes. Josephus, in the seventeenth chapter of the sixteenth book of the Jewish Antiquities, is of opinion that Herod was moved by the counsels of the Sadducees; and their impious doctrine concerning the fatal necessity of all things, to the barbarous cruelty he was guilty of in causing his sons to be strangled, and three hundred captains to be stoned to death.” This is Mr Willemer’s account, and thence he concludes that it has been truly said that the Sadducees were very immoral men; that they were Epicurean swine, and very pernicious heretics. Ex vero igitur dictum est, Sadducæos fuisse moribus pessimis, et Epicuri de grege porcos: ita qua doctrinam perniciosos omnino hæreticos.

To confute this author is not very difficult; for first, the matters of fact on which he builds are not to be found in Josephus, the author he alleges to prove them; and secondly, though they were true, it would not follow that the Sadducees wallowed in sensual pleasures as those do who are called Epicuri de grege porci. All that could be proved is, that they made an ill use of their interest with princes to oppress the Pharisees, of whom they had great reason to be afraid, since that sect was animated with a superstitious zeal, and supported by the populace. I confess

that such a conduct is unjust; but the like is to be seen in all parties, or in all factions of state or religion· Those who teach the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, have not been less Careful to take hold of favourable opportunities in order to oppress their rivals. They are generally severe and cruel in their counsels, and therefore there would be nothing singular, nor any character of distinction in the proceedings of the Sadducees, though the matters of fact mentioned by the German writer were true. What will he say then if I shew that they are false or uncertain? which it is not difficult to do.

It is certain that the Jewish historian makes no more mention of the Sadducees than of the Great Mogul, in the chapter where he tells us how Herod caused his sons and the three hundred captains to be put to death. He would have made himself extremely ridiculous if he had said that the doctrine of those men concerning the fatality of all things, moved Herod to such cruelty; for it was notorious that they entirely rejected the doctrine of predestination, and whenever he mentions them, he observes, that according to their principles, a man’s fate depends wholly upon his free-will. I do not deny that Josippus says that the Sadducees occasioned the insurrection of the Jews against Alexander Janneus, and the cruelty of that prince towards that people, because they advised him to persecute the Pharisees and their adherents; but the testimony of such an author is very inconsiderable, especially when we may oppose against it the silence of an historian like Josephus, who never shows the least partiality to the Sadducees. Rabbi Abraham of Salamanca is too modern a writer to give any weight to facts otherwise uncertain, and therefore we are not obliged to believe upon his word, what he says of the immorality of those heretics. Once more, if they had been in general disrespected for their debaucheries and wicked

actions, it is scarcely possible that Josephus, who speaks of them so often, would have been wholly silent on that head, and that the only thing mentioned by him concerning their morals, should strongly incline us to believe that they did not live a sensual life. He says that they were men of a clownish and rough conversation, who showed no move civility to their friends than to strangers. This is not the character of voluptuous men; for on the contrary, they are very Complaisant to one another, their whole study is to multiply the sweets of their conversation, and they banish every thing that diminishes the pleasures of it. Mr Willemer lays a great stress upon St John the Baptist’s calling the Sadducees a generation of vipers; he runs back to the first serpent that seduced Eve. Let him say what he pleases, I need only answer him that the Pharisees were called So as well as they; and therefore if any thing be concluded from it concerning the immoral lives of those who denied the immortality of the soul, it will no less affect those who believed future rewards and punishments. The same may be said of the leaven which our Saviour would have his disciples to beware of; the Pharisees are as much concerned in it as the Sadducees.

Observe, that.it is the opinion of many authors, that the Sadducees called themselves so from a word Which signifies justice or righteousness. Those who approve this etymology remark, that these heretics were called Sadducees because they were ambitious of being accounted just or upright men, and others bestowed that encomium upon them. Mr Willemer cites for this opinion Isidorus, Beatus Rhenanus, Bernard de Breitenbach, and Dr Richard Montague. He says it is disputed from what sort of justice those sectaries were denominated. It was, according to St Jerome, inherent justice or righteousness, for they pretended to have acquired it perfectly by the

observation of the law. Others will have it to be distributive justice, and they are again divided; for some say it is that which consists in rewarding, and others that which consists in punishing. The former pretend, that according to the Sadducees, justice is administered wholly in this world; good men are rewarded and wicked men punished here, and nothing remains to be done after this life. The latter say that those heretics were very severe in the administration of justice, and that they were called Sadducees upon that account. We may easily suppose that the Sadducees were very strict administrators of justice; for since they did not believe that a malefactor would be punished after this life, it was natural for them to think that he was to be condemned to a very severe punishment in this world.

It would be less surprising that the Sadducees should have been good men, than that a follower of Epicurus should have been wise and virtuous: for that part of religion which they retained, might influence their lives by the motives of hope and fear. All things duly considered, I do not think that I ought to retract what I have said in another book: “There was a sect among the Jews which openly denied the immortality of the soul, viz. the Sadducees. I do not find that notwithstanding so detestable an opinion, they were worse livers than the other Jews; on the contrary, it is very likely they were more honest men than the Pharisees, who valued themselves so much on their punctual observation of the law of God.” I must only add a short observation to that passage, viz. that the good life of the Sadducees might have proceeded from the doctrine of a providence: for it is thought they believed that God punishes men in this world for their wicked actions, and rewards their virtue. This opinion may very probably serve for a curb and spur; it may induce men to the practice of virtue, in hopes

of worldly happiness, and deter them from evil through the fear of temporal punishments. Nay, it may seem to be a more powerful motive than the other doctrine, because good and evil when present or near at hand, make a much greater impression, though they be inconsiderable, than good or evil though ever so great, that are viewed only at a great distance. This is what may be said by those who examine the thing superficially; but those who go to the bottom of it, judge otherwise. They believe that generally speaking, the true and principal power of religion with respect to virtue, consists in the persuasion of eternal rewards and punishments; and that those who deny the immortality of the soul, break the best springs of religion.

This thought may be confirmed by two remarks: one is, that it it hardly possible to persuade people that they shall prosper upon earth if they live a good life, and that they shall be unhappy if they live an ill one. Every body thinks he sees daily a thousand instances of the contrary; and where are the divines eloquent enough to persuade people of a thing which they fancy is contradicted by continual experience? They may indeed tell us in answer to our objections, that we know but little wherein true prosperity and true adversity consist; and that wicked men are sufficiently punished by the remorses of their conscience, in the midst of their wealth and glory, whilst an honest man is sufficiently rewarded by the sole possession of virtue, and the testimony of a good conscience. They will tell us a thousand fine things upon this subject, and form in us a kind of persuasion; but they will strike no durable impression upon us, it will only be an intermitting faith, and they will always have reason to fear that in our bad intervals, we shall be apt to call them false doctors, and reproach them as Brutus did virtue. If you object to me that there is a certain impression in

the minds of men which frequently rouses itself, is very active, and persuades us contrary to experience, that piety is attended with temporal blessings, and that the transgression of the law of God will be punished in this world, I say if you make this objection, I answer that the orthodox will feel the activity of that impression as well as the Sadducees, and that being moreover persuaded of a future state, religion will have a greater influence upon their lives.

To conclude, I say it cannot be denied that if a man be fully persuaded that the divine justice distributes rewards and punishments only in this life, and that our destiny is wholly limited to that, he may abstain from evil and practise virtue out of a religious motive. But then it must be said that there is so little probability that such an opinion should overcome the depravation of our nature, that it may well be affirmed that the Sadducees destroyed the true foundations of religion, and that the good life of a Sadducee may be looked upon as a kind of instance of the conjunction of moral honesty with impiety. Mr Willemer will grant it, for he says that a Sadducee not believing the immortality of the soul, could not be a good man. Willemer, ubi supra, p. 41. ⁶⁵ “How could they refrain,” said he, “from the most abominable vices and the greatest of crimes, who in denying the immortality of the soul, could not affirm, but obstinately rejected the doctrines which had the strictest connection with it, viz. the resurrection of the body, a future judgment, the eternal glorification of the good, and the condemnation of the wicked.” The author of these words brings for proof of a fact, a reason of right which will not always hold, because men do not always live according to their principles. In general, when the question is about a matter of fact, experience ought to be consulted much rather than speculative

reasoning. Observe well these words of Moreri which he had from Godeau. Godeau, Hist. Eccles. Tom. i. p. 126, of the Paris edition in folio, 1674. ⁶⁶ “It is true that if the Sadducees were more impious than the Pharisees in their doctrine, they were not however so vain and so great hypocrites in their morals, nor did they appear so cruel enemies to Jesus Christ.”

We have reason to wonder that the Sadducees were not excommunicated; as Lucas Brugensis observes, “How came it to pass that notwithstanding the Sadducees held erroneous opinions, and those too of a very heinous nature, yet they were never by the ancient synagogue pronounced heretics, that is, deserters of the faith and the law delivered by God, nor expelled the synagogue like the Samaritans, as seducers of the people. Nay, the Pharisees and priests themselves conversed promiscuously with them, both in sacred and profane places, and they often joined in council against Christ and his disciples. In short, it was lawful for every one to side with which party he pleased; but that is to be attributed to the great corruption of those times. It must be owned that it was an excessive toleration, for the errors of the Sadducees did not consist in indifferent things, but concerned the most essential doctrines of religion. The modern writers for a toleration do not desire it should be so comprehensive as that of the Jews was at that time; they do not desire an ecclesiastical toleration for all sects, but are contented with a civil and political one. We have seen that Mr Willemer ascribes the toleration of the synagogue in favour of the Sadducees, to the corruption of those times. He gives other reasons for it, and particularly the care those heretics took to comply in all things with the public worship. It is certain that the most enormous diversity of opinions as to speculative doctrines of religion, is more tolerated than the least

dispute about the public worship. Be careful to practise all the outward duties prescribed by the prevailing religion, and notwithstanding you may hold capital heresies, you will be less molested than if you should oppose the outward worship without being guilty of those heresies. It is said, but with very little reason, that the Sadducees admitted only the five books of Moses, and that therefore Christ in disputing with them cited only the Pentateuch. There is a negative argument against it, which appears to me very good. The Holy Scripture speaking of the Sadducees and their errors, never says that they rejected the prophets. I confess this silence is not a convincing reason, but what shall we say of Josephus who does not impute to them any such rejection? It is impossible to conceive that he would have omitted so remarkable and important an article, even when he observes that this sect rejected traditions. What makes the argument yet stronger is, that he not only says nothing of their rejecting any part of the Scripture, in a place where he could not have been silent about it, but positively affirms that when they denied the authority of unwritten traditions, they gave this reason for it: “Nothing ought to be accounted lawful but what is written.” Joseph Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. xviii, pag. 454. ⁶⁷ Can a historian speak thus of a sect that rejects the greatest part of the Scripture, without being a madman? I know that a caviller may say that Josephus’s words concern only the written laws, and consequently the Pentateuch; but I know also that this historian could not have forborne mentioning in that place, the contempt which it is said those heretics had for the other books of the Scripture. Simon is positively against those who affirm that they acknowledged no other books to be canonical besides the Pentateuch, and alleges the testimony of Josephus.

There are also many passages in the Babylonian Talmud and in the writings of the rabbins, whereby it appears that the Sadducees acknowledged the Hagiographia and the prophetical books of the Scripture to be divine, and only despised the explications of their doctors. Some think that the Samaritans have been confounded with the Sadducees, and take that to be the reason why several writers fancied that the latter as well as the former, rejected all the books of the Scripture besides the Pentateuch. But it is certain that these two sects ought to be distinguished, for the Jews had no communication with the Samaritans, and at the same time maintained ecclesiastical communion with the Sadducees; nay, sometimes a Sadducee was their high-priest, and it is not improbable that the high-priest Caiaphas was of that sect.

It would be a wrong way of reasoning to urge that the Sadducees chose such books of the Scripture as did not formally contradict their errors; that they acknowledged these to be canonical, and rejected the rest because they found there plainly asserted the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of the resurrection, and that their idleness made them pitch upon this short way of disputing. Such an argument is fallacious; matters of fact ought to be proved by arguments grounded upon facts, and not by probabilities supported by speculative reasons. Besides, we do not want such reasons; for men may so easily invent subterfuges, glosses, and distinctions, that they need not reject the authenticity of a book, to answer the arguments alleged against them out of it. Do not the Socinians profess to acknowledge all the New Testament, and yet it contains more passages against their errors, than the Old Testament against those of the Sadducees? Nay, what is more surprising, many Christians who still acknowledge the truth of the Holy Scripture, laugh at magic and maintain that the devils have no power. I must observe that a modem

rabbi questions the truth of what is said in the Scripture, that the Sadducees did not believe in spirits. “It would hence follow,” he says, “that they rejected the Pentateuch, which makes mention of angels in several places.” He argues wrong: the Sadducees made use of distinctions in order to elude the force of these passages; see Willemer and the writers quoted by him, and particularly Grotius; consult also Vossius whom he does not quote. What is certain is, that they practised the rites of the Jews, and professed to hope that therefore God would bestow upon them the favours he has promised to those who observe his law, and that they should avoid the curses wherewith the transgressors were threatened. According to some, they ascribed an organized body to God. Arnobius relates this in a manner that is somewhat liable to censure. “Let no man oppose to us,” says he, “the fables of the Jews and Sadducees, as if they ascribed a form and a mouth to God; for this is thought to be said in their writings, and to be confirmed as a thing certain by authority. But these fables are either nothing at all to us, and are in no respect common to us with them; or if they likewise affect us as they are supposed to do, you must consult doctors of a deeper penetration, from whom you may learn in what manner it is necessary to explain the figurative expressions in the Scriptures” Arnob. lib. iii. pag. in. 106, 107. ⁶⁸ One of those who have commented upon him, censures him in the following manner. “ Desid. Heraldus, in Arnobium, pag. m. 134. ⁶⁹ Arnobius’s reasoning is too confused and even dangerous; for it is both impious and horrible to speak of the books of the Old Testament so rashly. He says this, because the books of the rabbins are stuffed with an infinite number of fables. Arnobius betrays great want of judgment here. Numenius Pythagoreus did much better, who in his first book 'de Summo Bono,' reckoned the Jews first among those nations which believed God to be an incorporeal being, alleging even the testimonies of the prophets, and explaining those figurative expressions which seemed to warrant a contrary opinion.”

This censure is not altogether groundless, but it should have been less severe; for Arnobius only means that we are not answerable for the idle fancies of the Jews; but there is no harm in the things that are common to us with them, if the mystical sense be understood. He could not deny, that according to the literal sense of the Scripture, God has hands and feet, a mouth and eyes. Therefore it was necessary for him to inform the heathens that the truth lies concealed under those figurative expressions. He showed himself to be a dexterous and able rhetorician by not insisting on that objection, and by only telling his adversaries in four or five lines, that the Christians do not ascribe to God any figure or organical composition. Had he attempted to enter upon a more exact discussion of the matter, as Numenius did, he would have enervated his work; for since he was writing an invective against the Pagans, it was not his business to lose any time in answering them. It was better for him to act all along the part of an assailant; an author ought to be upon the defensive as little as he can, when he writes books of this nature.

Art. Sadducees.

SADEUR.
(His curious fictitious Voyages.)

James Sadeur, author of a new voyage into Terra Australis, printed in the year 1692. His father’s name was James Sadeur, and his mother’s Guillemette Itin; they were both natives of Chatillon upon Bar, in the jurisdiction of Rethel in Champagne, and had gone with

a design to settle in America; but after nine or ten months’ stay at Port-Royal, they took shipping the twenty-fifth of April, 1603, to return to France. The wife, fifteen days after they embarked, was delivered of the boy who is the subject of this article. Both the father and mother were cast away near cape Finisterre, where their ship ran aground: the child was saved as it were by a miracle, and given to an inhabitant of that coast; and then, having again escaped in another shipwreck, he went to serve a Portuguese lady, and studied with her son. He was taken by pirates, in the year 1623. He had almost perished in a third shipwreck, but he was saved by a ship that was going to the Indies; and suffered a fourth shipwreck which, by several accidents which nobody is obliged to believe, occasioned his landing in Terra Australis. The manner in which this came to pass, and how he overcame the wild beasts that were ready to devour him, and at last left that country after he had been there thirty two years, and arrived at Madagascar, is so strange that I do not think there are any fictions more ridiculous in either Ariosto or Amadis. Neither do I mention James Sadeur here as a person that ever existed, or his voyage to Terra Australis as a true history, but only because I spoke of him in the article of Adam, and that I may give a supplement to the chimerical fancies of Antoinette Bourignon.

Sadeur, who pretends to be an hermaphrodite, tells us that it was that very thing which preserved his life, in a country where every body has both sexes, and where all the men of our continent are treated as sea monsters, and have no quarter given them. “All the Australians,” says he, “have both sexes; and whenever a child comes into the world having but one sex, they stifle it as a monster.”

He does not clearly explain the manner how they generate; but says, “that all the time he was amongst them, he never could learn how generation is performed

in that country; and that they have so great an aversion for whatever concerns the first beginning of life, that a year or thereabouts after his arrival, two Australians bearing him say something about it, went away expressing as much horror as if he had committed some crime.” He nevertheless gives us very plainly to understand, “that children grow in their bowels as fruits do upon trees; that they live without having any libidinous inclinations one towards another, and cannot so much as hear of them without horror; that their love is neither carnal nor brutish; that they are wholly sufficient to themselves, and want nothing to make diem happy and contented?” In a word, the arguments he puts in an old Australian’s mouth, suppose that each individual person is the sole and total cause of the children he brings into the world. He introduces him raising difficulties against the generation which depends upon two persons, one of which is the father, and the other the mother. The old man concludes, “that man cannot be a perfect and complete being without both sexes.” These ideas appear to have a singular conformity with those of Antoinette Bourignon, who says, “that sin has disfigured the work of God in men, and that instead of being men, as they should be, they are become monsters in nature divided into two imperfect sexes, unable to produce their like alone, as trees and plants are produced, which in that respect are more perfect than men or women, who cannot produce without the help of another, nor without pain and misery.”

If you except the consequences of sin, the doctrine of that woman, and that of the Australian philosopher, are as like one another as two drops of water. I wonder neither of them perceived that their pretended superiority of plants above man, with respect to the faculty of generating, is a false supposition; for it is true indeed that each plant produces its grain, its fruit, and its seed, independent on another plant of a

different sex; but it is not true that it produces another plant in itself, and by itself What has it then above man.? Does not a man produce in himself, and without the concourse of the other sex, the seed, which is like the grain or kernel in plants, from which another individual proceeds? It is true, will some say; but that other individual, will not proceed from the male seed without a conjunction with the other sex. I answer, do you think that the seed of plants does not want to be received into a womb that it may become a plant? Must it not be received into the earth? Is not this as great though not so pleasant a dependency upon another being as Antoinette Bourignon and James Sadeur find on the other side? It is. certain that, according to their system, the perfect state of man would not be like that of plants in this respect; man would produce in himself, and by his own power alone, not something wherewith to make another man in another subject, but another man. A plant does not do that; it produces in itself something out of which the earth produces another plant. I remember to this purpose to have read the following verses.

J’ai veu vif sans fantsome
Un jeune moyne avoir
Membre de femme et d’homme
Et enfant concepvoir
Par luy seul en luy mesmes
Engendrer, enfanter
Comme font aultres femmes
Sans oultilz emprunter. Les faictz et dictz de bonne memoire Jehan Molinet, fol. 229, verso Paris, 1540, in 8vo. ⁷⁰

The words applied to the Porcupine, “Seque jaculo, sese pharetra, sese utitur arcu,—he himself was his own bow, arrows, and quiver,” might have been applied to it: but this story of Molinet ought not wholly to be credited. That monk was not both agent and patient at the same time. I do not know whether he

was punished; I have only read that he was put into the hands of justice, and confined till he was delivered. Read this passage of the “Chronique Scandaleuse de Louis XI. In the said year, 1478, it happened in Auvergne, that there was one of the friars in a convent of black monks belonging to Cardinal de Bourbon, who had both sexes, and made use of them in such a manner that he proved with child: whereupon he was seized, prosecuted, and confined till he should be delivered, that he might be dealt with afterwards as the judges should think fit.” Is it not strange negligence to give no account of the consequences of this imprisonment?

To return to our traveller, it is clear that Sadeur intended to insinuate that his Australians were not descended from Adam, but from an androgyne, who did not fall as Adam did, from his state of innocence· This might be a pretty good device to impose upon the censors of books, and remove the difficulties of a licence, if one had a mind to try the success of a pre-adamitical system. If La Peyrere had made use of this device, he would have avoided a great deal of trouble. Cyrano Bergerac did not wholly neglect it in his travels to the sun and moon. Perhaps the author of the “History of the Sevarambians” has taken advantage of the same artifice.

My conjectures in relation to the allegorical meaning of Sadeur are formed on much probability. He ascribes many things to them which suit only with the state of innocence; as that they are not ashamed of being naked, they all love one another with a sincere affection, they never quarrel, they know no distinction of property, they have all things in common with an admirable fidelity and disinterestedness; they bring forth without any pain, they have no unchaste inclination, they are strong and vigorous, their health is never affected by any sickness, and they make no great account of life in comparison with the eternal

rest that follows it, which they ardently desire. It is true their notion of that eternal rest is not very orthodox, for in their opinion it does not consist in the beatific vision, but in the privation of a particular and individual existence. They say that, “after death we exist only in general, in a universal genius, who communicates himself by parts to each particular being, and has the power when an animal dies, to preserve himself till he be communicated to another. So that this genius is extinguished by the death of that animal, without being destroyed, since he waits only for new organs, and a new machine, to be revived.” This is as great nonsense as the soul of the world of some ancient philosophers. According to Sadeur’s account, the Australians are not over religious. “They are contented to worship the incomprehensible being, without ever speaking of him; they fancy nothing can be more offensive to him than to make his divine perfections the subject of their discourse: so that, it may be said that the main part of their religion is not to speak of their religion.” This does not savour of the state of innocence: man ought to glorify his maker by his words as well as by his thoughts; and it is in vain to say, as the old Australian did to Sadeur, that whoever ventures to speak of God, is like to speak of him otherwise than he should do; for this would prove too much, and it would follow from it that one should never think of the incomprehensible being. He had told the old Australian, “that in Europe God is the subject of the most agreeable and useful conversations and being asked, “whether people had the same notions concerning that incomprehensible Being?” he sincerely confessed, “they differed very much in the conclusions which every one drew often from the same principles; and that this occasioned many sharp disputes, frequently attended with a violent hatred, and sometimes even with bloody wars, and consequences no less dismal. The good old man,” continues he, “replied with great ingenuity, that if I had not answered him in that manner, he would not have said a word more, but would have held me in the utmost contempt, being very sure that men could not speak of an incomprehensible thing, without having very different and quite contrary opinions about it. A man,” added he, “must be blind, who can be ignorant that there is a first principle; but one must be infinite, as he is, to speak of him exactly; for since we acknowledge that he is incomprehensible, it follows that we can speak of him only by guess, and that whatever we can say of him may indeed satisfy the curious, but not rational persons; and we rather choose to be wholly silent, than to run the hazard of venting many falsities concerning his nature.” There is something so specious in these words, that a gentleman assured me, that having read them to his footman, he asked him,“What do you say to it, La Fleur?” and he received for answer, “zooks, sir, that old man was no fool.”

That Sadeur wished to favour the pre-adamitical system is farther probable from his observation that the Australians “reckon above twelve thousand revolutions of the solstices from the beginning of their republic, and give out that they have their original from a deity, who with one breath produced three men from whom all others are descended; that according to their account, the Europeans began five thousand revolutions after them, and that they give them a very ridiculous original; for they say that an amphibious serpent of a prodigious bigness, falling upon a woman in her sleep, enjoyed her without doing her any harm; that the woman awaked about the end of the action, and was struck with such horror at it that she threw herself into the sea.” The serpent carried her to a neighbouring island, where she repented of her despair, and was delivered of two children, the one a male, and the other a female, who

showed so many signs of malice that their mother was extremely afflicted at it. The serpent, perceiving the trouble she was in, gave her to understand by signs that he would carry her into her own country, if she desired it. He did so, and then he came back to the little ones, who coupled and multiplied. Would not one think this a wretched allusion to the fabulous story of some heretics, who said that Eve had two children by the serpent which tempted her?

By the way, the author of Religio Medici had something of the Australian taste. “I wish,” says he, “we could multiply like trees, without any conjunction, or that some other way of getting children might be found out; for certainly there is nothing more foolish and unworthy of a wise man, nothing more shameful and unbecoming the greatness of our souls, than to think, when the heat is over, how far the impertinence has been carried. Not that I have an aversion for that charming sex,” adds he; “on the contrary, I am naturally inclined to love and admire whatever is beautiful: nay, I am extremely pleased with the sight of a fine picture, were it only that of a horse.—Mihi satis placeret, si nobis etiam arborum more citra conjunctionem procreare liceat, sive alia quæpiam reperiatur rerum propagandarum ratio, quam coitionis illa vulgaris et trivialis: nihil profecto ineptius est, aut viro sapiente indignius; nihil quod mentis celsitudinem turpius dejiciat, quam si animo jam defervente reputet, quam insignitur ineptierit. Nec tamen hæc ita quenquam interpretari velim, quasi à sexu illo dulcissimo alienatiore animo sim, immo ultro admiror et amplector, quicquid pulchrum est. Summa cum voluptate eleganti cuipiam picturae inhaereo, etiamsi equi tantum fuerit.” Thomas Brown, Religio Medici, Part. ii, § ix. pag. m. 397. ⁷¹ The author of the notes upon this book of Dr Brown observes, “that the fooleries the Doctor speaks of being necessary to

mankind, it was requisite that men should be very prone to them.” He quotes some passages of St Augustin, wherein things are carried a little too far; for that father not only says that, “the superior part of the soul is degraded and dethroned by amorous embraces; that a wise man is not obliged to marry; and that those who do it ought rather to be admired than imitated; but also the duty which married people pay to one another, without a motive of procreation, is a venial sin?”

I may as well explain here more exactly what concerns Plata’s androgynes. Plato supposes that in the beginning of the world, there were three sorts of human creatures. Some were only male, others female, and others both. These last are the androgynes. Each individual of those three kinds had four arms and four feet, two faces turned one towards the other, and placed upon one neck, four ears, and so on. They walked upright; but when they had a mind to go faster, they were apt to tumble heels over head. They were robust and bold, so that they attempted to make war with the gods. The celestial court held a council on that affair, but were greatly at a loss what resolution to take; for had mankind been destroyed by thunder, as the giants were, the gods would have been losers by it. Who then would have offered up incense and sacrifices to them? On the other hand, it was not fit to suffer the boldness and insolence of men. Jupiter found out this expedient; he divided them every one into two: but there arose a great inconvenience from thence; for each half endeavoured to be re-united to the other, and when they met, they embraced one another so tenderly, and with so much pleasure, that they could not resolve to part, and so died of hunger. Jupiter found out a remedy for that disorder: he so contrived the matter that the pleasure of their embraces ceased after a certain time, that each of them might have leisure to mind their

own concerns.” Plato adds, “that the males, who are one half of an androgyne, are very much addicted to women; and that the females, who are one half of an androgyne, are passionately fond of men. He pretends that the females, who love other females without minding the males, are one half of the ancient double females; and that the males who are fond of males, are one half of the ancient double males.” If any one desire to see some reflexions upon what Eusebius says, “that Plato had this notion of androgynes from Moses,” he may consult the commentary of Ludovicus Regius. To divert the reader, he recites a poem that is worth reading. “After this long and tedious explication of an important passage,” he says, “before I proceed farther, I shall insert a poem heretofore written upon the androgyne, by Messire Antony Heroet, now bishop of Digne, which he inscribed to the late king Francis, the father of good learning. This I shall do for the reader’s diversion. I willingly recite that poem, not only on account of its elegance, but also by reason of the friendship and familiarity I contracted with the author, whilst I attended at court upon Chancellor Olivier, a very wise and learned man, with whom he used to be. La Croix du Maine says, that Heroet, native of Paris, was related to Chancellor Olivier. ⁷² It is true he does not keep to Plato’s notion, as any one may see by comparing them, but takes a poetical liberty, leaving out and adding what he thinks fit.” This is the beginning of that poem:

Au premier age que le monde vivoit
D’herbe, de gland: trois sortes y avoit
D'hommes, les deux tels qu’ilz sont maintenant,
Et l’autre double estoit, s’entretenant
Ensemblement taut masle que femelle.
Il faut penser, que la facon fut belle:
Car le grand Dieu qui vivre les faisoit,
Faitz les avoit, et bien s’y congnoissoit.

De quatre bras, quatre pieds, et deux testes
Estoyent former ces raisonnables bestes.
La reste vaut mieux, pensée que ditte,
Et se verrait plustost peinte qu’escrite.
Chacun estoit de son corps tant aysé,
Qu’en se tournant il se trouvoit baisé:
En estendant ses bras, on l’embrassoit:
Voulant penser, on le contrepensoit:
En soy voyoit tout ce qu’il vouloit veoir,
En soy trouvoit ce qu’il falloit avoir.
Jamais en lieu ses pieds portlé ne 1’eussent,
Que quand et luy ses passetemps ne feussent.
Si de son bien luy plaisait mal user,
Facile estait envers soy s’excuser.
De luy n’estoit fait ne rapport, ny compte,
Ne congnoissoit honnesteté ny honte.
Si de son cæur sortoyent simples desirs,
Il y entrait tant de doubles plaisirs,
Qu’en y pensant chacun est incité
A maintenir, que la felicité
Fut de tel temps, et le siecle doré.

In the first age, while mortals still were good,
And herbs and acorns were their only food,
Three sorts of men existed, two of which
In ev’ry point were altogether such
As they are now: the third a double kind
Had in it both the male and female join’d.
The piece, you may suppose, was very fine,
And worthy of the maker’s skill divine.
Two heads, four arms, and just as many feet
Did in this rational quadruped meet.
The rest is better far conceiv’d than said,
Better in pictures than in words display’d.
Each in himself was so contriv’d and bless’d,
That if he turn’d, he found that he was kiss’d.
If he but stretch’d his arms, he was embrac’d,
With ev’ry thought a counter-thought was plac'd.
In short, all that he wish’d or wanted, he
Did largely in himself provided see.
He carried his amusements still about him,
Nor could he move a single step without ’em.
If of his goods he made a sinful use,
With ease he could unto himself excuse

The fault: for he had no account to give
Of what he did to any man alive.
As for aught else, he did not know the name
Of what is constru'd modesty or shame.
If his heart's wishes pure and simple were,
So many double pleasures enter'd there,
That when we think of these, we are inclin'd
To say that true felicity confin'd
Her short duration to that narrow stage,
That space of time yclep'd the golden age.

It appears from the following memoir that a Franciscan who forsook his order, is the author of the pretended voyage into Terra Australis. It was written to me from Geneva, the 13th of March, 1697.

“You will not be displeased to know the true author of the relation of Terra Australis, which came out under the name of James Sadeur,’ of which you take notice. His name was Gabriel Foigni, and he was a Franciscan in a convent of Lorrain, his native country. He came into these parts in the year 1667, and embraced our religion; notwithstanding which, he continually led an irregular life. At first he settled in the little town of Morges, where he was chaunter of the church; but one day going to sing, after he had been drinking, he did some indecent things at church, which occasioned his being turned out. He came hither, and to get a livelihood, went from house to house teaching young boys grammar, geography, &c., and instructing Germans in the French tongue. Some time after he married a woman of the dregs of the people, and who was not accounted so scrupulous as Lucretia. Afterwards he took it in his head to publish some small books, and among the rest, an Almanack every year, under the name of the ‘ Great Garantus,’ which was commonly very faulty as to the computation of time; a set of cards for heraldry, and the Psalms of Marot and Beza, with a Prayer of his own composing at the end of each Psalm, containing only some insipid compliments to

the Deity. Lastly, the relations of voyages being very much in vogue at that time, he completed his works by bis Australia, as he calls it; he bad it printed here privately about the latter end of the year 1676. Our clergy, who thought that book contained several things contrary to the Holy Scripture, and several obscenities, sent for the printer, who declared that Foigni had given him the manuscript. Foigni stoutly maintained that James Sadeur was the true author of it, and that he had received the copy from Bourdeaux; but at last being summoned to appear before the magistrates, he confessed, when he was strictly examined, that he had written that book to get a little money, and that James Sadeur was a supposititious name. As a punishment, he was ordered to leave the town with his family; but some German gentlemen, whom he taught the French tongue, having interceded for him, he was allowed to stay here some time longer. But three or four years after, his maid being with child, and himself prosecuted upon that account, he went away and retired into Savoy, and got into a monastery, where he died five years ago.”

I shall recite here what a considerable man told me in the year 1699, viz. “That the relation, printed under the name of James Sadeur, is the work of a gentleman of Bretagne, a great admirer of Lucretius, whom he had translated into French, designing to publish his translation. He published at Vannes, in the year 1676, the relation of James Sadeur. I might reconcile this with the memorial sent to me from. Geneva, by supposing that the Monk, who forsook his order, took out of that work the materials of the Australia published by him, or even that he transcribed it word for word, and published it as an original. There are some things in that relation so nicely managed, that I can hardly believe that Foigni was master of so much art. I forgot to desire some of my friends to compare Sadeur’s relation with the

Australia. I am apt to think that there is some difference between those two pieces.—Art. Sadeur.

SAINTS.
(Lives of.)

Cardinal Valerio, bishop of Verona, in his book intitled, “De Rhetorica Christiana,” informs us, that “one of the causes of the false legends of the martyrs was the custom formerly observed in several monasteries to exercise the young monks, by Latin exercises proposed to them on the martyrdom of some saint, which giving them the liberty of introducing the tyrants and the persecuted saints, as acting and speaking, in such a manner as appeared to them the most probable, at the same time gave them room to compose on these subjects a sort of histories, rather filled with ornaments and inventions than truth; but though they did not deserve much regard, yet those which seemed most ingenious and best composed were laid up. So that after a long series of years, they, together with other manuscripts, being found in the libraries of the monasteries, it was very difficult to distinguish these exercises of wit from the genuine histories of the saints there also preserved. It is to be confessed that those pious writers are very excusable, they having no other design than to exercise themselves on holy subjects, could not foresee the erroneous consequences, which, in process of time, proceeded from thence; so that if posterity be thereby deceived, it is rather owing to their own want of discernment, than a proof of the ill intentions of those writers. It would be hard to have the same regard for the famous Simeon Metaphrastes, a Greek author of the ninth century, who first gave us the lives of the saints for every day of the month through the whole year, since it is visible they were not written for that purpose, but in a very serious manner, though at

the same time amplified and stuffed with several imaginary events, as Bellarmin himself testifies, who plainly tells us, ‘ that Metaphrastes wrote several of the lives, as they might be, and not as they really were.’ But it is no wonder that such a thing should have been done by some ecclesiastical historians, through a pious zeal to honour the saints, and to render their lives agreeable to the people, commonly more inclined to admire those they reverence, than to imitate them; seeing this liberty crept into the very translation of some books of the Bible, as we are informed by St Jerome, in his Preface to that of Esther, that the vulgar edition of that book of Holy Writ, commonly read in his time, was stuffed with several additions, which I cannot better express than in the words of that father: ‘Quem librum,’ saith he, speaking of the book of Esther, ‘editio vulgata lacinosis hinc inde verborum finibus trahit, addens ea quæ ex tempore dici potuerant, et audiri, sicut solitum est scholaribus disciplinis sumpto themate, excogitare quibus verbis uti potuit qui injuriam passus, vel qui injuriam fecit.—Which book in the vulgar edition here and there is patched with forgeries, such things being inserted in it as might have been said and heard extempore, as it is usual when a theme is given in schools, to invent what might have been spoken by one that suffered or committed an injury.’”

Those who would see a vast number of curious and judicious observations on this head, need only read M. Baillet’s discourse on the lives of the saints.

Art. Valerius.

SAPPHO.

Sappho was one of the most famous women of all antiquity for her verses and her amours: she was a native of Mitylene, in the isle of Lesbos, and lived in the time of Alcæus, her countryman, and in the time

of Stesichorus, that is to say, in the forty-second Olympiad, six hundred and ten years before Christ. This fully confutes the story of the amours of Anacreon and Sappho; for though we ought not to place between them an interval of one hundred or one hundred and twenty years, as Mad. le Fevre does, yet it is true that their ages do not well enough agree for a commerce of gallantry. We may very well suppose that in the fifty-second Olympiad Anacreon was capable of love; but since the chronologers placed Sappho in the forty-second Olympiad, we must conclude that she was then in her greatest reputation, and that she might be about thirty years old. Now when she threw herself headlong from the rock, she was in love with a young man she had hoped to regain; therefore there is no probability that she lived, till the time when Anacreon was born, and we may be well assured he never saw her, nor ever was in love with her. It was only to give bis fancy a full scope that Hermesianax supposed she was beloved by Anacreon. Others, by the same poetical liberty, handed about some verses, wherein Anacreon played the gallant to Sappho, and she answered him. Diphilus, a comic poet, introduced Archilochus and Hipponax courting Sappho in one of his plays; and this is a witty conceit of the same kind. Mad. Scuderi has not, therefore, made use of this anachronism without examples, when she supposes that Anacreon courted Sappho. If Sappho had been such a one as she is characterized in the grand Cyrus, she had been the most accomplished person of her age. The lady who made her so great a model of perfection went a long time by the name of Sappho in the ingenious writings wherein she was spoken of. This was to do a great deal of honour to the ancient Sappho, since they gave her name to a lady who wrote perfectly well in verse and in prose, and whose virtue was admired,—one of whom we might have said:

Castior hæc et non doctior ilia fait.

Martial. Epigr. lxviii. lib. vii.

In learning equal, she surpast
The other by her manners chaste.

For the rest, there is reason to think that if Anacreon and Sappho had seen one another in their youth, they would have made love to one another, and that we should have had a more certain account of the gallant’s good success than we have of that of Alcaeus. Nay, perhaps they would have married together, but I know not whether they would have long agreed: each of them loved too much his like.

Sappho composed a great number of odes, epigrams, elegies, epithalamiums, &c. All her verses run upon love, and had such natural and moving charms that one ought not to be surprized if she was called the tenth muse. Pausanias observes that Anacreon was the first who, after Sappho, wrote scarcely any thing but love verses, and that Sappho wrote a great many things upon this subject which did not agree well together. The meaning of it is that she turned the subject so many ways, that she spoke of it sometimes in one manner, and sometimes in another; the sport pleased her. Among other things she had made a calculation of the signs by which one might know an amorous person; and she had so good success in it, that the physician Erasistratus knew by those very signs the distemper of Antiochus. Plutarch in Demetrio, pag. 907. ⁷³ Every body knows that this young prince was desperately in love with Stratonice his mother-in-law, and that not daring to discover it, he pretended to be sick, and the cause of his illness being known, his father parted with her to him: but as often as this adventure is spoken of, people do not think , as it is fit they should of Sappho, who afforded the physician the necessary indications. Those who

intended to denote the poems of this woman by their true character, called them her fires and her amours.

Spirat adhuc amor
Vivuntque commissi calores
Æoliæ fidibus puellæ.

Horat. Od. ix. lib. iv.

And Sappho’s charming lyre
Preserves her soft desire,
And tunes our ravish’d souls to love.

Creech.

Plutarch compares her to Cacus the son of Vulcan, of whom the Romans wrote that he cast out of his mouth fire and flame: “What she sings is a composition of fire,” says he, “her verses are the expulsion of the flame she has in her heart.” Plutarch on Love. ⁷⁴

There remains nothing but some small fragments; a hymn to Venus and an ode to one of her mistresses. The hymn to Venus was preserved by Dionysius Halicarnassus, who inserted it in bis works as an example of a perfection he had a mind to characterize. With the same view Longinus has preserved to us the ode to her mistress. Catullus has translated part of this ode: all these circumstances are a proof of the singular esteem the ancients had for her verses.

Her amorous passion extended even to the persons of her sex, and this is that for which she was most cried down. Suidas has preserved the names of three of her mistresses who ruined her reputation, and disgraced themselves by a strange singularity which was imputed to their commerce. He has also preserved the names of three of her female disciples, whom she did in all probability, initiate into her mysteries. Since Lucian does not observe that the women of the Isle of Lesbos, who he says were very subject to this passion, learned it of Sappho, it is better to believe that she found it already established in her country, than to ascribe to her the invention of it.

I cannot blame the charity of Madame le Fevre in the life of Sappho, who has endeavoured for the honour of Sappho to render the fact uncertain; but I think her too reasonable to be angry with us for believing our own eyes. The ode which Longinus has mentioned, is not in the style of one female friend writing to another; it savours of love all over, and not of friendship: otherwise, Longinus who was so good a judge, would not have brought it as a model of the art with which great masters represent things; he would not, I say, have given us an example of that art, the manner wherewith the symptoms of an amorous fury are collected in that ode; nor would Plutarch have cited this same ode to prove that love is a divine fury which causes more violent enthusiasms than those of the priestess of Delphos, or the Bacchantes and of the priests of Cybele. People Were so persuaded in Ovid’s time that Sappho loved Women as men do, that he makes no difficulty of introducing her making a sacrifice to Phaon of the female companions of her debauchery.

Lesbides infamen quae me fecistis amatæ,
Desinite ad citharas turba renire meas.

Ovidius, Epist. Sapph. ad Pbaon.

Ye Lesbian virgins, and ye Lesbian dames,
Themes of my verse and objects of my flames;
No more your groves with my glad songs shall ring,
No more these hands shall touch the trembling string.

Pope.

Horace is another evidence against her in the complaints he supposes she made of the maids of Lesbos;

Et Æoliis fidibus querentem
Sappho puellis de popularibus.

Horat. Ode xiii. lib. ii.

And Sappho, in Æolian strains,
Who of the Lesbian maids complains.

For if she had reason to complain that the ladies of

her country envied her merit, she would not have chosen the young ones for the subject of her complaint; but because she had spoken to them of love, and the greatest part of them were either too simple, or to speak better, too crafty to be caught, and those who had complied had made her infamous; for this reason she complained of the young maids. This verse of Ovid, “Desinite ad citharas turba venire meas,” shows that the women of Lesbos had done justice to her fine verses. For the rest, I leave it to a new father Sanchez to decide whether a married woman who had complied with the passion of Sappho, would have committed adultery, and cornuted her husband properly speaking? I do not know whether this question has escaped the inexhaustible curiosity of the casuits about matrimonial causes. If the design of Sappho were to dispense with the other half of mankind, she was frustrated of her expectation; for she fell desperately in love with Phaon, and did in vain all that she could to make him love her; but he despised her, and forced her by his coldness to throw herself headlong from a rock, to extinguish her devouring flame. She could not forbear following him into Sicily, whither he retired that he might not see her; and during her stay in that island, she made the finest verses in the world, and it is very probable that she made there the hymn to Venus that is still extant, in which she begs so ardently the assistance of that goddess. Her prayers proved ineffectual; the sweet and tender verses she composed so often on this subject were to no purpose, Phaon was cruel to the last degree. The unfortunate Sappho was forced to take a dangerous leap, for so I may justly call the remedy to which she had recourse, which was to go upon the promontory Leucas, and throw herself into the sea. It was looked on in those days as the true means to cure the pains of love, and for this reason that place was called the

Lovers’ Leap. Some say that Sappho was the first that made a trial of this way of curing love; others assert that she was the first woman that did it , but that before her time, some men had done so. Several poets have spoken of this despair of Sappho; one of them having exhausted all the counsels he could give to an unfortunate lover, and at last referring him to the great remedy of all evils, makes use of this expression:

Quod sibi suaserunt Phaedra et Elissa dabuot,
Quod Canace, Phyllisque, et fastidita Phaoni.

Auson. Epigr. xcii.

What Phædra and the Tyrian queen advis'd,
And she whom Phaon cruelly despis'd;
What Canace and Phillis did approve
As the best remedy for hopeless love,
That you may chuse, by their example taught.

See here what Statius says:

Stesichorusque ferox, saltusque ingressa viriles
Non formidata temeraria Leucade Sappho.

Stat. lib. v. Silv. 3, ver. 154.

And fierce Stesichorus with Sappho join'd,
Who, when she took her manly leap of old,
With rash unshrinking courage did behold
Leucate's dreadful precipice ....

The cruelty of Phaon will not surprise us so much, if we reflect that Sappho was only a widow upon the decline who had never been handsome, who was ill spoken of in her widowhood, and who kept no measure in showing the violence of her passion. A man that is never so little nice does not care for such unbecoming addresses, and draws ill conjectures from them. Add to this that Sappho had not the endearment of novelty, which often even with nice people makes amends for the defect of beauty and the flower of youth. Phaon knew all she was capable of; the trees and the grass had been her confidants; and

perhaps his flight proceeded more from weariness than indifference. Consider what she herself writes to him by the pen of Ovid.

Haec quoque laudabas, omnique à parte placebam,
Sed tum praecipue cum fit amoris opus,
Tunc te plus solito lascivia nostra juvabat,
Crebraque mobilitas, aptaque verba joco:
Quique, ubi jam amborum fuerat confusa voluptas,
Plurimus in lasso corpore languor erat.

Invenio silvam quae saepe cubilia nobis
Praebuit, et multa texit opaca coma.
Agnovi pressas noti mihi cespitis herbas;
De nostro curvum pondere gramen erat.
Incubui tetigique locum qua parte fuisti.

In all I pleas'd, but most in what was best,
And the last joy was dearer than the rest.
Then with each word, each glance, each motion fir’d,
You still enjoy’d, and yet you still desir’d,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures dy’d away.

I find the shades that did our joys conceal,
Not him that made me love those shades so well.
Here the press’d herbs with bending tops betray,
Where oft entwin’d in am’rous folds we lay;
I kiss that earth which oft was press’d by you.

Pope.

She was not then so capable of hearkening to reason, as when she represented to a young man who courted her for marriage, that being older than he, she would not marry him. The younger Phaon bad been, the more she would have found her account in him. If I have said that she was not handsome, it was because I thought we should prefer to the authority of Plato, who calls her the beautiful Sappho, the authority of Ovid who makes her speak thus:

Si mihi difficilis formam natura negavit,
Ingenio formae damna rependo meae.

Sum brevis. At nomen quod terras impleat omnes
Est mihi: mensuram nominis ipsa fero.
Candida si non sum: placuit Cepheia Perseo.

To me what nature has in charms deny’d,
Is well by wit's more lasting charms supply'd.
Though short by stature, yet my name extends
To heaven itself, and earth’s remotest ends.
Brown as I am, an Æthiopian dame
Inspir’d young Perseus with a gen’rous flame.

Pope.

Mad. le Fevre had set me an example for not giving credit to Plato or Athæneus; for she says that Sappho was not beautiful, that she was neither tall nor little, that she had a very brown complexion, and very lively and sparkling eyes. What shall I say of Maximus Tyrius, who pretends that as she was black and little, Socrates called her beautiful only by reason of the beauty of her verses.

With respect to the Leucadian or Lovers’ Leap, Leucas was at first a peninsula joining to the continent of Acarnania, but became an island by the industry of the Corinthians. They cut the isthmus, and built a city upon the canal, which they called Leucas, whither they transported the inhabitants of the town of Neritus. This undertaking did not much promote navigation; and if we believe Pliny, the sands driven in by the winds, restored the isthmus; it is now called Sancta-Maura. As to its ancient state, if any circumstance of it deserve to be related, it is I think the ceremony of the leap; in respect to which there seems to have been a set of people who appear to have been hired to undertake it as a spectacle every year. The manner was as follows: "There stood upon the promontory of Leucas a temple of Apollo, and there was an ancient custom that annually on the festival of this God, a criminal should be thrown from the top of this promontory, in order to avert all impending evils. However, they fastened

a great many feathers and live birds to the criminal, whose flight it was hoped would break the violence of the wretch’s fall. They endeavoured to catch him at the bottom in small barges lying round in a circle, and if he were saved they only banished him. All this was enacted by public authority and for the public good; but there were private persons who voluntarily leaped from the precipice to put an end to the pains they suffered from love; whence this place was called the Lovers’ Leap. Strabo informs us on Menander’s authority, that Sappho desperately in love with Phaon who slighted her, was the first who took the leap of Leucas. He cites Menander’s verses, but probably he had not quoted the whole passage; for by what he has quoted, it does not appear that Sappho was the first who took this dangerous leap. Besides, Strabo does not come over to this poet’s opinion: he says that they who have most exactly searched into antiquity, declare that Cephalus was the first who made trial of that desperate remedy, when he was in love with Ptaola. An author whom Photius has given some extracts of, traces the origin of this practice. He says that Venus after the death of Adonis sought him every where, and found him at last at Argos, in the isle of Cyprus, in the temple of Erithian Apollo. As she made no secret to this god of her passion for Adonis, he led her to the rock of Leucas, and bid her throw herself headlong from that precipice. She took his advice, and finding herself cured of her passion, she desired to know the reason of it. Apollo answered, that by virtue of his gift of prophecy he had discovered that Jupiter finding himself smitten with the love of Juno, came constantly to sit upon this rock, and thus abated the violence of his flame. He adds that numbers of both sexes had been cured of their love by leaping from the top of this mountain. Photius gives us a long catalogue of persons who had recourse to this remedy; some found themselves cured, others lost their lives by it. I have not met with Calyce among them, and am the less surprised because he omits the unfortunate Sappho. She tells us in a letter that Ovid has written as her secretary, that Deucalion, in love with Pyrrha the coy, took the leap of Leucas without hurting himself; upon which his passion wore off, and Pyrrha began to love in her turn.

Hinc se Deucalion Pyrrhae succensus amore
Misit, et illaeso corpore pressit aquas.
Nec mora: versus amor tetigit lentissima
Pyrrhae Pectora; Deucalion igne levatus erat.

Ovid. Epist. Sapph. ver. 167.

His breast from Love’s tyrannic power to free, D
eucalion leap’d unhurt into the sea:
The force of love a different way was turn’d,
Deucalion cool'd and thoughtless Pyrrha burn’d.

Several have mentioned this strange remedy of love, and others have even said that some took this leap for another thing, namely to learn news of their relations.

I have said that Calyce is not to be found in the catalogue of the Leucas-leapers. She had fallen in love with a young man called Evathlus, and in vain solicited the goddess Venus to bring about their marriage. Evathlus persisted in his obstinate coldness, and Calyce threw herself down the precipice of Leucas. I believe if the account were faithfully cast up, we should find that more women than men have taken this desperate leap.

A passage of Servius has furnished Vinet with the conjecture that people were hired to take this leap. Servius’s words are these: “Fæminas in sui amorem trahebat (Phaon) in queis fuit una quae de monte Leucate, cum potiri ejus nequiret, abjecisse se dicitur; unde nunc aucturare se quotannis solent qui de eo monte jaciunt in pelagus.” Vinet thinks this passage

ought to be restored thus: “Unde nunc auctorare se quotannis solent qui se de eo monte jaciunt in pelagus;” and this may signify that there were some who ventured for a sum of money to take this leap, as others articled at such a price to kill one another on the amphitheatre. The curious will do well to search to the bottom of this particular. It is certain they engaged themselves by a vow to take this leap, as appears by the answer of a Lacedemonian who was insulted for drawing back at the sight of the precipice. “I knew not,” said he, “that my vow would stand in need of another vow still greater.” Menander’s verses cited by Strabo, shew that Sappho made a vow to Apollo before she threw herself down, that is, probably she consecrated this action to the god. I forgot to say that there were two verses of Anacreon concerning the Lovers’ Leap. Scaliger mentions them, but I think that they who say Hephestion has preserved them are mistaken.

Arts. Sappho and Leucas.

SATIRE.
(On Catholicism.)

M. Vincent has found, in Peter Pacteau’s journal, a large account of the magnificent reception the Rochellers gave the king and queen of Navarre (Jane D’Albret) in 1558. He has there also met with the following passage. “Whilst the king and queen of Navarre staid at Rochelle, there came a company of comedians. One day that they had a notable comedy to represent, as they had publicly given out, the king and queen came with their court; and there was also an extraordinary concourse of people; they represented a woman dying, who fetched deep sighs and groans, and demanded immediately to be confessed. The curate of the parish was sent for; he came with all his equipage, and did all he could; but the sick

woman continued still in great uneasiness, saying she was not well confessed. Other ecclesiastics came after the curate, and had no better success than he. After them came the monks of the several orders in their turn, and spared neither for relics nor indulgences executed in due form, whereof they had sacks full, and which they read one by one to the sick, who for her last remedy, was clothed in St. Francis’s habit.

All this operated nothing towards giving her conscience any repose; she said, lamenting herself, that none of them all understood the business of confession. Hereupon one of her acquaintance came upon the stage, and looking about on all sides, as having a secret to tell which he would not have any body to hear, he acquainted the sick person that he knew one who would confess her as he ought, and restore her to her health; but that appearing in public being prejudicial to him, he only came out by night: the sick woman prayed and pressed he should be sent for. After having waited some time, this person came in an ordinary habit, and approaching her bed side, he spoke to her without letting those present hear what he said; they only observed, by the woman’s gestures, that she appeared to be very well satisfied. At last, he drew a little book out of his pocket, which he gave to her, saying aloud, “that this book contained infallible receipts against her distemper, and that if she would use it, she should in a few days find her health perfectly restored.” When the man was gone, the . woman arose sound and entirely cured; and having taken two or three turns upon the stage, she told the spectators that this unknown person had done what was impossible for all the rest; and that it must be confessed his book contained admirable receipts, as might be seen from the speedy effect she bad found from it; that if any of them were seized with the same distemper, she would advise them to have recourse to this book, which she would gladly lend them; but

admonishing them withal, that in touching it, they would find it somewhat hot, and that there proceeded an ill scent from it, savouring of the faggot; that, for the rest, if the assistants desired to know her name who spoke, and the name of the book, those were riddles which she left to their own solution.

The king and queen of Navarre showed that they were pleased with this comedy, and so did all the court; and after their example, a great number of spectators, many of whom were already disgusted with the Romish religion. They did not find it difficult to discover that this sick person was Truth; that the first who had not well confessed her, were such as took the title of doctors and pastors; and who, instead of confessing the truth of God, held it in unrighteousness; that this last comer was one of the pretended heretics, who, by the severity of the times, were obliged to hide themselves; and who alone, when they were called, duly confessed the truth, which they had understood; lastly, that the hot book, which smelt of the faggot, was the New Testament, which they were forbidden to have and read in the vulgar tongue, upon peril of being burnt; but which as well pleased some as it much displeased others. The ecclesiastics especially were offended, and went to make their complaints to the king of Navarre himself, and afterwards to the magistrates of the town, who already talked of drawing up an information: so that the comedians thought it their best way to depart, as silently and suddenly as possible; and they would not have come off so, had it not appeared that they belonged to this prince and to his queen.

Art. Navarre.

SAVONAROLA.

Jerom Savonarola was born at Ferrara on the twenty-first of September, 1452, and without the

knowledge of his parents, took the habit of a Dominican friar at Bologna, in the year 1474. His superiors employed him to teach physics and metaphysics; but after having followed that business for several years, he took a disgust at these vain subtleties, and applied himself wholly to the reading of pious books, particularly of the holy Scripture. He was employed to preach and confess, and did both with great assiduity, till such time as he quitted the latter that he might have the more leisure for the former. He was sent for, in the year 1492, to prepare Lorenzo de Medicis for death. It is certain, that he distinguished himself in an extraordinary manner by the austerity of his life, and by the fervent eloquence with which he preached against immorality, without sparing the disorders of the clergy, nor even the court of Rome; that he pretended to partake in divine revelations; that by all these means he acquired a great authority in Florence and the veneration of the whole city; that he lost his credit, was excommunicated, degraded from his ecclesiastical orders, hanged, and burnt, in the year 1498. These are things which are not contested; but people are divided in their sentiments as to the point whether he were an honest man or a hypocrite. Some authors maintain that his conduct was the effect of a great zeal for truth, and for the reformation of the church: others pretend that he was an impostor who, to gratify his lust of power, borrowed the mask of virtue, and set up for a prophet. It is hard to find out the truth exactly in this conflict of opinions: for if, on the one hand, it be certain that the most impious hypocrites find apologists; it is no less certain, on the other, that the most honest zealots find accusers; and it is equally certain that on both sides, whether in defending or accusing, people generally give full scope to party interest, artifice, and disingenuousness. Methinks therefore, that I ought to content myself with making some collections concerning what has been said for, of against this Dominican.

Philip de Comines, who had seen Savonarola, praises him much, and ascribes to him the glory of having foretold certain things that came to pass. It is likewise upon bis testimony that the greatest stress is laid by persons who strive to justify the revelations of Savonarola; but as he mentions a prophecy which proved false, I mean that which affirmed that Charles VIII would come a second time into Italy, be serves as a witness to those who would censure the said prophet. This will appear from a passage that I quoted out of Gabriel Naudé, one of the authors who blame the conduct of our monk. He does not do it with so much harshness as Volaterranus, who has roundly affirmed that Savonarola was an arrant cheat, and that rising up in rebellion against the church, he. endeavoured to found a new sect. What he adds, that Savonarola, when he went to church in order to preach, got armed men to accompany him, is no small proof of a factious spirit. It cannot be denied that he concerned himself too much with political affairs, which is always blamable in persons who have dedicated themselves to the ministry of the word of God; but they are chiefly to be condemned when they meddle with the government, in a state which is divided into factions. Now this was precisely Savonarola’s case. There were two factions in the republic of Florence; the one endeavoured to support the house of Medicis, or at least the aristocracy; the other wanted to extirpate that house, and to set up a popular government. In these divisions he made himself the head of a party, and the soul or primum mobile of the democratical faction: so that he may be well compared to the tribunes of the people, who favoured Marius against Sylla, in the Roman republic, or rather to the Athenian Demagogues, who so frequently became the directors of the state. Can a friar, a minister of the

altar, in a word, a clergyman, embark in this stormy sea? Is it not a kind of engagement to sin? Will not such a man be almost necessarily obliged to support himself by foul intrigues, and by plots that generally end in popular tumults, in plunderings, in massacres, in proscriptions, and in sentences of death hastily passed, and no less hastily executed, by the faction which hath prevailed. Savonarola’s party rendered themselves odious by such an execution upon several considerable persons, and he thereby sowed the seeds of his own ruin. He did no less contribute to it by his contempt for the thunders of the Vatican, and his declamations against the pope; but what completed his destruction was, that having agreed that his doctrines should be verified by the trial of fire, he visibly shuffled and his heart failed him, when the time came for executing his engagement.

Guicciardini has discovered so great an inclination to justify Savonarola, that I cannot choose a less suspected narrative than. his. I shall quote it somewhat at length, that I may show all the causes of this monk’s ruin. “Savonarola having been long before accused to the pope, of the following crimes; that he preached scandalously against the manners of the clergy and of the court of Rome; that he nourished divisions in Florence; that his doctrine was not entirely catholic; and having, for these reasons, been summoned to appear at Rome by several apostolical briefs, refused to go there, alleging divers excuses; and on this account, he had at last, in the preceding year, been excommunicated by the pope. By reason of this sentence, he abstained some months from preaching; and if he had abstained longer, he might have obtained bis absolution easily; because the pope, who made no great account of Savonarola, had proceeded against him rather by the instigation and persuasion of his adversaries, than for any other cause.

But he, concluding that it was owing to his silence that his reputation declined so fast, or that the end which he had in view was thereby interrupted, as he had chiefly raised himself by his vehemence in preaching, despised the pope’s orders, and returned afresh to the public discharge of that office; affirming that the censures published against him were unjust and void, as being contrary to the will of God, and prejudicial to the interest of society. He railed most severely against the pope and the whole court, which occasioned a violent uproar. His adversaries (whose authority with the people increased daily) detested this disobedience, and laid to his charge that, by his rash conduct the pope’s mind was altered, and that too at a time when he was treating with other confederates about the restitution of Pisa, and when it was proper to do every thing that might confirm him in that inclination. On the other hand, his followers defended him; saying, 'that people ought not, for the sake of worldly considerations, to disturb the works of God; nor consent that, under such pretexts, the popes should begin to meddle with the affairs of their republic.’ This dispute, having lasted several days, and the pope being strangely provoked, and thundering out new briefs and threatenings of excommunication against the whole city, he was at length commanded by the magistrates to desist from preaching. He obeyed their orders, but several of his brethren did in divers churches the same thing that he had done. As the clergy were no less divided than the laity, the monks of other orders did not cease to preach against him with great vehemence; and they were inflamed at length to such a degree, that one of the friars who adhered to Savonarola, and one of the friars minors, agreed to enter into the fire in the presence of the whole people, to the end that, according as Savonarola’s friar should escape or be burnt, every one might plainly see whether he was a prophet or

an impostor: because formerly he had several times affirmed in his sermons that, as a sign of the truth of his predictions, he would obtain of God, when it should be necessary, the favour to pass unhurt through the middle of the fire. Being nevertheless vexed that the proposal of coming to an immediate proof of it should have been made without his knowledge, he dexterously tried to divert it. But as the thing had already gone too far, and was pressed by some citizens, who desired to see their country rid of so much vexation, it was at last necessary to proceed. Wherefore the two friars, accompanied by all their brethren, came on the day appointed to the place, which is before the public palace, where were assembled, not only all the people in Florence, but likewise several others from the neighbouring towns. Here the friars minors being informed that Savonarola had ordered his monk to carry the sacrament in his hand when he entered into the fire, began earnestly to protest against this, and to allege that by such means an attempt was made to endanger the authority of the Christian faith, which would decline very much in the minds of the ignorant, if the Host should burn; and as Savonarola, who was present, still persisted in his resolution, there arose such a discord between them, that they did not proceed to make the experiment. He lost so much credit by this, that the next day his adversaries, encouraged by some accidental tumult, took arms, and joining to these the authority of the supreme magistrate, they entered by force the convent of St Mark, where he resided, and carried him, together with two of his brethren, to the public gaol. Guicciardini, book iii, near the end, fol. m. 127, ad ann. 1498. ⁷⁵”

We ought not to blame Guicciardini for omitting the minute particulars of this amazing challenge; for such a historian is not obliged to trace the progress of things of that kind. It is sufficient for him to give

the substance of them; but the reader will no doubt be very glad to find here supplements to Guicciardini’s narrative, since we are speaking of a very singular adventure. I shall say then that the seven theses which I have mentioned above, were the first subject of the challenge. Savonarola having given notice that he would defend them, a friar minor inveighed against them in his sermons, and offered to maintain that they were heretical. He was seconded by his brethren, and Savonarola by his, so that a violent dispute arose between the two orders. The Dominicans declared that they were ready to forfeit their lives, if they did not make out the truth of those theses before an unsuspected judge, and they chose the fire for such a judge. The Franciscans having accepted of it, Dominic de Pescia a jacobin, signed a writing by which he engaged to enter into the fire with the friar minor that had preached against the theses. He declared that he hoped to come out safe and sound from the middle of the flames. The friar minor declared that he was ready to dispute with friar Savonarola, and that another Franciscan should enter into the fire with Dominic de Pescia. Some other Franciscans offered themselves to this trial with the hopes of passing through it unhurt; but there was one who required that Savonarola should enter with him into the fire, and who confessed that he believed he himself should perish in it. A great number of Dominicans bound themselves by writing to undergo the trial; a great many others made the same offer; and on the first day of April, 1498, almost every one of Savonarola’s hearers cried out, “Here am I, Sir, here am I, that will enter into the fire for your glory. Questa matina ultimamente che siamo a di primo d’Aprile, parrechie migliara di persone, di quelle che si trovano in sancto Marco nostro alia predica con grandissimo fervore, gridando ciascuno, ecco io, andaro in questo fuoco per gloria tua signore. It was thought strange that Savonarola did not accept the challenge of the Franciscan, who demanded him by name for an antagonist. He justified himself by saying that it was not worth his while to enter into the fire with a single Franciscan; but if his adversaries, and especially such of them as resided at Rome, and their adherents, would expose themselves to the fire, he was ready to accompany them, . being well assured that he should come off in the same manner as the three Hebrews that were cast into the furnace at Babylon. I pass by the other answers which he made to the objections: they are to be seen in this book which I quote.

The magistrates of Florence having well considered all these challenges and the commotion which this thing bred in the city, gave orders that they should proceed to the execution of their engagements on Saturday the seventh of April, 1498. The friar minor accompanied only with one of his brethren, went to the place of execution before the hour appointed, but Dominic de Pescia let it pass, and came a little after in procession with the cross and the host, and with Savonarola and all his brethren, and a great multitude of people. The friar minor declared to the magistrates that he did not at all doubt but that he should be burnt, and begged of them not to pass a judgment in Savonarola’s favour, unless the Dominican should come out of the fire without receiving any harm. This was promised to him, and because there were people who suspected that the one or the other of the friars, or perhaps both, had hid some charm under their gown, they were ordered to pull off their clothes and to put on new ones which had been just made for them; the friar minor consented to it, and even offered to go naked into the flames. The Dominican on the other hand, made use of subterfuges to keep his gown, and it was granted him at the request of the friar minor himself, who represented that

since it was of cloth it would infallibly burn with the person that had it on. Afterwards, the Dominican protested that he would not enter into the fire without the crucifix; this was agreed to at the entreaty still of the friar minor, who represented that the crucifix was of wood, and that consequently, instead of being a preservative against the fire, it would be burnt with the Dominican. The latter asked as a new favour, that he might be allowed to enter into the fire with the holy sacrament, and declared that without that he would not expose himself to the trial. The magistrates refused to grant his petition, and thereupon the assembly broke up; every one returned to his own house, and this was the issue of an affair which had drawn the attention of the whole city. People murmured, chafed, and entertained suspicions against Savonarola; and by this means be lost his reputation, and the very next day a number of armed men hastened to his convent, and having dragged him thence, delivered him into the hands of justice.

We cannot accuse those people of being rash, who entertained suspicions to Savonarola’s disadvantage; all appearances were in his disfavour. It was already a prejudice against him, that being personally challenged to enter into the fire, he declined the task himself, and substituted a deputy. He made a very foolish excuse when he pretended that by reason of the great work to which he was destined by God, it was beneath him to engage with a single Franciscan; for he could have done nothing more useful towards the advancement of that work, than the good success of the trial would have been. What more authentic proof could he give of his extraordinary mission, than to convince the people that he passed unhurt through the middle of the flames which consumed his accuser. Would not this have been as sufficient to legitimate his mission, as the punishment of Korah was to

confirm that of Moses? Observe well that this monk did not express any doubt of the activity of the fire. He said he was fully persuaded that he should receive no manner of damage; since therefore he was to survive the trial, he had no reason to believe that it would incapacitate him for executing his designs. On the contrary, he had reason to believe that it would render him the more capable of bringing them about. We see then that he gave grounds for a violent suspicion that he was afraid of losing his honour and his life at the same time; and it was no sign of courage his offering himself to the personal proof, provided his enemies at Rome would undergo it with him; for there is no manner of difference between promising nothing at all, and promising upon such conditions as we know will not be accepted.

The friars minor obtained an indisputable advantage in this affair. Their champion discovered both a great deal of charity and a great deal of courage, for he presented himself to a certain death; he had good sense enough to be persuaded that the fire would give no quarter to him, he was ready to die for the salvation of so many souls, who as he thought were misled by Savonarola. He hoped that their eyes would be opened, and that the deceit would last no longer than they should see the substitute of the deceiver perish in the flames. He had some grounds to fear lest they should judge that, since the two antagonists perished alike, both sides were in the wrong; but without doubt he hoped that the evil would entirely cease, provided it was once believed that Savonarola had erred. Observe, that if the Dominicans who offered themselves to the trial, were fully persuaded that the fire would respect them, they did not show much courage; observe also, that by virtue of that persuasion, they thought themselves innocent of the crime of self-murder. “Mi confido,” said Savonarola, “nel Sig et Salvatore Jesu Christo, et nel

suo S Evangelio, che ciascuno di loro ne uscira illeso, cio e senza alcun damno, et quando di questo dubitasse punto, non lo direi, per non esser homicida. . . I trust in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and in his gospel, that every one of them shall come out unhurt, and if I had the least doubt of it I would not say so for fear of being a murderer.” He laid that crime to the charge of his adversaries who offered themselves to the proof, believing at the same time that they should perish in it. He was put to the rack, and it is said that he confessed his imposture. What Guicciardini relates savours of a man who is tender of unfortunate people’s reputation. “Savonarola,” says he, “was examined with tortures, although they were not very severe; and upon the examination, a process was published which (laying aside all the injurious reproaches that had been thrown out against him of avarice or bad morals, or of his having carried on secret intrigues with princes) contained that his predictions had not proceeded from divine revelation, but from his own opinion grounded upon the doctrine and observation of the Holy Scripture, and that he had not been induced thereto from any ill design nor from a desire of acquiring high preferments in the church by that means, but that he had earnestly wished to be the instrument of calling a general council in which the corrupt manners of the clergy might be reformed, and the state of the church of God which had deviated so far, might be reduced to as great a resemblance as possible, of those days that were nearest to the times of the apostles; and that he would have thought it a much greater honour to finish that great and useful work, than to obtain the papal dignity; because the former could only proceed from a most excellent life and doctrine, and a singular respect for all men, whereas the latter was very often obtained by ill means, or by the favour of fortune. In consequence of this process, confirmed by him in the presence of several friars likewise of his order, but (if what his adherents published afterwards be true) in few words, and in such as were capable of divers interpretations, by sentence of the general of the Dominicans and of bishop Romolino, who was afterwards cardinal of Surrente, the commissaries deputed by the Pope, he and the other two friars were, with the usual ceremonies in the church of Rome, degraded from their holy orders, and being delivered over to the secular arm, they were hanged and burnt.”

Guicciardini adds, that Savonarola, who was hanged and burnt with two other jacobin friars, Dominic of Pescia and Sylvester of Florence,“suffered death courageously, without saying one word that might shew either his guilt or his innocence; but that this did not put an end to the difference in the opinions and passions of men, because several persons considered him as an impostor; and on the other hand, several believed that the confession which was published had been falsely invented, or that the torture had more power than truth upon a man of his constitution, which was very delicate. They excused his frailty by the example of the prince of the apostles, who without being imprisoned or constrained by any torture or extraordinary violence, did at the bare words of chambermaids and servants, deny that he was the disciple of that master from whom he had seen so many holy precepts and miracles proceed.”

The vigorous resistance which the jacobins made when their convent was attacked, did not well become the disciples of a prophet of the new law, especially since this attack was countenanced by the authority of the magistrates. They made provision of fire arms, and killed five persons. Three of them were killed, and particularly the brother of Savonarola. They were obliged to set fire to the convent,

in order to get the better of the monks who defended it.

Some believed that Savonarola was very justly punished, but others considered him as a martyr, and endeavoured to have part of his ashes that they might keep them as a relic, for which reason they were thrown into the river. Books were written for his justification, and we must not omit that the Protestants have declared for him. Let us begin with a passage of Gabriel Naudé; it is in page 453 of his apology for the great men that have been accused of magic. “Beza, Vigner, Cappel, du Plessis Mornai, Mystere d’lniquité, in Epist. Philosoph. Savonarolæ præfixa. ⁷⁶ and all the Lutherans of Germany commonly call Savonarola in their books, the faithful witness of truth, the forerunner of the evangelical reformation, the scourge of the great Babylon, the sworn enemy of the Roman Anti-Christ, and to conclude in a word with Jessenius a Jessen, the Luther of Italy. I wonder they do not likewise call him the John Hus of the same country, since they were both put to the same death, were both Heresiarchs, and both have their names marked with great letters in the register and journal of their martyrs: witness the following verses which they put under his effigies:"

En monachus solers: rerum scrutator acutus
Martyrio ornatus, Savonarola pius.

Behold acute Savonarola, here
The monk, the martyr, and the saint appear.

He adds that Beza says expressly when he speaks of him in his eulogies, that his having so far displeased Alexander VI was a great proof of his singular piety, that this wicked pope could have no rest till he had caused him to be most unworthily burnt. It is an argument good enough for an orator, but not

for a writer that would speak historically or dogmatically, since the most cruel tyrants put some people to death justly.

Notwithstanding these panegyrics, Savonarola died like a good Roman Catholic. There is some foundation for doubting whether the title of martyr which has been bestowed upon him by some authors, justly belongs to him. I put this question to those who say that Savonarola was burnt for no other reason than because he had incurred the displeasure of the court of Rome. Have you read the acts of his trial? Did you find there that he was charged with no other crime but railing at the Pope, despising the excommunications of Rome, and preaching that the church wanted to be reformed? In that case I yield the point to you. But as you cannot have read them without finding that among several other shameful confessions which were drawn from him, he acknowledges that his predictions were only grounded upon the consequences which he had deduced from scripture, it is impossible for you to justify yourselves, your report is very unfaithful.

In effect, this acknowledgment of Savonarola convicted him of an imposture that was full of profanation and impiety, since he had said for some years, that his knowledge of things to come, proceeded from an immediate and prophetical inspiration. This, no doubt, was the principal reason which the judges alleged for sentencing him to be burnt. If you answer that this was not the true reason of Savonarola’s punishment, it was only the pretence, I ask you is a man allowed upon certain facts, to give his conjectures and interpretations, which are charitable with respect to the party accused, and malicious with respect to the judges? And after all, this does not justify the persons whose narratives he examines, for they say not a word concerning the motives which the judges alleged. They decide the point without

setting forth the tenor of the acts. Does not this show a conduct full of temerity and passion?

This does not concern those who acknowledge that the records of the trial charge several great crimes upon Savonarola, but who pretend that foul play was used in drawing up these records, and that there appeared falsified copies of them. I will neither doubt of this, nor of the passion which may possibly have prevailed in the minds of the judges; I shaft only warn those who so positively affirm that the sole cause of Savonarola’s death was his having railed at the Pope; that Guicciardini, who is rather his apologist than his historian, owns that the party accused renounced the title of a prophet. He was therefore convicted of imposture in point of prophecy, by his own confession. I cannot tell whether the judges knew of the letters which Savonarola wrote to Charles VIII, exhorting him to return into Italy, and to reform the church by the sword. They would have found there a just cause to condemn him for treason, for it is an act of rebellion to call in. foreign armies; the heads of a faction cannot lawfully use such means to render it the uppermost in their country. On the other hand, it was a strange if not a mad project, to think of making the sword of a king of France the instrument of reforming the church. Did he want him to employ dragooning, or was it only his desire that he should oblige the court of Rome by the terror of his arms, to call a council? But what freedom could there be in an assembly held by the will of a conqueror? Would people dare to give their opinions otherwise than as he should think fit?

Let us observe, that if this Dominican were not an impostor, he must necessarily have been a prodigious fanatic. I prove it thus: he foretold among other things, the approaching conversion of the Mahometans, and showed himself to be so fully persuaded of the certainty of this prophecy, that he declared that

whoever should enter into the fire for the support of it, would come off without receiving any damage. If he spoke sincerely, his persuasion was as strong as it could possibly be. Now, since the falsity of the prediction makes it plainly appear that he was not inspired, we ought to conclude that his fanaticism was come to the highest pitch. Every body, I think, must know that the virtue of a fanatic, his zeal, his mortifications are not words of a double meaning. It is generally a virtue proceeding from vapours, an irregularity of the organs, a disorder in some fibres of the brain. I am willing to believe that those who have so much cried up the martyrdom of Savonarola, had never read the facts which I have mentioned in this remark, nor made the reflections which naturally arise from them. I must do this justice to Voëtius, that although he has disputed the ground by inches in favour of the Dominican, he does not fail to acknowledge that he had somewhat of a vertigo. He does not make him a true prophet of the new law as others have done. Savonarola wrote a great many books wherein we find a great deal of unction and piety. This is Mr Du Pin’s judgment upon them: “He has composed,” says he, “a prodigious number of books, moral, spiritual, and practical; they abound in the unction and maxims of piety; he there freely censures vice, and teaches the purest and the most sublime morality.” Mr Du Pin has given us the catalogue of this friar’s works, we find it also in the appendix to Dr Cave, with a great many particulars concerning the different editions. Some of them were put in the “Index Librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum,” and there arose a great dispute under pope Paul IV, whether or not they should all be treated in the same manner; but by the extraordinary vigilance of the Dominicans it was carried in the negative, and it was resolved to stand to what had already been decreed against some of them, and that even these should not be branded as heretical or erroneous: the penalty of suspension was thought sufficient. Of all the many books written by Savonarola, none has been more universally approved of than that which is entitled “Triumphus Crucis, seu de Fidei Christianæ veritate—The Triumph of the Cross, or of the Truth of Christianity.” Cardinal Onuphrius who died at Rome in the year 1646, ordered by a codicil annexed to his last will, that they should cause it to be reprinted in good characters, with the Paraphrase of the same author upon the Miserere, and left five hundred crowns for that purpose. Let us observe that Savonarola's book against Judicial Astrology, was printed in Italian at Florence, in the year 1495, and that it was translated into Latin, and illustrated with notes by Thomas Boninsignius; the same book was translated into High Dutch, by Thomas Erastus. It is said that Savonarola encouraged John Picus to write against Judicial Astrology: the reason that is given for his hatred to astrologers, appears to me very chimerical; however I shall recite it, as it will serve to show the credulity of Florimond de Remond. “The excessive vanity of Savonarola, who pretended to be a prophet, was presently found out by the very astrologers; for as there was a conjunction of Venus and Saturn, and the moon was in the meridian of her hemisphere on the twenty-first of September, 1452, at forty-four minutes past five in the afternoon, they immediately saw the pride and arrogance of that monk. For this reason he was such a bitter enemy to astrology, having armed Picus Mi randolanus against it.”

In a letter which Savonarola wrote to the Pope, wherein he examines among other things laid to his charge, the accusation of his boasting that he conversed with God, he answers that he never spoke so in express words; but that supposing he had even made use of that expression, he should not deserve

to be punished, since there is no law for punishing those who say that they converse with God. He adds that such a law would be absurd and impious, since no man can impose a law upon God, who may converse with whom he pleases. His answers to the greatest part of the other accusations, go almost upon the same foundation. He denies, for example, that he had boasted of being a prophet; but he maintains that if he had done so, he should not be liable to punishment. He does not acknowledge that he said absolutely and with a design to make himself equal to God, “If I am a liar, Jesus Christ is so.” He confines himself to certain particular cases, wherein he pretends that he might lawfully use that expression. He has recourse to a distinction of the like nature, when he tries to justify himself for having said, that such as did not give credit to his predictions were out of the way of salvation. “I only meant that,” says he, “of such people as opposed me through a spirit of obstinacy.” He was no bad proficient in the art of sophistry, that art which is so necessary to those who deal in predictions.

He had also great conflicts with the devils, and rendered himself formidable to these princes of darkness. I must not forget that one of the things which served to make him odious, was his affection for the king of France. There is room to believe that he was attached to that prince, because having presumed to prophecy that great revolutions would happen, and turning his eyes on all sides to seek out the Cyrus destined by God to fulfil that great work, he found none so fit for that purpose as Charles VIII. From that moment he declared him to be the chosen Cyrus of God, and dedicated all his services to him. It is the common practice of these false prophets, and we have examples of it which are of a fresher date still than that of Drabicius. I do not know whether Savonarola had not attended to a maxim

which Machiavel has published since, quoting him for an example of it. This maxim is, that prophets who are not supported by the secular arm, nor by any other weapons besides their own tongue and the prepossession of the people, “sola majestate armati— armed with majesty,” are exposed to terrible changes of fortune.—Art. Savonarola.

SCEPTICISM.

The only dispute that Christians can enter upon with philosophers is on this matter of fact:—whether the Scripture was written by inspired authors? If the arguments the Christians allege on this subject do not convince the philosophers, they ought to break off the dispute; for it would be to no purpose to enter into the particular discussion of the Trinity, &c. with people who disown the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, the sole and only way to judge who is in the right or wrong in such controversies. Revealed authority ought to be the common principle of disputants hereupon, and therefore there is no disputing when this principle is denied, and the other admits of it: “Adversus negantem principia non est disputandum.”

If they who deny it persist to clamour and dispute, they ought to be coldly answered, you depart from the question, “Non feritis thesim, non probatis ne gatum,” and if they laugh at this answer, their laughing ought to be despised and pitied.

But of all the philosophers who ought not to be allowed to dispute concerning the mysteries of Christianity, before they have admitted revelation for a rule, there are none so unworthy of being heard as the followers of Pyrrho, for they make profession of admitting no certain marks of distinction between truth and falsehood; so that if truth, by chance, appeared to diem, they could never be sure that it was

truth. They not only attack the testimony of the senses, the maxims of morality, the rules of logic, the axioms of metaphysics, but endeavour to overthrow the demonstrations of geometry, and the most evident principles of the mathematicians. If they went no farther than the ten reasons for suspending our assent, and only used them against natural philosophy, we might still treat with them, but they will go much farther; they have a sort of arms they call the diallel, which they lay hold of on the first occasion, and afterwards there is no withstanding them in any subject whatever. It is a labyrinth, from which no clue of Ariadne can wind us out. They lose themselves in their own subtilties, and are wonderfully pleased with it, since this serves to shew more clearly the universality of their hypothesis, that every thing is uncertain, from which they except not even the arguments against uncertainty. They proceed so far in their method, that they who have well considered the consequences of it are forced to say, that they know not whether any thing exists.

Divines ought not to be ashamed to confess, that they cannot enter the lists with such disputants, and that they will not expose the gospel-truths to such an encounter. The vessel of Jesus Christ is not made to float upon that tempestuous sea, but to ride secure from this tempest in the haven of faith. It has pleased the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, must Christians say, to lead us by the way of faith, and not of science or disputation. They are our instructors and directors; we cannot err, having such guides, and reason itself commands us to prefer them before its own direction.

Some say that I have very improperly related the conversation of an abbot, who owns that Scepticism finds several arguments in the doctrines of Christianity, which render it more formidable than it was. I answer, " that this can offend none but such as have

not examined the character of Christianity. It would be a false notion to imagine, that Jesus Christ had any design to countenance, either directly or indirectly, some of the sects of philosophers in the disputes they had against the rest. His design was rather to confound all philosophy, and to shew the vanity of it. He was willing that his Gospel should clash not only with the religion of the Heathens, but with the aphorisms of their wisdom, and that notwithstanding this opposition betwixt his principles and those of the world, his doctrine should triumph over the Gentiles, by the ministry of a few illiterate men, who had neither eloquence nor logic, nor any of the instruments necessary to all other revolutions. He would have his disciples, and the wise men of this world, to be so diametrically opposite, that they should mutually call one another fools: he designed, that as his gospel appeared folly to the philosophers, their science should in its turn appear folly to the Christians. Consider well these words of St Paul:

“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because

the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption; that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech, and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Do you think that if the Apostles had been told that their doctrine exposed the dogmatizing philosophers to new attacks from the Sceptics, they would have been concerned at it? They would have said, “Let us not trouble ourselves with their disputes: Let the dead bury the dead; the more they contend and disable one another, the more they will discover the vanity of their pretended science. Neither the Dogmatists nor the Sceptics will ever be able to enter into the kingdom of God, unless they become little children, unless they change their maxims, renounce their wisdom, and make a burnt-offering of their vain systems at the foot of the cross to the pretended folly of our preaching. This is the old man they must chiefly put off, before they can be qualified to receive the heavenly gift, and to enter into the way of faith appointed by God for eternal salvation. If the Sceptics make an ill use of our mysteries to root themselves deeper in uncertainty, and if they object against us arguments ad hominem, so much the worse for them, unless God make use of their errors to make them see the necessity of submitting to his word.” This is what St Paul and his fellow Apostles would have answered to such objections. We ought to be fully persuaded, that if there had been occasion to give their decision upon the nature of the Heathen

philosophy with respect to the difficulty or readiness of embracing the gospel, they would have positively determined that die method, principles, practices, and disputes of the Peripatetics, Academics, &c. were so great an obstacle to faith, that the most necessary preliminaries to enter into the kingdom of God, were to forget or lay aside all this train of a false science. I believe they would have made such a determination both for the present and the time to come. These words in St John’s Gospel, chap. iii. ver. 3—“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” are chiefly true with respect to philosophers: they want to be born again more than other men; they want one regeneration as men, and another as philosophers.

I have cited an author who seems to believe that the subtilties of the schools of philosophy may, upon favourable occasions, serve to propagate the true faith. “It may be,” says he, Balzac, Socrate Chrestien, Discours v. pag. m. 71. et seq. ⁷⁷ “that these subtile doctors were necessary to the world, I mean the curious, disputing, and contradicting world. Perhaps they entered into the design of the providence of God, for the accomplishment of his son’s kingdom; for the last perfection of the economy of his church. You know that the Son of God sent several Apostles to several nations; you know that all the missions he ordained were not made at the same time, and by the twelve first Apostles. He never wanted, and will never want such ambassadors. He has always messengers ready to receive his orders, to execute his commands, to set out for his service. We ought not to doubt that he has more than one St Peter and St Paul. He has also more than one St Thomas. How do we know but that he has sent the St Thomas of the latter times to the successors of Aristotle, to treat them according to their own humour, and to convert them in their way, in order to gain them by their own

syllogisms and logic? How do we know but St Thomas of the schools has been chosen to be the apostle of the Peripatetic nation, which was not yet well conquered and subdued? A presumptuous and mutinous nation, which has so little regard to authority, which goes always upon reason, which continually demands why things are so and so, which is so restless, such an enemy to peace, and so fond of innovations? Methinks this last mission has not been useless, and there is some probability in what I say.” If there is no irony in this discourse, if it be all in a serious strain, it is

A splendid nothing dress’d in lofty words.

All men in all ages have required and will require that the knowledge of revealed truths should be searched after by other methods than those of philosophy. Philosophy cures not a floating mind, which must be cured if we desire true wisdom by our prayers. Let us here give the authority of an Apostle. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed; for let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” Jam. i. 5, et seq. ⁷⁸ Judge whether the Sceptics, who are always so much the more pleased, as the efforts they make to invent reasons for doubting of every thing have furnished them with specious objections against certainty, are capable of receiving the grace of God by the way of disputation. The modern missionaries of the gospel ought to treat them as the first would have done; they ought to advise them to lay aside all disputes and contentions, and to believe God upon his word, and if they prove untractable, they ought particularly to

remember this precept of St Paul, and apply it to those men: “Avoid foolish questions and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is a Heretic after the first and second admonition, reject.” Tit. iii. 9, 10. ⁷⁹ It would be fine work to see our Thomists and Scotists undertake the conversion of the new world by public disputations as in Europe; they would be sorry converters at that rate. Balzac did not consider it, or else gravely ridiculed the schoolmen: their public disputes convert nobody; every body goes away with the same opinions he brought with him. If we propose to the Chinese philosophers the Thomistical explications of our mysteries, and if they asked, how can we believe this, since we have no idea of it, we should do well to refer them, not to a disputation, but to an answer pretty like that which the angel Gabriel made to the Virgin Mary: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man.” And the angel answered, and said unto her, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.” Luke i. 34, 35. ⁸⁰

We may affirm at this day, just as in Lactantius’s time, that true religion ought to be enquired after by applying to the pretended and seeming foolishness under which God has been pleased to hide the treasures of his wisdom. “Quid putemus fuisse causae, cur tot ingeniis, totque temporibus summo studio, et labore quaesita (sapientia) non reperiretur; nisi quod eam philosophi extra fines suos quaesierunt? Qui quoniam peragratis, et exploratis omnibus nusquam nullam sapientiam comprehenderunt; et alicubi esse illam necesse est: apparet, illic potissimum esse quaerendam, ubi stultitlÆ titulus apparet; cujus velamento Deus, ne arcanum summi sui divini operis in propatulo esset, thesaurum sapientiae, ac veritatis

abscondit. Lactant, lib. iv. cap. ii. pag. m. 226. ⁸¹—What is the reason why wisdom, which has been so frequently sought after by so many men of parts, with the greatest application and labour, has never been found, unless that the philosophers have sought after wisdom where she is not. Now, since these philosophers, who have examined and explored all things, have found wisdom no where, and since she must necessarily be somewhere, it is evident that she must be sought after chiefly where there appear the characters of foolishness, under the cover of which God, lest the mysteries of his Divine Works should be divulged, hath hid the treasures of wisdom and truth.” The same Lactantius has judiciously observed in another place, that it becomes the supreme majesty of God to speak with authority, and to say in a few words, this is true, and not to argue and add proofs to his decisions. “Quae (divina) quidem tradita sunt breviter, ac nude; nec enim decebat aliter: ut cum Deus ad hominem loqueretur, argumentis assereret suas voces, tanquam fides ei non haberetur: sed, ut oportuit, est locutus, quasi rerum omnium maximus judex; cujus est non argumentari, sed pronuntiare verum, Lib. iii. cap. i. pag. 149. ⁸²...Divine truths are declared in a few words, and without being supported by reasonings. Nor was it fit that God, when he speaks to men, should support his words by arguments, as if he ought not to be believed without proofs; but God hath spoken as it became him, like the sovereign judge of all things, who is not to argue, but to pronounce the truth.” If Seneca said that there is nothing more insipid than a law with a preamble, and that a law should not dispute, but command; if he said this of human laws, much more ought it to be said of the law of God. “Non probo, quod Platonis legibus adjecta principia sunt. Legem enim brevem esse oportet, quo facilius, ab imperitis teneatur, velut emissa divinitus vox sit. Jubeat, non disputet. Nihil videtur mihi frigidius, nihil ineptius, quam lex cum prologo. Mone, die quid me velis fecisse: non disco, sed pareo.—That reasons are annexed to the laws of Plato, is what I do not approve; for a law ought to be comprised in a very few words, that men of the meanest capacity may the better comprehend it, and consider it as a voice from heaven. Let it command, and not dispute. Nothing seems to me more insipid, nor more foolish, than a law with a preamble. Warn me, tell me what you command me to do, and I do not learn of you, but obey?''

From all that has been said, it is easy to conclude that we cannot be alarmed with the objections of the Sceptics, without discovering the weakness of our faith, and taking things in a wrong sense which ought to be taken in a right one.

A true believer, a Christian who well understands the spirit of his religion, does not expect to see it agree with the aphorisms of the Lyceum, nor to find it able by the mere strength of reason, to confute the difficulties of reason. He well knows that natural things have no proportion to the supernatural; and that if a philosopher were desired to level and adjust the mysteries of the gospel with the Aristotelian axioms, it would be requiring of him what is inconsistent with the nature of things. You must necessarily make an option betwixt philosophy and the gospel: if you will believe nothing but what is evident and agreeable to common notions, choose philosophy and leave Christianity. If you will believe the incomprehensible mysteries of religion, take Christianity and leave philosophy; for to enjoy at the same time evidence and incomprehensibility, is a thing impossible; the conjunction of these two things is no less impossible than the conjunction of the properties of a square and of a circle. You must necessarily make

an option between them: if the conveniences of a round table do not satisfy you, make a square one; and do not pretend that the same table should furnish you with the conveniences both of a round table and of a square table. Once more, a true Christian, well instructed in the character of supernatural truths, and well grounded in the principles peculiar to the gospel, will laugh at the subtilties of philosophers, and especially of the Sceptics. Faith will place him above the regions wherein the storms of disputation rage. He will find himself in a post whence, being calm and undisturbed, he can hear the thunder of argumentations and distinctions roar below him: a post that will prove the true Olympus of the poets and the true temple of the sages; whence he will see, in perfect tranquillity, the weakness of reason, and the errors of men who have no other guide. Every Christian who suffers himself to be startled and offended with the objections of unbelievers, is in the same lamentable condition as they are.

What I am going to say may teach us how important it is to know the true use of things. Several people have asked, to what purpose I have set forth many sceptical and Manichean objections? I think they could not much complain, if I should only ask them, to what purpose are so many particulars we find in historians? Is it not certain that historians relate several things whose only use consists in pleasing the readers, and which may be hurtful in the hands of those who abuse the best things? Does this free a historian from the obligation he is under of relating the truth with all possible exactness? Must not therefore a historian of opinions exactly and fully show the strong and weak sides of them, though it should accidentally occasion some disturbance, and though no other good should proceed from it but the amusement of the reader, and an example of the regard that is due to the laws of history? But this

is neither the sole nor the principal answer I am to give.

Nothing is more necessary than faith, and nothing more important than to know well the worth of this theological virtue. But is any thing more proper to acquaint us with it than meditating on the attribute which distinguishes it from the other acts of the understanding? Its essence consists in imprinting in us a strong persuasion of revealed truths, by the sole motive of God’s authority. They who, by philosophical reasons, believe the immortality of the soul, are orthodox, but while they go no farther, they do not partake of the faith we speak of. They partake of it only as they believe this truth, because God has revealed it, and humbly submit to the voice of God the most plausible arguments philosophy offers to persuade them of the soul’s mortality. Thus the merit of faith is enlarged, in proportion as revealed truth, which is the object of it, exceeds all the powers of our understanding: for the more the incomprehensibility of this object increases, by the numerous maxims of natural light which oppose it, the more we must sacrifice to God’s authority a stronger repugnance of reason, and consequently we show ourselves more obedient to God, and give him a greater proof of our respect than if the thing were moderately difficult to believe. Whence was it that the father of the faithful had so eminent and illustrious a faith? Was it not because “he believed in hope against hope?” Rom. iv, 18. ⁸³ There had been no great merit in hoping upon the promise of God for a thing naturally very probable; the merit therefore consisted in this, that the hope grounded on this promise was contrary to all appearances. Let us say likewise, that the most precious faith is that which upon the Divine testimony embraces such truths as are the most repugnant to reason.

This thought has been expressed in a ludicrous way by a masterly hand: “the devil take me if I believed a syllable then,” said the Mareschal d’Hocquincourt; “but ever since I could endure to be crucified for religion. Not that I see more reason in it now; but on the contrary, less than ever: but for all that, I could suffer myself to be crucified without knowing why or wherefore. ‘So much the better, my lord,' replied the father, twanging it devoutly through the nose; ‘so much the better; these are not human motions; they proceed from God. No reason! that is the true religion: no reason. What an extraordinary grace, my lord, has heaven bestowed upon you! Estate sicut infinites, be ye as children: children have still their innocence, and why? Because they have no reason. Beati pauperes spiritu, blessed are the poor in spirit; they sin not; the reason is because they have no reason. No reason: without knowing why or wherefore: oh, excellent words! they ought to be written in golden letters. Not that I see more reason in it now; but on the contrary, less than ever. In truth this is divine for them that have any taste of heavenly things. No reason! What an extraordinary grace, my lord, has God bestowed upon you!’” Mr. de St Evremond, in his “Conversation between Mareschal d’Hoquincourt and Father Canaye,” tom. i, p. 181, of the English translation, London, 1728. ⁸⁴ Give this thought a more serious and modest turn, and it will become reasonable. Here is the proof of it. I take it from a book wherein some thoughts of M. de St Evremond are examined; and this amongst others, that our understanding is not sufficiently convinced of the truth of religion.

" To answer clearly to this, we must remember a maxim commonly received among divines: viz. that the mind is induced to believe mysteries in a quite different way from that which gives it an evident knowledge of natural things. It knows the latter by

demonstration, and it believes mysteries upon motives of credibility; such as are the miracles wrought by Jesus Christ and his apostles, the unanimous belief of all the faithful for seventeen centuries, &c. All which motives ought to induce us to believe prudently the faith which the church proposes to us: and this very well explains these words of St Paul, “that in this present life we see the mysteries as riddles, waiting to see them evidently in heaven.” But M. de St Evremond requires demonstration. He therefore admits no faith. St Thomas says expressly in some places of his Summa, “that no body ought to go about to demonstrate the mysteries of religion;” and he adds in other chapters, “that when the fathers proved the faith, they did not pretend their arguments were demonstrative, but only solid motives to induce us to believe the doctrines propounded to us.” “Why,” says M. de St Evremond, is not our reason enlightened?” “Because,” as St Thomas says, “reason must submit to faith.” Upon which I call to mind some words of Petrus Blesensis in his 140th Epistle written to Petrus Diaconus, who was with the king of England. After he had spoken of the mystery, of transubstantiation, “reason,” pursues he, “does not go so far, but we are carried thither by faith; a faith that is so much the stronger as it is not supported by natural reason. Reason grows weak where faith grows strong: reason is overcome that faith may be more meritorious: however do not think,” adds this father, “that reason envies the superiority of faith; on the contrary, it voluntarily and humbly submits to it. It will resume its light in heaven, where faith will not be, and then reason will reap what faith sows in the present life; and it is just it should reap the fruits of faith, since at present it debases itself that faith may reign in its full power.”

This is the doctrine of the Roman catholics: take from it transubstantiation, and put the Trinity for

instance in its room, and the most orthodox protestant divines will subscribe to it. I shall quote two protestants, whose testimony will have the more weight, because they are of such professions as are not thought to insist much upon the humbling of reason and the exaltation of faith: one is a physician, the other a mathematician· The former declares, “that when he meditates on mysteries, he always stops when reason has arrived to this point, ‘ O the depth.'” “I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an ‘ O Altitudo.'” Sir T. Browne, Religio Medici, part i, § viii, page m. 46. ⁸⁵ He protests, “that if rebellious reason, or the devil endeavour to perplex him, he disengages himself from all their snares, by this one paradox of Tertullian; “this is certain, because it is impossible,” “It is my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, with the incarnation and resurrection. I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason, with that odd resolution of Tertullian; ‘ it is true, because it is impossible.’ There are some,” continues he, “who believe more easily because they have seen the sepulchre of Jesus Christ, and the Red Sea, but for my part, I congratulate myself on not having seen Jesus Christ and his apostles, nor having lived in the age of miracles; my faith would then have been involuntary, and I should have no share in this blessing; ‘ blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed.’” He highly values the faith of those who lived before Jesus Christ; for though they had nothing but shadows and types, and some obscure oracles, they waited for things that seemed impossible. “Some believe the better for seeing Christ’s sepulchre; and when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not of the miracle. Now, contrarily, I bless myself, and am thankful that I lived not in the age of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor his disciples; I would not have been one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor one of Christ’s patients, on whom he wrought his wonders; then had my faith been thrust upon me; nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe and saw not. It is an easy and necessary belief, to credit what our eye and sense hath examined: I believe he was dead and buried, and rose again; and desire to see him in his glory, rather than to contemplate him in his cenotaph, or sepulchre. Nor is this much to believe; as we have reason, we owe this faith unto history: they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming, who upon obscure prophecies and mystical types could raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibilities.” Id. Ibid. pag. 21, 22. ⁸⁶ He says, “that faith may not improperly be called a sword, which cuts all the knots we meet with in the mysteries of religion;" but however, he uses it rather as a shield, finding that a man becomes invulnerable in these sorts of combats, who arms himself with it. He mentions the objections which reason and experience suggested by him on some points; and adds, that notwithstanding this his faith is very steady, and that faith, in order to be perfect, must make us believe things not only above reason, but that seem repugnant to reason, and to the testimony of the senses. “Yet do I believe that all this is true, which indeed my reason would persuade me to be false; and this I think is no vulgar part of faith, to believe a thing not only above, but contrary to reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses.”

This writer speaks thus in a book intitled, “Religio Medici, the Physician’s Religion,” and which as some say might be called the “Physician of Religion;” a book, in short, that made some people believe that the author was somewhat remote from the kingdom of

heaven. Therefore these words of the Gospel might be applied to him, “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel.”

The mathematician I am to quote published at London, in 1699, a tract of 36 pages in 4to. intituled, “Theologiae Christianae principia Mathematica.” He pretends, that the principles of the Christian Religion are only probable, and reduces the degrees of their probability, and the decrease of it, to geometrical calculations. He finds that it may still last 1454 years; whence he concludes that Jesus Christ will return before that time. He dedicates this book to the bishop of Salisbury, and shows in his Epistle Dedicatory, that they who shall blame him for calling the principles of Christianity only probable, are such as have not well examined the grounds of their religion, and do not well understand the nature of faith. “Whence,” says he, “has this virtue so many encomiums given it in the Scripture, and so many rewards promised it? Is it not because it makes men walk in the right way, notwithstanding all the stumbling blocks they meet with, and the fetters that are put upon them?” I shall set down his words: “Quosdam fore non dubito, majori ductos zelo quam judicio qui meos prorsus condemnabunt labores, meque Religionem potius evertere quam astruere temere nimis concludent. Illi utique omnia Religionis dogmata tanquam certissima amplectentes rem Christianismo indignam me praestitisse putabunt, qui ejus probabilitatem tantum evincere conatus fuerim. Illis vero ego nihil jam habeo quod dicam, nisi quod praejudiciis suis praeoccupati, Religionis quam profitentur, fundamenta non accurate satis hactenus examinaverint, nec fidei, quae tantopere in sacris literis laudatur, naturam rite intellexerint. Quid enim est fides? nisi illa mentis persuasio qua propter media ex probabilitate deducta, quasdam propositiones veras esse credimus. Si persuasio ex certitudine oriatur, tum non fides sed scientia in mente

producitur. Sicut enim probabilitas fidem generat, ita enim scientiam evertit et è contra: Certitudo scientiam simul generat et fidem destruit. Unde scientia omnem dubitandi ansam aufert, dum fides aliquam semper haesitationem in mente relinquit: et propterea fides tantis insignitur laudibus, tantaque sibi annexa praemia habet, quod homines non obstantibus omnibus illis quibus premuntur scrupulis in recto virtutis et pietatis tramite progrediantur, quaeque Creatori suo omnipotenti grata futura credunt summa ope praestare conentur: Se tam paratos esse jussis quibuscunque divinis obsequi ostendunt, ut ne ea quidem quae probabiliter tantum ab ipso proveniant, rejicere velint. Johannes Craig, Epist. Dedicat. ⁸⁷ —I doubt not but certain persons, more zealous than judicious, will absolutely condemn my work, and rashly conclude that I rather subvert and overthrow religion, than support and defend it; for they, embracing all the doctrines of the Christian religion as most certain, will think that I have written a book unbecoming and unworthy of a Christian, since I there have endeavoured to show only the probability of that religion. To these persons I have at present nothing more to say than this, that being prepossessed with prejudices, they have not yet sufficiently examined the foundation of that religion which they profess, nor well understood the nature of that faith which is so much praised in the sacred writings: for what is faith but that persuasion of the mind whereby we believe certain propositions to be true, for reasons drawn from probability? If the persuasion arise from certainty, it is not faith but science that is produced in the mind; for as probability begets faith, so it destroys science; and so, vice versá, certainty begets science and destroys faith. Thus science removes all manner of doubt, whereas faith always leaves in the mind some hesitation; and it is for this reason that faith is so highly commended, and so many rewards are annexed to it, namely, because men, notwithstanding all those scruples wherewith their minds are oppressed, walk in the strait road of virtue and piety, and with all their might endeavour to perform those duties which they believe will be acceptable to their omnipotent Creator. They show themselves so ready to obey all divine commands, that they will not reject even those which only appear probably to be such.”

Most men so little examine the nature of divine faith, and reflect so seldom upon this act of their mind, that they want to be roused from their negligence, by a long enumeration of the difficulties that encompass the doctrines of the Christian religion. It is by a lively sense of those difficulties we learn the excellency of faith, and of this gift of God. Hereby we learn also to mistrust reason, and have recourse to grace. They who know nothing of the great contest between reason and faith, and are ignorant of the force of philosophical objections, have but an imperfect sense of God’s goodness to them, and the manner of triumphing over all the temptations of incredulous and presumptuous reason.

The true way of humbling it is to know that, if it be capable of inventing objections, it is incapable of resolving them, and in a word, that it is not by reason that the Gospel was established. “It is faith alone that can teach that divine philosophy which none of the princes of this world had known. Whoever opens his eyes to so pure a light, is truly enlightened. It was not by strength of syllogisms and argumentations that this philosophy recommended itself to men; but by its simplicity, and the ignorance of those who preached it to the world. Faith, having discovered to men the false glimpses that shone in the Heathen philosophy, accustomed them not to reason any longer upon things which God would not submit to reasoning, and taught them that it is better to be ignorant of what God has been pleased to conceal, and with a respectful

ignorance to adore the secrets he has not revealed than to attempt to fathom this abyss of light, by the rashness of our conjectures, and the faint views of our reason. It was to this divine ray of faith, that the Christian took pleasure to sacrifice that insolent curiosity, which made him too rashly examine the works of God, by examining the effects of nature, and stifle all the views of that proud reason, which fixes him to the creatures, and makes him a rebel against the Creator. It was by the rays of this celestial light, that the Christian perceived it was better to yield than to argue in point of religion; that narrowness of wit is more advantageous to a Christian, than all the force and penetration of the mind, and that the simplicity of faith is preferable to all the pomp of science. Since after all, the works of God which bear the most the stamp of his omnipotence and his character, are those we the least comprehend, therefore nothing is more just than to humble our reason, and submit it to the light of eternal reason, which is the rule of all reasons: and indeed there is no science but requires submission for the establishment of its principles.’ Rapin, Réflexions sur la Philosophic, pag. m. 447. ⁸⁸ I conclude with two very fine thoughts of M. de St Evremond: in things purely natural, it is the mind’s part to conceive, and its knowledge goes before the affection for the objects: in things supernatural, the soul is taken, it is affected, it adheres and unites itself without ever comprehending them. Heaven has better prepared our hearts for the impression of God’s grace, than our understandings for illumination. His immensity confounds our narrow intellects: his bounty agrees better with our love. There is I know not what within us, that secretly pleads for a God whom we cannot comprehend. To consider well the Christian religion, would make us think that God had deprived it of the light of our minds, that it might turn more upon the motions of our heart.’” Oeuvres meslées, tom. ii, pag. m. 24. ⁸⁹ Provided a man have reduced his reason so far, as not to argue upon things which God would not subject to reasoning, it is all we can desire. I not only believe with Solomon, that a wise man’s silence is better in this case than the discourse of a philosopher, but I have a greater esteem for the faith of the most stupid peasant, than for all the lessons of Socrates.

This, I think, is more than sufficient to remove the scruples which the pretended triumph of the sceptics had raised in the minds of some of my readers. Explanation concerning Sceptics, appended to THE SECOND EDITION OF THE DICTIONARY.

SERVICE OF THE PUBLIC.

Du Haillan, dedicating his book of the state and success of the state of the affairs of France, to Henry III in 1580, he expressed himself in this manner. “I am, sire, the first of all the French who have written the History of France, and in a polite language shown the grandeur and dignity of our kings; for before, there was nothing but the old rubbish of Chronicles which spoke of them. My works are seen and read by all Christendom, and translated into several languages; particularly my History of France is put into Latin by a very learned man of your kingdom, and is ready to appear and present itself to your majesty, clothed in a Latin dress. I am none of those venturous and ignorant writers, whose brains daily teem with books, who raise up whole forests of them, and who in their obscure studies, where they see not the light of the affairs of the world, speak and write confidently, right or wrong, of the present state-affairs, of your most secret and important counsels, judge of every thing, are partial for one, and

possessed against another, extol those who give them money, make a mere pretender of a great general and commander of an army, and live only by the sale of their presumptuous writings. And therefore, such writers will see their works expire before themselves, and shamefully assist at their funeral. I have learnt, sire”—Let us see the beginning of the preface of the same book. “Many of you (readers) who shall see this present work, which I have newly revised and much enlarged and enriched, have seen it before printed in several sorts of volumes and characters, from its first edition, of the year 1570. For since that time, there has not a year passed, but it has been reprinted, and given satisfaction to all who have seen it, and who approve of what is good.” When he dedicated the same book to Henry IV in 1574, he thus spoke of it to this prince.“It has travelled and seen the world, and has been well received within and without the kingdom, and strangers have made it speak their language.”

His desire of rewards may be clearly enough seen in the passages I have already related, but it will more plainly still appear in this that follows: “I have composed this work in four winters, seasons proper for writing and studying, and have spent but few summer’s days m it, which seem not so fit for such a fatigue as the short and cold days are which I have employed in it: so that I am apprehensive of being benumbed, airless the sun of your majesty, by the rays of your liberalities and bounties, affords some warmth. There is not a man of letters in your kingdom, who excels in any science, or has composed any elegant performance, whom you have not rewarded for it, and all your ancient servants are raised to honours and preferments, and are full and rich with your gifts and benefactions. I am the first who have written the history of the kings, your ancestors, and possibly the only person who hath done it in a good method and fine

language, and I am one of the first and eldest of your servants, and yet I am the only one and the last to be provided for; but not the last in merit: I have laboured, and labour ordinarily for the public more than for myself; nor have I only been engaged in writing books, but also sometimes employed in travels to foreign countries; and by the observation of affairs for these twenty-nine years past, This Epistle Dedicatory is dated the first of August, 1584. ⁹⁰ in which I have been a courtier, I have learnt how histories ought to be written, and how to speak of kings, and treat and write on affairs of state.”

Here you see the style of a discontented author, complaining that he is not enriched nor advanced to honours by the productions of his pen; and asking that this so much desired, so well deserved recompense of his labours may come at last. We find the same complaint at the end of a preface he published in 1580. “I have taken this pains,” says he, “to serve the public, which I think I do service, and have done service by my labours: this gives me a singular satisfaction; for I have laboured with that design: and it is likewise almost all the recompense I have had: and I shall be very well satisfied with this last labour, when I find it has been acceptable to you.” You may believe what you please of what I am going to recite. I will quote my author. “Henry the Great made one day a repartee to the Sieur Du Haillan; for as Du Haitian, a man vain and given to his belly, spake one day to the late king too freely, complaining of the small salary which he received from his liberality; and had the boldness to say to him: ‘ sire, you know that I have two pens as a public historian, a title with which it has pleased your majesty to honour me; one is of gold, and the other of iron; with my golden pen I render those immortal who honour me and do me good, and with my iron one I tarnish the reputation

of those who do not take notice of the merits of my works.’ The king, knowing by this harangue the character of the man, who was more valiant at a meal than he was in the field, said to him, with a wonderful and royal quickness, ‘ M. Du Haitian, I do not believe that you have a golden pen; for if you had one you would have swallowed it long ago.’”

One who should ask whether those in public posts are as mercenary as the servants of a private man, would seem at first sight to make an absurd question; but upon examination, we should find in it a just subject of a problem, and should even declare for the affirmative. Consider a little the printed or not printed relations of news-writers, and the conversations of those who have for a long time been in high life. Consult the historians who enter most into particulars; especially, read authors of memoirs; do this attentively, and I doubt not but you will own that a poor foot-boy is, in proportion, less mercenary and more disinterested than most of those who possess great employments, either in princes’ households, or in the government. These are persons who are hardly ever contented, always ready to beg new honours and greater pensions, and to complain of the smallness of their recompences, to magnify their services, to murmur if they are forgotten whilst others are thought on, to threaten to retire, and to manifest their discontent by rude and audacious proceedings, &c. These gentlemen imagine they have the greater right to demand magnificent rewards, because they persuade themselves that their master, a king or a sovereign, in a word the public, will never come to want, though they have famished leeches upon them, continually sucking. Tell me not of such or such a one who is ruined in his prince’s service, and of such a great lord whose lands, and even house, are under an execution. These are not examples of their disinterestedness. It is not zeal for their country, but a mercenary temper

or their luxury and debauchery, which are the causes of their poverty. They imagine that by appearing at court, or in the army, with great equipages, though really useless to the public good, they should the more easily come to preferments: and at last, if they are ruined, it is not for the advantage of the state, but to gratify their pomp and pride, and other particular passions. The Aristides and Fabricii, who after having enjoyed the greatest posts, and spent all their lives in a wonderful frugality, had hardly any thing to leave their children, are good examples of an unmercenary spirit; but where are such to be found?

But what is more vexatious, is to see that the men of learning cannot cure themselves of this common distemper. The court and the army being the schools of ambition and luxury, and consequently of hunger and thirst after riches, it is no wonder they teach men to do nothing gratis, but to desire large recompences for their services. And as this passion is not easy to be satisfied, without boasting of what they have done, and complaining of the want of a just reward, there is no occasion to take so much exception at this conduct. But there will still be sufficient ground to lament, that study and the profession of letters should not have taught du Haillan the prudence to avoid so much ostentation of his labours, and to forbear complaints of the meanness of his fortune. If he were the only author guilty this way, it would not be necessary to take notice of it; but the mischief of it is, that in this he copied a great number of writers, and that a hundred others have copied, and still copy him. This is a great injury to the muses, and deprives them of the glory they should enjoy, of inspiring their votaries with a true generosity, and a noble contempt of riches and public rewards. They are like other men, you will say, and no less subject to ambition and avarice, the two epidemical diseases of the soul of man. It is certain, that the desire of living at ease, by

means of a good revenue, is not the only reason of the boastings and complaints of Du Haillan, and those who are like him; pride has a great share in it. They fancy that the public will have a great esteem, both for their persons and their works, if it be known that they have had large pensions; but in this they are much mistaken. Some few, I confess, may be imposed on by this outward appearance, and argue fallaciously thus: “Such an author has got noble employs, and rides in his coach, therefore he has a great deal of merit, and his works are good;” but the public is seldom caught thus, and, however, it is a charm but of short continuance. Posterity judges of books by the books themselves; if they be good, it doth not despise them, though it should be said at the beginning of the preface that the author died with hunger: if they be bad, they are despised, though it should appear in the first page that the author was an earl, or a marquis, and left a million. “What is it you fear? Why do you torment yourself?” might one have asked Du Haillan: “you are allowed to say that you have not spared your care or pains to render your work perfect; your duty obliged you to great fatigues and it is a civility to the public to declare in a preface, that you have done all you could to merit their approbation. You ought to have stopped there, and not to have urged the greatness and value of your labours as a just cause of demanding greater recompences, and complaining that you had not been sufficiently paid. Are you afraid that future ages should know that your studies and researches have put the history of France in a very fine light, but have not enriched you? What injury can that do to your memory? If it be said that you were not industrious to heap up riches, they will suppose you wanted a quality which is none of the best; your glory will not suffer by it: sleep at rest If it be said that this industry was not above your capacity, but that you did not care to employ it, being content with your books and your studies, and to consecrate your time to the instruction of the public; would not this be an excellent eulogy? would it not be a prejudice in favour of your works? If the contempt of riches, and your continual application to writing good books, expose you to the danger of dying poor, you ought to wish that it may be put in your epitaph. This would be equivalent to a title of honour or nobility in the republic of learning; this would be a glorious way to immortality. Never fear the judgment of posterity upon it; if they who were careless of recompensing your labours are censured for their ingratitude and injustice, what is that to you? It is a censure which doth not concern you.—Art. Haillan.

SFORZA.

Catherine Sforza, grand-daughter of Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, was a lady of great courage, but she did an action which savoured much more of a man’s boldness than of a woman’s modesty. Her subjects having made themselves masters of the castle of Rimini, she gave them her children as hostages to recover it, and then she threatened with death those who had occasioned the insurrection. They answered her that they would kill her children; thereupon she turned up her shift, and said, “here is wherewithal to get others: barbarously destroy the innocent hostages that are in your hands, I consent to it, provided my justice inflict upon you such a punishment as your wickedness deserves.” Balthasar Bonifacius Historiæ Ludicræ, lib. v. cap. iv. pag. 127. ⁹¹ The author from whom I have this, and whom I have quoted in the margin of this article, had been relating the action of a Lacedemonian woman, who seeing her sons run away from

a fight, shewed them her nakedness, and asked them whether they would get again into the same womb out of which they came when they were born, or whether they expected she should put them under her gown, that the enemies who pursued them might not see them.” She added to this question such a smart reprimand for their want of courage, that they returned to the fight and got the victory.

Catherine was the natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, and was married to Jerom Riario, lord of Forli, and of Imola, by whom she had, among other children, Octavio Riario, who was lord of the same states which he held of the holy see. She had the government in her hands, as being her son’s guardian, and knew well how to advance her interest during the tumults occasioned by the French expedition into Italy in 1494, and the years following. She defended herself with great courage in the fortress of Forli, against the duke of Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, in the year 1500; but not being able to resist the violent assaults of his troops, she was made a prisoner and sent to Rome, where she was confined to the castle of St Angelo, but was set at liberty soon after by the intercession of Ives d’Allegre, and was privately married to John de Medicis, which was one of the reasons why she did great services to the Florentines, and to Ludovic Sforza, duke of Milan, who was well affected towards the Medicis. Catherine had by that second husband, John de Medicis, who was the father of Cosmo de Medicis, the first great duke of Tuscany. Boccalini has a witty conceit about it. He feigns that Catherine Sforza having declared that she had the courage to shew the mould wherein she took upon herself to form other children, desired, that since she had been very much commended by all historians for that action, Apollo would be pleased to assign her a proper place upon Parnassus. The judges were divided in their opinions; some of them

looked upon it as brutishly immodest. “Ad alcuni atto di sfcacciatezza, e di bruta impudicitia parve quello, che cosi nobil signora haveva raccontato.” Apollo judged that a regular observation of modesty belonged to private women; but that princesses were obliged upon some occasions to shew their virility. A counsellor gave his opinion in this manner: “the place, whence John de Medicis, father of the great Cosmo, sprang, certainly deserved to be exposed to the public view.—Ben degno di esser veduto da ogn’ uno era quel luogo, donde era uscito il famoso Campione Giavan’ de Medici padre di quel gran Cosimo, &c.”

A French historian commends her very much; he says, “she was very handsome, and a widow at twenty-two years of age, having one only son in the cradle, and that the inhabitants of Imola and Forli were so happy under her administration, that they had no occasion to lament the loss of her husband.” He observes “that this only son of her’s was but fourteen years old in 1494, and enlarges upon the military qualities she discovered during the siege of Forli. Take notice that she never recovered her states; the duke of Valentinois was invested with them, and they were re-united to the holy see after the death of Alexander VI.—Art. Sforza.

SIMONIDES.
His answer concerning God.

The answer which Simonides gave to a prince who asked him the definition of God, is very famous. Hiero, tyrant of Sicily, desired that poet to tell him what God is. The poet answered him that it was not a question that could be immediately answered, and that he wanted a whole day to think upon it. When that term was over, Hiero asked for the answer, but Simonides desired two more days to consider of

it. This was not the last delay he asked: he was often called on to give an answer, and every time he desired double the time he had last demanded. The tyrant wondering at it, desired to know the reason of it; “I do so,” answered Simonides, “because the more I examine the matter, the more obscure it appears to me.” I am going to give the same account of this in Latin, to the end it may be seen, that Cicero in the person of Cotta the pontiff, declares that in the like case, he would give the same answer as Simonides did. “Nec ego nunc ipse aliquid afferam melius; ut enim modo dixi, omnibus fere in rebus, et maxime in physicis, quid non sit, citius, quam quid sit dixerim. Roges me; quid aut qualis sit Deus: auctore utar Simonide; de quo cum quæsivissit hoc idem tyrannus Hiero, deliberandi caussa sibi unum diem postulavit. Cum idem ex eo postridie quaereret, biduum petivit; cum saepius duplicaret numerum dierum, admiransque Hiero quaereret cur ita faceret, Quia quanto, inquit, diutius considero, tanto mihi res videtur obscurior. Sed Simonidem arbitror (non enim Poeta solum suavis, verum etiam cæteroqui doctus, sapiensque traditur, quia multa venirent in mentem acuta, atque subtilia, dubitantem quid eorum esset verissimum, desperasse omnem veritatem Cicero de Natura Deorum, lib. i, pag. 83, Edit. Lescalo perii. ⁹²... Neither can I now offer any thing better; for as I have just said in all subjects, and especially in physics, I can more readily tell what a thing is not, than what it is. Ask me what, or what kind of a being is God; I will answer in the words of Simonides, who when the tyrant Hiero had asked him this question, required a day to consider of it. When next day he asked him the same question, Simonides required two days more: when he had often doubled the time be required, and Hiero being surprised, asked him the reason of it, ‘ It is' says he, ‘ because the longer I consider, the more obscure the subject appears to me.’ But I think that Simonides, (who is recorded to have been only a delightful poet, but besides a learned and wise man) when many acute and subtle things came into his mind, doubted which were truest, and at length despaired of all truth.”

Observe well the last words of Cicero; they strike home, they come to the point. Simonides might easily have answered, had he been contented with popular notions, and those lively impressions which are now called inward proofs. But as he had to do with a discerning prince who had refined his judgment by his frequent conversations with men of learning, he was afraid to hazard his reputation. He therefore took time to examine the matter; he viewed it in all lights and on every side; and because his mind no sooner furnished him with several answers, but it suggested the refutation of them; he found nothing solid; he discovered every where a strong and weak side, and depths unsearchable; he feared therefore lest he should be deceived, whatever principles he might lay down to settle the definition of God, and no longer entertaining hopes of finding the truth, he gave it up. A man of mean parts would not have been so nice, but would have been dazzled with the first hypothesis he had met with; he would not have apprehended the difficulty in it, and would have dogmatically laid it down as the immovable point of truth, beyond which there was nothing but folly and extravagance. There are even persons of great parts who quickly deliver their opinion as the only one that ought to be embraced; they decide that it is evident, and abuse those who do not acknowledge it: a strong persuasion inspires them with this conduct. Tertullian will supply us with another example. He will have it that this happened not at the court of Syracuse, but at that of Lydia: according to him, Croesus demanded of Thales

definition of God, but had it not, what time soever he granted that philosopher to examine that question. “For what certain answer did Thales the chief of natural philosophers, give to Croesus concerning the Deity, when he had often found that the time he required for considering of it, was not sufficient? Any Christian tradesman can both discover and declare what God is, and thence can impart to others a full and satisfactory answer; though Plato affirms that the Maker of the universe neither can easily be discovered, nor when discovered, can be easily described to all men.” Tertullianus in Apologetico, cap. xlvi. ⁹³ You see how much this father extolleth the knowledge of the meanest Christian artificer above that of the most famous heathen philosophers. “All our tradesmen,” says he, “find God and declare him, and effectually explain whatever may be called in question concerning the divine nature;” which is as much as to say, that if Croesus or Hiero had asked the most ignorant of the Christians, “What is God, and which are his attributes,” they would immediately have received a direct answer, and so full that nothing would have been wanting.

Tertullian goes too fast, and suffers himself to be carried away by his imagination. He considers not that the pagan philosophers, who acknowledged themselves unable to satisfy the curiosity of those who asked them what God was, were only at a loss for an answer, because they would not rest contented with vulgar notions, as an ignorant person would have done. Nothing could have been more easy than for them to have answered, “God is an infinite being, and omnipotent, who framed the universe and governs it, who punishes and rewards, who is angry with sinners, and is atoned by our sacrifices.” In this manner would our tradesmen have answered Hiero,

adding what we read in the catechism concerning the persons in the Trinity, and the death and passion of Jesus Christ. If Thales or Simonides had been satisfied with these general notions, they would not have demanded time to prepare their answer, they would have had it in readiness; but as they desired that all the terms of the definition required, should be evidently indisputable, and found themselves, that whatever they could propose might be disputed, they demanded one delay after another, and at last were not able to answer. I believe Simonides imagined that his answer would be proposed to be canvassed by all the fine wits of the court of Syracuse, and that he would be obliged to defend it by resolving all their difficulties.

This is what probably he thought with himself: “If I say that God is a being distinct from all the bodies which compose the universe, I shall be asked if the universe always existed, at least as to the matter of it? Had that matter an efficient cause? And if I answer that it had one, I oblige myself to maintain that it was made of nothing, but this is a doctrine I shall never be able to make either Hiero, or the fine wits of his court, comprehend, and which I cannot comprehend myself; wherefore I have reason to be uncertain myself, whether that point be true or not; for so long as it is to me incomprehensible, I cannot be rightly assured of its state and nature. If I say that the matter of the universe hath no efficient cause, I shall be asked whence comes God to have the power over it, and why hath it not as much power over God, as he hath over it? I must give good reasons, why of two beings independent one of the other as to existence, equally necessary and eternal, one hath all power over the other, without being reciprocally liable to be acted upon by the other. It is not sufficient to say that God is a being distinct from bodies

which compose the universe. They will desire to know whether he is like them with respect to extension, that is whether he is extended. If I answer that he is extended, they, will infer that he is corporeal and material; and I do not find myself able to make them understand that there are two kinds of extension, one corporéal and the other incorporeal; one composed of parts and consequently divisible, the other perfectly simple, and of consequence indivisible. If I say that God is not extended, it will be inferred that he is no where, and that he cannot have any union with the world; and how then can he move the bodies? how can he act where he is not? Besides, our understanding is not capable of conceiving a substance unextended, and a spirit entirely separated from matter; but supposing it should be granted me that God is an immaterial and unextended substance, a spirit infinite and omnipotent, how many new questions should I have to resolve? Does this spirit not necessarily exist either with respect to his substance, or with respect to his qualities? Is not his power an attribute as necessary as his knowledge? Therefore he does not act freely, taking freedom to be the power of acting or not acting; whatever he does therefore, is necessary and unavoidable. I shall be told that I entirely destroy religion, for religion is necessarily founded upon the supposition that God changeth his behaviour to men, as they change their manner of living; and if they did not appease him by their prayers, he would do a great many things, which in regard to their devotion, he will abstain from doing: but if to avoid this troublesome inconvenience, I have recourse to the hypothesis of the liberty of indifference and of conditional wills, I lay myself under an obligation to explain, both how this sort of liberty can be consistent with a being that is not the cause of its own power, and how an infinite train of conditional decrees is compatible with a cause infinitely wise and independent, which must have followed a plan fixed and immovable, and which at bottom hath no attribute more essential than immutability; for there is not any excellency more evidently contained in the idea of a being infinitely perfect, than this of unchangeableness.” These are, if I am not mistaken, a few of the reasons which offered themselves to Simonides when he sought for the definition demanded of him, and which made him determine not to give any, so afraid was he of affirming what was not true.

I may venture to say, that of most men it becomes Tertullian the least to insult our Thales, and to boast of our tradesmen; for had he been in the place of Thales or Simonides, he would have come but poorly off. His zeal and hasty temper would have prompted him to give an immediate answer to the question of Croesus or that of Hiero; but if you desire to know what answer he would have made, read these words of Daillé: Daillé of the right use of the Fathers, book ii, ch. iv, pag. m 354. ⁹⁴ “How strange is his philosophy concerning the nature of God, whom he seems to make subject to passions like ours; to anger, to hatred, to grief? He ascribes to him a corporeal substance, not believing (as he says) that any one would deny that God is a body; which will surprise us less if he boldly assert that there is no substance but what is corporeal.” Every one may see that Tertullian would have defined God to be a corporeal substance subject to passions. If he had explained his definition, he would have said that our sins exasperate the Deity, that he hates the crime, and feels a real sorrow when his laws are violated, but is easily appeased when his mercy is implored. Would he have been able to maintain this answer before Simonides and the other sages whom king Hiero entertained at his court? Would they not have objected to him that every body

is divisible and compounded of parts, and of consequence that the infinitely perfect being is not a body? Would they, not have said, that supreme happiness is essential to the divine nature, which therefore is not subject to passion, nor to any trouble or vexation? Would they not have said that, the divine nature is unchangeable, and consequently cannot alter either from love to hatred, or from hatred to love; nor from compassion to. wrath, nor from wrath to compassion? If he had recurred to metaphors, would he not have been told that Hiero wanted not a rhetorical answer but an accurate definition, exactly conformable to the laws of logic or right reasoning? It will be owned, I assure myself, that Tertullian had done better had he been silent, as he was whom he insults.

Let us suppose that his Christian tradesmen whom he represents so knowing, were asked by Hiero and should answer, “God is a being immaterial, infinite, all-powerful, perfectly good, perfectly happy, and infinitely just; who created all things according to the good pleasure of his own will; "can we think that Simonides, examining that answer, would not have said, “all this I knew as well as you, but I would not venture to assert it, because it appears to me that a being infinitely powerful, infinitely good, infinitely holy, and who had created all things with a perfect liberty of indifference, would not have subjected man to that sinful and miserable state in which he lives, Had he left the soul at liberty to unite itself to the body or not, it would never have entered into the body; for by such a choice, the soul would have appeared too foolish to be the workmanship of a being infinitely perfect. If it be he who joins our souls to bodies, he must be induced to it by some determination natural and irresistible; for acting freely, that is, having power to act or to abstain from acting, to act after one, or after another manner, it cannot be

imagined he would have taken that course, seeing the soul by its union with the body, becomes subjected to a thousand disgraceful and absurd disorders, and to almost a continual misery. “Quinetiam dicunt, si anima est divina potestque vivere sejuncta a membris mortalibus, ut quid se miserae carni insinuat? cujus vitio tot perpetitur mala, et admittat tot flagi tia? ergo stulta est, si sponte hoc facit; at si invita nefandas corporis ingreditur latebras, quis cogit? an ipse Jupiter? ergo Deus nequaquam hanc diligit: imo carcere quam clausit tam turpi, odisse videtur. ... But moreover they say, if the soul be divine and can live separated from its mortal members, why does it join itself to a miserable body, by the pravity of which it suffers so much evil and commits so much wickedness? Therefore it is foolish if it do this of its own accord; but if unwillingly it enter the vile caverns of the body, who compels it? Does Jupiter himself? therefore God loves it not; yea, he appears to hate what he hath shut up in so detestable a prison.”

But we will not leave our Christian tradesman to sustain all the charge; we will call in a divine who may explain to Simonides the whole system of grace, and all the economy of the decrees of predestination; undoubtedly this poet would answer him, “You carry me from one dark region to another still more obscure. I cannot comprehend how under the government of a God who had the attributes you mention, there can ever be occasion for any punishment; for the sovereign power of such a deity, together with an unlimited goodness and holiness, would never permit any punishable crime to be perpetrated in his dominions. Such a being as this seems to me incapable of making his glory to result from the misery of another, or depend on the endless duration of infernal torments. I even apprehend there is a downright inconsistency betwixt these two things, three

persons who are but one God, of which the one punisheth and the other is punished, and yet it cannot be said that he who is punished, punisheth; and that be who punisheth is punished; though yet both one and the other, are only one and the self same substance, only one and the same God! These three persons, I say, are to me a direct contradiction; wherefore I chose rather to give no answer to the prince of Syracuse, than to have proposed to him such definitions of God.”

But, it may be said, is then Tertullian grossly mistaken when he prefers Christian tradesmen to the philosophers? I answer that what he asserts may very well be rectified; there needs only be said, that the meanest Christian tradesman stedfastly believes more things concerning the nature of God, than the greatest of heathen philosophers have been able to attain the knowledge of. He need only declare that with his bare catechism he will give so great a number of particulars, that for one thing they partly affirmed, he will assert forty without hesitation. This is what Tertullian might have said without being mistaken; but these Christians so knowing in comparison with Thales and any other philosophers of ancient Greece, would have been as much at a stand what to say, and as silent as Thales, if they had offered nothing but what they clearly and distinctly comprehended; and they are beholden for their great knowledge only to their having the happiness of being educated in a church where they obtained a historical, and even sometimes a justifying faith of revealed truths; this convinces them of the existence of several things which they do not comprehend. Our greatest divines, if they acted as Simonides did, that is, if they affirmed nothing for certain concerning the nature of God, but what by the light of reason appeared to them undeniable, evident, and proof against all objections, would have continually

demanded farther delays of all the Hieros in the world. Add moreover, that though Simonides should have had the opportunity of consulting and examining the scriptures, without the influence either of education or grace, he would not have got out of his labyrinth and silence; reason would forbid him to deny the facts contained in the scripture, and make him perceive something supernatural in the connection and order of these facts, but this would not have been sufficient to bring him to a determination. The powers of reason and philosophical examination, go no farther than to hold us in suspense, and to keep us in fear of erring, whether we affirm or whether we deny; either the grace of God, or education must necessarily come in to their assistance; and carefully observe, that there is not any system against which reason affords more objections than that of the gospel. The mystery of the Trinity, the incarnation of the Word, his death for the expiation of our sins, the propagation of Adam’s sin, the eternal predestination of a few men to heavenly happiness, the eternal condemnation of almost all men to the torments of hell which will never have an end, the loss of freewill ever since the fall of Adam, &c. are matters which would have furnished Simonides with greater doubts than his imagination ever suggested to him. Let us mind what St Paul says, not only that the gospel was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, but also that God saved men by the foolishness of preaching.

Here follows a consideration which perhaps ought not to be slighted. Simonides was in all likelihood, in great difficulty about the genus of the definition; he durst not say that God was matter, a hundred objections hindered him; he durst not say that God was a spirit, for he could apprehend nothing but under the notion of extension. Until Descartes, all our doctors, both divines and philosophers, attributed

extension to spirits; infinite extension to God, and finite to angels and rational souls. It is true they maintained that this extension was not material nor compounded of parts, and that spirits are wholly in every part of the space wherein they are, “toti in toto et singulus partibus;" hence proceeded the three species of local presence, “ubi circumscriptivum, ubi definitivum, ubi repletivum;” the first for bodies, the second for created spirits, the third for God. The Cartesians have rejected all these tenets; they say that spirits have no kind of extension or local presence, but their opinion is rejected as very absurd; wherefore almost all our philosophers and all our divines, at this day still teach according to the popular opinion, that the substance of God is diffused through infinite space. But certainly this is pulling down with one hand what hath been set up by the other; it is in effect, ascribing to God the materiality which had been denied of him. You say that he is a spirit; very well: this is ascribing to him a nature different from matter, but at the same time you say that his substance is diffused every where; you say therefore, that he is extended, but we have no idea of two kinds of extension; we clearly conceive that all extension of whatever kind it be, hath distinct parts, impenetrable and separable from one another; it is monstrous to say that the soul is all in the brain, and all in the heart. It is inconceivable that the divine extension and the extension of matter can be in the same place, this would be a real penetration of dimensions which our reason cannot apprehend; besides, things which are penetrated by a third, are penetrated by one another, and thus the heavens and the terrestrial globe are mutually penetrated; for they would be penetrated with the divine substance, which according to you has no parts; hence it follows that the sun is penetrated by the same being as the earth. In one word, if matter be matter only because it is extended, by consequence all extension is matter; you cannot show any attribute different from extension, by virtue of which matter is matter. The impenetrability of bodies can only result from their extension; we can conceive no other grounds of it, and so you must grant that if spirits were extended they would be impenetrable, wherefore they would not be different from bodies by penetrability. After all, according to the common doctrine, the divine extension is neither more nor less impenetrable or penetrable, than that of body. Its parts, call them virtual as much as you please; its parts, I say, cannot be penetrated one by another, but they may be penetrated by the parts of matter. Do not you say the same thing concerning the parts of matter; they cannot penetrate one another, but they can penetrate the virtual parts of the divine extension? If you will but attentively consult common sense, you will perceive that when two extensions are penetratively in the same place, the one is as penetrable as the other; it cannot therefore be said that the extension of matter differs from any other sort of extension by impenetrability; it is therefore certain that all extension is matter, and consequently you only take from God the name of matter, and attribute to him the thing itself, when you affirm that he is extended: since therefore, it was not possible for you to have done otherwise, you ought not to wonder that Simonides durst not deny that God was matter, neither durst he affirm it; he chose rather to be silent. We must remember that the most subtle Cartesians maintain that we can form no idea of a spiritual substance; we only know by experience that it thinks, but we know not what is the nature of that being whose modifications are thoughts; we know not what is the subject in which these thoughts exist, or the ground that supports them. Simonides perhaps, was hereby obliged not to say that God was a spirit; he could not conceive what a spirit was.

A Jesuit who wrote a commentary upon Cicero’s books “De Natura Deorum,” does not blame Simonides for being so reserved, and wishes the ancient poets and philosophers, and the heretics had imitated him. What he observes concerning the incomprehensibility of God, deserves to be transcribed here; “What Tertullian imputes to ignorance, others have ascribed to modesty; and I wish the ancient philosophers and poets, and the heretics who came after them, had in this matter been as reserved as Thales or Simonides was; he would never have imputed to the divine nature, things so absurd, impious, and blasphemous, or ever have broached such detestable errors, as bold, impudent, and despicable men have done. All men are naturally very desirous of knowledge, but especially of the Deity; whereby we may perceive that God would be known by us, but he hath set certain bounds to our knowledge, beyond which we neither ought nor can proceed; and hath, as it were, erected pillars, and engraven thereon with his own finger, a ne plus ultra: for in things divine there are holy recesses into which the great God will not permit us to enter; but if any, puffed up with rashness and confidence, will presumptuously attempt it, the farther he goes the more he will be surrounded by darkness; so that he will be obliged to acknowledge the unsearchable majesty of the divine nature, and the imbecility of the human mind, and confess with Simonides, ‘ the longer I consider, the matter appears to me the more obscure.’ As Pomponius Mela relates of a certain cave that with a delightful pleasure at first allured those that entered; till going still farther, a certain horror, and the majesty of the inhabiting Deity, forced them to retire.” Lescaloperius in Ciceron. de Natura Deorum, 1. i, p. 84,85. ⁹⁵ Afterwards

he quotes a remarkable passage of St Augustin. A French author looked upon Simonides' modesty as a pious action, and thence took occasion to inveigh against the boldness of the Eunomi ans. “Remember,” says he, “the pious modesty of Simonides, who having asked but one day of king Hiero to discourse of the divine essence before him, demanded afterwards two days, and then three, protesting that the more he thought upon it, the more he found it difficult to perform his promise: for my part, I have no doubt but this humble acknowledgment of his ignorance was more acceptable to the Supreme Being, as much a heathen as Simonides was, than the boldness of a Eunomius and of that kind of Arians who followed him, and boasted of comprehending God as fully as he could comprehend himself.”

Du Plessis Mornai, in the chapter wherein he proves by reasons and authorities, that it is impossible to comprehend God, did not forget Simonides answer. He observes, without quoting any body, that this poet taught very well that God is wisdom itself. He says in another place, that Aristotle in his Metaphysics mentions and commends the known answer of Simonides to. Hiero, importing, in short, that none but God is a metaphysician, that is, can speak of things that are above nature. In perusing the Metaphysics of Aristotle, I could not find that passage; be that as it may, the thought is very good, and is of the same import.

Some divine is would not have made the same acknowledgment that Simonides did, that he could not give a definition of God. A proof of this may be seen in the preceding remark; but here is an author who speaks more plainly to the purpose. It is the famous Peter Charron, a prebend of Condom. “The Deity,” says he, Charron, des trois Vérités, liv. i. ch. v. ⁹⁶ “being so high, far removed from us and

our capacity, that we know not at all what he is, either afar off or near. It is on one side, the greatest and most outrageous presumption to decide and determine concerning him, as the atheists do, who in all their objections speak of him as of a limited Being, circumscribed, and of necessity such and such, saying, if there were a God, he must have been so and so; and being so, he would, should, and might, do this thing, and the other which is not done: so, on the other hand, it is an error to think to find any reason sufficiently demonstrative, to prove and establish evidently and necessarily what God is. At this we ought not to be surprised, but might well remain astonished if we should meet with such reasons, for it is not possible that human comprehension, or the capacity of any created being, should be able to reach so far. Deity, is what cannot be known, hay even perceived; between finite and infinite there is no proportion, no transition. Infinity is altogether inaccessible, nay imperceptible: God is the one, true, and only infinite. The most exalted understanding, the highest stretch of imagination, are as far from comprehending him, as the lowest and meanest apprehension. The greatest philosopher, and the most learned divine, know not more or less of God, than the meanest tradesman. Where there is no passage, no way, no access, there can be neither far nor near—God, Deity, Eternity, Omnipotence, Infinity, are only words, and nothing more to us: they are not things that can fall under human understanding—if all we speak and affirm concerning God were rigorously canvassed, it would be found only vanity and ignorance. Wherefore it was the saying of a great and ancient doctor, that, ‘ to speak of God even the things that were true, was most dangerous.’ The reason of which sentence is, because not only such and so sublime truths were debased in passing through our senses, understandings, and mouths, but we even do not know, nor can be certain that they are true. It is by chance we find them: for we are altogether blind, and know neither what he is, nor what he operates. But to speak of God with doubting and uncertainty, and as it were groping in the dark, and by conjecture, is dangerous, and we know not if God will approve it; unless it be because we have such confidence in his goodness, that he takes well what is said of him with a good intention, and to honor him as much as we can. But, besides, who knows if this reliance on him be pleasing to him, and that the divine goodness be such as to accept what is done with a good intention, and to do him honor? This indeed is the duty and effect of human goodness, created, and finite: but who knows if that which is divine, uncreated, and infinite, be of a like nature? And even it is not universally agreed as to that which is human, what are its rules and offices—therefore the fittest course that can be taken by one that is desirous to think, and to frame an idea of the Deity, is, that the soul, after a universal abstraction from all things, raising itself above all, as in a vacuum, indeterminate, and boundless, with a profound and pure silence, an awful astonishment, an admiration full of a timorous humility, raise in itself an imagination of a luminous abyss, without bottom, without banks, without shores, without high or low, without laying hold upon, or attaching itself to anything present to the imagination, only to lose itself, to be immerged, and yield itself to be swallowed up in that infinity. To which, come very near these ancient sentences of the saints: the true knowledge of God is an entire ignorance of him: to approach God is to know him to be a light inaccessible, and to be swallowed up by it. It is knowing him in some measure to be sensible, that being above all, he cannot be known: eloquently to praise him, is with astonishment and terror to be silent, and in silence to adore him in the soul. But because it is extremely difficult, and next to impossible for the soul to remain in so uncertain and unconfined an infinity, for she would be bewildered, and at a stand, like one, who confounded by the turning of his head, not any more knowing where he is, lets himself fall down: and although she could, being stupified, incapable of moving, and seized with terror and admiration, she would not be able in any manner to have communion with God, to pray to him, call upon him, acknowledge him, honor him; which are the first and principal points of all religion: for in these performances, it is necessary, that he be conceived with some quality, good, powerful, wise, understanding, and accepting our good intentions. It is necessary, and cannot be otherwise in this present state of life, that everyone frame and represent to himself an image of the Deity, which he may regard, address, adhere to, and which may be as his God. This the soul does, by raising her imagination above all things, and conceiving with all her might an infinite goodness, power, and perfection. For the utmost and highest degree, any one can rise to by the greatest stretch of apprehension, is his God, and serves him for an image of the Deity: an image nevertheless false, that is deficient and imperfect; for the Deity beings, as hath been said, unimaginable and infinite, to which the soul cannot be said to approach by any conception, either near or far off, nor can form any true image, more than of a thing it knows not at all; it is sufficient she make it the least false, least imperfect, the most high, and the most pure she can.”

It will possibly be said, that Charron is a divine too much suspected to deserve that his principles should be regarded. We will remove this objection, and say that Arnobius has expressed himself in such a manner, as will highly justify the answer of Simonides. Has he not said that our words can express nothing concerning the nature of God, and that we ought to be silent, if we would form an idea of him; and to the 11 5

end that our loose conjectures may make some search into this matter, as under a cloud, and in the dark, we ought to shut close our mouth? “O immense, O supreme Creator of things invisible! O thou unseen, and uncomprehended by any beings!—thou art the first cause, the place of beings, and the space, the foundation of all things that are, infinite, unbegotten, immortal, everlasting, alone, whom no corporeal form can represent, no limits can bound, without quality, quantity, without situation and motion, of whom nothing can be said or expressed in the language of mortal men: of whom, that thou may at be known, we must be silent; and that wandering suspicion may search thee out in the dark, nothing is even to be uttered.’ Arnob. lib. i, pag. m. 17. ⁹⁷ It would be no small ignorance to tell me, that this passage ought to be reckoned amongst the errors of Arnobius; for all who have read his Commentators may have seen, that the most orthodox fathers of the church have agreed with him in his opinion. Be pleased to read the commentators on these words of Minutius Felix. “Nobis ad intellec tum pectus angustum est: et ideo sic eum (Deum) digne æstimamus, dum inæstimabilem dicimus. Eloquar quemadmodum sentio, magnitudinem Dei, qui se putat nosse, minuit; qui non vult minuere, non no vit. Nec nomen Deo quæras. Minut. Felix, p. m. 143. ⁹⁸—Our mind is too narrow to comprehend; and therefore we esteem God as we ought when we believe him inestimable: I will plainly declare what I think, whoever believes that he knows the immensity of God, diminishes it: he that will not lessen it, owns he knows it not. Neither do thou seek for the name of God.” You will find that they refer you to innumerable passages, wherein the ancient fathers agree with Arnobius in this matter. And observe, that the Jesuit Lescaloperius alleges these very words of Minutius Felix, to confirm the remark he had made, that the wisest and most modest philosophers confess every where, that God is not only invisible and inexpressible, but also unintelligible. Art. Simonides.

SOCINIANISM.

Give me leave to impart to my readers an observation that was made in my hearing against those who say that all the ingenious Italians who forsook Calvinism to set up a new Arianism, designed to form a greater party than that of the reformers of Germany and Geneva. It is supposed, that though they believed mysteries, they pretended to oppose them in order to have many followers. The captivating of the understanding to the belief of three persons in the Divine Nature, and of a God-Man, is a heavy yoke for reason; Christians are therefore very much eased when freed from such a yoke; and consequently it is probable that vast crowds will follow a man who removes so great a burthen. Behold the reason why those Italians who fled into Poland denied the Trinity, the hypostatical union, original sin, absolute predestination, &c. They thought that since Calvin, shaking off the necessity of believing all the incomprehensible things contained in Transubstantiation, brought over many people to him, they should make a greater progress still if they rejected all the inconceivable doctrines which that reformer had preserved. But it may be answered, that they had been very silly and unworthy of their Italian education if they had made use of such an expedient. The speculative mysteries of religion are little troublesome to the people; they will, indeed, tire a professor of divinity, very intent upon them in order to explain them, and answer the objections of the heretics. Some other studious men, who examine them with great curiosity, may also be troubled by the resistance of their reason, but all other men are at perfect ease about it; they believe, or fancy they believe, all that

is said of them, and quietly rest in that persuasion. Wherefore he would not be far from fanaticism who could imagine that citizens and peasants, soldiers and gentlemen, would be freed from a heavy yoke if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, and the hypostatical union. They like much better a doctrine that is mysterious, incomprehensible, and above reason: they are more apt to admire what they do not comprehend; they form to themselves an idea of it more sublime, and also more comfortable. All the ends of religion are much better to be found incomprehensible things; they inspire a greater admiration, respect, fear, and constancy. If false religions have had their mysteries, it is because they have been forged by the ape of the true one. God, out of his infinite wisdom, has accommodated himself to the state of man, by mixing darkness with light in his revelation. In one word, it must be granted that in certain matters incomprehensibility causes approbation. If a man had a mind to invent a hypothesis only for philosophers, and such as might be called “Religio Medici,” it is likely he would think himself obliged to lay aside the doctrines difficult to be comprehended; but then he must not have the vanity to expect to be followed by the multitude. If he had a mind to satisfy his vanity in that respect, he should do as the hero of Lorenzo Gratian, who says, that El Heroe platique incomprehensibilidades de caudal: —and that he discovers himself without being comprehended. --- Gran treta en arte de entendie ostentarse al concimiento, pero no a la comprehension.” Father Bouhours, Entretiens d’Ariste, pag. m. 54. ⁹⁹ But granting that those Italians have been so silly as to think that people would be freed from an intolerable yoke, if they were dispensed from believing the Trinity, &c., must we also grant that they thought the prohibition of civil and military employments would not be a yoke a thousand times heavier than that which they intended to break? Will any one be so unreasonable as to require that we should have such a notion of those men, who wanted neither wit nor address as every body owns?

What I am going to say will, doubtless, resolve the question. When men of parts, designing to set up a new sect, pitch upon a loose method, and substitute an easy doctrine in the room of a difficult one, it may be said that they do not hit upon the most proper method to succeed in their design; but it ought not to be supposed that they are contented to suppress speculative mysteries, and that they keep the whole practical part, and even aggravate the yoke of the moral precepts. And yet this is supposed concerning the founders of the Socinian heresy, and therefore what is said of their design is a mistake. They are more rigid than other Christians about the prohibition of revenge and the contempt of worldly honours; they are not for any mitigated or figurative explications of such texts of the Scripture as relate to morality. They have revived the severity of the primitive church, winch did not approve that the faithful should concern themselves with magistracies, and should have any hand in the death of their neighbour, so far that they would not have them to accuse malefactors. The prohibition of civil and military offices is a heavier burthen than the prohibition of revenge, for it excludes the expedients both of deceiving one’s self and also of deceiving others. Those who preach most earnestly against revenge find out a thousand distinctions to elude that precept. Some say they do not hate their neighbour as he is a man, but as he is an enemy of God; others protest that they do him no harm to revenge a private quarrel, but for God’s glory. This is approving, by the help of some distinctions, what we pretend to condemn. Some deceive themselves; others are mere hypocrites, who deceive the

world; but no subterfuge can be alleged as to the doctrine which forbids going to the war, and exercising civil offices; those who profess such a doctrine must necessarily follow it; the practice cannot be separated from the theory; there are no distinctions nor equivocations. It is, therefore, a true constraint; it is not a transient mortification, like that of those who discipline themselves once a year; it is a perpetual and continual state. We may therefore affirm that those Italian refugees were no cheats; they were deceived by their subtilties, and by their relying too much upon the natural light of their reason; and if they kept only part of the Christian doctrines, it is because their first principle, whereby they will admit nothing that is directly against their reason, led them to it. This is apparently the cause of their choice: had they been mere impostors, greedy of followers, they would have gone another way to work. Let us, therefore, condemn their principle as a deceitful one, and not usurp the place of him that searcheth the reins and hearts. Their principle debases religion, and changes it into philosophy. The greatness, authority, and sovereignty of God require, that we should here walk by faith and not by sight. A Spanish politician hath wisely said, “that it is an excellent qualification to keep secret one’s thoughts and resolutions.—“Si todo excesso en secreto, lo es en caudal; sacramentar una voluntad sera soberania.—Arguye eminencia de caudal penetrar toda voluntad agena; y concluye superioridad saber celar la propria.” See father Bouhours, Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugene, p.201. ¹⁰⁰ The Heathens also said, “that mysteries better discover God’s majesty, and are an image of his nature, because he cannot be perceived by our senses.” Strabo, b. 10. ¹⁰¹

If it be considered that most men are more inclined

to acquiesce in the inward sentiments, than to follow the thread of innumerable consequences methodically connected, and proceeding from distinct notions, and that they may be quickly and easily offended by the paradoxes which reason throws them upon, it will appear somewhat probable that the Socinian system is not very proper to gain the people. It may rather lead studious and speculative men to Scepticism. There will always be something defective in that system whereby people may be kept from it. The eternity of matter, God’s extension, the limitation of this extension, and of the Divine knowledge, and of hell torments, are Socinian doctrines, which being eloquently represented to princes and their subjects, will always inspire them with great horror. If it be a convenient thing to each private person not to be afraid of being punished after this life, yet it is more inconvenient to think that one is daily conversant with people who are not afraid of it. And therefore it is not the interest of private persons, that any doctrine tending to lessen the fear of hell torments should be admitted in their country; and it is probable that the preachers of such a doctrine will always be more offensive than acceptable to the public. A certain author says, that “the same persons who reject the gospel by reason of the austerity of its moral precepts, would express a greater horror for a religion enjoining them to plunge themselves into the most infamous disorders, if it were offered to them when they are able to reason, and before they are blinded by the prejudices of education.” Pensées diverses sur les Cometes, num. 89, pag. 592. ¹⁰² He has made some reflections upon this, but he has omitted one of the best, for he says nothing of self love and personal interest. It is true, that a wicked man would like a doctrine, with respect to his own conscience, that should allow him to be a poisoner, and to commit adultery, perjury, &c. but he would not like it upon many other accounts. He has a mother, a wife, a sister, and nieces, who would vex him horribly if they grew infamous for their lewdness. There are more people who can poison, rob, and cheat him, &c. than there are against whom he can commit the same crimes. Every body is more capable of being offended than of offending others, for of twenty equal persons, it is evident that every one of them is less strong against nineteen than nineteen against one. It is therefore the interest of each private person, though never so wicked, that men should be taught such doctrines as will terrify the conscience.

I shall farther observe, by the by, that nothing has proved more prejudicial to the Socinians than this doctrine, which they thought very proper to remove the greatest difficulty a philosopher can find in our theology. A thinking man, who only consults reason and the bright idea of infinite goodness, which, morally speaking, makes up the principal character of the divine nature, will be offended at what we read in the Scripture concerning the eternity of hell torments: especially if he add to it the paraphrases and the many explanations that are to be found in several books. “Deus optimus maximus” were the current and usual titles of the Divine Nature amongst the antient Heathens. It was their set form when they spoke of God, and they never said, “Deus severissimus, implacabilissimus.” The two epithets “optimus” and “maximus,” properly speaking, were only the image and expression of one sole quality, I mean a supreme goodness, for goodness ought to be attended with greatness to appear in all its lustre. But what, I pray you, is greatness? Is it any thing else besides magnanimity, generosity, liberality, magnificence, and pouring out of favours? This natural idea, which

made the Heathens speak in that manner, is confirmed by the Scripture, wherein the goodness of God is all along extolled above his other attributes. Doing good, shewing mercy, is the daily and pleasant work of God, according to the Scripture: chastising, punishing, shewing severity, is to him unusual and unpleasant work. And therefore so long as a man shall adhere to his natural reason, and not humbly submit to some passages in the gospel, he will look with abhorrence upon that doctrine of the infinite torments and punishments of the whole human race, except a few only. The Socinians, relying too much upon reason, have limited those torments so much the more carefully, because they considered that men would be made to suffer only for suffering’s sake, since no advantage would accrue from those torments to the sufferers or the spectators: a thing never done by any well regulated legislature. They hoped to bring over to Christianity by that means those who are offended with a notion that seems little consistent with the supreme goodness. But they were not aware that this very thing would make them more odious and more unworthy of a toleration than all their other tenets. After all, few people are offended with the doctrine concerning the eternal duration of hell torments, like Theodorus Camphusius. He was a minister, born at Gorcum, in Holland; he turned Socinian, and publicly declared he should have had no religion, had he not met with some books, wherein he found that hell torments will not last for ever. “Memini, meminerunt et alii, fuisse quendam Didericum Camphusium, qui in epistola typis expressa, et canticis ipsius adjuncta, profiteretur, se pronum fuisse ad reliquendam omnem religionem, donec inciderit in illos libros, qui docerent, perpetuos ignes nihil esse et eternos cruciatus.” Cocceius, in Examine Apolog. Equitis Poloni, pag. 305. ¹⁰³—Art. Socinus.

SORCERY.
(Extraordinary Case of Urban Grandier.)

Urban Grandier, curate and canon of Loudun, burnt alive as a magician, was the son of a royal notary of Sable, and born at Bovère, near Sable. He was a good preacher; which made the monks of Loudun envy him at first, and at last hate him, when he pressed the obligation of confessing to the parish curate at Easter. He was a handsome man, agreeable in conversation, and neat in his clothes, which made him suspected of being beloved by the women, and of loving them. He was accused, in 1692, of having lain with women in his own church. The official of Poitiers condemned him to resign his benefices, and to live a penitent; but he appealed from that sentence, and by a decree of the parliament of Paris, was referred to the presidial of Poitiers, which declared him innocent.

Three years after, some Ursuline nuns of Loudun were thought by the common people to be possessed; Grandier’s enemies immediately spread the report that it was by his means, and accused him of magic, which seems very curious; for if they believed he could send the devil into people’s bodies, they should have been afraid of provoking him; they should have used him kindly, lest he should possess them with a legion of devils. Menage indeed says, that, “as to the learned, the greatest part of them maintained that those nuns were only distempered, not finding in them, whatever had been said to the contrary, any of the three symptoms that the Roman ritual requires, as a sign of being truly possessed by the devil; which are divination, the understanding of languages which the person has not learned, and a supernatural strength of body.” Dr Seguin, a physician of Tours, however says, “they answered in the Taupinaboux language,

in which M. de Launai Razilli spoke to them, whom I believe more than myself, and whom I allege to you, because you know him to be a credible man.” But since Menage, who was not ignorant of the contents of this letter, nor of the other stories published about the understanding of tongues attributed to these nuns, nevertheless affirms, “that they did not show thereby that it was a true possession,” it is plain that relations are not to be much depended on in such cases.

What Balzac says in his “Entretiens,” deserves a place here. “If,” says he, “for divination, he was accused of magic, the devils he corresponded with must needs have been mere blackguards in Lucifer’s troops. They must have been less learned than those of Loudun, who had not studied so far as the third class, as one of Cardinal Richelieu’s courtiers said. They must needs be of the order of those ignorant devils who, in Theodoret’s orations, commit faults in the number, and the language, and offend against the measures of verse, and the rules of syntax.” Here follow some proofs of the ignorance of the devils of Loudun. “Mass being ended, Barre came up to the mother superior, to give her the communion, and to exorcise her, and holding the sacrament in his hand, spoke to her in these words; ‘Adora Deum tuum, Creatorem tuum;—worship thy God, thy Creator;’ being pressed, she answered, ‘adoro te,—I worship thee.’ ‘Quern adoras,—whom dost thou worship?’ said the exorcist to her several times. ‘Jesus Christus,’ replied she, making motions as if she had suffered violence. Daniel Drouin, assessor in the provostship, could not forbear saying somewhat loud, ‘ here is a devil who does not understand concord.’ Barre, changing the phrase, asked her, ‘quis est iste quem adoras?—who is he whom thou worshippest?’ he hoped she would still say, ‘ Jesus Christus;’ but she answered, ‘ Jesu Christe;’ upon which many present cried out, ‘ this is bad Latin.’

Barre confidently maintained she had said, ‘Adoro te, Jesu Christe; I adore thee, O Jesus Christ.’”

Here is a very sharp raillery against the Capuchin director of Martha, who was said to be possessed, It was reported that she had two devils in her body, one called Belzebub, and the other Ashtaroth. The judges of Angers examined them, in Greek and Latin. Belzebub, in a passion answered, “that if he pleased, he could answer as well in Greek as in Latin.” The Capuchin, to afford him an excuse said, “Belzebub, my friend, there are some heretics here, and that is the reason why you will not speak. They spoke Latin to Ashtaroth, who excused himself upon his youth. Belzebub excused himself, saying that he was a poor devil. Hereupon there was a great dispute betwixt those on the bench, whether devils were bound to go to school. The civilians maintained, that it was the “proprium in quarto modo” of demoniacs to speak all languages, as he of Cartigni in Savoy, who was tried in sixteen languages, by the same token that the ministers of Geneva durst not exorcise him. Those of Angers were bolder. They began thus: “Commando tibi ut exeas Belzebut et Astorot, aut ego augmentabo vestras poenas, et vobis dabo acriores.” The second time he said; “jubeo exeatis super poenam excom municationis majoris et minoris.” And at last, being in a great passion, he added: “nisi vox exeatis, vos relego et confino in infernum centum annos magis quàm Deus ordinavit. Confession Catholique de Sancy, livre i, chap. vi. ¹⁰⁴

The Capuchins of Loudun, the great enemies of Grandier, thought it expedient, in order to succeed in their accusation, to strengthen themselves with the powerful authority of cardinal Richelieu. To this purpose, they wrote to father Joseph, one of their fraternity, who had a great interest with his eminence, that Grandier was the author of a libel,

intitled, “La Cordonnière de Loudun (the shoe-maker’s wife of Loudun)” which was very injurious to the person and birth of cardinal Richelieu. This great minister, amongst many perfections, had the fault to prosecute with the utmost rigour, the authors of the libels printed against him: so that, suffering himself to be persuaded by father Joseph that Gran dier was the author of " La Cordonnière de Loudun,” he wrote immediately to M. de Laubardemont, counsellor of state, his creature, who was commissioned by the king to demolish the fortifications of Loudun, to inform himself carefully of the affair of the nuns, and gave him sufficient intimations that he wished the destruction of Grandier.

I have read, in the Sorberiana, that he promoted this farce in order to intimidate Louis XIII, and keep him more subservient to his designs, by these stories of sorcery, with which they stunned his ears. This is not probable, though it must be confessed that men of the sublimest genius are commonly such as least neglect the occasions that seem most ridiculous and absurd. I speak of those great men who govern a state. Their great penetration makes them discover secret springs where one would think there are none; because they know better than other men what use may be made of a trifle; because they are more acquainted with the weakness of mankind, and are well acquainted with what the ignorance and weakness of some, and the malice of others can produce. We must not therefore argue thus upon all occasions: such a thing is so absurd, so mean, so extravagant, that a man of sense and judgment would never mind it; and consequently it is false that such a minister of state made use of it, invented, or supported it. The author of the history of the edict of Nantes observes, “that many people looked upon the comedy that was played for many years by the Ursulines of

Loudun, to be an affair of religion.” I believe he means that those people fancied this farce was acted in order to undermine the edict of Nantes.

M. Laubardemont made Grandier a prisoner, in December, 1633, and having taken ample information of the matter, he went to concert the business with the cardinal. Letters patent were issued out the eighth of July 1634, to bring Grandier to his trial. These letters were directed to Laubardemont, and to twelve judges of the courts in the neighbourhood of Loudun, all indeed honest men, but all credulous persons, and for that reason chosen by Grandier’s enemies. The eighteenth of August 1634, upon the deposition of Ashtaroth, a devil of the order of the seraphim, and the chief of the possessing devils; and of Easus, Celsus, Acaos, Cedon, Asmodæus, of the order of the thrones; and of Alex, Zabulon, Nepthalim, Cham, Uriel, and Achas, of the order of the principalities; that is, upon the depositions of the nuns who pretended to be possessed with those devils; the commissioners gave judgment, by which Urban Grandier, priest, curate of the church of St Peter in Loudun, and canon of the church of the Holy Cross, was declared, “duly attainted and convicted of the crime of magic, sorcery, and possession, happening by his means in the persons of some of the Ursuline nuns of Loudun, and other secular women mentioned in the process.” This appears from the second verbal process of the exorcist. There were three possessions: during the first, the devils, except one, refused to tell their names; they only answered that they were enemies of God. During the second and third, they discovered their names and dignities, and accused Grandier by name. It is remarkable that they answered in French, though the exorcists spoke to them in Latin: but it is much more remarkable, that their testimony should have been admitted in a court of

justice, and made a proof in a trial wherein a man was condemned to be burnt alive. Were they ignorant of what our Saviour says of the devil? Seguin’s thoughts are very singular. “It seems,” says he, “that it is not so much the judgment of men as of God, who sent the devils from hell for the confusion of this wretch: for it is a wonderful thing how the devils rose up against him, and forced him to acknowledge that they were his accusers. I leave it to the Sorbonne to determine whether any exceptions should have been admitted against them speaking from God and giving evident proofs of the truth, which they were forced to utter.”

It astonishes one to think that Christian judges should reject the exceptions made against such witnesses; for it is matter of faith that they are the fathers of lies. It were in vain to say that the force of exorcisms hindered them from lying; for the experience of the contrary had been lately seen. The second verbal process imports, “that so many exorcisms had been practised, and indefatigably continued, so many fasts, oraisons, and prayers had been made, that the master-devil and his associates having promised to strike the magician so violently, and in such a part of his body, that it would be as visible as painful; and moreover, having acknowledged that he yielded to the almighty power of God, and declared that he would retire from this monastery for ever; at last, on the thirteenth day of October, 1632, he departed from the body of the said mother superior, and notified his departure by seven phlegms which she spit a great way: likewise the devil of sister Clara departed from her body, and afterwards all the nuns remained undisturbed, every thing was quiet, and the whole nunnery enjoyed a holy peace;” but they kept not their promise; they imposed upon the exorcists; “from the twentieth of November of the same year,

1632, most of the nuns found themselves molested and disturbed by evil spirits.” Mercure Francois, St. John, page 761-762. ¹⁰⁵

For the reparation of these crimes, Grandier was condemned to an amende honorable, and to be burnt alive, with the magical pacts and characters being in the rolls, together with the manuscript book, which he was accused of having written against the celibacy of priests, and his ashes to be scattered in the air. Having heard this terrible sentence without any commotion, he desired to have the guardian of the Franciscans of Loudun for his confessor: he was doctor of divinity of the faculty of Paris. They refused him, and offered him a recollect, whom he would not make use of; saying, that he was his enemy, and one of those who had most contributed to his ruin. They persisted in their resolution to give him no other confessor than this recollect, and he persisted in his refusal; and so he made only a mental confession to God; after which, he went to the place of execution, and died very constantly and christianly. As he was upon the pile, a great fly (a kind of drone) happened to buz about his head. A monk, present at the execution, who had read in the council of Quieres, that the devils are always at hand, when men are dying, to tempt them, and who had heard say, that Belzebub signifies in Hebrew the god of dies, cried out immediately, that it was the devil Belzebub that dew about Grandier, to carry his soul to hell; upon which a very pleasant song was made.

The devil’s-craft of Loudun lasted a year after the death of Grandier. Theophrastus Renaudot, a famous physician, and inventor of the French gazette, made an encomium on Grandier, which was printed at Paris in loose sheets. This is taken from Menage, who vindicates him, and calls the possession of those nuns a chimera. He thinks it very probable that they were

only tormented with the suffocation of the matrix; and he says, that Grandier deserves to be added to Gabriel Naudés catalogue of great men unjustly accused of magic. However, he confesses that he heard the superior of the Ursulines of Loudun say: “that, when she was delivered from the devils that tormented her, an angel engraved upon her hand Jesus, Maria, Joseph, F. de Salles, and that she shewed him her hand, on which those words were really engraved, but lightly, and like those crosses we see on the arms of the pilgrims, who have been in the Holy Land. He heard her say farther, that the angel engraved first, on the upper part of her hand, the name of Francis de Salles; that this word removed lower to give the precedence to those of Joseph and Maria, and that all three removed lower still to make room for that of Jesus.” He has done well not to say in express words, that he took this for an imposture; the reader understands it well enough. But Monconis Voyages, part I, pag. 8 & 9. ¹⁰⁶ leaves no room to doubt of the cheat; for which reason it will not be amiss to relate here what he says of it. He went to visit this superior of the Ursulines, the eighth of May 1645, and because she made him wait to speak with her above half an hour, he' suspected some artifice. He desired her to shew him the characters, which the devil she was possessed with had imprinted upon her hand, when he was exorcised; According to Menage, it was an angel who imprinted those characters, when the possession was over. ¹⁰⁷ she did, and “he saw, in letters of a blood colour upon the back of her lefthand, beginning from the wrist to the little finger, the word Jesus; below, drawing towards the shoulder, Maria; lower, Joseph; and lower still in the fourth line, F. de Salles. She told him all the villanies of the priest Grandier, who had been burnt for sending the devils into the convent; and how a magistrate of the town, whose wife he had debauched, had complained of it to her, and that they agreed to impeach him, notwithstanding the strong inclinations this miscreant gave her by his conjurations, from which the mercy of God preserved her. At last M. de Monconis took leave of her, and desired to see her hand again; which she very civilly gave him through the grate: he observed to her, that the letters were not so red as when she came, and that those letters seemed to peel off, and all the skin of her hand to rise, as if it had been a thin skin of starch-water dried up: with the end of his nail, by a gentle touch, he took off part of a leg of the M; at which she was very much surprised, though the place remained as fair as the other parts of the hand.” He was satisfied with this. I do not in the least question it. The discovery of such a notable forgery, which had infatuated so many people, was an inestimable treasure to such a man as he. The new history of the devils of Loudun will inform you, “that, when the wrinkles of old age had made the hand dry and lean, the drugs, that were used to mark those names anew, being no longer able to imprint them, the good mother said then, that God had granted her prayers, and suffered those names to be effaced, which were the occasion of abundance of people coming to trouble and importune her, and withdraw her frequently from her acts of devotion.” Histoire des diables de Loudun, pag. 469. ¹⁰⁸ You will there find also, that Cerisantes had the art of marking a name upon his hand, and that the queen’s maids, in 1652, laughed at the engravings of the Ursulines.

It is probable that M. Menage designed to deny in general all that is said of magicians. In effect, he laughs at the first scene of this horrible tragedy, and draws from it some proofs for Grandier’s justification. That first scene consisted in this, that one of the nuns, being by night in her little, but most chaste, bed, perceived a spectre resembling their deceased confessor,

and which owned, that it was he himself, and that he was returned to impart very extraordinary things. The spectre said, it would appear to her the same hour the night following; it faded not to appear, and received the same answer as at first, that she could not treat with it without the privity of her superior. Hereupon this spectre took Grandier’s perfect shape. “He talked to this nun of love affairs, Solicited her with addresses equally insolent and lascivious—she struggles, no body assists her; she torments herself, no body comforts her; she calls, nobody answers; she cries out, no body comes;' she trembles, she perspires, she feints, she invokes the holy name of Jesus; and at last the spectre disappeared.”.

I own, with M. Menage, that this is proper enough to clear Urban Grandier as to magic; but not to justify him in other respects. Could not he, without being obliged to the devil Cedon for opening the door gain the door keeper, and get into this nun’s chamber, pretending to be a ghost, and disguising himself with a mask resembling their late ghostly father? M. Menage says, that no man of sense will believe, that Grandier had the power of disposing of devils at his pleasure, to send them to torment innocent virgins consecrated to God. In fine, he praises the prudence and justice of Lewis XIV, “who has stopped the course of the proceedings against those, who are accused of magic and witchcraft, having commuted the penalty of death into banishment, with respect to many persons condemned by a decree of the parliament of Rouen, to be burnt, as guilty of this crime; and having afterwards, by a decree of his council of state, the twenty-sixth of April, 1672, ordained, that, through all the province of Normandy, the prisons should be opened to all persons, that were detained for the same crimes; and that, for the future, such as should be accused of it should be judged according to the declaration, which his majesty promises, by this

decree, to send into all the jurisdictions of France, to regulate the proceedings that are to be observed by the judges in the trials of magic and witchcraft.”

It is certain, that the most incredulous and subtile philosophers must needs be puzzled with the phenomena relating to witchcraft; but, as to Grandier, I do not know but that we might apply to him what Olympias said upon the sight of a mistress of her husband, whom she found extremely handsome and witty: “let no body suspect her any longer of witchcraft, for all her enchantments are in her person.” The curate of Loudun was a handsome genteel man, and a fine speaker; and this probably was the magic, with which he tempted the superior of the Ursulines, and subjected the nuns to violent and lascivious ardours. The vow of continence and devotion not being sufficient to remove this disorder, it was believed to be supernatural. This imagination spared self-love the shame of cherishing so long a criminal passion. They therefore believed themselves bewitched; all the machine was out of order: and for the honor of that society, the first advances were not to be retracted. There is nothing more dangerous for people, that believe their good reputation to be necessary to the church, than to make a false step. This mother superior of the Ursulines might perhaps be sincere at first; but she was not so when she received Monconis’s visit; and yet she must carry on the farce to salve what was past. Those, who perfectly knew the little town of Loudun, where those devil-crafts first began, might have explained them better than can be done at present.

Since the composition of this article, the History of the Devils of Loudun has been printed in Holland; and it appears manifestly by that book, that the pretended possession of the Ursulines was a horrid contrivance against the life of Grandier. This relation is extremely curious, and attended with all the pieces

relating to that trial. I found one thing in it, at which I was a little surprized, with respect to the great outcries that were made against Father Coton. He set down upon a piece of paper several questions he meant to propose to a woman possessed with the devil. Amongst other questions this was one: “What is the most proper passage of Scripture to prove purgatory?” The Protestants joined with a great number of Catholics in crying out against this impious curiosity, and insulting both the father confessor of Henry IV, and the whole order of the Jesuits: yet it is certain that the confessor did but follow herein the practice of his church, excepting some questions he would have offered concerning political affairs. Did not the exorcist of Loudun ask the devil, “Which was the best means by which a creature departed from God might return to him?” Did he not ask him, “whether, since his fell, he had ever tasted the pleasures of divine love? And which is the strongest bond that fastens men to the creatures? Whether there was any body in hell who had had a great relish of the divine love upon earth?” The devil answered at large these questions, and he even discovered many secrets of his politics, and the means to overthrow them. These things have been not only practised at Loudun, but are the current style of the exorcists, as the Protestant divines object to the Roman Catholics. So that the particular hatred against the Jesuits was the reason of declaiming against the conduct of father Coton, which is not censured when others make use of it. A respect of persons will always prevail among men.

We find in the life of a Jesuit, who was one of the exorcists of the nuns of Loudun, several particulars upon this subject. I will mention two things out of it, one of which is very surprising: I know them only from Mr Cousin’s extracts. Here is what I have

read in his “Journal des Scavans,” in the place where he mentions the life of father Seurin. Journal des Scavans, pag. 311. ¹⁰⁹ " Upon occasion of this father’s conflict with the devils, the author of his life proves at large the truth of the nuns of Loudun being possessed by the devil, especially by the testimony or two of the greatest wits of this age. The one is cardinal Richelieu, who sent exorcists to Loudun, maintained at the king’s expense, and the other, lord Montague, who, having seen the devils go out of the body of the mother of the angels, was perfectly convinced of it, and discoursed of it with Urban VIII, when he abjured his heresy, and made profession of the Catholic faith before him.” What I am going to say is much more extraordinary. You will see there a man who redeemed Jesus Christ, that is, who, to rescue him from the hands of the devil, gave up himself to the devil» Read these words of the journalist. Journal des Scavans, ubi supra. ¹¹⁰ “When father Seurin exorcised the nuns of Loudun, the devils declared that ‘ two magicians had seized three hosts to profane them.’ Father Seurin fell to prayers to obtain the deliverance of his master’s body, and consented that his own body should be submitted to the power of the devils, in order to redeem it. , The offers were accepted, and the exchange performed. The devils took the three hosts out of the hands of their agents, and put them at the foot of the pix of the holy sacrament that was then exposed, and one of them entered into the body of the father, who remained possessed, or obsessed, the greatest part of his life!!!”—Art. Grandier. Such is the atrocious imposture, fraud, and cruelty which an ultramontane and fanatical portion of the priesthood would restore in France. M. Sismondi, by recently illustrating the lauded age of St Louis, has well exposed the rancorous folly and bigotry of this temporarily revived faction. Ed. ¹¹¹

SPINOZA.

Benedict de Spinoza a Jew by birth, who forsook Judaism, and at last became an Atheist, was a native of Amsterdam. He was a systematical Atheist, and brought his Atheism into a new method, although the ground of his doctrine was the same with that of several ancient and modern philosophers, both in Europe and the east. I think that he is the first who reduced Atheism: into a system, and formed it into a body of doctrine, ordered and connected according to the manner of the geometricians; but otherwise his opinion is not new. It has been believed long ago that the whole universe is but one substance, and that God and the world are but one being. Pietro della Valle mentions certain Mahometans who call themselves “Ehl eltahkik, or, men of truth, men of certainty, who believe that there is nothing existent but the four elements, which are God, man, and every thing else.” He also mentions the Zindikites, another Mahometan sect. “They come nearer the Sadducees, and have their name from them. They do not believe a Providence, nor the resurrection of the dead, as Giggoius shews upon the word Zindik. One of their opinions is, that whatever is seen, whatever is in the world, whatever hath been created, is God.” There have been such Heretics among Christians, for we find in the beginning of the thirteenth century, one David of Dinant, who made no distinction between God and the first matter. It is a mistake to say that he is the first who vented such a foolish doctrine. Albertus Magnus mentions a philosopher who had done the like. “Alexander, the Epicurean, held that God was matter, or was not different from it, and that all things were essentially God, and that forms were imaginary accidents, and had no real entity, and, therefore he said all things were substantially the same, and this God he called sometimes Jupiter, sometimes Apollo, 1

and sometimes Pallas, and that forms were the robe of Pallas, and garment of Jupiter; and he asserted that none of the wise men could fully reveal what was concealed under the robe of Pallas, and the garment of Jupiter.” Some believe that this Alexander lived in Plutarch’s time; others say, in express words, that he lived before David of Dinant, who, perhaps, knew not that there was such a philosopher of the Epicurean sect, but at least it must be granted me that he knew very well be bad not invented that doctrine. Had he not learned it of his master? Was he not the disciple of that Almalricus whose dead body was dug up and burnt in the year 1208, and who taught that all things were God, and but one being? “All things are God, God is all things. Creator and creature the same. Ideas create and are created. God is therefore said to be the end of all things, because they all return into him that they may rest unchangeably in God, and continue one individual and unalterable. And as Abraham is not of one nature, Isaac of another, but of one and the same, so he asserted that all things were one, and all things were God. For he affirmed God to be the essence of all creatures.” See Prateolus, in Elencho Hæresum, Voce Almaricus, page m. 23. ¹¹²

I dare not affirm that Strato, a peripatetic philosopher, was of the same opinion, for I do not know whether he taught that the universe or nature was a simple and only substance; I only know that he believed it to be inanimate, and that he acknowledged no other God than nature. As he laughed at Epicurus’s atoms and vacuum, one might think that he made no distinction between the several parts of the world; but this is no necessary consequence. All that can be concluded is, that his opinion comes a great deal nearer Spinozism than the system of atoms. There is even ground to believe that he did not teach, as the

atomists did, that the world was a new work, and produced by chance; but that he taught, as the Spinozists do, that nature has produced it necessarily, and from all eternity. I think the following words of Plutarch, if rightly understood, signify, that nature made all things of itself, and without knowledge, and not that its works began by chance. “Finally, Strabo denies that the world itself is an animal, and will have it, that nature obeys the casual impulses of fortune, for a certain spontaneous power of nature gives to things a beginning, and in like manner afterwards, an end is put by the same nature to physical motions.” Plutarchus adversus Colotem, p. 1115, b. ¹¹³ Seneca also represents Plato’s doctrine, and that of Strato, as two opposite extremes; one of them deprived God of a body, and the other deprived him of a soul. I think I have read in father Salier’s book upon the species of the Eucharist, that several ancient philosophers or heretics taught the unity of all things; but because I have not that book now, I only mention this by the by.

The doctrine of the world, which was so

common among the ancients, and made the principal part of the system of the stoics , is, at the bottom, the same with that of Spinoza, which would more clearly appear, if it had been explained by authors versed in geometry; but because the books wherein it is mentioned are written rather in a rhetorical than a dogmatical method, whereas Spinoza is a precise writer, and avoids the figurative style, which often hinders us from having a just notion of a body of doctrine; hence it is that we find several material differences between his system, and that of the soul of the world. If any one should maintain that Spinozism is more coherent, he should also maintain that it is not so orthodox; for the stoics did not deprive God of his Providence; they' re-united in him the knowledge of

all things, whereas Spinoza ascribes to him only sepa rated and very limited knowledge. Head these words of Seneca: “Eundem quem hos Jovem intelligunt, custodem rectoremque universi, animum ac spiritum mundani hujus operis dominum et artificem, cui nomen omne convenit. Vis illum fatum vocare? non errabis. Hic est, ex quo suspensa sunt omnia, causa caussarum. Vis illum providentiam dicere? recte dices. Est enim, cujus consilio huic mundo providetur, ut inconcussus eat, et actus suos explicet. Vis illum naturam vocare? non peccabis. Est enim, ex quo nata sunt omnia, cujus spiritu vivimus. Vis illum vocare mundum? non falleris. Ipse enim est, totum quod vides, totus suis partibus inditus, et se sustinens vi sua. Seneca, Quæst. Natur. lib. ii. cap. xiv. ¹¹⁴ Quid est autem, bur non existimes in eo divini aliquid existere, qui Dei pars est? Totum hoc quo continemur, et unum est, et Deus, et socii ejus sumus et membra.—They mean the same Jupiter as we, the preserver and governor of the universe, a mind and spirit, the lord and artificer of this mundane fabric, to whom every appellation doth agree. Will you call him fate? You will not be mistaken. It is he upon whom all things depend, the cause of causes. Will you name him Providence? You will be in the right. For it is he by whose care this world is so ordered that it goes on steadily, and exerts its operations. Will you give him the name of Nature? You mistake not. For it is he from whom all things receive their beginning, by whose spirit we live. Will you call him the world? You speak the truth. For he is all what you see, al) diffused through all its parts, and supporting himself by his own power. Why therefore do not you believe that there is something divine in that which is a part of God? All that in which we are contained is both one, and God, and we are his companions and members.” Read also

Cato’s discourse in the ninth book of Lucan’s Phar salia, especially these three verses:

Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aër,
Et coelum et virtus? Superos quid quærimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris.

Lucan. Pharsal. lib. ix. ver. 578.

Is not the seat of Jove, earth, sea, and air,
And heaven, and virtue! Where would we farther trace
The god? Where’er we move, whate’er we see
Is Jove. ....

I shall observe, by the way, an absurdity of those who maintain the system of the soul of the world. They say that all the souls, both of men and brutes, are particles of the soul of the world, which are reunited to their whole by the death of the body: and to make us understand it, they compare animals to bottles full of water, floating upon the sea. If those bottles were broken, their water would be re-united to its whole; thus it is with particular souls, say they, when death destroys the organs in which they were shut up. Nay, some say that extacies, dreams, and intense meditations, re-unite a man’s soul to the soul of the world, and that this is the reason why people foretel things to come by composing figures of geomancy. Gassendus, in Examine Philosoph. Fluddanæ, num. 29, Operum, tom. iii, pag. 247. ¹¹⁵ It is no difficult thing to perceive the falsity of this parallel. The matter of the bottles floating in the sea is an inclosure, which keeps the sea water from touching the water they are full of; but if there were a soul of the world, it would be dispersed through all the parts of the universe, and therefore nothing could prevent the union of the soul to its whole, and death could not produce that re-union.

From the following passage of Bernier, it will also appear, that Spinozism is only a particular method of explaining a doctrine which very much prevails in the East Indies.

“You are not ignorant of the doctrine of many ancient philosophers concerning the great soul of the world, whereof they say our souls and those of brutes are portions. Should we thoroughly examine Plato’s, and Aristotle’s doctrine, perhaps we should find that it was their opinion. This is in a manner the universal doctrine of the Pundits, pagans in the East Indies; and that very same doctrine constitutes to this day the cabala of the Soufys, and of the greatest part of the men of letters in Persia, and is explained in Persian verses very sublime and emphatical in their Goult-chez-raz, or parterre of mysteries; as it has been the doctrine of Fluyd, which our great Gassendus has so learnedly confuted, and that wherein most of our chemists are bewildered. Now those Cabalists, or Indian Pundits, carry the extravagance farther than all those philosophers, and pretend that God, or that Supreme Being which they call Achar, immutable, immoveable, has not only produced or taken souls out of its own substance, but also whatever is material or corporeal in the universe, and that their production was not made in the way of efficient causes, but as a spider produces a cob-web out of its own bowels, and re-assumes it whenever it pleases. Creation therefore, say these imaginary doctors, is only an extraction or extension which God makes out of his own substance, of those webs, which he draws as it were out of his own bowels, in the same manner as destruction is only his re-assuming that divine substance, those divine webs into himself; so that the last day of the world, which they call Maperlé, or Pralea, in which they believe there will be a general destruction of all things, will be only a general re-assuming of all those webs which God had thus emitted out of himself. ‘And therefore,’ say they, ‘there is nothing real and effective in any thing which we think we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch; this world is nothing but a kind of dream, and a mere illusion,

because that multitude and great variety of things that appear to us, are but one and the same thing, viz. God himself, as all our different numbers, ten, twenty, one hundred, a thousand, and so of others, are but one and the same unity repeated several times.’ But if you ask them the reason of such a fancy, and if you desire them to explain that emanation and return of substance, that extension, that apparent diversity, or how it comes to pass that God, who is not corporeal, but biapek, as they own, and incorruptible, should nevertheless be divided into so many portions of bodies and souls; their answer consists only in comparisons, that God is like an immense ocean, in which many vials full of water should move; that those vials, wherever they should go, would be always in the same ocean, in the same water; and that if they should break, the waters contained in them would then be united to their whole, to that ocean of which they are portions. Or they will tell you that it is with God as it is with light, which is the same all over the world, and yet appears a thousand ways different, according to the variety of the objects on which it falls, or according to the different colours and figures of the glasses through which it is conveyed. They will answer you, I say, only with these comparisons, which have no proportion to God, and are only fit to cast a mist before the eyes of ignorant people; and no solid answer can be expected from them. If they be told that those vials would indeed be in the like water, but not in the same, and that there is indeed a like light all over the world, but not the same; and so with many other strong objections, with which they are perpetually confounded; they repeat still the same comparisons, and the same fine words, or as the Soufys do, the fine poems of their Goult-chez-raz.” Bernier, Suite des Memoires sur l’Empire du Grand Mogul, pag. 202, et seq. Dutch edit. ¹¹⁶

It appears from the following passage, that Peter Abelard is likewise accused of asserting that all things are God, and that God is all things. “Empedocles taught, that the first amicable conjunction of the elements was God and matter, of which the other beings were made. This was the theology of that age, this their opinion of the first cause. But at last it grew obsolete, and was reckoned amongst the dreams and chimeras of the ancients. This, among the ruins and rubbish of the ancients, was revived by Peter Abelard, a man bold and famous; he found it buried in ashes, and as Orpheus did Euridice, brought it back from hell. My authors are Vasquez and Smisingus. He asserted that God was all things, and that all things were God, that God was converted into all things, and all things transformed into God, because prepossessed with the theology of Empedocles, or perhaps of Anaxagoras, be distinguished the species according to appearance only, namely, because some atoms appear in one subject which lie hidden in another.” Caramuel, Philosophiae Realis. lib. iii. sect. iii, pag. 175. ¹¹⁷

To the foregoing, may be added a Chinese sect, called Foe Kiao. It was established by royal authority among the Chinese, in the year of the Christian era. Its first founder was the son of the king In Van Fam, and was at first called Xe, or Xe Kia; and afterwards when he was thirty years of age, Foe, that is, no man. The prolegomena of the Jesuits, prefixed to Confucius’s book, published by them at Paris, treats of that founder at large. It is said there, that “having retired into a desart, as soon as he came to be nineteen years of age, and having put himself under the discipline of four gymnosophists to learn philosophy of them, he remained under their direction till the age of thirty years, when rising in the morning before break of day, and contemplating the planet Venus, that bare sight gave him immediately a perfect knowledge of the first principle; so that being full of

a divine inspiration, or rather of pride and folly, he betook himself to instruct men, gave himself out as a god, and drew after him fourscore thousand disciples. At seventy-nine years of age, being upon the point of death, he declared to his disciples that for the space of forty years that he had preached to the world, be had not told them the truth; that he had concealed it under the veil of metaphors and figures; but that it was time now to declare it to them. ‘ There is nothing,' said he, ‘ to be enquired after, and on which we may place our hopes, but nothingness and a vacuum, which is the first principle of all things.” Here is a man very different from our unbelievers; they do not leave off speaking against religion but towards the latter end of their life; they only renounce their libertinism, when they think the time of departing this life draws near: but it was then that Foe began to declare his atheism. “His disciples divided his doctrine into two parts; one is outward, and is that which is publicly preached and taught; the other is inward, which is carefully concealed from the vulgar, and discovered only to those that are initiated. The outward doctrine which, as the Bonzes express it, ‘ is only like the wooden frame on which an arch is built, and that is afterwards removed when the building is finished, consists in teaching that there is a real difference between good and evil, justice and injustice; that there is another life, wherein men shall be punished or rewarded for what they have done in this world; that happiness may be attained by thirty-two figures and four score qualities; that Foe or Xaca is a deity and the saviour of men; that he was born for their sake out of compassion for the errors he saw them in; that he has expiated their sins; and that by virtue of his expiation they shall obtain salvation after death, and shall have a new and more happy birth in another world.’” They add to this, five moral precepts and six works of mercy, and threaten with damnation those who neglect those duties.

“The inward doctrine which is never imparted to the vulgar, because they ought to be kept to their duty by the fear of hell and such like stories, as those philosophers say, is however, in their opinion the solid and true one. It consists in laying down as the principle and end of all things, a certain vacuum and. real nothingness. They say our first parents issued from that vacuum, and returned into it when they died; and that it is so with all men who are resolved into that principle by death; that men, all the elements, and all creatures, make part of that vacuum, and that therefore there is but one and the same substance, which is different in all particular beings only by figures and qualities, or an internal configuration much like water, which is always essential water whether it have the form of snow, hail, rain, or ice.” If it be a monstrous thing to assert that plants, brutes, and men are really the same thing, and to ground such an opinion upon this that all particular beings are not distinct from their principle, it is still more monstrous to say that this principle has no thought, no power, no virtue; and yet this is the doctrine of those philosophers, they place the supreme perfection of that principle in its inaction, and absolute repose. Spinoza was not so absurd: the only or sole substance he admits, is always acting, always thinking; and his most general abstractions could not enable him to divest it of action and thought: the foundations of his doctrine do not allow it.

Observe by the way, that the followers of Foe teach quietism; for they say that all those who seek true happiness, ought to be so far absorbed by profound meditations, as to make no use of their intellect; and that they ought through a perfect insensibility, to sink into the repose and inaction of the first principle, which is the true way of being perfectly

like it and partaking of happiness. They farther say, that those who have attained to that state of quietude, may follow the usual course of life as to the outside, and teach others the doctrine commonly received. It is only in private and inwardly, that one ought to practise the contemplative institute of the beatifical inaction. Those who were most intent upon this contemplation of the first principle, formed a new sect called Vu guei Kiao, that is, the sect of the idle or slothful, nihil agentium. Thus among monks, those who pretend to the most strict observance, form new communities or a new sect. The greatest lords and the most illustrious persons, were so infatuated with this quietism, that they believed insensibility to be the way to perfection and beatitude; and that the nearer a man came to the nature of a block or a stone, the greater progress he made, the more he was like the first principle into which he was to return. It was not enough that the body should be without motion for several hours, the soul was also to be immovable and destitute of all manner of sense. A follower of Confucius refuted the impertinences of that sect, and fully proved this maxim of Aristotle, that nothing can be made out of nothing; nevertheless they maintained and spread themselves, and there are many people to Ahis day, who apply themselves to those vain contemplations. Did we not know the extravagances of our quietists, we should be apt to think that the writers who mention those speculative Chinese, neither well understood, nor faithfully related what they say of them; but if we consider what passes among Christians, we cannot with reason disbelieve the extravagances ascribed to the sect Foe Kiao, or Vu guei Kiao.

But to return to Spinoza; I have not been able to learn any particulars relating to his family, but there is reason to believe that it was mean and inconsiderable. He learned the Latin tongue of a physician

who taught it at Amsterdam; and applied himself early to the study of divinity, and bestowed many years upon it, and afterwards he wholly devoted himself to the study of philosophy. Having a geometrical genius, and being desirous of having a good reason for every thing, he quickly disliked the doctrine of the rabbins, so that the Jews easily perceived he did not approve several articles of their religion; for he was against any constraint in matters of belief, and a great enemy to dissimulation, and therefore he freely declared his doubts and his opinions. It is said that the Jews offered to tolerate him, provided he would comply outwardly with their ceremonies, and even that they promised him a yearly pension; but he could not resolve upon such a hypocrisy. However, it was only by degrees that he left their synagogue; and perhaps he would not have broken with them so soon, had he not been treacherously attacked coming from a play, by a Jew who gave him a thrust with a knife. The wound was slight, but he believed the assassin designed to kill him, and from that time he left them altogether, which was the reason of his excommunication. I have enquired into the circumstances of it, but have not been able to find them out; but he wrote in the Spanish tongue an apology for his leaving the synagogue, which has not been printed: however it is known that he inserted several things in it that have appeared since in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, printed at Amsterdam in the year 1670; a book which contains all the seeds of the Atheism he so plainly discovered in his Opera Posthuma.

When Spinoza betook himself to the study of philosophy, he quickly grew out of conceit with the common systems, and was wonderfully pleased with that of Descartes. He felt so strong an inclination to inquire after truth, that he renounced the world in a manner, the better to succeed in that inquiry. Not

contented to free himself from all manner of business, he also left Amsterdam, because the visits of his friends too much interrupted his speculations,' and retired into the country, where he meditated without any hinderance, and made microscopes and telescopes. He continued in the same course after he had settled at the Hague, and was so well pleased with meditating and putting his meditations into order, and communicating them to his friends, that he spent very little time in any recreation, and was some· times three whole months without stepping out of doors.

Though Spinoza thus lived a very retired life, his name and his reputation spread every where; and free-thinkers resorted to him from all parts. I omit the rest, and I shall only say that the prince of Condé, whose learning was almost as great as his courage, and who loved the conversation of free-thinkers, desired to see Spinoza, and procured him a pass to come to Utrecht while he commanded there the troops of France. The palatine court desired to have him, and offered him a professorship of philosophy at Heidelburg; but he refused it as being an employment little consistent with his great desire of inquiring into truth without any interruption. He fell sick of a lingering disease, of which he died at the Hague, the twenty-first of February, 1674, being somewhat above forty-four years of age.

Those who have been acquainted with Spinoza, and the peasants of the villages where he lived a retired life for some time, all say that he was a sociable, affable, honest, friendly, and a good moral man. This is strange, but after all it is not a more surprising thing than to see men live an ill life, though they be fully persuaded of the truth of the gospel. Some will have it that he followed the maxim “nemo repente turpissimus,” and that he became an Atheist only by degrees; and that he was very far from being so in the year 1663, when he published

the geometrical demonstration of Descartes’s principles. He appears as orthodox in that book upon the nature of God, as Descartes himself; but we must know that he did not then speak according to his subsequent persuasion: there is ground to believe that the ill use he made of some maxims of that philosopher, occasioned his Atheism. Some say that the pseudonymous piece De Jure Ecclesiasticorum, printed in 1665, was the forerunner of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.

All those who have confuted the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, have discovered in it the seeds of Atheism, but none have done it so clearly as Mr John Bredenburg. He was a citizen of Rotterdam, who published there a book in 1675, entitled Joannis Bre denburgii Enervatio Tractatus Thelogico-Politici, una cum Demonstratione, geometrico ordine disposita, Naturam non esse Deum, cujus effati contrario prædictus Tractatus unice innititur. He set in a full light what Spinoza had endeavoured to wrap up and disguise, and made a solid confutation of it. The readers were surprised that a man who was no professed scholar, and who had very little learning, should have been able to dive into all the principles of Spinoza, and to confute them so successfully, after he had represented them in their full strength by a fair analysis. I have heard of a remarkable thing, viz. that this author having many times considered his answer and the principle of his adversary, found at last that his principle might be brought to a demonstration; whereupon he undertook to prove that there is no other cause of all things but a Being which necessarily exists, and acts by an immutable, unavoidable, and unalterable necessity. He followed the method of the geometricians, and after he had drawn up his demonstration, he examined it all manner of ways; he endeavoured to find out the weak side of it, and could never think of any way to

confute it, nor even to weaken it, which made him very uneasy; he groaned and sighed, he was angry with reason, and desired the most learned friends to help him to find out the fault of his demonstration. Nevertheless, he suffered no one to take a copy of it; Francis Cuper translated it by stealth, though he had promised not to do it. That man, perhaps, moved by the mutual jealousy of others, for he had written against Spinoza, and had not been so successful as John Bredenburg, made use of that copy some time after, to accuse him of Atheism; he published it in Dutch with some reflections. Bredenburg defended himself in the same language; several pieces were published on both sides which I have not read, for I do not understand Dutch. Orobio a Jew, who was an able physician, and Aubert de Verse, engaged in that quarrel, and sided with Cuper. They maintained that the author of the demonstration was a Spinozist, and consequently an Atheist. As far as I have been able to understand by what I have heard, the latter defended himself by alleging the common distinction between faith and reason. He pretended that as the Protestants and the Catholics believe the mystery of the Trinity, though inconsistent with the light of nature; he believed free-will, though reason afforded him strong proofs that every thing happens by an unavoidable necessity, and consequently that there can be no religion; it is no easy thing to drive a man out of such an entrenchment. It may be said that he is not sincere, and that it is impossible to believe as a truth, what is contrary to a geometrical demonstration: but can this be said without setting yourself up for a judge in a case wherein incompetency may be objected against you? Have we a right to decide what passes in other men’s hearts? Have we a sufficient knowledge of a man’s soul, to be positive that such and such combinations cannot be found in it? Have we not many instances of absurd combinations, and such as come nearer to a contradiction than that which John Bredenburg alleged?

It ought in fact to be observed that there is no contradiction between these two things; first, Reason teaches me that this is false; and yet I believe it because I am persuaded that reason is not infallible; and second, I had rather follow an inward sense and the impressions of conscience, in short, the word of God, than a metaphysical demonstration. This is not believing and disbelieving at the same time, one and the same thing; such a combination is impossible, and no man ought to be admitted to allege it for his vindication. However it be, the man I speak of made it appear that the sense of religion and the hopes of another life, prevailed in his soul against his demonstration; and I have been told that the marks he gave of it during his last sickness, put his sincerity out of all doubt. The abbot de Dangeau speaks of some men whose religion is in their mind and not in their heart; they are persuaded of the truth of it, but their conscience is not affected with the love of God. I think it may likewise be said that there are some men whose religion is in their heart and not in their mind. They lose sight of it when they make use of reason to come to the knowledge of it; it escapes the subtleties and sophisms of their logic; they know not which way to turn whilst they proclaim the arguments pro and con: but when they leave off disputing, and mind only their inward sense, the instinct of conscience, the power of education, &c. they are persuaded there is a religion, and conform their lives to it as much as human infirmities can permit. This was the case of Cicero: one can hardly doubt it who compares his other books with those De Natura Deorum, wherein he makes Cotta triumph over all the interlocutors who maintained the existence of the gods.

Whoever desires to know the shifts and

equivocations made use of by Spinoza to conceal his Atheism, need only read Christian Kortholt's book, “De tribus Impostoribus magnis," Viz. Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Thomas Hobbes, and Benedict Spinoza. ¹¹⁸ printed at Kiel in 1680, in 12mo. The author has there collected several passages of Spinoza, and among other things, the letter wherein he complains that there was a report that he had a book in the press to prove that there is no God. It is not so easy to answer all the difficulties contained in the “Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,” as utterly to destroy the system of his “Opera Posthuma;” for it is the most absurd and monstrous hypothesis that can be imagined, and the most contrary to the most evident notions of our mind. He supposes that there is but onto substance in nature, and that this only substance is endowed with infinite attributes, and among others with extension and thought. Afterwards he affirms, that “all bodies in the universe are modifications of that substance as it is extended; and that, for instance, the souls of men are modifications of that substance as it thinks: so that God, the necessary and most perfect Being, is the cause of all things that exist, but does not differ from them. There is but one Being and one nature, and that Being produces in itself and by an immanent action, whatever goes by the name of creatures. He is at once both agent and patient, efficient cause and subject; He produces nothing but what is his own modification.” This is the most extravagant hypothesis that can be thought of. The most infamous things sang by the heathen poets against Jupiter, and against Venus, do not come near the horrid notion Spinoza gives us of God: for· the poets did not ascribe to the gods all the crimes that are committed, all the infirmities of mankind: but, according to Spinoza, there is no other agent nor other patient but God, with respect to physical and moral evil. Let us observe some of the absurdities of his system:

It is impossible that the universe should be the only substance; for whatever is extended must necessarily consist of parts, and whatever consists of parts must be compounded: and as the parts of extension do not subsist one in another, it necessarily follows that extension in general is not a substance, or that each part of extension is a particular substance, and distinct from all others. But according to Spinoza, extension in general is the attribute of a substance. He owns, as all other philosophers do, that the attribute of a substance does not really differ from that substance; and therefore he must acknowledge that extension in general is a substance; whence it ought to be concluded that each part of extension is a particular substance; which overthrows the foundation of the whole system of that author. He cannot say that extension in general is distinct from the substance of God; for should he say so, it would follow that this substance is in itself unextended: and therefore it could never have acquired the three dimensions but by creating them, since it is manifest that extension cannot proceed from an unextended subject, but by way of creation, and Spinoza did not believe that any thing could be made out of nothing. Again, it is manifest, that a substance unextended by its nature, can never become the subject of the three dimensions; for how could they be placed upon a mathematical point? They would therefore subsist without a subject; and therefore they would be a substance: so that if this author admitted a real distinction between the substance of God and extension in general, he would be obliged to say that God is composed of two substances distinct one from another, viz. of his unextended being, and of extension. Thus he is obliged to acknowledge that extension and God are but one

and the same thing; and besides, as he maintains that there is But one substance in the universe, he must needs teach that extension is a simple being, and as much compounded as mathematical points. But is not this a most ridiculous assertion, and contrary to our most distinct ideas? Is it more evident that the number one thousand is made up of a thousand units, than it is evident that a body of a hundred inches is made up of a hundred parts really distinct one from another, each of which has the extension of an inch?

It were in vain to raise any objections against our imagination and our senses; for the most intellectual and the most immaterial notions discover to us, with the utmost evidence, that there is a most real distinction between things, one of which has a property which the other has not. The school-men have been very successful in showing the characters and infallible signs of distinction. “When,” say they, “we may affirm of one thing what cannot be affirmed of another, these two things are distinct: things that may be separated one from another, either with respect to time, or with respect to place, are distinct: If we apply those characters to the twelve inches of the foot of extension, we shall find a true distinction between them.” I can affirm of the fifth, that it is contiguous to the sixth, and I can deny it of the first and second, &c. I can remove the sixth to the place of the twelfth, and therefore it may be separated from the fifth. Observe, that Spinoza cannot deny that the characters of distinction made use of by the school-men are very just; for it is by these characters he acknowledges that stones and animals are not the same modification of the infinite Being. “He acknowledges therefore,” will they say, “that there is some difference between things.” He must needs own it, for he was not so extravagant as to believe that there was no difference between him and the jew who gave him a stab with a knife; or to say, that his bed and his chamber were in all respects

the same being with the emperor of China. What did he say then? He taught not that two trees are two parts of extension, but only two modifications. You will be surprised that he spent so many years in forging a new system, since one of the main pillars of it was to be the pretended difference between the word part and the word modification· Could he expect any advantage from this change of a word? What signifies it whether be decline to use the word part, and substitute the word modification in the room of it? Will the notions annexed to the word part vanish away? Will they not be applied to the word modification? Are the signs and characters of difference less real or evident, when matter is divided into modifications, than when it is divided into parts? Not at all. The idea of matter still remains the idea of a compound being, of a system of several substances. This will be fully proved by what lam going to say.

Modifications are beings which cannot exist without the substance they modify; and therefore there ought to be a substance wherever there are modifications; nay, it must needs be multiplied in proportion as modifications inconsistent one with another are multiplied: so that, wherever there are five or six such modifications there are also five or six substances. It is evident, and no Spinozist can deny it, that the square and the circular figures cannot be in the same piece of wax; and therefore the substance modified by a square figure is not the same substance with that which is modified by the circular figure. When therefore I see a round table and a square table in a room, I may affirm that the extension which is the subject of the round table is a substance distinct from the extension, which is the subject of the other table; for otherwise the square figure and the round figure would be at the same time in one and the same subject: which is impossible. Iron and water, wine and wood are incompatible; and therefore they require distinct

subjects. The lower end of a stake driven into a river is not the same modification with the other end: it is surrounded with earth, whilst the other is surrounded with water; and therefore they have two contradictory attributes, viz. being surrounded with water, and not being surrounded with water: therefore the subject they modify must be at least two substances; for one only substance cannot be at the same time modified by an accident surrounded with water, and by an accident not surrounded with water. This shows that extension is made up of as many distinct substances as there are modifications.

If it be an absurd thing to say that God is extended, because it in depriving him of his simplicity, and ascribing, to him an infinite number of parts; what shall we say when we consider that this opinion reduces him to the condition of matter, the vilest of all beings, and such as most of the ancient philosophers have placed immediately next to nothing. Matter is the stage of all sorts of changes, the field of battle of contrary causes, the subject of all corruptions, and of all generations; in a word, there is no being whose nature is more inconsistent with the immutability of God. And yet the Spinozists maintain that it suffers no division: and the reason they allege for it, is the most frivolous and most silly cavilling in the world. They pretend that if matter were divided, one of its portions should be separated from the other by empty spaces, which never happens. This is certainly a very wrong definition of division. We are as really separated from our friends, when the space that divides us is taken up by other men placed abreast, as if it were foil of earth: and therefore, when the Spinozists maintain that matter, reduced into ashes and smoke is not actually divided, they advance a thing quite contrary to our notions and manner of speaking: but what will they get, if we should lay aside the advantage we may

draw from their wrong defining division? There will remain still many proofs of the mutability and corruptibility of the god of Spinoza. All men have a very clear idea of an immutable Being: they understand by that word, a Being which never requires any thing new; which never loses what it is once possessed of; which is always the same, both with respect to its substance and to the manner of its Being. The clearness of this idea enables us to apprehend most distinctly what a mutable Being is: it is not only a Being, whose existence may begin and have an end; but a being which always subsisting as to its substance, may successively acquire several modifications, and lose the accidents or forms which, it once had. All the ancient philosophers have acknowledged, that the continual series of generations and corruptions which is observed in the world, neither produces nor destroys any portion of matter: hence it is, that the said matter is ingenerable and incorruptible as to its substance, though it be the subject of all generations and all corruptions. The same matter which is fire now was wood before; all its essential attributes remain the same under the form of wood, and under the form of fire: and therefore it loses and acquires nothing but accidents and modes, when wood is changed into fire, bread into flesh, flesh into earth, &c. And yet it is the most sensible and the most proper example that can be given of a mutable Being, and actually liable to all sorts of alterations and internal changes. I call them internal; for the different forms under which it exists are not like the different clothes upon which actors appear upon the stage. The bodies of those actors may subsist without any manner of change or alteration under a thousand different dresses: cloth and linen, silk and gold, are not united with the man that wears them; they are still foreign bodies and outward ornaments; but the forms produced in matter are inwardly and penetratively united to it: it is their subject of inherence, and according to right philosophy there is no other distinction between them and matter than what is to be found between modes and a thing modified. From whence it follows, that the god of the Spinozists is a being actually changing, that goes continually through several states internally and really different one from another. It is not therefore the most perfect being, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Jam. i, 17. ¹¹⁹

Observe, that the Proteus mentioned by the poets, their Thetis, their Vertumnus, who were images and examples of inconstancy, and which occasioned the proverbs whereby the oddest fickleness of men was denoted, would have been immutable gods, if the god of the Spinozists were immutable; for it was never pretended that there happened any alteration in their substance, but only new modifications.

Verum, ubi correptum manibus, vinclisque tenebris,
Tùm variae illudent species, atque ora ferarum:
Fiet enim subitò sus horridus, atraque tigris,
Squamosusque draco, et fulvâ cervice leæna:
Aut acrem flammae sonitum dabit, atque ita vinclis
Excidit: aut in aquas tenues delapsus abibit.
Sed, quanto ille magis formas se vertet in omnes,
Tantò, nate magis, contende tenacia vincla:
Donec talis erit mutato corpore, qualem
Videris, incepto tegeret cùm lumina somno.

Virgil. Georg. lib. iv, ver. 405.

Thus surely bound, yet be not over bold,
The slippery god will try to loose his hold.
And various forms assume to cheat thy sight;
And with vain images of beasts affright.
With foamy tusks will seem a bristly boar
Or imitate the lion’s angry roar;
Break out in crackling names to shun thy snares,
Or hiss a dragon, or a tyger stares:

Or with a wile thy caution to betray,
In fleeting streams attempt to slide away.
But thou, the more be varies forms, beware
To strain his fetters with a stricter care.
Till tiring all his arts, he turns again
To his true shape, in which he first was seen.

Dryden.

As for what concerns Thetis, see Ovid; Ovid. Metam. lib. xi, Fab. vii, ver. 221 et seq. ¹²⁰ see also the same poet concerning Vertumnus, Id. Ibid. lib. xiv, Fab. xvi, ver. 647, et seq. ¹²¹ and besides consult the fourth book of Propertius in the second Elegy.

III. We shall see still more monstrous absurdities, if we consider the god of Spinoza as being the subject of all the modifications of thought. The combination of extension and thought, in one and the same substance, is already one great difficulty; for the question is not about a mixture like that of metals, or that of wine and water, which requires only a juxtaposition; but the combination of thought and extension ought to be an identity; thought and extension are two attributes identified with substance. They are therefore identified among themselves, by the fundamental and essential rule of human logic. I am sure that if Spinoza had found the same intricacy in another sect, he would have thought it unworthy of his attention; but he did not much trouble himself with it in his own cause: so true it is that the most disdainful censurers of other men’s thoughts, are very indulgent to themselves. Doubtless he derided the mystery of the Trinity, and wondered that so many · people should speak of a nature terminated by three hypostases; and yet, properly speaking, he ascribed as many persons to the divine nature as there are men upon earth. He looked upon those as fools who believed transubstantiation, and who say that a man may be in many places in one and the same time,

may be alive in Paris and dead at Rome, &c. and yet he maintains that the extended substance, thought but one and indivisible, is all at once every where, cold in one place, hot in another, melancholy in one place, merry in another, &c.: this by and by, but mind what I am going to say: if there be any thing certain and undeniable in human knowledge, it is this proposition: “Opposita sunt quæ neque de se invicem, neque de eodem tertio secundem idem, ad idem, eodem modo atque tempore vere affirmari possunt.” That is, two opposite terms cannot be truly affirmed of the same subject in the same respects, and at the same time. For instance, we cannot say, without lying, “Peter is well, Peter is sick: he denies that, and he affirms it ,” supposing that the terms have always the same relation, and are taken in the same sense. The Spinozists destroy that idea, and falsify it in such a manner that I do not know whence they can take the character of truth: for if such propositions Were false, there is none that can be warranted to be true: and therefore it is vain to dispute with them; for if they deny this, they may as Well deny any other reason alleged against them. I shall make it appear that this axiom is very false in their system; and in order to it, I lay down first of all this undeniable maxim, that all the names that are given to a subject, to signify what it does or what it suffers, properly and physically belong to its substance, and not to its accidents. When we say, iron is hard, iron is heavy, it sinks into water, it cleaves wood, we do not pretend to say that its hardness is hard, its heaviness is heavy, &c. This would be an impertinent way of speaking: we mean that the extended substance it is made of resists, is heavy, goes down into water and cleaves wood. In like manner, when we say that a man denies, affirms, is angry, is kind, praises, &c, we ascribe all those attributes to the substance of his soul, and not to his thoughts, as they are accidents or modifications: and therefore were it true, as Spinoza will have it, that men are modifications of God, we should speak falsely should we say, Peter denies this, he wills that, he affirms such a thing; for, according to that system, it is properly God who denies, who wills, who affirms, and consequently all the denominations resulting from the thoughts of all men, do properly and physically belong to the substance of God. Whence it follows that God hates and loves, denies and affirms, the same things at the same time, and according to all the conditions requisite, to make the rule I have mentioned concerning opposite terms false: for it cannot be denied that, according to those conditions strictly taken, some men love and affirm what other men hate and deny. I will go farther still; the contradictory terms to will and not to will, belong at the same time to different men according to all those conditions; and therefore, according to Spinoza’s system, they belong to that sole and indivisible substance he calls God. It is therefore God who at the same time forms an act of will, and does not form it with respect to the same object. And therefore, two contradictory terms are true of him, which overthrow the first principle of metaphysics.

I am not ignorant that, in disputes concerning transubstantiation, a cavil is made use of which might help the Spinozists. It is said that if Peter will a thing at Rome which he does not will at Paris, the contradictory terms to will and not to will, are not true with respect to him; for since it is supposed he wills at Rome, it were a lie to say he wills not. I leave them this vain subtilty, and shall only say that, as a square circle is a contradiction, a substance is so too, when it loves and hates the same object at the same time. A square circle would be and would not be a circle; which is a plain contradiction: it would be a circle according to the supposition, and it would be no circle, since the circular figure is wholly

inconsistent with the square figure. I say the same of a substance that loves and hates the same thing: it loves and does not love it; this is a downright contradiction; it loves it according to the supposition; it does not love it, since hatred does essentially exclude love. Thus you see what it is to be over nice. Spinoza could not bear the least obscurity of Peripatetism, Judaism, or Christianity; and yet he heartily embraced a hypothesis which reconciles two things so contrary to one another, as the square and the circular figures, and whereby an infinite number of inconsistent attributes, and all the variety and antipathy of the thoughts of mankind are made true and consistent at the same time, in one and the same most simple and indivisible substance. We commonly say, " quot capita tot sensus, as many men so many minds;” but according to Spinoza, all the minds or thoughts of men are in one head. The bare relating of such things is a sufficient confutation of them, and clearly shows they are contradictory; for it is manifest either that nothing is impossible, not even that two and two should make twelve, or that there are in the universe as many substances as subjects, which cannot receive at the same time the same denominations.

IV. But if it be, physically speaking, a prodigious absurdity, that a simple and only being should be modified at the same time by the thoughts of all men, it is an execrable abomination if it be considered with regard to morality. How then? Shall not the infinite, the necessary, the most perfect Being be steady, constant, and immutable? Why do I say, immutable? it will not be one moment the same; its thoughts will continually succeed one another; the same odd mixture of passions and sentiments will never happen twice. This is hard to be digested, but here is something worse. This continual changeableness will be very uniform in this sense, that for one good thought, the infinite Being Will have a thousand foolish,

extravagant, filthy, and abominable . It will produce in it self all the follies idle fancies, leud and unjust practices of mankind; it will be not only the efficient cause of them, but also the passive subject, the “subjectum inhæsionis:” it will be united to them by the most intimate union that can be conceived, for it is a penetrative union, or rather a perfect identity, since the modification is not really distinct from the modified substance. Several great philosophers not being able to apprehend how the most perfect. Being can permit that man should be so wicked and so unhappy, have supposed two principles, the one good, and the other bad; but here is a philosopher who is pleased, to make God himself the agent and patient, the cause and subject of all the crimes and miseries of men. If men hate and assassinate one another; if they form themselves into armies to kill one another; if the conquerors eat sometimes the conquered, it is a thing that maybe apprehended, because it is supposed they are distinct one from another, and that meum and tuum produce contrary passions in them. But to affirm that men are only the modification of one and the same Being, that, consequently, God only acts, and that the same individual God being modified into Turks and Hungarians, there are wars and battles, is to advance a thing more monstrous and chimerical than all the deliriums of men shut up in mad houses. Take

particular notice, as I have said before, that modes do nothing, and that substances only act and suffer. This phrase, “the sweetness of honey pleases the palate,” is only true, as it signifies that the extended substance of which honey is made up pleases the palate. Thus, according to Spinoza’s system, whoever says, “The Germans have killed ten thousand Turks,” speaks improperly and falsely, unless he means God modified into Germans has killed God modified into ten thousand Turks. And therefore all the phrases made use of to express what men do one against another

have no other true sense than this: God hates himself; he asks favours of himself, and he refuses them to himself; he persecutes himself, kills himself, eats himself, calumniates himself, executes himself, &c. This would be less incomprehensible, if Spinoza had represented God as a collection of many distinct parts; but he reduces him to the most perfect simplicity, to a unity of substance, to indivisibility. And therefore he asserts the most infamous and the maddest extravagances that can be conceived, infinitely more ridiculous than those of the Poets, concerning the gods of the Heathens. I wonder he either did not perceive them, or if he did, how he persisted obstinately in his principle. A man of sense would rather chuse to grub up a piece of ground with his teeth and nails, than to cultivate such an offensive and absurd hypothesis.

V. Here follow two other objections. Some philosophers have been so impious as to deny the being of a God; but they did not carry their extravagance so far as to say, that if he did exist, he would not be perfectly happy. The greatest sceptics among the ancients said, that all men have an idea of God, according to which he is a living, happy, and incorruptible being, of a perfect felicity, and susceptible of no evil. Happiness was the most inseparable property contained in this idea; those who deprived him of power and the direction of the world, acknowledged his felicity and immortal beatitude.

Omnia enim per se Divum natura necesse est
Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur,
Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque longe;
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri,
Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.

Lucretius, lib. i. ver. 57.

#For whatsoe’r’s divine must live in peace,
In undisturb’d and everlasting ease;

Not care for us, from fears and dangers free,
Sufficient to its own felicity:
Nought here below, nought in our power it needs;
Ne’er smiles at good, ne’er frowns at wicked deeds.

Creech.

Those who made him subject to death, said at least, that he was happy all his life-time. It was, doubtless, a horrid extravagance not to ascribe immorality as well as happiness to the Divine Nature. Plutarch does very well confute this absurdity of the Stoics. I shall set down his words somewhat at large because they prove a thought, which I have advanced above, and because they confute the Spinozists; for his argument is inconsistent with the hypothesis, according to which God is subject to death, as to his parts or modalities, that he is, as it were, the matter of generations and corruptions; that he destroys his own modalities; and that he supports himself with that destruction. “And, indeed, we may happen to meet with barbarous and savage men, who believe that there is no God. But there was never found any man, who, believing that there was no God, did not at the same time believe him incorruptible and eternal. For those who are called Atheists, such as Theodorus, Diagoras, and Hyppo, did not dare to say that God was corruptible; they, indeed, believed that there was nothing exempt from corruption: while they denied that no being was incorruptible, they determined nothing concerning God. But Chrysippus and Cleanthes having filled (as one may say) the heavens, the earth, the air, the sea with gods, affirmed that none of these gods were incorruptible or eternal: they excepted Jupiter only, into whom they thought that all the other gods were dissolved, and they made him decay, which is no better than perishing. For as it implies a weakness and defect in one being to perish and be dissolved into another, so it implies a weakness and defect in that other being to be nourished and preserved by the former dissolving into it.”

But though this doctrine of the Stoics was so extravagant, it did not deprive the gods of happiness during their life. Perhaps the Spinozists are the only men, who have made the Deity subject to misery. But what misery? A misery so great that he falls into despair, and would annihilate himself if he could; he endeavours to do it; he deprives himself of as many things as he can; he hangs himself, he throws himself headlong down a precipice, being no longer able to bear the terrible melancholy that consumes . him. This is not declamation, it is an exact and philosophical language; for if man be only a modification, he does nothing: it were an impertinent, ridiculous, and burlesque expression to say, “Joy is merry, sadness is sad.” It is a phrase no less impertinent in Spinoza’s system, to affirm, “man thinks, man afflicts himself, man hangs himself, &c.” All those propositions ought to be affirmed of the substance, whereof man is only a mode. How could Spinoza think that an independent and self-existent being, endowed with infinite perfections, is subject to all the miseries incident to mankind? If some other being forced it to vex itself, and to feel pain, its striving to make itself unhappy would be less surprizing; one might say, it must needs obey a stronger power; it is likely it torments itself with the gravel, the cholic, a fever, and madness, to avoid a greater evil. But it is the only being in the universe; there is nothing that commands, exhorts, or intreats it. It is its own nature, will Spinoza say, that moves it under some circumstances, to give itself a great deal of vexation, and a very violent pain. But I will ask him whether he does not find something monstrous and inconceivable in such a fatality.

The strong reasons alleged against those who maintained that our souls are a portion of God, are still more solid against Spinoza. It is objected against Pythagoras, in a piece of Cicero, that three palpable.

falsities result from that doctrine: 1. That the Divine Nature would be torn in pieces. 2. That it would be miserable whenever men are so. 3. That man’s mind would be ignorant of nothing, since it would be God. “Nam Pythagoras qui censuit, &c.”

VI. Were it not that I remember I do not write a book against this man, but only some short observations by the by, I could find many other absurdities in his system. I shall conclude with this. He engaged in an hypothesis, which makes all his labours ridiculous, and I am sure that every page of his Ethics affords a horrid piece of nonsense. First, I would fain know whom he has in view, when he rejects some doctrines and proposes others. Does he design to teach some truths? Would he confute some errors? But how can he say that there are any errors among men? Are not the thoughts of the common philosophers those of the Jews, those of the Christians, modes of the Infinite Being, as well as those of his ethics? Are they not realities as necessary to the perfection of the universe, as all his speculations? Do they not arise from the necessary cause? How then can he pretend that they want to be rectified?

In the second place, does he not say that the nature, whereof they are modalities, acts necessarily, and always follows its course; that it can neither turn aside nor stop, and that being the only nature in the universe, no outward cause will ever stop or rectify it?

And therefore nothing can be more needless than the instructions of this philosopher. Does it become him, who is but the modification of a substance, to prescribe to the Infinite Being what it ought to do? Will that Being hear him? And if it should hear him, could it be the better for what he says? Does it not always act according to the whole extent of its power, without knowing either whither it goes, or what it does? Such a man as Spinoza would set his mind at rest, if he reasoned well. If it be possible, would

he say, for such a doctrine to take root, the necessity of nature will establish it without my book; if it be not possible, all my writings will be insignificant.

They who complain that the authors who have undertaken to confute Spinoza have not been successful, confound things; they would have the difficulties, under which he sank, wholly removed; but they should be contented to see his hypothesis entirely overthrown. I think it may be supposed that he ran into these absurdities because he could not apprehend either that matter is eternal, and different from God, or that it has been produced out of nothing, or that an infinite mind, perfectly free, and the Creator of all things, could produce such a work as the world. A matter that necessarily exists, and yet is destitute of activity, and subject to the power of another principle, is a thing that does not suit with reason. We see no affinity between those three qualities; such a combination is repugnant to the idea of order. A matter created out of nothing cannot be conceived, though we strive never so much to form an idea of an act of will, which changes into a real substance what was nothing before. This principle of the ancients, “ex nihilo, nihil fit—nothing is made of nothing,” offers itself continually to our imagination, and there appears with such evidence, that it stops us short in case we have begun to frame any conception of creation. Lastly, that a God, infinitely good, infinitely holy, infinitely free, who could make creatures always holy, and always happy, should rather chuse to make them criminal, and eternally miserable, is a thing that shocks reason, and so much the more, because it cannot reconcile man’s free will with the quality of a being created out of nothing. But unless those two things be reconciled, it cannot conceive how man deserves any punishment under a free, good, holy, and just Providence. These three inconveniences put Spinoza upon looking for a new system.

wherein God should not be distinct from matter, and should act necessarily, and according to the whole extent of his power, not out of himself, but in himself. It results from this supposition, that this necessary cause, whose power is not limited, and whose actions are not directed by goodness, justice, and knowledge, but only by the infinite power of its nature, must needs have modified itself according to all possible realities, so that errors and vices, pain and grief, being modalities as real as truth, virtue, and pleasure, all those things must have been in the universe. Spinoza hoped to resolve by that means the objections of the Manichees against the one only principle. Those objections have no force but on the supposition that one only principle of all things acts by choice, and can act or forbear acting, and confines its power according to the rules of goodness and equity, or according to the instinct of malice. This being Boëthius, de Consolat. Philosoph. lib. i. Prusa iv. pag. m. ¹²² supposed, the question is, if that one only principle be good, whence comes evil? If it be bad, whence comes good? “Deteriora velle, nostri fuerit fortasse defec tus: posse vero contra innocentiam, quae sceleratus quisque conceperit, inspectante Deo, monstri simile est: unde haud injuria tuorum quidam familiarium quæsivit: Si quidem Deus, inquit est, unde mala? bona vero unde, si non est.—To have a will to do evil, is, perhaps, our defect; but for a villain, in the sight of God, to do against an innocent man whatever he devises, is a thing monstrous. Hence one of your friends asked, and not without reason, “If there be a God, whence comes evil; and if there be no God, whence comes good?” Spinoza would answer, my one only principle being able to do good and evil, and doing whatever it can do, good and evil must necessarily be in the world. But if you consider the three inconveniences he intended to avoid, and the extravagant consequences of his hypothesis, you will find that his choice is neither that of a good man, nor that of a man of parts. He lays aside some things, of which, the worst that can be said is, that the weakness of our reason does not allow us clearly to perceive the possibility of them, and he admits others which are evidently impossible. There is a great difference between not comprehending the possibility of a thing, and comprehending the impossibility of it. Now see the injustice of readers. They require from all those who write against Spinoza, that they should remove the difficulties which perplexed him, and set in a clear light the truths he could not comprehend; and because they find no such thing in the writings of the anti-Spinozists, they declare they have not succeeded. Is it not sufficient to overthrow the system of that Atheist, Reason teaches us that custom ought to be maintained against innovators, unless they bring in better laws? That if their opinions were not better than those that are commonly received, they would deserve to be rejected, though they were not worse than the abuses they intended to suppress. It ought to be said to those men, submit to custom, or give us something better. Much more ought we to reject the system of the Spinozists, since, in freeing us from some difficulties, it involves us in more inextricable perplexities. If the difficulties were equal on both sides, the common system should be preferred to the other, because, besides the privilege of possession, it hath also this advantage, that it promises us a great happiness for the time to come, and affords us a thousand comforts in the miseries of this life. How great a satisfaction is it in our adversity to hope that

God will hear our prayers, and that, if he do not hear them, he will, however, reward our patience, and indemnify us in a glorious manner? It is a great comfort to flatter ourselves that other men will have

some regard to the dictates of their conscience, and to the fear of God. Wherefore the common hypothesis is both truer and more agreeable than the atheistical. Therefore, since the system of Spinoza is not liable to lesser objections than the Christian hypothesis, it is a sufficient reason to reject it So that any author, who shews that Spinozism is obscure, and false in its first propositions, and perplexed with impenetrable and contradictory absurdities in its consequences, ought to pass for having very well confuted it, though he does not clearly resolve all the objections of Spinoza. The whole matter may be reduced to these few words. The common hypothesis, if compared with that of the Spinozists in those things that are clear, has a greater evidence; and if it be compared with the other in those things that are obscure, it appears less opposite to the light of reason. And besides, it promises us an infinite happiness after this life, and procures us a thousand comforts in this, whereas the other gives us no prospect of a future happiness, and deprives us of confidence in our prayers, and of the advantage we may expect from the remorses of our neighbours; and therefore the common hypothesis is to be preferred to the other.

The greatest admirers acknowledge, that if he had taught the doctrines laid to his charge, he would be an execrable man; but they pretend he has not been understood. “If therefore, it were the intention of this philosopher to confound God and nature together, in so shameful a manner, or if his opinion come to that, I think he was justly attacked and condemned by his adversaries, nay, that his memory ought to be for ever execrable; but because God alone, who is the searcher of hearts, can judge of any man’s intention, it only belongs to us to judge of the opinions contained in the writings which this man has published; and though there are some among his adversaries of great penetration, yet I think they have not

at all discovered the true sense of his writings, because I find nothing in them but what abundantly shews that he was far from confounding God and nature together. At least, I judge so from Ins writings, which if others understand better than I do, I retract what I now say; I do not take it upon me to protect this man, I only ask that the liberty which is granted others, may likewise be granted me, which is that I may be allowed to explain what I take to be the genuine sense of these writings.” Kuffelaer Speciminis Artis ratiocinandi naturalis et arti ficialis, pag. 113. ¹²³

These words, taken from a book of one of his followers, printed at Utrecht in 1684, dearly shew that Spinoza has been so successfully confuted by his adversaries, that the only way of replying to them, is like that of the Jansenists against the Jesuits, viz. That his opinion is not such as it is supposed to be. This is the result of what his apologist says. And therefore in order to shew that his adversaries have attained a complete victory over him, we need only consider that he has in effect taught what is imputed to him, or that he contradicted himself wretchedly, and knew not what he said. He is accused of teaching that all particular beings are modifications of God. This is plainly his doctrine, since his fourteenth proposition runs thus: “Præter Deum nulla dari neque concipi potent substantia: --- Besides God, no substance can exist, nor be conceived.” And he affirms in the fifteenth, “Quicquid est, in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse neque concipi potest: --- Whatever exists is in God, and nothing can exist nor be conceived without God:” which he proves by this reason, that every thing is a mode or a substance, and that modes can neither exist nor be conceived without a substance. When therefore an apologist speaks in this manner, were it true that Spinoza teaches that all

particular beings are modes of the divine substance, I would not deny that his adversaries have obtained a complete victory over him; I only deny the fact; I do not believe that the doctrine they have very well confuted is contained in his book; I say, when an apologist speaks in such a manner, he had as good own that his hero has been defeated; for certainly the doctrine in question is in Spinoza’s Ethics.

Here I must give an instance of the falsity of his former propositions; it will be of use to show how easy it was to overthrow his system. His fifth proposition contains these words: “In rerum natura non possunt dari duæ aut plures substantiae ejusdem naturae seu attributi.—It is impossible that two or more substances of the same nature or attribute should exist.” This is his “Argumentum achilleum,” and the most steady foundation he builds upon; but at the same time, it is such a wretched sophism, that no scholar, who has read what is called “Parva Logica lia,” or the five “Predicabilia Porphyrii,” could be perplexed with it. All those who teach school-philosophy begin with telling their scholars what genus, species, and individuum are. This lecture is sufficient to put Spinoza to a stand. The following distinction will do the business: “Non possunt dari plures substantiae ejusdem numero naturæ sive attributi, concede; non possunt dari plures substantiae ejusdem specie naturae sive attributi, nego.” What could Spinoza say against this distinction? Must he not admit of it with respect to modifications? Is not man, according to his notion, a species of modification, and is not Socrates an individuum of that species? Would he have us maintain that Benedict Spinoza, and the Jew, who attempted to thrust a knife into his body, were not two modifications, but one only? This might be proved invincibly, if his proof for the unity of substance were a good one: but since it proves too much, for it proves that there is but one modification

in the world, he ought to be one of the first to reject it. He ought therefore to know that the word idem signifies two things, identity and similitude. We say that such a one was both the same day as his father, and died the same day with his mother. With respect to a man born the first of March, 1630, and who died the tenth of February, 1655, whose father was born the first of March, 1610, and whose mother died the tenth of February, 1655. The proportion would be true in the two senses of the word same. It would signify like in the first part of this proposition, but not in the second. Pythagoras and Aristotle, according to Spinoza's system, were two like modifications; each of them had the whole nature of a modification, and yet the one differed from the other. The same may be said of two substances; each of them has the whole nature, and all the attributes of substance, and yet they are not one only substance, but two. I shall set down what a Spaniard says against those who, through a sophism like that of Spinoza, thought that the materia prima did not differ from God. “Who is not surprized that ever there were men so stupid and so blind, amidst the clearest light, as constantly to affirm, and obstinately maintain, that God is the first matter (materia prima). But by what reason did they support so foolish and impious an opinion? ‘ If,' say they, ‘God and the first matter are not the same, therefore they differ from one another. But whatever things differ must necessarily differ in some properties, and therefore they must be composed of those properties wherein they agree, and of those wherein they differ. But there being no composition either in God or the first matter, they cannot differ from one another, therefore they must be one and the same.' Observe how slight an argument leads those men into so grievous an error, or rather madness, who do not understand the distinction between different and diverse, which Aristotle has mentioned.

Those things are different from one another which agree in some properties, and are distinguished in others, as a man and a lion agree in their genus, both being animals, and are distinguished by their proper differences, one being rational, the other not. But those things are diverse, which are distinguished from one another, because they are most simple.” Benedictus Pererius, de commininibus Principiis, lib. v, cap, xii, p. m. 309. ¹²⁴

There are few notions in our mind clearer than that of identity. I grant that it is confounded and very ill applied in the common language: nations, rivers, &c. are accounted the same nations and the same rivers during several ages; the body of a man is accounted the same body for the space of sixty years or more; but those popular and improper expressions, do not deprive us of the certain rule of identity; they do not blot out of our minds this idea: a thing of which one may deny or affirm what cannot be denied or affirmed of another thing, is distinct from that other thing. When all the attributes of time, place, &c. which belong to a thing, belong also to another thing, they are but one being. But notwithstanding the clearness of these ideas, it would be difficult to say how many great philosophers have erred in that point, and reduced all souls and intelligences to unity, though they acknowledged that some were united to bodies to which others were not united. This opinion was so common in Italy in the sixteenth century, that pope Leo X thought himself obliged to condemn it, and to threaten with severe penalties all those that should teach it. Here are the words of the bull, dated the nineteenth of December, 1513: “Cum diebus nostris Zizaniae seminator nonnullos perniciosissimos errores in agro Domini seminare sit ausus, de natura praesertim animae rationalis,

quod videlicet mortalis sit aut unica in cunctis hominibus, et nonnulli temere philosophantes secundum saltem philosophiam verum esse asseverent: contra hoc, sacro approbante concilio, damnamus et reprobamus omnes asserentes, animam intellectivam mortalem esse aut unicam in cunctis hominibus, aut hoc in dubium vertentes: cum illa immortalis, et pro corporum quibus infunditur multitudine singulariter multiplicabilis et multiplicata et multiplicanda sit.... Whereas in our days a sower of tares has dared to sow some most pernicious errors in the field of God, especially concerning the nature of a rational soul; namely that it is mortal, and that there is but one soul in all men; and some rashly philosophizing, have asserted this to be true, at least according to philosophy. In opposition to this, with the approbation of the holy council, we condemn and pronounce to be reprobate all those who assert that the intelligent soul is mortal, or that there is but one soul in all men, or those who. call this in question: since the soul is immortal, and according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused, may be particularly multiplied, is and must be multiplied.” This was lopping off a considerable branch of Spinozism. I must observe that some philosophers do strangely confound the idea of identity, for they maintain that the parts of matter are not distinct before they are actually separated; nothing can be more absurd.

Spinoza was not sensible of the unavoidable consequences of his own system, for he laughed at the apparition of spirits, and these is no philosopher who has less reason to deny it. He ought to acknowledge that every part of nature thinks, and that as man is not the most knowing and most intelligent modification of the universe, demons must necessarily exist. I have said it in another place; when it is supposed that a most perfect mind has created all

things out of nothing, without being determined to it by his nature, but by the free choice of his own good pleasure, the existence of angels may be denied. If it be asked why such a creator has not produced other spirits besides human souls, the answer will be, that such was his good pleasure, stat pro ratione voluntas; no reasonable reply can be made to this answer unless the fact be proved, I mean that there are angels. But when it is supposed that the Creator did not act freely, and exhausted all his power without any choice or rule, and besides that thinking is one of his attributes, it is a ridiculous thing to assert that there are no demons. According to this system, it ought to be believed the thinking attribute of the Creator has been modified, not only in the bodies of men, but also throughout the whole universe; and that besides the animals which we know, there is an infinite number of others which we know not, and which exceed us in knowledge and in malice, as much as we exceed in that respect dogs and oxen; for it were the most unreasonable thing in the world to fancy that a man’s mind is the most perfect modification that an infinite Being, acting according to the whole extent of its power, could produce. We can conceive no natural connection between the understanding and the brain, and therefore we ought to believe that a creature without brain may as well think, as a creature organized as we are. What is it then that could move Spinoza to deny what is said of spirits? See his Letters lvi, lviii, lx. ¹²⁵ Why did he believe that there is nothing in the world that can excite in our machines the sight of a spectre, make a noise in a room, and produce all the magical phenomena mentioned in books? Was it because he believed that no being can produce such effects, unless it have as bulky a body as that of man; and that therefore the demons could not subsist in the air, nor come into our houses, nor steal away from our sight? But such a thought would be ridiculous; the bulk of flesh of which we are made up, is rather an obstacle than a help to wit and power; I mean a mediate power, or the faculty of applying the most proper instruments for the production of great effects. The most surprising actions of men arise from that faculty, as it appears from thousands of examples. An engineer as little as a dwarf, lean and pale, performs more things than two thousand savages, stronger than Milo, are able to perform. An animate machine a thousand times smaller than an ant, might produce greater effects than an elephant; it might discover the insensible parts of plants and animals, and place itself upon the seat of the first springs of our brain, and open some valves, by which means we might see phantoms, hear a noise, &c. If physicians knew the first fibres and the first combinations of the parts in vegetables, minerals, and animals, they would also know the instruments proper to put them out of order, and might apply those instruments in such a manner as to place those parts in a new order,;

whereby good meat would be turned into poison, and poison into good meat. Such physicians would be incomparably more knowing than Hippocrates; and were they little enough to get into the brain and the entrails, they might cure any body, and also produce whenever they pleased, the most strange diseases that can be seen. The whole may be brought to this question: Is it possible that an invisible modification should be more knowing and malicious than man? If Spinoza deny it, he knows not the consequences of his hypothesis, and acts rashly and without principles. A man might make a long dissertation upon this subject, wherein he might prevent all Spinoza’s subterfuges and objections.

The disputes of the Spinozists about miracles is a mere quibble. The common opinion of orthodox

divines is, that God produces miracles immediately, whether he makes use of creatures as agents or not. In either case it undeniably appears that he is above nature; for if he produce something without employing other causes, he does not want the help of nature, and he never employs them in a miracle, but after he has diverted them from their usual course; and therefore he shows that they depend on his will, that he suspends their power when he pleases, or applies it in a different manner from their ordinary determination. The Cartesians, who make him the immediate cause of all the effects of nature, suppose, that when he works miracles, he does not observe the general laws he has established; he makes an exception, and applies bodies quite otherwise than he would do, if he followed the general laws. Whereupon they say, that if there were any general laws whereby God had engaged to move bodies according to the desires of angels; and if an angel had desired that the waters of the Red Sea should be divided, the passage of the Israelites would not be a miracle properly so called. This consequence, which necessarily arises from their principles, makes their definition of a miracle less convenient than it were to be wished, and therefore it were better for them to say, that all the effects, contrary to the general laws we know, are miracles; and by this means the plagues of Egypt, and such other extraordinary actions related in scripture, will be miracles properly speaking. Now, in order to show the insincerity and the illusions of the Spinozists upon this head, we need only say that when they deny the possibility of miracles, they allege this reason, that God and nature are the same being; so that if God did something against the laws of nature, he would act against himself, which is impossible. Speak plainly and without any ambiguity; say, that the laws of nature being not made by a free legislator who knew what he did, but being the action of a blind and necessary cause, nothing can happen that is contrary to those laws; if so, you allege your own position against miracles, which is a petitio principii; but however, you speak plainly. Let us bring them off from this general reasoning, and ask them what they think of the miracles mentioned in the scripture; they will absolutely deny all those which they cannot ascribe to a cunning trick. Not to insist upon denying such facts, I shall only argue against them by their own principles. Do not we say that the power of nature is infinite? But would it be infinite, if there were nothing in the whole universe that could restore a dead man to life? Would it be infinite, if there were but one way of forming man, viz. that of ordinary generation? Do not we say that the knowledge of nature is infinite? We deny that divine understanding, in which we believe the knowledge of all possible beings to be reunited; but by dispersing the knowledge we do not deny its infinity; and therefore we ought to say that nature knows all things, much in the same manner as we say that man understands all languages; one man does not understand them all, but some understand one and some another. Can we affirm that the universe contains nothing which knows the construction of our bodies? If we can affirm it, we contradict ourselves; we can say no longer that the knowledge of God is infinitely divided; the contrivance of our organs would be unknown to him; we must therefore acknowledge if we argue consequentially, that some modification knows it; we must acknowledge that it is very possible for nature to bring a dead man to life, and that Spinoza confounded his ideas and knew not the consequences of his principle, when he said that if he could believe the resurrection of Lazarus, he would break his system to pieces, and willingly embrace the Christian faith. contradict their own hypothesis, when they deny the possibility of miracles; I mean (to avoid all ambiguity) the possibility of the facts mentioned in the Holy Scripture.

It is said that Spinoza died fully persuaded of his Atheism, and that he took some precaution to conceal his inconstancy, if there should be occasion for it; I mean he took care that in case of the approach of death, or the symptoms of his illness should make him speak against his system, no suspected person should be witness of it. The case is this, or at least we find the following account of it in a printed book: Pensées diverses sur les Cometes, num. 181. ¹²⁶ “Perhaps it will be said that Atheists are not greedy of praise; but what can any man do more than was done by Spinoza a little before he died? The thing is of a fresh date, and I have it from a great man who had it from good hands; he was the greatest Atheist that ever lived, and he grew so fond of certain philosophical principles, that the better to meditate upon them, he confined himself to a close retirement, renouncing all the pleasures and vanities of the world, and minding nothing but those abstruse meditations. Being upon the point of death he sent for his landlady, and desired her not to suffer that any minister should see him in that condition. His reason for it was, as his friends said, that he had a mind to die without disputing, and was afraid that the weakness of his senses might make him say something inconsistent with his principles; that is, he was afraid it would be said in the world that his conscience awakening at the sight of death, had damped his courage and made him renounce his opinions.”

A preface, which I have already quoted above, which contains some circumstances of the death of Spinoza, says nothing of this. I find in it that he told his landlord who was going to church; “I hope

you will return, God willing, and speak with me when the sermon is over;'' but he died quietly before his landlord returned, and nobody saw him die but a physician of Amsterdam. For the rest we are told in that preface, that he was extremely desirous to immortalize his name, and would have willingly sacrificed his life for it, though in order to obtain it he had been torn in pieces by the mob.

Had Spinoza reasoned consequentially, he would not have called the fear of hell a chimerical thing. Those who believe that the world is not the work of God, and is not directed by a Being, simple, spiritual, and distinct from all bodies, must at least confess that there are some things which are endowed with intelligence and will, and which are jealous of their power; which exercise authority over others, which command them to do some things, chastise them, use them harshly, and revenge themselves severely. Is not the earth full of such things? Does not every man know it by experience? It would be a thing altogether unreasonable, to fancy that all beings of that nature are only upon earth, which is but one point if compared to the world. Must reason, wit, ambition, hatred, and cruelty, be upon earth rather than any where else? why so? Can any reason, good or bad, be given for it? I do not think so. Our eyes induce us to believe that those vast spaces we call heaven, which have such powerful and rapid motions, may as well form men as our earth, and deserve no less than the globe we inhabit, to be divided into several dominions. We do not know what passes there, but if we consult only reason, it will appear very probable, or at least possible, that there are thinking beings in those vast spaces, which extend their empire as well as their light to our globe. Our not seeing them is not a proof that we are unknown or indifferent to them: perhaps we are part of their dominions; they make laws which they reveal to us

by the dictates of our conscience, and are very angry with those that transgress them. The possibility of it is sufficient to make Atheists uneasy, and nothing but denying the immortality of the soul can make them fearless; for thereby they would escape the vengeance of those spirits, which otherwise might be more dreadful than God himself. I thus explain myself. There are some men who believe a God, a paradise, and a hell; but they create illusions to themselves, and imagine that the infinite goodness of the most perfect Being, does not permit him to torment his own work for ever. He is the father of all men, say they, and therefore he chastises like a father those who disobey him; and after he has made them sensible of their faults, he restores them to his favour in heaven: Origen argued in that manner. Others suppose that God will annihilate the rebellious creatures, and will be appeased and moved to compassion with a “Quem das finem Rex Magne laborum Virgil. Æneid. lib. i, ver. 245. ¹²⁷... What end of labour has your will decreed?” They carry their illusion so far as to think that the everlasting torments mentioned in the Scripture are only comminatory. If such men were ignorant of the being of a God, and by considering what passes in our world, should believe that there are beings in other worlds, which concern themselves with mankind, they could not be easy when they come to die, unless they believed that the soul is mortal; for if they believed it to be immortal, they might be afraid of falling under the power of a cruel master, angry with them by reason of their actions; it would be to no purpose to hope to come off after having been tormented for some years. A limited being may be destitute of all manner of moral perfection; it may be like our Phalarises and Neros, a sort of men who could have left an enemy in a dungeon for ever, had they been able to get an eternal authority. Will they hope that mischievous beings will not be everlasting? But how many Atheists pretend that the sun had no beginning, and will have no end? This is what I meant when I said that some beings might appear more dreadful than God himself. A man may flatter himself, when he considers that God is infinitely good, and infinitely perfect, and he may fear every thing from an imperfect being: he does not know whether its anger will not last for ever. Every body knows the choice of the prophet David: having to chuse either to be overcome by his enemies, or to be afflicted with a plague sent from God, he answered the prophet Gad, “I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great) and let me not fall into the hand of man. 2 Sam. xxiv. 14.”

To apply what has been said to a Spinozist, let us remember that he is obliged by his principle to acknowledge the immortality of the soul; for he looks upon himself as the modification of a being essentially thinking. Let us remember that he cannot deny that some modifications are angry with others, put them to the torture, make their torments last as long as ever they can, send them to the gallies for life, and would make that punishment last for ever, if the death of one party or the other did not prevent it. Tiberius, Caligula, and many others are examples of such modifications. Let us remember that a Spinozist makes himself ridiculous if he do not acknowledge that the universe is full of ambitious, morose, jealous, and cruel modifications; for, since the earth is full of them, there is no reason to believe that the air and the heavens are not likewise full of them. Lastly, let us remember, that the essence of human modifications consists not in being clothed with a bulk of flesh. Socrates was Socrates, the day of his conception, or soon after. Spinoza, who made microscopes, should have believed that man is organized

and animated in the seed, and that therefore Socrates was Socrates before his mother conceived him. Whatever he had at that time may remain entire, when a mortal disease has put an end to the circulation of the blood, and the motion of the heart, in the matter wherewith it was enlarged; and therefore he is after his death the same modification as he was during his life, if we consider only what is essential to his person; death cannot therefore free him from the justice or caprice of his invisible persecutors. They may follow him wherever he goes, and torment him whatever visible form he may assume.

These considerations might be made use of to induce to the practice of virtue, even those who adhere to the doctrine of such sects; for it stands to reason that they should be chiefly afraid for having transgressed the laws revealed to their conscience. It is more likely that those invisible beings would concern themselves with the punishment of such faults.

His friends say, “that out of modesty he desired that no sect should go by his name.” I shall set down the words of the Preface of his “Opera Posthuma,” without curtailing them. “The two initial letters only of the author’s name were put to the book, because a little before his death he expressly desired that his name should not be prefixed to his Ethics, which he had ordered to be printed. And why he did so, it seems no other reason can be given, than because he would not have the doctrine called by his name. For he says in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Appendix to the fourth part of his Ethics, that ' those who would help others to the attainment of the supreme good, together with themselves, will not desire that their doctrine be called by their name;' and where he is explaining what ambition is, he plainly taxes such as do this with being ambitious of glory.”

Of all atheistical systems, none is less capable of deceiving than that of Spinoza; for, as I have said

before, it is contrary to the most distinct notions of our minds. Objections throng in upon him, and he can make no answers but what are more obscure than the assertions he should maintain, and therefore bis poison brings a remedy along with it. He would have been more formidable, had he used all his skill to clear an hypothesis, that is very much in vogue among the Chinese, and very different from that which I have mentioned in the second remark of this article. A father of the church owned a thing which, perhaps, would not be excused at this day in a philosopher, viz. that those who deny the Deity or a Providence, allege probable reasons both for their cause, and against their adversaries. “Some deny that there are any gods; others say they doubt whether there are any; others that there are gods, but that they take no care of human affairs: and others affirm it, and say that they are concerned in human affairs, and administrate them. Since, therefore, these things are so, and one of all these opinions must necessarily be true, yet each of them contradicts the other with arguments, and does not want something probable to advance in its favour, and in refutation of the contrary opinions.” If he were in the right, perhaps it were chiefly with respect to those who suppose a great number of souls in the universe, distinct one from another, each of which exists by itself, and acts by an inward and essential principle. They are more powerful one than another, &c. Herein consists the Atheism so generally spread among the Chinese. The author of the following passage tells us how he fancies they have by degrees obscured the true notions.

'' God, that most pure and perfect Being, is become at most the material soul of the whole world, or of its finest part, which is heaven. His providence and his power became limited, though of a much greater extent than the power and

prudence of men. The Chinese doctrine hath always ascribed spirits to the four parts of the world, to the stars, mountains, rivers, plants, towns, and their ditches, houses, and their hearths, in a word, to every thing. They do not say that all spirits are good: they acknowledge wicked ones, which they take to be the immediate cause of the evils and miseries incident to human life. And therefore, as the soul of man was, in their opinion, the cause of all the vital actions of man, in like manner they ascribed a soul to the sun, to be the spring of its qualities and motion. And because, according to this principle, the souls that are dispersed every where, produced in all bodies the actions which appeared natural to those bodies, this was sufficient in their opinion to explain the whole economy of nature, and to supply the omnipotence and infinite providence which they admitted in no spirit, no not in that of heaven. It is true, that because it seems that man, using natural things for his nourishment and conveniency, has some power over natural things; the ancient opinion of the Chinese, which ascribed in proportion a like power to all souls, supposed that the soul of heaven could act upon nature with a prudence, and a power incomparably greater than the prudence and power of men. But at the same time they acknowledged in the soul of every thing an inward power, independent by its own nature of the power of heaven, and acting sometimes against the designs of heaven. Heaven governed nature as a potent king, whom the other souls were to obey, and they were generally forced to it; but some of them did sometimes exempt themselves from it.”

I confess, it is an absurd thing to suppose several eternal beings, independent one of another, and of an unequal power; nevertheless, this supposition appeared true to Democritus, Epicurus, and several other great philosophers. They admitted an infinite quantity of small bodies of different figure, uncreated, self moving, &c. This opinion is still very

common in the East. Those who admit the eternity of matter are not more reasonable than if they admitted the eternity of an infinite number of atoms; for if there can be two beings co-eternal and independent as to their existence, there may be a hundred thousand millions, and so in infinitum. Nay, they ought to say that the number of them is actually infinite, for matter, though never so small, contains distinct parts. And it is to be observed that all the ancients were ignorant of the creation of matter, for they never departed from the axiom, “ex nihilo nihil fit.” And therefore they were not sensible that it is an absurd thing to acknowledge an infinity of substances coeternal, and independent one of another as to existence. However absurd that hypothesis may be, it is not liable to the frightful inconveniences of Spinozism. It would account for many phenomena, by assigning to every thing an active principle, a more powerful one to some, and a less powerful to others; or if their power were equal, it might be said that those which prevail have a greater combination. I do not know whether any Socinian ever said or believed, that the souls of men, not being made out of nothing, exist, and act of themselves. Their liberty of indifference would manifestly flow from it I might add a very large supplement to these objections, did I not perceive that they are already too long, considering the nature of my work. This is not a proper place to engage in a formal dispute; it is sufficient for my design to make some general observations in order to undermine the foundations of Spinozism, and to shew that it is a system grounded upon such a strange supposition, that it overthrows most of the common notions, which are the rule of philosophical discussions. Whoever shews that this system is contrary to the most evident and the most universal axioms we have had hitherto, certainly goes the right way to confute it, though perhaps it is not so proper to reclaim the old Spinozists, as if it were proved to them that the propositions of Spinoza are contrary to one another. They would be more sensible of their prejudices were they forced to confess that he does not always agree with himself, that his proofs are wrong, that he does not prove what wants to be proved, that his conclusions are not just, &c. This method of confuting him, by shewing the absolute defects of his work, and the relative defects of its parts compared one with another, has been well managed by some of those who wrote against him. I have been informed that the author of a small Dutch book, printed within these few days, makes use of it with great force and ability. The author lays down as a fact: I. That the whole system of Spinoza is grounded on this proposition: “That there is but one only substance, and that it is absolutely infinite.” II. That from such a principle Spinoza drew this consequence: “That particular beings are only modifications of that absolutely infinite substance.” The author maintains that this principle, being contested by every body, should have been proved with all imaginable care, and yet that Spinoza gives no proof of it.

The Supplement I intend to give consists in an explanation of the objection which I have already grounded upon God’s immutability. I must confirm it, since some persons maintain that the weakness of it sufficiently appears, if it be considered that no alteration happens to the god of Spinoza, as being a substance infinite, necessary, &c. Though the face of the whole world should change at every moment, though the earth should be reduced to dust, the sun darkened, and the sea become aluminous body, there will only be a change of modifications; the one only substance will always remain a substance infinite, extended, thinking, and so will all substantial or essential attributes. When they say this, they say nothing but what I have already confuted before hand; but

the better to shew their mistake, I must observe here that they dispute against me, as if I had maintained that, accord to Spinoza, the Deity successively annihilates and produces again. This is not what I object, when I say do, the he makes God subject to change and divests him of his immutability. I do not confound, as they do, the notion of things, and the signification of words, by changing the same thing which all reasoning men have ever meant by that word: I do not mean the annihilation and total destruction of a thing, but its passing through several states, the subject of the accidents it ceases to have, and of those it begins to acquire remaining the same. The learned and the illiterate, the mythologists and the philosophers, the poets and the naturalists, are agreed in this notion, and the signification of this word. The fabulous Metamorphoses, so much sung by Ovid, and the true generations explained by philosophers, equally supposed the preservation of the substance, and kept it immutably as the successive subject of the old and new form. These notions have been only confounded by the unhappy disputes of Christian divines; and yet it must be confessed that the most ignorant missionaries come into the right way again when the question is no longer about the Eucharist. If you ask them, upon any other subject, what is meant by the change, conversion, transelementation, and transubstantiation of one thing into another, they will answer you, “the meaning of it is, for instance, that wood becomes fire, that bread becomes blood, and blood flesh, and so on,” They do not think then of the improper expressions consecrated to the controversy of the Eucharist, that the bread is converted and transubstantiated into the body of our Saviour. This way of speaking by no means agrees with the doctrine designed to be explained by it: it is as if one should say that the air of a cask is transformed, changed, converted, and transubstantiated into the wine poured into the cask. The air goes somewhere else, and the wine succeeds it in the same place; one of them is not in the least metamorphosed into the other. Neither is the mystery of the Eucharist, as it is explained by the Roman Catholics, any metamorphosis; the bread is annihilated, as to its substance; the body of Christ takes the place of the bread, and is not the subject of inherence of the accidents of that which are preserved without their substance. But I repeat it again, this is the only case wherein the missionaries make a wrong use of the words change, conversion, or transelementation of one being into another. In all other things they suppose with the rest of mankind, I. That it is essential to a transformation, that the subject of the forms that are destroyed should subsist under the new forms. II. That though the subject be preserved, as to what is essential in it, yet it undergoes an internal change, properly so called, and inconsistent with an immutable Being.

Let the Spinozists, therefore, no longer imagine that they will be allowed to coin a new language, contrary to the ideas of all mankind. If they have any sincerity left, they must confess that, according to their system, God is subject to all the vicissitudes and all the revolutions to which the materia prima of Aristotle is liable, in the system of the Peripatetics. But could any thing be more absurd than to maintain that, supposing Aristotle’s doctrine, matter is a substance which never undergoes any change?

But in order to embarrass the Spinozists, it is but desiring them to give a definition of change. They must define it in such manner, that either it will not differ from the total destruction of a subject, or that it will agree with that one only substance, which they call God. If they define it in the first manner, they will make themselves more ridiculous still than the transubstantiators; and if they define it in the second manner, they will give up the cause.

I add, that the reason they allege to elude my objections proves too much; for if it were a good one, they must needs teach that there never was nor will be any change in the world, and that all manner of change is impossible, whether great or small. Let us prove this consequence. The reason, say they, why God is immutable is, because, as a substance, and an extension, he neither is nor can be subject to any change. He is an extended substance under the form of fire, as well as under the form of wood, which is converted into fire, and so with other things. I will prove to them by this very reason, that the modifications themselves are immutable. Man is, according to their system, a modification of God; they own that man is subject to change, since he is sometimes merry and sometimes melancholy; sometimes he wills one thing, and sometimes he wills it not. This is no change, will I say; for he is as much a man when merry as when melancholy: the essential attributes of man remain immutably in him, whether he be willing to sell his house, or to keep it. Let us suppose the most inconstant man in the world, and such as might fitly apply to himself these verses of Horace:

Mea - - - pugnat sententia secum.
Quod petiit, spernit: repetit, quod nuper omisit.
Æstuat, et vitæ disconvenit ordine toto.
Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.

HORAT. Epist. I, lib. i, ver. 97.

My mind is with itself at strife,
And disagrees in all the course of life;
And what it hated now, it now desires—
What now it throws away, it now admires:
Unsettled as the sea, or fleeting air,
It razes, builds, and changes round to square.

Creech.

Let us suppose, in fact, a man, who has sincerely professed all religions in less than two years; let us suppose that he is gone through all the conditions of

human life; that he has been successively a merchant, a soldier, and a monk, and then a married man; that he divorced his wife, and then turned registrar, financier, and clergyman, &c. If the Spinozists tell him you have been very inconstant: “Why?” he will say; “You are mistaken; I have never changed; I have been as constantly a man ever since I was born, as a mountain has been a mountain.” What could they reply to that argument ad hominem? Is it not most evident that the whole essence of the human species remains in the man, whether he will the same things, whether he hate to day what he loved yesterday, and daily change his inclinations?

But to make use of an example very proper for a country, the inhabitants whereof are used to the sea, let us suppose that a Spinozist, at his return from Batavia, should say that his voyage has been longer than usually, because the winds changed almost every day. He might be answered. “You are mistaken; the winds never change. Indeed, it may be said that they blow sometimes from the north, sometimes from the south, &c., but they always retain the essence of wind, and therefore they do not change as they are winds, and remain as immutable as your one only substance of the world, for you say it is immutable, because it never changes its state as to its essential properties. No more does the wind change its state as it is wind: it always retains the whole nature and essence of it, and therefore it is as immutable as your deity.”

I go farther, and I say, that even when a man is burnt alive, no alteration happens to him. He was a modification of the divine nature when alive, and is he not so in the flames, or under the form of ashes? Could he lose the attributes that constitute a modification? Could he go through any change as he is a modification? If he changed in that respect, must it not be said that flame is not a mode of extension?

Could Spinoza affirm it without contradicting himself, and destroying his own system? This is sufficient to shew, that they are mistaken, who pretend I have not proved that this system makes God subject to change. My argument cannot be denied, without asserting that modifications themselves are immutable, and that no alterations happen in man's thoughts, nor in the disposition of matter, which is a most absurd thing, and contrary to the doctrines which the Spinozists are forced to acknowledge, for they dare not deny that the modifications of the infinite substance are subject to corruption and generation.

Let us desire of them to grant us, for a moment, by a date non concesso, as the logicians speak, that Socrates is a substance. They must then acknowledge, that each particular thought of Socrates is a modality of his substance. But is it not true, that Socrates, passing from affirming to denying, changes his thought, and that it is a real internal change, and properly so called? And yet Socrates remains still a substance, and an individuum of the human species, whether he affirm or deny, whether he will or reject a thing. And therefore, though he does not change as he is a man, he cannot be said to be immutable; and it may very well be said that he is mutable, and actually changes, because his modifications are not always the same. But let us grant to the Spinozists in our turn, by a dato non concesso, that Socrates is but a modification of the divine substance: let us grant, I say, that his relation to that substance is, as in the common opinion, the relation of Socrates’s thoughts to the substance of Socrates. Since, therefore, the change of those thoughts is a good reason to maintain that Socrates is not an immutable being, but rather an inconstant and mutable substance which very much varies, it ought to be

concluded that the substance of God actually undergoes a change and a variation, properly so called, Whenever one of Socrates’s modifications changes his state. It is therefore a most evident truth, that for a being actually and really to pass from one state into another, it is sufficient that it changes, as to its modifications; and if any thing further be required, to wit, that it should lose its essential attributes, annihilation, or a total destruction, would be grossly confounded with change or alteration.

I am told that several persons pretend that I have not at all understood Spinoza’s doctrine. I have it from several hands; but no body could tell me the reasons of those who make such a judgment of my dispute. And therefore, I can neither precisely confute diem, nor examine if I ought to yield to their reasons, for I know them not. All that I can do, is to justify myself in a general manner, and I think I may say, that if I have not understood the proposition I undertook to confute, it is not my fault. I would not be so positive, if I had written a book against the whole system of Spinoza, examining it paragraph by paragraph. Doubtless, I should not have always understood him, and it is not likely he himself understood every part of his doctrine, and could make all the consequences of his hypothesis intelligible. But since I have confined myself to a single proposition, expressed in few words, which appear clear and precise, and are the foundation of the whole structure, I must have understood it, or it contains some ambiguities altogether unbecoming the founder of a system. However, I need not be uneasy upon this account, both because the sense I put upon that proposition of Spinoza is the same his other adversaries have put upon it, and because the best answer his followers can make is, that he has not been understood. Notwithstanding this charge, the last author who wrote against him

understands the proposition in question as I do; which shews that their accusation is looked upon as very ill grounded.

But to be more particular, what I suppose in my objections amounts to this: I say that Spinoza taught,

1, that there is but one only substance in the universe;

2, that this substance is God; 3, that all particular beings, material extension, the sun, the moon, plants, beasts and men, their motions, ideas, imaginations, and desires, are modifications of God. Now I ask the Spinozists whether their master taught those things or not? If he taught them, it cannot be said that I have been guilty of the Ignoratio Elenchi, or of mistaking the state of the question; for my objections suppose that this is his very doctrine, and attack it upon that Supposition. I am therefore safe, and whoever says that I have undertaken to confute what I did not apprehend, is mistaken. If it be said that Spinoza does not teach the three things above-mentioned, I ask why he expressed himself just as those would, do, who should be extremely desirous to make the reader believe that they teach those three things? Is it a fair and laudable thing to use the common style, without annexing to the words the same ideas other men annexed to them, and without informing the reader of the new sense put upon them? But in order to discuss the matter, let us enquire wherein the mistake may lie. I cannot have been mistaken as to the word substance, for I have not confuted Spinoza upon that head; I have admitted what he supposes, that a thing cannot be a substance, unless it be independent of all causes, or have an eternal and necessary self-existence. I do not think I was mistaken in saying that, according to Spinoza, God only has the nature of a substance; and therefore I believe that, if there were any mistake in my objections, it would be only in putting a different sense upon the words modalities, modifications, modes, from that of Spinoza. But I repeat it again, if I were

mistaken in it, it would be his fault: I understand those words as they have been always understood, or, at least as they are understood by all the new philosophers; and I had reason to believe he took them in that sense, because he gave no public notice that he used them in any other signification. It is the general doctrine of philosophers, that the idea of being, contains two species under it, viz. substance and accident, and that a substance exists by itself, “ens per se subsistens,” and that an accident subsists in another being, “ens in alio.” They add, that subsisting by one’s self signifies only not depending upon a subject of inhesion; and because, according to their notions, this agrees with matter, angels, and human souls; they admit two sorts of substance, one of which is uncreated, and the other created; and they subdivide the created substance into two species. One of those two species is matter; the other our souls. As for accidents, they all believed before the wretched disputes which have divided Christianity, that they do so essentially depend upon their subject of inhesion that they cannot subsist without it. This was their specific character, and by this they were distinguished from substance. The doctrine of transubstantiation destroyed that notion, and forced the philosophers to say, that an accident may subsist without a subject. They could not avoid saying so, since they believed on the one hand that, after the consecration, the substance of the bread in the Eucharist subsisted no longer, and they saw, on the other hand, that all the accidents of the bread subsisted as before. Wherefore they admitted a real distinction between a substance and its accidents, and a mutual separability between those two sorts of beings, by virtue of which each of them could subsist without the other. But some of them maintained still that there were some accidents, whose distinction from their subject is not real, and which cannot subsist without it. They called those accidents modes. Descartes, Gassendus, and in general all those who have, forsaken the scholastic philosophy, deny that an accident can be separated, from its subject, so as to subsist after its separation, and they give to all accidents the nature of those that were called modes, and use the terms of mode, modality, or modification, rather than that of accident: now since Spinoza was a great Cartesian, it is reasonable to think that he put the same sense upon those words as Descartes did. If it be so, he understands by the modification of a substance only a manner of being, which has the same relation to the substance, as figure, motion, rest, and situation have to matter; and pain, affirmation, love, &c. to the soul of man: for this is what the Cartesians call modes: they acknowledge no other modes; whence it appears that they have kept the old notion of Aristotle, according to which an accident is of such a nature, that it makes no part of its subject, and cannot exist without it, and the subject can lose it without losing its existence. Aristot. de Prædicam. cap. ii. ¹²⁸ All this agrees with roundness, motion, and rest with respect to a stone, and likewise with pain and affirmation with respect to the soul. If Spinoza annexed the same idea to what he calls modification of substance, my objections are certainly just; I have attacked him directly, according to the true signification of his words, I have rightly understood his doo trine, and confuted it according to its true sense. In a word, there is no ground for the accusation I examine. But if he had the same notion of matter or extension, and of human souls as Descartes had, and yet would not give the name of substance to extension, or to our souls, because he believed that a substance is a being that depended upon no cause; I confess I have not rightly attacked him, but have ascribed to him an opinion which was none of his. This was what remains to be examined.

Having once laid down that a substance is what exists by itself, as independently upon any efficient cause, as upon any material one, or any subject of inhesion, he ought not to have said that matter and human souls are substances: and because, according to the common doctrine, he divided being only into two species, viz. into substance and modification of substance; he should have said that matter and human souls are only modifications of substance. No orthodox man will deny that, according to this definition of substance, there is but one substance in the world, and that this substance is God. Then the only thing that will remain to be known is, whether he subdivides the modification of substance into two species. If he use such a subdivision, and if he mean by one of those two species what the Cartesians and other Christian philosophers call created substance, and by the other species what they call accident or mode, there will be only a dispute about words between him and them, and it will be a very easy thing to make his whole system orthodox, and put an end to his sect: for a man is a Spinozist only because he believes that Spinoza has utterly destroyed the system of the Christian philosophers, and the existence of an immaterial God, who governs all things with a perfect liberty. Whence we may conclude, by the by, that the Spinozists and their adversaries perfectly agree about the sense of the word modification of substance. Both the one and the other believed that Spinoza meant by it a being of the same nature with what the Cartesians call modes, and that he never understood by that word a being which had the properties or the nature of what we call created substance.

Those, who by all means would maintain that I am mistaken, might suppose that Spinoza rejected only

the name of substance given to beings that depend upon another cause, as to their production, preservation, and operation, in fieri, in esse, et operari, as they say in the schools. They might assert that though he retained all the reality of the thing, he avoided the word because he believed a being so dependent upon its cause, could not be called ens per se subsistens, subsisting by itself, which is the definition of substance. I answer as I have done above, that if it be so, there is only a dispute about words between him and other philosophers, and that I shall willingly confess my mistake, if it appear that Spinoza was indeed a Cartesian, but only that he has been more nice than Descartes in the application of the word substance, and that all the impiety laid to his charge, lies only in a misunderstanding. He only meant (will they add) what is to be found in the books of divines, viz. that the immensity of God fills up heaven and earth, and all imaginary spaces in infinitum, and consequently that his essence penetrates and locally surrounds all other beings; so that it is in him we have life and motion, and that he has produced nothing out of himself, for since he fills up all spaces, he could not place any thing but in himself, there being nothing out pf him. Besides, it is well known that no being can exist without him; and therefore it is true that the properties of the Cartesian modes agree with what is called created substances. Those substances are in God, and cannot exist out of him and without him. It is therefore no wonder if Spinoza called them modifications; but on the other hand he did not deny that there was a real distinction between them, and that each of them constituted a particular principle of actions or passions, in such a manner that one of them does what the other does not; and that when one denies of one of them what is affirmed of the other, it is according to the rules of logic; and nobody can object to Spinoza that it follows from his principles that two contradictory propositions are true of one and the same subject, at the same time.

All this signifies nothing, and in order to come directly to the point, a plain answer should be given to this precise question: does the true and proper character of modification, agree to matter with respect to God, or does it not agree to it? Before you answer it, let me explain by some examples what the proper character of modification is. It is to be in a subject in the same manner as motion is in matter, and thought in the soul of a man, and the form of a porrenger in the vessel called a porrenger. A thing cannot be a modification of the divine substance, only because it subsists in the immensity of God, because it is penetrated by, and surrounded with it on all sides, because it exists by the power of God, and cannot exist without him, nor out of him; it is farther requisite that the divine substance should be its subject of inherence, just as, according to the common opinion, the human soul is the subject of inherence of sense and desire; pewter is the subject of inherence of the form of a porrenger; and matter is the subject of inherence of motion, rest, and figure. Answer now, and if you say that according to Spinoza, the substance of God is not in such a manner the subject of inherence of that extension, of that motion, and of those human thoughts; I will confess that you make an orthodox philosopher of him, that there was no ground to raise so many objections against him, and that he is only to blame for taking great pains to perplex a doctrine which every body knew, and to forge a new system built only upon the ambiguity of a word. If you say that he believed that the substance of God is the subject of inherency of matter, and of all the varieties of extension and of thought, in the same sense as Descartes says that extension is the subject of inherency of motion, and the soul of man

the subject of inherency of sensations and passions, you grant all that I desire: it is in this sense I understood Spinoza, and all my objections are grounded upon it.

The result of what has been said, is a question of fact concerning the true sense of the word modification in the system of Spinoza. Must it be taken for the same thing that is commonly, called created substance, or must it be taken in the sense it has in the. system of Descartes? I believe the last sense is the right, for in the other sense Spinoza would have acknowledged some creatures distinct from the divine substance, and made either of nothing, or of a matter distinct from God. But it were an easy thing to prove by a great many passages of his books, that he admits neither of those two things. Extension, according to him, is an attribute of God; whence it follows that God is essentially, eternally, and necessarily an extended substance, and that extension belongs to him as much as existence; the result of which is, that the particular varieties of extension which make the sun, the earth, trees, the bodies of brutes, the bodies of men, &c. are in God, as the school philosophers suppose they are in the materia prima, or first matter. But if those philosophers supposed that the first matter is a simple and one only substance, they would conclude that the sun and the earth are really the same substance; and therefore Spinoza must needs draw the same conclusion. If he does not say that the sun is composed of God’s extension, he must acknowledge that the extension of the sun was made out of nothing; but he denies creation, and therefore he must say that the substance of God is the material cause of the sun, is what composes the sun, subjectum ex quo, and consequently that the sun is not distinct from God; but God himself, God entirely, since according to his notion, God is not a Being composed of parts.

Let us suppose for a moment that a mass of gold has the power to convert itself into plates, dishes, candlesticks, porrengers, &c. it will not be distinct from those plates and dishes; and if it be farther supposed that this mass is simple and not made up of parts, it must certainly be entire in each plate and in each candlestick; for if it were not entire in each of them, it would have divided itself into several pieces, and therefore it would be composed of parts, which is contrary to the supposition. These reciprocal and convertible propositions would then be true; the candlestick is the mass of gold, the mass of gold is the candlestick; the candlestick is the whole mass of gold, the whole mass of gold is the candlestick. This is an image of the God of Spinoza: he has the power to convert or to modify himself into an earth, a moon, a sea, a tree, &c. and he is absolutely one, and without any composition of parts; and therefore it may be affirmed that the earth is God, that the moon is God; that the earth is God entire, that the moon is so too; that God is the earth, that God is the moon; that God entire is the earth, that God entire is the moon.

There can be but three ways, according to which, ' the modifications of Spinoza are in God, but none of those ways is what the other philosophers say of the created substance. It is in God, say they, as in its efficient and transitive cause; and consequently it is really and wholly distinct from God. But according to Spinoza, the creatures are in God either as an effect in its material cause, or as an accident in its subject of inhesion, or as the form of a candlestick in the pewter it is made of. The sun, the moon, the trees, as they are things that have three dimensions, are in God as in the material cause of which their extension is composed, and therefore there is an identity between God and the sun, &c. The same trees, as they have a form whereby they are distinguished from

a stone, are in God, as the form of a candlestick is in pewter; to be a candlestick is only a manner of being of the pewter. The motion of bodies and the thoughts of men are in God, as the accidents of the peripatetics are in the created substance; they are entities inherent in their subject which are not composed of it, and which make no part of it.

I am not ignorant that an apologist of Spinoza maintains that this philosopher does not ascribe a material extension to God, but only an intelligible one; but if the extension of the bodies we see and imagine, is not the extension of God, whence comes it? How has it been made? If it has been produced out of nothing, Spinoza is orthodox, his new system signifies nothing. If it has been produced out of the intelligible extension of God, it is still a true creation; for the intelligible extension being but an idea, and not having really the three dimensions, cannot form the matter of the extension, which formally exists out of the understanding. Besides, if we distinguish two sorts of extension, one intelligible belonging to God, the other imaginable belonging to matter, we must also admit two subjects of those extensions distinct one from another; and then the unity of substance will be destroyed, and the whole structure of Spinoza falls to the ground. We may therefore say that his apologist does not resolve the difficulty, and raises greater ones.

The Spinozists may take advantage of the doctrine of transubstantiation, for if they consult the writings of the Spanish schoolmen, they will find many subtleties to answer something to the arguments of those who say, that one and the same man cannot be a Mahometan in Turkey and a Christian at Rome, sick at Rome, and well at Vienna; but perhaps they will at last find themselves obliged to compare their system with the mystery of the Trinity, to clear themselves from the contradictions that are objected to them. If

they do not say that the modifications of the divine substance, Plato, Aristotle, a horse, an ape, a tree, a stone, are as many personalities, which though identified with the same substance, may be each of them a particular, determined, and distinct principle of the other modifications, they will never be able to answer the objection grounded upon their overthrowing this principle; two contradictory terms cannot belong to the same subject at the same time. Perhaps they will say some time or other, that as the three persons of the Trinity without being distinct from the divine substance, as divines teach, and without having any absolute attribute that is not the same in number in each of them, have nevertheless each of them some

properties that may be denied of others; so Spinoza may have admitted in the divine substance an infinite number of modalities or personalities, one

of which does a thing which others do not. This will not be a true contradiction, since divines acknowledge a virtual distinction, in ordine ad suscipienda duo praedicata contradictoria, with respect to the susceptibility of two terms that contradict one another. But as the subtle Arriaga judiciously observes upon metaphysical degrees, which some will have to be susceptible of two contradictory propositions, should we transfer to natural things what revelation teaches us concerning the nature of God, it would entirely destroy philosophy, for it would make way to prove that there is no real distinction between the creatures. How little are we beholden to Spinoza! He deprives us of the most necessary principle; for were it true that one and the same thing may be at the same time, what it is and what it is not, all our meditations and reasonings would be insignificant.

I conclude by observing, that the part of Spinoza’s system which I attack, is that which the Spinozists are less willing to defend. I have confuted Spinoza’s

supposition, that extension is not a compounded being,

but one numerical substance, and I have pitched upon that part of his system, because I knew the Spinozists say the difficulties do not lie in that; they think they are much more perplexed when they are asked how thought and extension can be united in one and the same substance. There is something odd in it; for if it be certain that thought and extension have no affinity one with another, it is still more evident that extension consists of parts really distinct one from another; and yet they are more sensible of the first difficulty than of the second, and call the latter a trifle if compared with the other. I thought therefore it was necessary to give them occasion to argue thus: if that part of our system can hardly be defended, which we took to be proof against all attacks, how shall we defend the weak parts of it?

I have been told that the doctrine of Spinoza even considered without a relation to religion, appears very contemptible to the greatest mathematicians of our days, which may be easily believed if these two things be considered: first, that no man ought to be more fully persuaded of the multiplicity of substances, than those who apply themselves to the consideration of extension; secondly, that most of those gentlemen admit a vacuum. But there is nothing more contrary to Spinoza’s hypothesis, than to assert that all bodies do not touch one another; and there never were two systems more opposite than his and that of the atom ists. He agrees with Epicurus in rejecting providence, but in all other things, their systems are like fire and water.—Art. Spinoza.

STRENGTH.
(Singular Instance of.)

Andrew Eberhard Rauber, of Talberg and Weineek, lord of the fortress of Petronel, a German knight,

and one of the council of war to the emperor

Maximilian II, was very famous, not only for his great strength and high stature, but also for his beard, which was of an extraordinary length. He was descended from the very ancient and noble house of Rauber, in the duchy of Carniola, which the emperor Maximilian

I. promoted to the dignity of barons. This Andrew Eberhard Rauber was in the service of Maximilian

II. from his youth, he travelled with him into foreign countries, he was always in the favour of that emperor, who made him one of his council of war, and gave him his first wife, Helena Scharseginn, his natural daughter, but he was first obliged to purchase her by a combat with his rival, which was pleasant enough, and without loss of blood. On this occasion he gave most remarkable proofs of his strength. One of these exhibits a very diverting method of gaining a lady, and so very uncommon that I dare say it is not to be found in any romance. The writers of such books do indeed tell us, that heroes used formerly to gain their mistresses by tournaments, duels, and combats with giants and dragons, and a thousand other fancies of this sort, but the method that Rauber used was never known to any of them. When he asked the emperor’s daughter in marriage, he found at court a Spanish gentleman of great quality, who also endeavoured to become the emperor’s son-in-law. The reputation of the valour of the Spaniard, as well as the height of his stature, which exceeded Rauber’s, recommended him very much. The emperor, being unwilling to give either of them the mortification of a denial, agreed that they should decide the affair by a trial of strength. He then caused to be given to each of them a sack that was sufficient to contain his antagonist, and promised that he who should put the

other person into the sack, should have his daughter.

The two lovers engaged in the presence of the emperor, and in the struggle exerted their utmost strength, which on this occasion was redoubled by love. Each

of them, fired by an ardent desire of marrying the emperor’s daughter, with all his might strove to put his rival into the sack. Rauber at length carried the day, the strength and valour of the German thrust the bravery of the proud Spaniard into the sack: by this means Rauber attained the possession of his fair Helena, and the Spaniard, after so terrible a disgrace, left the court.

Rauber had no children by this lady; but his second wife made him ample amends for this defect; for she brought eight twins into the world, one son whom he named Andrew Eberhard, and seven daughters, of which one died unmarried: the others were all married into illustrious families. Rauber’s strength was so great that he could break in pieces the strongest horse-shoe. He once took by the beard a Jew that had been baptized, and striking upon it with his right hand, both the beard and the jaw-bone of the jew came off into his hand. This happened at Gratz, upon the request of the archduke Charles, at whose court was a jew that had been baptized, who for stature and strength might be well compared to a giant; the archduke Charles being desirous to know whether the jew was stronger than Rauber, in order to try their strength, obliged each of them to receive from the other one blow with the fist, they were nevertheless allowed to decide by lot who should strike the first, which chanced to be the jew. He gave Rauber so violent a blow that he was obliged to keep his bed eight days, and his chamber many more. When he was recovered, it was Rauber’s turn to give the jew a blow, which he did in the following manner. He took hold of the long beard of the jew, and twisting it twice round his left hand, with his right he struck upon it with such prodigious force, that not only the beard, but the under jaw-bone came off into his hand, which soon cost the jew his life.

The beard of Rauber was a real prodigy, and of so

extraordinary a length that it reached down to his feet, and then turned up quite to his girdle; it was iet longer, for besides this, he wound it about his staff. He gloried so much in it, that he very seldom went to court either in a coach or on horseback, but almost always on foot, that his long beard might be seen, which he carried like a streamer waving in the wind. When he died, it was cut into two tufts.

Rauber died in the sixty-eighth year of his age, at his castle of Petronel, in the year 1578, and there he lies interred between his two wives.—Art. Rauber.

SUBLIME CONJUGALITY.

Benjamin d’Arodon, a German Jew, was author of a book full of precepts for the ladies. It was translated from the German into Italian, by rabbi Jacob Alpron. This book is filled with observances, not only in regard to cleanliness of body, but likewise with respect to the practice of prayer and good works. The observances of the first kind contain several niceties and superstitious regularities; and there is sometimes a great deal of rigour in those of the second; for example; “the husband and wife must not speak a word in the act of conjugal duty, and entertain only pious thoughts, without any consideration of the pleasure, and in pursuance only of the divine will and they are assured that, “if they act otherwise, their children will be born deformed, lame, dumb, or squint eyed.” This precept is both very refined and very rigid. See what is said in the “News from the Republic of Letters,” concerning a book of Mr Yvon, a minister of the Labadists. Such great purity in this kind of pleasure is rather to be wished than hoped for; nevertheless the Casuists are to be commended for insisting upon it, and endeavouring to introduce purity where the passion of brutal lust has too much sway. Had our rabbi believed, as the church of Rome does,

that marriage is a sacrament, he could not have required more holy dispositions from the married than those he demands. He imposes upon them at once the law of “favete linguis—keep silence,” the observation whereof the Pagans recommended in their greatest mysteries, and that of “sursum corda,—lift up your hearts,” which the ancient church never forgot to prescribe in the celebration of its most solemn ceremonies: in a word, it is certain that had he received the doctrine of Jesus Christ with a true faith, and been animated with the spirit of grace, he could not have given advice more worthy of evangelical purity. This ought to shame the looser Casuists, who are so common among Christians.

Observe, that the precepts of this rabbi do not at all agree with the advice of physicians, who pretend that a child, conceived under distraction of mind, I mean under serious, grave, and spiritual thoughts, will be simple, foolish, and weak. They give very different advice to those who desire children; but any man of tolerable sense must grant, that they lead mankind into a very bad school of chastity; their precepts are calculated only for those who would confine every thing to animal, earthly, sensual, and Epicurean life. We must go to our rabbi’s school, if we would learn to demean ourselves in this part of our duty like creatures endowed with a spiritual soul, and not deserve the censure;

O curvæ in terras animæ, et cælestium inanes.

Persius, Sat. ii, ver. 16.

O sordid minds, of heavenly thoughts devoid!

We shall the better comprehend how excellent and sublime the morality of this Jew is, if we remember that it is directly opposite to the maxims of those doctors of impurity, who have filled their poems with so much wantonness. These dangerous poisoners are far from advising silence; and it is this which

furnished a modern with a confirmation of the interpretation he has given of the words of a Greek poet, which contain a description of the grotto of the nymph. “As for the agreeable murmurings,” says he, “mentioned by Homer, they are without doubt the obliging words of lovers, the ‘ ohi me cor mio,—oh! my heart!’ of the Italians; the ‘ζωὴ καὶ ψυχὴ—my life and soul!’ of the Greeks; and the 'alma de mi alma,—soul of my soul,' of the Spaniards.”

The famous Epithalamium of the emperor Gallie nus, which Trebellius Pollio prefers to those of a hundred other poets, who all exercised their pens on the same subject, wonderfully expresses these soft and obliging murmurs, and the caresses which are inseparable from them. It is said that, holding the hands of two of his brother’s children, when he married them, he pronounced these verses of his own composition:

Ite, ite, o pueri, pariter sudate medullis
Omnibus inter vos, non murmura vestra columbæ,
Brachia non hederæ, non vincant oscula conchæ.

It is difficult to conceive any thing more pathetic or passionate on this head. To be diametrically opposite to these false doctors, the bane of youth, is no small praise: it is a just presumption, that the morality which one advances is of admirable purity; add to this the judicious answer of the famous M. Drelin court to a bishop, who had made an observation altogether unbecoming, I will not say of a person of his character, but even of a layman who is not over fond of a wanton style. These are M. Drelincourt’s words: Drelincourt’s Avant-coureur de la République à M. le Camus, Evêque de Belly. ¹²⁹ “Instead of washing out with his tears those ways of speaking, that the Virgin Mary is the spirit and life of Christians, he defends them with a raillery which would better become those who tread the stage. ‘ You gentlemen,’ says he, ' pastors of the protestant

church, who have your dear counterparts, not so much inseparable accidents of your substance, as bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh, nay, who are but one flesh in two persons, use indeed much more endearing terms to those souls of your souls, those lives of your lives, those lives of your hearts and souls, those souls of your lives and hearts, than the world knows of; for you are those spiritual persons, who judge the whole world, nay the very angels, and with much more reason the Romanists, without being subject to be judged by any.’—I know not whence he had his information, and shall not answer for the expressions of those who have wives by stealth: but a grave person, who lives in a chaste marriage, does not study such extravagant rhetoric.” The prelate replied in a manner so burlesque, that nothing could exceed it. See his Answer to the Avant-coureur of M. Drelincourt, pag. 156. ¹³⁰—Art. Arodon.

SUBTILTIES OF LOGIC.

Euclid, a native of Megara, and disciple of Socrates, did not follow the taste of his master; for instead of addicting himself chiefly to the doctrine of morality, he set himself to refine the subtilties of logic. He founded a sect which passes for a branch, or rather a continuation of the school of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno Eleates. Those who followed his method of philosophizing were named Megarians, Megarici, and afterwards Disputers, and at last Dialecticians. His opinions are little known, and it is pretty difficult to comprehend any thing in his doctrine of the nature of good. He made use of nothing but conclusions in his disputes, by which we may judge of the ardour and impetuosity he mixed them with. We may also judge of it by the character of the temper he inspired his disciples with; which was

a rage or fury of disputing. Eubulides, who succeeded him, was the inventor of divers sophisms exceedingly captious and perplexing; these are the names of them: the liar, the deceiver, the electra, the veiled, the sorites, the horned, the bald. You will find in Gassendus a good explanation of all these sophisms, supported by instances. You will find the same in M. Menage. I shall content myself with showing what the liar was. He supposed a man who said I lie, and then he argued in such a manner that from what he said true he concluded that he lied, and from what he lied in, he concluded he spoke truth. ‘ Si dicis te mentiri, verumque dicis, mentiris: dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis, mentiris igitur.” Cicero, Acad. Quæst. lib. iv. cap. 28 et 29. ¹³¹ To puzzle the more, they made one consider that, in such reasonings as this, as to the form, the conclusion was true; “how then dare you reject the conclusion of this,” said they, “while you admit that of others?” Cicero observes that Chrysippus, who formed himself these difficulties, could not resolve them. “Qui potes hanc non probare, quum probaveris ejusdem generis superiorem? Hæc Chrysippea sunt ne ab ipso qui dem dissoluta.” They build the same sophism upon that which Epimenides, who was of the isle of Crete, had said, “that all the Cretans were liars.” “He lied then in saying so,” concluded they; therefore the Cretans are not liars, then they deserve to be believed; then the affirmation of Epimenides is to be believed; and then the Cretans are liars. Aristotle has acknowledged that these sophistries are almost inexplicable. Africanus, the civilian, having put a case in which the knot was indissoluble, compares it to the sophism here in question. “I said this argument was one of the insoluble, called by logicians the liar; for whatever is laid down for true, will be found to be false.” Africanus, lib. lxxxviii. ¹³² It is good to see how Seneca laughs at those who lost their time in such vain subtilties: “Quid me destines in eo, quem tu ipse Pseudomenon appellas, de quo tantum librorum compositum est? Ecce tota mihi vita mentitur: hanc coargue, hanc ad verum, si acutus es, redige. Seneca, Epist. xiv. pag. m. 241. ¹³³—Why do you teaze me with your Pseudomenos (liar) on which so many volumes have been composed? Come sir, my whole life is a lie; let me have a specimen of your art in disproving this, and in showing it to be true.”

Some by too intense an application to these kinds of things, contracted a consumptive illness that killed them, and this has been put in their epitaph:

Philetas I; destroy’d by painful toils
In search of subtilties and captious wiles.

Athen, lib. ix.

It might be said then, without hyperbole or figure, that the inventions of Eubulides were murderous sophisms.

Observe, that the school-men have tried their skill upon this matter; you need only see what they say of the propositions which they call se ipsas falsificantes. Alexis, who succeeded Eubulides, was a great lover of dispute, and engaged in it with so much vehemence that he acquired a surname by it. Diodorus, another disciple of Eubulides, was so intoxicated and infatuated with this sort of contest, that he also died with grief, because he could not resolve upon the instant the dialectical questions that Stilpo had put to him. If this sect had contributed any thing to the illustration of truth, it ought to be looked upon as a prodigy; for nothing is more proper to confound and darken things, and to fill the minds of readers and auditors with doubts, than an application to the quintessence and subtilties of controversy, which degenerate almost always into wrangling, obstinacy, fraud and sophistry. Among all the philosophical exercises, there

are none in which a moderation is more necessary than in that of disputation; for no sooner are you passed certain bounds, than you fall into useless trifles and even irregularities, which give the mind an ill turn, and hinder it from finding truth.

A disputation well regulated and confined to proper limits, and where an explanation of things is only intended, is the most useful thing in the world in the search after truth; disputation has not been ill resembled to the striking of two flints together, which fetches out the invisible sparks of fire. But it is very difficult to keep a just medium in this office, and to this chiefly may be applied the observation of Tacitus: “Retinuit quod est difficillimum ex sapientia, or in sapientia modum. Tacit in Vita Agricolæ, cap. iv. ¹³⁴—And what is most difficult, he retained a mean in philosophy.” If this passion for disputing be never so little indulged, it begets a taste of false glory which engages always to find subjects of contradiction, and thenceforward good sense is no more hearkened to, and we are abandoned to the desire of passing for great masters of subtilties. A professor may be excused the pains he takes to awaken by this way, the mind of a young scholar; but Euclid and his successors can never be justified for having made this the principal business of their whole lives, and for attempting to distinguish themselves by inventions that tended only to confound the mind. They were of no service for the correcting of vice or curing any important defect; and besides, they did not in any manner advance the knowledge of speculative truths, but were much more proper to retard it.

A spirit of disputation easily degenerates into a false subtilty; those who cultivate it fall into their own snare, and after having confounded their adversary, they find themselves unable to resist the

sophisms they have invented, and which may be turned against their own doctrines; I have already mentioned Chrysippus, as a great instance of what I have here observed. He professed himself a dogmatical philosopher, and yet laboured almost as much for the interest of scepticism as Carneades, who professed to affirm nothing; both sacrificed chiefly to the subtilties of their own wit; they were in no great pain about truth, provided they had the pleasure to make their objections sparkle and triumph.

Chrysippus, for instance, took extraordinary pains to find out the solution of a sophism which was called sorites, from the Greek word σωρός, which signifies acervus, a heap; hence it is that the Latins thought they might call that sophism Acervalem. Ulpian has thus defined it; “when from positions evidently true, the disputation is led, through the shortest mutations, to positions evidently false.” Cicero describes it so as to make the etymology of the word be understood: “Primùm quidem hoc reprehendendum quod captiosissimo genere interrogationis utuntur. Quod genus minime in Philosophia probari solet, quum aliquid minutatim et gradatim additur aut demitur: Soritas hos vocant qui acervum efficiunt uno addito grano. Cicero, Academ. quæst. lib. iv. p. 65. ¹³⁵ —In the first place this is blameable, that they make use of a most captious kind of interrogation; which method is by no means commendable in philosophy, when any thing is minutely and gradually added or taken away: they call those Sorites who make a heap by the addition of a single grain.” They took, for example, a grain of corn, as you shall see below: and from this true proposition, “one grain of com is not a heap,” they endeavoured to lead one by degrees to this visible falsity,“one grain of corn makes a heap.” You will find some examples in Sextus Empiricus, of the use that was made of this captious

way of interrogating. There is a long and forcible passage by Cicero, whereby it will appear that they pretended to show, by the help of the Sorites, that the mind of man never attains to the knowledge of the fixed point that divides the opposite qualities, or that determines precisely the nature of every thing. This was their question: "wherein consists little, much, length, breadth, smallness, greatness, &c. Do three grains of corn make a heap?” The answer was, “no.” “Do four grains make a heap?” The answer was still the same. They went on in their questions, from grain to grain, without any end; and if you had answered at last, “here is the heap;” they pretended that your answer was absurd, since it supposes that one single grain made the difference between what is not a heap and what is one. I could prove, by the same method, that a great drinker is never drunk. I would ask, “will One drop of wine make him drunk?” “No,” you will say; “will two drops do it?” “by no means; nor three nor four neither?’ I would continue my questions drop by drop, and if you should tell me, when you come to the nine hundred and ninety-ninth drop, “he is not drunk,” and then coming to the next drop, “he is drunk,” I should conclude that one drop of wine makes the specific difference between a great drinker’s being drunk and not being drunk, which is absurd. If the interrogations were made at every three pints, you might easily observe the difference between enough and two much; but the maker of the Sorites has the choice of his weapons, and makes use of the least particles of quantity, and goes from one to the other, to hinder you from finding any fixed point, that separates the not being drunk from the being drunk, little from much, enough from too much, &c. A man, unacquainted with logic, would justly laugh at such cavils; he would appeal to common sense, and to that degree of light which, in the use of civil life, is sufficient to make us discern in general what is little, much, &c.: but a professed logician was not allowed to have recourse to that tribunal; he was obliged to answer in due form; and unless he found a solution according to the rules of his art, he lost the field of battle; his defeat and overthrow were unavoidable. At this time, a Hibernian tutor, who should teaze a professor of Salamanca with a thousand logical cavils, and who should receive for answer, “common sense, notorious evidence sufficiently shows that your consequences are false,” would pass for the conqueror; and it would be said with reason that the professor was worsted: for it was his duty to answer in due form, and according to the rubric of his trade, since his thesis was attacked by that rubric. Chrysippus, who knew his duty very well in that point, plainly saw that the Sorites of the Megaric dialectitians, required a categorical solution, and found no other expedient than to answer a certain number of interrogations, and then to be silent.

Observe well, that Horace fell upon the admirers of the ancients with a Sorites: it is a very fine passage; suffer me to give way to the temptation of placing it here:

Si meliora dies, ut vina poemata reddit,
Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus
Scriptor abhinc annos centum qui decidit, inter
Perfectos veteresque referri debet? an inter
Viles atque novos? excludat jurgia finis.
Est vetus atque probus, centum qui perficit annos.
Quid? qui deperiit minor uno mense, vel anno,
Inter quos referendus erit? veteres ne Poetas?
An quos et praesens et postera respuet aetas?
Iste quidem veteres inter ponetur honestè,
Qui vel mense brevi, vel toto est junior anno.
Utor permisso, caudaque pilos ut equinae
Paulatim vello, demo unum, demo etiam unum,
Dum cadat elusus ratione ruentis acervi,
Qui redit ad fastos, et virtutem aestimat annis,
Miraturque nihil, nisi quod Libitina sacravit.

Horat. Epist. 1, lib. 2, ver. 34, et seq.

If verse, like wine, improves, matur’d by age,
What length of years gives value to the page?
Say, shall the bard, who chanc'd to write, we know,
A century, nor more nor less ago,
Stand with the ancients, or the moderns, plac'd?
With these admired, or with those disgrac'd?
A century, sure, so long ago he writ,
Makes him an ancient and a classic wit.
What rank is his, an age who cannot boast,
More modern by a month or year at most?
'Midst bards of old, or those whom, later born,
The present and the future times shall scorn?
Who wants a month, a year at most, may be
Allow'd the priv'lege of antiquity.
This frank concession will my cause avail;
By single hairs, I bare the horse's tail.
One from a hundred years you let me take,
From that another, 'till the heap I break;
Confuting him who values wit by years,
Nor living bards, because alive, reveres.

He who said that by too much disputing we lose sight of truth, was no fool. How many are there who enjoy a profound tranquillity in a firm belief of the doctrine of truth, who would be full of doubts if they were to hear the reasons on both sides of the question? And how many are there, who instead of clearing up their doubts, would involve themselves more deeply therein, if they were to hearken to the answers and replies of two subtle disputants? The former, I mean those who have no doubts, would complain of the ill offices which disputing had done them, would complain that they are much more fluctuating than before, and say to the two antagonists what Terence puts into the mouth of one of his actors: “Fecistes prope; incertior sum multo quam du dum Terentius in Phormione, Act. II, Seen. Ill, ver. 18 & 19. ¹³⁶—Thank you, gentlemen, I am more uncertain than ever.” It was St Ambrose’s opinion that subtle logical disputes were so much to be feared, that the grace of God should be begged by public processions

that we might not be exposed to them. I cannot in this place forbear mentioning what St Ambrose says of St Augustin (a very subtle logician), that public prayers ought to be put up to restrain, or rather extirpate, his furious fondness for disputation. It is an instrument which may be of good use against lies, but it will not stop there, for after having destroyed error it attacks truth; it is like those corrosive powders, which after having eaten the proud flesh of a wound, would prey upon the quick flesh, and eat into the very bones if they were let alone. But not to go so far off, let us be content to consider the ill effect of disputing, for the reasons that Montagne gives us. “Our disputes,” says he, Montagne, Essais, livr. iii, cap. viii, pag. m. 252, 253. ¹³⁷ “ought to be as much prohibited and punished as other verbal crimes. What vices do they not awaken and promote, being always commanded and governed by passion? We quarrel first with the arguments and then with the men; we learn only to dispute that we may contradict, and each contradicting and contradicted, the fruit of disputing is the loss and ruin of truth; therefore Plato in his commonwealth, forbids the exercise of it to unskilful and disingenuous minds. What will be the consequence? One runs to the east, another as far as the west; they lose the principal and put it aside in the crowd of incidents. At the end of an hour’s storming, they know not what they look for; one is high, another low, another wide; one catches at a word or a simile, another is insensible of what is said in opposition to him, so eager is he in his course, and thinks of following himself not you. One finding himself weak, fears every thing, refuses every thing, and in the beginning confounds and puzzles his subject; or in the heat of the debate stops short, and grows silent through a peevish ignorance, affecting an insolent contempt, or a foolish modesty shunning contention. One, provided he strikes, cares not how much he lays himself open; another counts his words, and reckons them for arguments; another makes advantage of his voice and lungs. Here is one that concludes against himself, and another stuns you with prefaces and useless digressions; another falls into downright railing, and picks a quarrel with his adversary to free himself from the society and argument of a wit that bears hard upon him; and this last man sees nothing in reason, but incloses you with his dialectical clauses, and the formularies of his art.” Rohault’s preface to his Physics. ¹³⁸

It may very justly be said that the spirit and character of our Euclid and his successors, have prevailed in the Christian schools ever since the famous dialectician Abelard: but what has been produced by it in favour of truth? What philosophical doctrines have the Nominalists and Realists, the Thomists and Scotists cleared? What have they done but multiply opinions, and found out the art of maintaining, pro and con, by the help of sundry barbarous terms? what one maintains the other denies, and they have all of them distinctions and subterfuges ready at hand to prevent their being put to silence. They have by turns made the most contrary opinions triumph; now this is the most natural consequence of this method of philosophizing. Mr Rohault has admirably well described it: “There is,” says he, “an invincible stubbornness observed in most of those who have gone through their course of philosophy, and who probably are fallen into such a pernicious disposition of mind, only because they have not been used to convincing truths, and see that those who maintain any doctrine whatsoever in public, always triumph over those who endeavour to prove the contrary, so that with them all things pass for probabilities. They do not look upon study as a means to

arrive at the discovery of any new truths, but as a witty sport in which people exercise themselves, the end of which is so to confound true with false, by means of certain subtilties, that they may equally defend one or the other, without ever appearing forced to give, up by any arguments, any extravagant opinion they may maintain; and indeed this is the common success of all public actions, where often in the same pulpit, opinions perfectly contrary are alternately proposed and equally triumph, without the matter in hand being explained, or any truth being better established.”—I say nothing of an evil infinitely more considerable, which this disputing and dialectical spirit has produced. It has passed from the chairs of the philosophers into the schools of divinity, and has turned the most important points of the Christian morality into problems; for what doctrine of morality have not the loose casuists shaken and so obscured, that the only way to arrive at certainty, is to hearken solely to the simplicity of the scriptures, without any manner of regard to the subtle and captious reasonings of those doctors?

“The most lively and subtle wits,” says father Rapin, “are not always the properest for philosophy. The imagination had better be a little heavy, than suffer itself to evaporate into too refined speculations; the plain good sense of Socrates triumphed over all the arts and all the subtlety of the Sophists. Philosophy did not become abstract till it ceased to be solid; they stuck to formalities when they had no longer any thing real to say, nor did they ever think of having recourse to subtilties, till they had no hopes of making pure reason prevail. That Protagoras, who first sought for captious arguments, assumed this subtle air only because he had a wrong turn of mind. They spoiled all, says Seneca, by refining every thing; for in order to make a vain ostentation of wit, they forsook the most essential parts of the

sciences, they began to weaken the truth of things by the artifice of words, making use of sophistry when they were at a loss for good reasons. By this new art, Nausiphanes and Parmenides overthrew every thing; so that the simplicity of reason was corrupted by the artifice of discourse, and they ridiculed truth instead of treating it with respect. This was the error of the Spaniards of the last century; they treated philosophy as they treated politics, both which by their speculative genius they carried up to inconceivable subtilties, every scholar refining upon his master; whence happened such a disorder as Seneca complains of. Disputation became all the fruit of philosophy, and they made use of it, not so much to cure the soul as to exercise the wit.”

Arts. Euclid & Chrysippus.

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

The Protestants have a small Catechism, in which the first question is, “Wherefore has God sent us into the world?” The catechumen answers, “To know and to serve him.” This, in general, is the principle of all Christians, but it is a principle only in theory, a mere speculation. If their answer were to be suited to their moral practice, most Christians would answer, that God sent them into the world to enrich themselves, and rise to good offices; for this is actually all they aim at, this is their whole care. Some, indeed, think at first on nothing more than obtaining a competent maintenance; but as soon as they get possessed of this competent estate, they immediately aim at aggrandizing themselves, and propose, by degrees, to mount to the highest dignities. This spirit governs a father, both with regard to himself and to his children, and he communicates it to them as soon as their age will permit. No one is satisfied with the

condition he is born in, but endeavours to make a better figure than his father. The son of a mean artist uses his utmost endeavour to become a rich citizen. If his covetous and insatiable industry bring him in great riches, he soon launches out in hopes of attaining to offices, and getting a share in the government. No expenses appear too great, provided they are but useful towards procuring him the good offices of the mediate or immediate distributors of magistratures. They, who by their character are most obliged to practise the precepts of Jesus Christ concerning the despising of this world, forget this obligation but too often, and take opportunities of getting great estates, to advance their families, and to raise their dependants.

This puts me in mind of what a good man told me one day. He happened to make a visit to Mr---

where there were nine or ten persons more, who discoursed on divers things. At last, the conversation fell on the qualities of a certain minister. One of those gentlemen blamed him freely enough for some things. Another answered, and without justifying the minister altogether on these points, alleged other things in his favour, and insisted chiefly on the article of friendship. “Never,” said he, “was a better friend seen than this minister, nor a person of more zeal to do good to those who espouse his interests. He procured pensions for such and such; by his recommendation, such and such a one obtained a place of two thousand livres a year, and are in a way to make their fortune. Others keep their coaches by means of the private hints he had given them to buy goods that would become scarce in a little time. Others desiring passionately to attain to the magistracy, have by his good offices overcome the difficulties which lay in their way.” Having gone through several articles, Mr-- took up the discourse, saying, “I am much scandalized at the manner of your praising a

successor of the apostles. I should not think it strange, if you praised a Pagan, or a layman of our religion at this rate, but I cannot bear your palming these things upon us, as very fine qualities in a minister of Jesus Christ. Is it his business to know whether such or such merchandizes will rise or fall about such a time? Does it become him to give his friends notice of it, and to smooth them a way to riches and honours? Is not this pouring of oil into the fire of covetousness and ambition, a fire which he is obliged to quench in the soul of all his people, as much as possible? Does he not know that the riches and honours of this world are the nourishment of vanity, are so many clogs and stumbling blocks in the way of salvation? He would be just so much the more to be praised if he exhorted his friends to give to the poor what they expend in endeavouring to advance themselves, as he is to be blamed in favouring their ambition. If he persuaded a friend of his to put down his coach and walk about on foot, and sell his equipage to endow hospitals, I should look upon this as a true friendly office in him, and this, sir, is the duty of your hero.”

These are, doubtless, very Christian thoughts; but in the corrupt state in which we live, they are mere platonic ideas. That despising of riches and dignities, which made up the character of the good Bunel, is seldom found at present in the laity or clergy, and what shews the height of corruption is, that there is hardly any one but despises those who preserve that indifferency. A learned man is highly praised who knows how to enrich himself, and to climb from office to office, and who, to make his fortune, divides his whole time into two parts, the one for his books, and the other to court the favour of great persons, and to insinuate himself every where. Such a person being really most despicable in the main is not despised.

Art. Bunel.

THOUGHT, SOUL, LIFE, SENSATION.
(Opinion of Dicæarchus concerning.)

Dicæarchus, a disciple of Aristotle, composed a great number of books, which were very much esteemed. Cicero, and his friend Pomponius Atticus set a great value upon them, and I even believe their esteem extended also to that book, wherein he opposed the immortality of the soul. He composed two treatises upon that subject, each divided into three books. “Dicæarchus in eo sermone, quem Corinthi habitum tribus libris exponit doctorum hominum disputantium, primo libro multos loquentes facit, duobus Pherecratem quendam Phthiotam senem, quem ait a Deucalione ortum, differentem inducit; nihil esse omnino animum, et hoc esse nomen totum inane, frustraque et animalia et animantes appellari, neque in homine inesse animum vel animam, nec in bestia. Vimque omnem eam, qua vel agamus quid, vel sentiamus, in omnibus corporibus vivis aequaliter esse fusam, nec separibilem a corpore esse, quippe quæ nulla sit, nec sit quicquam, nisi corpus unum et simplex, ita figuratum ut temporatione naturae vigeat et sentiat. Cicero Tusc. 1, fol. m. 250. ¹³⁹- - -Acerrime delitiæ meae Dicæarchus contra hanc immortalitatem disseruit. Is enim tres libros scripsit qui Lesbiaci vocantur quod Mitylenis sermo habetur, in quibus vult efficere animos esse mortales. Ibid. fol. m. 250. ¹⁴⁰—Dicæarchus, in his discourse between many learned philosophers, disputing at Corinth, which he divides into three parts, introduces in his first several speakers: in the other two he makes one Pherecrates of Phthia, whom he derives from Deucalion, to argue that the soul was nothing but an empty name, and that the word animal was an insignificant term, since neither man nor beast had either soul or mind, and that the power by which we either act or think was

equally diffused through all living bodies, inseparable from them, being nothing but a simple and uniform body, so modelled as to move and think by the direction of nature. My beloved Dicæarchus has argued very .warmly against this immortality; for he has written three books called Lesbian, because the scene is supposed to be at Mitylene, wherein he endeavours to prove the soul to be mortal.” Cicero says, in one of his Letters, “that he wanted these books, and desires Pomponios Atticus to send them to him.”

I must observe, by the way, that this opinion of Dicæarchus is unworthy a philosopher. Such a way of arguing betrays a want of principle, and overthrows the harmony of a system. If once you lay it down, as this author does, that the soul is not distinct from the body, that it is nothing else but a power equally common to all living things, and which forms but one simple being with the bodies called living, either you know not what you say, or you are obliged to maintain that this power is always inseparable from the body; for what is not distinct from body is essential to body, and, according to the first principles, it is a contradiction to say that a being is ever without its essence. Whence it plainly results, that the power of sensation ceases not in dead bodies, and that the parts of living bodies preserve each their life and soul when they are corrupted. Then there is no room to Batter ourselves that sensation ceases after death, and that we shall not be subject to any pain. If a body be capable of pain when it is placed in the nerves, it is also capable of it wherever it is found, either in stones or metals, in the air or in the sea, and if an atom of air was once destitute of all thought, it seems utterly impossible that being converted into that substance, which is called animal spirit, should ever make it think. This seems as impossible as it is to give a local presence to a being that has been for some time without any local presence. So that

to argue consequently, it must be concluded either that the substance which thinks is distinct from the body, or that all bodies are thinking substances, since it cannot be denied that, men have thought, Whence it follows, according to Dicæarchus’s principle, that there are a certain number of bodies that think. Cicero argues very ill against Dicæarchus; he pretends that, according to this philosopher, a man must feel no pain, since he cannot feel that he has a soul. “Dicaearchum vero cum Aristoxeno æquali et condiscipulo suo doctos sane homines omittamus, quorum alter ne condoluisse quidem unquam videtur qui animum: se habere non sentiat: alter ita delectatur suis cantibus, ut eos etiam ad hæc transferre conetur. Cicero, Tuscul. I, fol. 248. ¹⁴¹— I shall pass over Dicæarchus with his cotemporary and school-fellow Aristoxenus, the one of which never seems to have been concerned at his not perceiving he had a soul. The other is so pleased with his fiddle that he would make the soul to consist in harmony, so great a bigot was he to his profession.” This philosopher might easily have answered, “I do not deny that man feels, and that he is conscious of his feeling, but I deny that he knows that that which feels in him is a soul distinct from body. It is very true he does not feel it, for he knows it only by reasoning.” Lactantius makes use of this fallacious syllogism of Cicero.

I just now perceive that some may prepossess themselves against the argument I have opposed to Dicæarchus’s system, which obliges me to obviate an objection. It may be said that sensation may be only a modification of body, whence it would follow that matter, without losing any thing of what is essential to it, may cease to feel when it is no longer inclosed in the organs of a living machine. I answer, this is an absurd doctrine, for all the modes

of existence, that we have any knowledge of, are of such a nature, that they do not cease, but only to give place to another mode of the same kind; there is no figure that is destroyed but by another figure, and no colour that is destroyed but by another colour. I confess that, according to the old philosophy, cold and heat, which expel one another from a subject, are not accidents of the same species; but it must be owned that at least they belong to the same genus of qualities' that are called tactiles, so that to argue aright, it ought to be said that no sensation is expelled from its substance, but by the introduction of some other sensation; nothing hinders but that sensation should be a genus, having other genus’s under it, before we arrive at what we call species infima. According to this, my objection loses no strength by the answer I have refuted, and I shall always affirm, that if the animal spirits have not the sensation out of the nerves which they have in them, it is because they lose it by acquiring another kind of sensation.

It will be said, perhaps, that there are modifications which cease without any other positive modification succeeding to them, as motion, for instance; for they will say nothing of figure, as being too plainly contrary to Dicæarchus’s abettors; but I answer that motion and rest do not differ, as they suppose, after the manner of positive modifications and privations. Both rest and motion are a most real and positive local presence; their difference consists only in external relations which are perfectly accidental. Rest is the duration of the same local presence: motion is the acquisition of a new local presence, and, consequently, that which ceases to move does not lose its modification without obtaining another of the same nature; it has always a position equal to its extension among the other parts of the universe. When they can give us an example of a body that loses one place without acquiring another, we will agree that certain bodies

may lose a sensation without obtaining another; but as it is impossible to produce such an instance as this, we have a right to maintain that every body that once has had a sensation will always have it. Is not the conversion of being to nothing impossible in the order of nature? Would not the conversion of a figure into the privation of all figure, or the conversion of local presence into the privation of all local presence, be the conversion of something real and positive into nothing? Therefore they are impossible in the order of nature, and therefore the conversion of sensation into a privation of all sensation is impossible, for this would be the conversion of something real and positive into nothing.

Lastly, I say that all the modes of bodies are founded upon the essential attributes of bodies which are the three dimensions. This is the reason that the loss of one figure, or of one local presence, is always accompanied with the acquisition of another figure, or of another local presence. Extension never ceases, nor is ever lost, therefore, the corruption of one of its modes is necessarily the generation of another; for the same reason, no sensation can cease but by the existence of another; for by the system which I am refuting, sensation would be a mode of body as well as figure and place. If you would found sensation upon some attribute of matter different from the three dimensions and unknown to our minds, I answer that the changes of that attribute ought to resemble the alterations of extension; the latter cannot make all manner of figure or local presence to cease, and so the alterations in this unknown attribute would never cause all sensation to cease; they would be but the passage from one sensation to another, as the motion of an extended body is but the removal of it from one place to another.

Moreri makes Dicæarchus the author of several books since Suidas, who perhaps is the only one that

mentions this Dicæarchus, ascribes no books to him at all; neither ought Vossius to have imputed to him a treatise upon dreams. A person who was not pleased to make himself known, has sent me some objections to the argument I have proposed against Dicæarchus, concerning his opinion of the nature of the soul, which I shall here examine, as it will give me an opportunity to allude to a dispute which has made a great noise in England.

The author of those objections to which I allude, begins by explaining the system of our philosopher. He pretends that Dicæarchus’s meaning is, that living bodies differ only from bodies void of life, in this that their parts are figured and disposed after a certain manner; he compares this opinion With that of Descartes thus: if a dog differ from a stone, it is not that he is composed of a body and a soul while the stone is only body; but it is solely in this, that he is composed of parts arranged after such a manner as to form a machine, which the ranging of the particles of a stone does not; this is the opinion of Descartes. This idea is very proper to make us understand the opinion of Dicæarchus: we are only to suppose that he extended to all sorts of living bodies, what the Cartesians say only with respect to beasts: we are only to suppose that he reduces man to the condition of a machine, whence it will follow, that the human soul is not distinct from the body, but that it is only a machinal construction and disposition of several parts of matter. This being supposed, the author of the objections pretends that the difficulty I have started is so far from being considered as invincible, that it does not in the least affect the system of Dicæarchus. I affirmed that Dicæarchus either did not know what he said, or that he was obliged to maintain that the virtue which he made the soul to consist of, always accompanied the body. He answers that he was obliged only to

maintain that it always accompanies the living body; he adds that if I had always joined together these two terms, body and living, my consequence might have been entirely admitted by Dicæarchus, and so would have done no injury to his system: he pretends then that Dicæarchus may deny that, because the soul is a virtue of. living bodies, it therefore follows that this virtue is found in dead bodies; for if it do consist in nothing but the machinal disposition of certain bodies, as he supposes, it evidently follows that it ought to cease as soon as that disposition ceases, as soon as the machine is dissolved. Thus, continues he, a Cartesian would answer those who should maintain, that according to his hypothesis; the souls of beasts subsist even after they are killed. You are mistaken, would he say, for since I suppose that it consists only in a certain disposition of the organs, I must necessarily suppose that it perishes as soon as that disposition is destroyed. The author of the objections supposes, that it was never concluded against the Cartesians that the virtue of sensation does, not cease in dead bodies, and that the parts of living bodies preserve in themselves their life and soul when they are corrupted. It is certain this consequence is not objected to the Cartesians, but it is because they attribute no sensation to the soul of brutes; for if they made it sensitive, the same difficulties that I have objected to Dicæarchus, would fall upon them, and they would be obliged as well as he, to obviate them. Lastly, he objects that what I have said that all the modifications we know of, do not cease to be, but by making room for other modifications of the same kind, whence it follows that a body which once has had sensations, will always continue to have them; he objects, I say, that Dicæarchus is little concerned in this, for he never attributed life to matter till after the requisite modification to make it a living body; to wit , by the various disposition of its parts, so that I had no right to make him ascribe life to any part of matter after its dissolution, though before and after it is body, but not living body. This is the conclusion of the author of the objections. Observe, he does not enter the lists in defence of the doctrine itself of Dicæarchus; he acknowledges the falsehood and impiety of it: his design is only to show that I was in the wrong to charge him with inconsistency, and that the system was justly connected together, although the philosopher did not admit of sensation and an imperishable life, in bodies that had been once alive.

You see here the full state of the question: the question is, to know whether a philosopher who believes that there are bodies who think and bodies that do not think, reasons consistently: I say he does not, and that whoever once admits that, for example, a collection of bones and nerves feels and reasons, ought to maintain, on pain of being declared guilty of not knowing what he says, that every other system of matter thinks; and that thinking, which once subsisted in a combination of matter, still subsists under other modifications in the separated parts, after the dissolution of that combination. I shall not repeat the proofs I have already given upon this subject, nor is it necessary to strengthen them, for the author of the objections has not attacked them. He has only observed that Dicæarchus ought not to trouble himself about it, considering he has declared that matter does not begin to live till after a certain disposition of its parts. But it is chiefly upon this very thing that I would charge him with not knowing what he said. He did not mean by life merely breathing, eating, walking. He meant all the operations of a man, the action of the five external senses, the imagination, reflection, reasoning, &c. I maintain that he supposes what has hitherto been inconceivable to all mankind, if he suppose that the sole

disposition of the organs of a human body should cause a substance to become thinking, that never thought before. All that the disposition of these organs can do, is confined to local motion variously modified, as in a clock, all the difference being only from more to less; but as the ranging of the several wheels which compose a clock, would signify nothing to produce the effects of that machine, if each wheel before it was placed after a certain method, had not actually an impenetrable extension, the necessary cause of motion, as soon as it was pushed forward with a certain degree of force; so I say also the ranging of the organs of a man’s body would be of no service to produce thought, if each organ before it was fixed in its place, had not actually the faculty of thinking. Now this faculty is quite another thing from impenetrable extension, for all you can do to this extension by pulling, striking, or pushing it all manner of ways, is a change of situation, the whole nature and essence of which you can fully conceive without having recourse to any sensation, and even when you deny there is any sensation in it. There have been some men of great genius who have showed themselves a little too slow of heart to believe the distinction of the soul of man from the body, but nobody that I know of, ever dared hitherto to say that he clearly conceived that in order to make a substance pass from the privation of all thought to actual thinking, it was sufficient to put it into motion, so that this change of situation was, for instance, a sense of joy, an affirmation, an idea of moral virtue, &c.; and though some should boast that they had a clear conception of it, they would not deserve to be credited, and we might apply to them a passage of Aristotle that I have quoted in another place. What an absurdity would it be to maintain that there are two species of colour, one which is the object of sight and no more, and the other the object both of sight and smell. It is yet more absurd to maintain that there are two species of roundness, one which consists merely in the parts of the circumference of a body being equally distant from the centre, the other, which together with that is also an act by which the round body perceives that it exists, and sees round about it several other bodies. It is the same absurdity to assert that there are two kinds of circular motion, one which is nothing else but the change of situation upon a line, the parts of which are equally distant from the centre; the other which together with this, is an act of love to God, of fear, hope, &c. What I have said of roundness with respect to vision, may be applied to all sorts of figures with respect to all kinds of thought; and what I have said of circular motion is equally strong with respect to all other lines in which a body can move slowly or swiftly; and therefore we ought to conclude that thought is distinct from all the modifications of body that are come to our knowledge, since it is distinct from all figure and from all change of situation: but this not being the question here, I shall content myself with concluding that Dicæarchus in order to argue consistently, ought to have admitted that every system of matter is endued with the faculty of thinking, for without that, it was absurd to pretend that provided several veins, arteries, &c. were placed one by another as the different parts of a machine, it would produce the sensations of colour, taste, sound, smell, cold, heat, love, hatred, affirmation, negation, &c.

Methinks, if I had even plainly and absolutely affirmed, that nobody had hitherto boasted of having a clear idea of a modification of matter, which is an act of sensation, I should not have proceeded with rashness; for I see in the “News from the Republic of Letters,” that Mr Locke, one of the profoundest metaphysicians in the world, confesses ingenuously, that a body endowed with thought is an

incomprehensible thing: and observe, he makes this confession in answer to an objection founded upon this incomprehensibility. It was therefore very much his interest to deny the foundation of this objection, whence it must be concluded that this confession was very sincere, and an effect of the power of truth, and a proof that all his utmost endeavours to comprehend the union of thought with a material substance, were fruitless. Now since so great a man confesses this, is it not probable that never any person durst boast to comprehend the union? This would be too general, if I added nothing more to it. Let it be observed then, that the question whether the soul of man is distinct from matter, is part of the famous dispute between Dr Stillingfleet and Mr Locke: the former maintained, that matter is incapable of thinking, and thereby became the defender of a fundamental article of philosophical orthodoxy. Among other arguments, he makes use of this; “that it cannot be conceived how matter can think.” Mr Locke confesses the truth of this principle, and contents himself with denying the consequence; for he pretends that God can do things which are incomprehensible to human understanding, and therefore, because man cannot comprehend that a portion of matter cannot acquire the faculty of thinking, it does not follow that God, who is Almighty, “cannot give if he please some degree of sense, perception, and thought, to certain collections of created matter, combined together as he thinks proper. All the difficulties that are raised,” says he, “against the possibility of there being thinking matter, derived from our ignorance, or the narrow limits of our conceptions, do not in the least affect the power of God, if he please to communicate to matter the faculty of thinking, and they do not prove that he has not actually communicated such a faculty to certain parts of matter, disposed as he thought fit, till it can be made out that it is a contradiction to suppose such a thing.” This is a formal confession of the incomprehensibility of the thing, and a recourse to the almighty power of God, for effects which sure beyond the limits of our understandings. It is much after the same manner that the schoolmen suppose an obediential power in the creatures, whereby God might, if he would, raise them to any state whatsoever. A stone might become capable of the beatific vision, and a drop of water capable of washing away all the pollution of original sin. In order to confute this obediential power of matter with respect to knowledge, we might make use of an argument which it does not appear that Dr Stillingfleet has used. That argument always seemed to me very proper to show the impossibility of joining thought, and the three dimensions, together in the same subject. You will find the particulars of this proof in the book I quote. Nouvelles de la Repub. des Lettres, August, 1684. Art. VI. ¹⁴² A passionate divine, arguing against the abbot de Dangeau, who bad urged this argument, criticised him as well as he could; but he only talked impertinently.

Consider well my expression of philosophical orthodoxy; for I do not pretend that, with respect to theological, evangelical, or Christian orthodoxy, Dr Stillingfleet is superior to Mr Locke. To affirm that, because the soul of man thinks, it is therefore immaterial, is I think right reasoning, and is also establishing a most solid foundation of the immortality of our souls, a doctrine which ought to be considered as one of the most important articles of true philosophy; but this truth, as it is grounded upon such a principle, does not belong to Christian theology. A Christian divine, every Christian in general, as a Christian, believes the immortality of the soul, heaven, hell, &c, because these are truths which God has revealed to us. It is upon this account only, that his faith is a true act of religion, a meritorious act, acceptable to God, the

state of a child of God, and of a disciple of Jesus Christ; and those who should believe the immortality of the soul, purely upon those philosophical ideas with which their reason furnishes them, would be no farther advanced in the kingdom of God, than those who believe that the whole is greater than its part. Therefore, since Mr Locke founds his belief of the immortality of the soul upon the scripture, he has as much Christian, evangelical, and theological orthodoxy as he can have. What he says upon this subject is admirable; I shall probably cite it in some other place.—Art. DicÆarchus.

TRAJAN.
(Fate of his soul.)

Most learned men of the Romish communion now refute the story which was so much cried up, that the soul of the emperor Trajan was delivered from hell, by the prayers of pope Gregory. Paul and John Diaconus, who wrote the life of St Gregory, give the following account of that affair, which is moreover asserted by St John of Damascus: “St. Gregory, passing Trajan’s square, which that prince caused to be adorned with stately edifices, where the principal actions of his life were represented, stopped particularly to consider a basso relievo, which described the favour he did to a poor widow. This emperor, marching at the head of his army, and being obliged to use great dispatch, a very old and poor widow came to beseech him, with tears in her eyes, to revenge the death of her soil, who had been murdered. Trajan promised her that when he returned from his expedition, he would do her justice. ‘ But sir,’ said the widow, ‘ if you should be killed in the battle, of whom may I expect it afterwards?’ ‘Of my successor,’ answered Trajan. ‘What will it signify to you, great emperor,’ replied the women, ' that any other than yourself render me justice? Is it not

better that you should do this good action yourself, than leave another to do it?' It is said that the emperor, being then moved at the tears of the poor mother, and persuaded by her reasons, alighted from his horse, commanded those that were accused of the murder of the widow’s son to be brought before him, and took an exact cognizance of the whole affair: and though the principal officers of his army urged him very much, yet he would not continue his march till he had determined it. He ordered a considerable sum of money to be paid to the widow, but spared the lives of the criminals. St Gregory, they add, touched with this action of justice and charity, prayed to God, with many tears and groans, to take pity on that emperor. At St Peter’s tomb he shed a great many tears, and remained long in prayer on the same subject. Soon after, he knew he had not prayed in vain, for falling into a sleep, rather ecstatical than natural, God revealed to him that his prayers had been heard; but at the same time commanded him never to pray more for persons that die unbaptised.” John Diaconus, who believed this story to be true, and said, “that it was read in the English churches,” owns however, “that it was not received by the Romans, and that it had appeared to them improbable. It ought, indeed, to be rejected as a fable, that could find credit no where but with the Anglo-Saxons, who were as yet ignorant and uninstructed in the Christian religion: for John Diaconus evidently shows that it derived its original from them. I am surprised that learned men, who have been employed in collecting the acts of the saints, far from rejecting it, have made a note to authorise and support it: I fancy the reason why they judged so favourably of it, was, because they believed that the ancient life of St Gregory, which they published as the performance of an anonymous author, was written by a contemporary historian, as they expressly declare; but that anonymous author is at the same time called Paul Diaconus , and that cotemporary historian is of the IXth century, younger than St Gregory by about 250 years, as I have proved in the the advertisement. Cardinal Baronius has very amply refuted this story in the 8th tome of his Annals, and after him Cardinal Bellarmin, not to mention several learned critics of our own time, who have shown the absurdity and dangerous consequences of it; but as that does not hinder people from making use of it every day, to authorise a very pernicious doctrine, and to teach that the intercession of the holy Virgin saves those that belong to her, and that wear her livery, even though they die in mortal sin; I believe those who love true piety, will be glad to find this falsity refuted by St Gregory himself, and by what he says in his Dialogues. Dionysius de Sammarth. ubi supra, pag.284,285, ¹⁴³

Sammarthanus recites afterwards divers passages of the XLIVth chapter of the IVth book of those Dialogues, and shows thereby that St Gregory did not believe it possible to deliver a damned soul. He refutes likewise some answers that might be made in favour of the contrary opinion. He does not think it worth while to confute in particular another story which is added to the former. It is reported, that this pope felt continual pains in his feet and stomach, as a punishment for the sin he had committed in praying for an emperor that was damned. Father Theophilus Raynauld ranks this among the calumnies which have been published against great men. He quotes Tostatus, who in the LVIIth question on the IVth book of the Kings, affirms that St Gregory then committed a mortal sin. He says that Alphonsus Ciacconius wrote a Treatise, to prove that this story of Trajan's deliverance was true; and adds, that Rutilius Benzonius maintained the same thing in his Speculum Episcoporum, but that Melchior, Canus, and Soto, had

very well conjectured the falsity of that story, and that Baronius, Bellarmin, and Suarez, and several other moderns, had clearly demonstrated it to be a fable. All the subtilties invented to reconcile this pretended deliverance of Trajan with the irreversible ness of God’s decrees against persons who are damned, he looks upon as mere cavilling: and rejects the reflection of John Diaconus, that those pains were inflicted on St Gregory, as an antidote against the pride wherewith he might have been puffed up, after so great an exploit as releasing Trajan’s soul from the pit of hell.—Art. Trajan.

TRICK.
(A laughable one.)

The particulars may be seen in a chronicle; it is not a story preserved by tradition; it may be found in the annals of Aquitain, published several times by John Bouchet who lived at that time. He speaks of the interview between Clement VII and Francis I at Marseilles, 1533. “During that interview between the pope and the king, where all the royal family of France was, and several princes and lords, and also the queen of France and her retinue, there was a common report that a pleasant trick deserving to be remembered, had been played to three ladies of the queen, who were all virtuous, chaste, and devout women. Those three ladies who were all widows, having a weakly and sickly constitution, desired to have a licence from the pope to eat flesh upon prohibited days; and in order to it , they made their application to the Duke of Albania his near relation, who gave them his promise, and then sent for them to come to the pope. That Duke, who was very familiar with those ladies, having a mind to give some sport to the pope and to the king, told the pope, ‘ Holy father, there are three young ladies who are

widows and of an age to get children, whom I take to have strong temptations, because they have desired me to beg of you that they may be allowed to select a man without marrying, when they are in great want of one.’ ‘ How cousin,’ said the pope, ‘it were against God’s commandment, from which I can dispense nobody?’ ‘I beseech you, holy father, to hear them, and to make this remonstrance to them.’ Whereupon the ladies came into the hall where the pope was, and after they had kneeled and kissed his feet, one of them said to him, ‘ Holy father, we have desired the Duke of Albania to beg a favour of you, and to represent to you our age, frailty, and weak constitution.’ ‘ Daughters,’ said the pope, your request is not reasonable, for it is contrary to the command of God.’ The widows not knowing what the duke of Albania had told him, answered, ‘ Holy father, be pleased to give us such a dispensation three times a week without scandal.’ ‘How,’ replied the pope, ‘ must I give you leave to commit so great a sin? I should be damned if I did.’ Whereupon the ladies were sensible that there was some jest in the matter, and one of them said, ‘ We beg a dispensation to eat flesh upon prohibited days.’ The duke of Albania told them, ‘ I thought, ladies, you meant live flesh.’ The pope perceiving the jest, smiled and told the duke, ‘ Cousin, you make the ladies blush; when the queen comes to hear of this, she will be displeased with it.’ The king, the queen, and the princes were immediately told of it, and liked the humour very well.’’ Bouchet Annales d’Aquitaine, fol. m. 267. ¹⁴⁴ You will also find this adventure in Brantome’s Memoirs, towards the end of his second volume of his Dames Galantes, where it is related more at large than in the Annals of Aquitaine. He knew not that this story was to be found in that book, for he concludes thus: “I have been told the names of these three ladies, viz. the lady de Chateaubriant, the lady Chastillon, and the widow of the bailiff of Caën, all very virtuous women. I have this story from the old courtiers.”—Art. Sixtus IV.

VANITY.
(Ludicrous instance of.)

Peter le Loyer, counseller in the presidial court at Angers, was born, in the village of Huillé, in Anjou, the twenty-fourth of November, 1540. He was one of the most learned men of his age, and at the same time one of the greatest visionaries that ever lived. He perfectly understood the Oriental tongues, but was so infatuated with Hebrew etymologies, that he made himself ridiculous. In his books of the Idumean Colonies, he derives from the Hebrew or Chaldee tongues, not only the names of the cities of France, but even those of the villages of Anjou; of the hamlets, houses, barns, fields, and meadows. “I shall therefore say,” these are his words, at page 217, “that the village of Huillé (his birth-place) is derived from Ahalé or Oholé of Ezekiel, which is Ada, or Gada, the wife of Esau, and mother of Eliphaz. Near Huillé, about half a mile on the river Loire, there is, on a hill, a little hamlet, called Bassetas, which I derive from Bassemath, and Bassemtis, another wife of Esau, and mother of Raguel, grand-mother to Jerah, and great-grand-mother to Job.” M. Menage, having given three or four other instances of the same stamp, adds, “all the book is filled with such observations, which makes me boldly say that we are not much the worse for the loss of ten or twelve volumes of other books of Colonies of the same author. He pretended to find in Homer, says Menage, whatever he had a mind to. He found in one single verse his own

christian name, the name of his family, the name of the village where he was born, the name of the province in which this village lay, and the name of the kingdom which contained this province. In a thing so incredible as this I speak of, Menage gives his own words in his Idumean Colonies.“After this great prophecy, which is wholly owing to me, Homer comes to speak this verse, addressing himself to Ulysses:

Σόν δʹ οὔπω τις ἔχει καλόν γέωασι άλλα ἒκηγος. Verse 183 of the Odyssey V. ¹⁴⁵

‘ And in no body,’ says Anticlea’s shade to her son Ulysses, ‘ has yet thy (Loyer) reward, in all respects happily reposed; and what follows, which bears another meaning. In all this long verse you will exactly find,

Πέρος Λωὲριος, Άνδίνκαος, Γάλλος, Υλείη.

That is to say, Peter Loyer, Angevin, Gaullois d’Hu illé: there is neither more nor less in it; let who will make the trial. This I offer to defend to all that read me; and why should not I defend what is notoriously my own in Homer? there is no satisfaction in a thing which is not bur own, or doubted to be our own. Now Homer attributes this verse to me, and by so doing he makes it mine and not another's; and whatever way we turn this verse in Homer, it will still be mine, and I can claim it for my own. There are three letters, which remain in this whole verse, which perhaps may be said to be superfluous, but they are not so. These are the numeral Greek letters, α, χ, κ, which denote the time when the name should be revealed which is contained in this verse of Homer, to wit, the year of Christ 1620; and what is less superfluous? Now this is sufficient, as to what concerns myself; which I do not relate for the glory I hope from it;

but rather because I cannot, and ought not to be silent as to what has been revealed to Homer concerning me. This will serve moreover to strengthen my work concerning the originals, migrations, and colonies of people, which had been reserved for me. Homer in vain concealed the origin of many nations, under the cover of fables; since there was to be one, in future ages, who should discover what he had attempted to conceal. I do not boast, for all this, to know more than other men; but who will withstand the grace of God, co-operating in me?· This is what Homer discovered, even to the naming the little village where I should receive my birth, that I might not glory in my weakness and meanness, but rather in God, who makes me what I am, and renders me so potent and vigorous, in that he comforts me.” Nothing could be left out of this long passage, where every thing shows so learned and singular a madness.

Art. Loyer.

VIRGIN.
(Mahometan holy one.)

Some accounts say that Fatima, daughter of Mahomet, and wife of Ali, is the great saint they worship with so much devotion at Com, but most travellers think otherwise. Herbert, in his Persian Travels, having said that the mosque at Com is magnificent, adds, that “the devotion they have for this place has enriched it with many great presents brought to the sepulchre of Fatima, the wife of Mortis Ali, and daughter of Mahomet, the great prophet of all the Mussulmen, who is buried here. The building of the mosque is round, and made after the Epirotic manner. The tomb of the pretended saint is raised twelve feet from the ground, and is covered with white velvet: you go up to it by steps of solid silver.”

Some say, the saint at Com is the daughter of Ali

and Fatima. This appears in Figueroa’s narrative; “they informed me,” says he, “that at Com there was a famous mosque, dedicated to the memory of a great saint named Leila, grand daughter of Mahomet, and the daughter of Ali and Fatima.” The Sieur Bespier advances a conjecture which is very probable: “the name of Leila,” says he, “is commonly given to the great ladies of Africa, and it is also the title of honour which they give there to the Blessed Virgin, mother of our Lord Jesus, for whom the Mahometans have a great deal of respect and veneration, as well as for her son.” He cites Diego de Torres, who assures us, “that they call the Holy Virgin, Leila Mariam, which signifies the Lady Mary; and that all the daughters of the cheriff took the title of Leila, and he names them all four; viz. Leila Mariam, Leila Aya, Leila Fatima, and Leila Lu.” After this, Bespier adds, that he is “inclined to think that Leila was not the proper name of the saint mentioned by Figueroa, but only the title of honour preceding it, and that she had another name which Figueroa has omitted, or was not informed of. The inhabitants of Com, who held that maid for a saint, were content with calling her Leila, or The Lady, by way of excellence: much after the same manner as most Christians now call the Virgin Mary Our Lady.”

According to Peter della Valle, she is the granddaughter of Ali and Fatima. “There is a fine bridge at Com, and near the bridge a magnificent mosque, in which they told me that a sister of Iman Riza, for whom they have a veneration, and who was one of the most esteemed successors of Mahomet, is buried, whom also they look upon as a saint in their way; so that they have a great respect and veneration for the place of her burial.” Iman Riza was the son of Hossein, who was Fatima’s son: let us say therefore that the sister of Iman Riza is the granddaughter of Fatima. Tavernier’s relation agrees here

with that of Peter della Valle. “What is most remarkable at Com is a great mosque, where are seen the sepulchres of Cha-Sefi and Cha-Abas the second, and that of Sidi-Fatima, the daughter of Iman Hossein» who was the son of Ali, and of Fatima Zurha, Mahomet’s daughter.”

Others say, she is the daughter of Mousa, the son of Dgafer. This latter opinion is supported by an authentic proof, viz. the titles they give the saint at Com, in the solemn prayers the pilgrims direct to her. These are forms of prayers, and consequently they furnish us with a good proof how little exact travellers are, since some of the most celebrated of them relate so ill the titles of such a saint. It appears, by this formulary of prayers, that Fatima, the daughter of Mahomet, the wife of Ali, and mother of some children, is the saint venerated as a virgin.

M. Chardin has copied the two chief prayers they make the pilgrims repeat at Com. The first begins thus: “I visit my lady and mistress Fathmé, the daughter of Mousa, the son of Dgafer, upon whom be salvation and peace for ever.” There is one remarkable thing in these prayers, which is, that therein they recommend themselves to the intercession of this saint, and make vows for her. We have seen already that they wish her peace and eternal salvation: here is another part of that formulary: “I wish thee eternal salvation, O Fathmé, daughter of Mousa, virgin, holy, virtuous, just, directress of truth, pious, sanctified, worthy of all our praises, who supremely lovest the faithful, and art supremely beloved by them: Virgin without spot, and free from all impurity. May God take his greatest delight in thee, be always well pleased with thee, and establish thee in paradise, which is thy eternal refuge and abode.” Journal· duVoïage de Perse, pag. 465. ¹⁴⁶ But immediately they recommended themselves to her

prayers in the following manner: “I am come to seek thee, O lady and mistress of my soul, with a view of approaching by this pious act to the most high God, and to his apostle and his children. May the mercy of God be upon him and them for ever. I detest and abhor my sins, the load of which miserably oppresses me, and I do my endeavour to break the yoke of hell. Vouchsafe me thy intercession, O holy Virgin, in that day when the righteous shall be separated from the wicked. Be thou propitious to me, for thou are descended from parents who will suffer none of those that love them to fall into trouble; who re fuse nothing to those that pray to them, who divert all kinds of evil from those that cherish them, and whose enemies, on the contrary, can never prosper.” Chardin informs us that the tomb of this Fatima has been three times rebuilt. “Her father,” continues he, “carried her to Com on account of the persecution which the califfs of Bagdat raised against his family, and all that held Ali and his descendants for the only lawful successors of Mahomet. She built several fine houses in this city, and died there. The people believe that God took her up into heaven, and that her tomb has nothing in it, being only a representation.” The Romish church then is not the only one that honours the assumption of virgins. We have seen that the immaculate conception, and the virginity of a mother, seem to be two doctrines of the Mahometan religion. The pilgrims are obliged, according to the formulary of prayers, among other things, to say thus: “I wish thee eternal salvation, O virgin most pure, most just, and immaculate, glorious Fatima, daughter of Mahomet the elect, wife of Ali, the well beloved, mother of twelve true vicars of God, of illustrious birth.” Chardin.pag. 464. ¹⁴⁷—Art. Fatima.

VIRTUE.
(The Exclamation of Brutus.)

Brutus, according to Plutarch, employed his last dying words in decrying virtue. “Unhappy virtue,” cried he, “how have I been deceived in thy service! I believed thou wert a real being, and devoted myself to thee on that account; but thou art only a vain name, a phantom, the prey and slave of fortune.” He was not so much in the wrong as is imagined, and is so far from deserving to be condemned in all respects, that, on the contrary, we ought to say that, perhaps never Pagan said a thing more just and reasonable; but to discover this, we must put ourselves in that Roman’s place. He had considered virtue, justice, and right, as absolute and real things; I mean as beings, whose force was superior to that of injustice, and which soon or late would place their followers above the accidents and outrages of fortune; but he experienced quite the contrary. He saw the side of justice, the cause of liberty, a second time at the foot of a rebellious party; he saw Mark Antony, the most profligate man alive, with hands imbrued in the blood of the most illustrious citizens of Rome, pull those to the ground who were asserting the liberty of the Roman people: thus he found himself miserably abused in the idea he had formed of virtue; he had gained nothing in its service but the choice of killing himself, or becoming the sport of a usurper, while Mark Antony was favoured with occasions of gratifying all his passions in the service of injustice. This made Brutus say that virtue had no reality, and that a wise man, and one who would not be bubbled, ought to look upon it as an empty name, and not as a reality. But was he not wrong in saying this? Let us distinguish: in the general thesis, and absolutely speaking, he advanced a great absurdity, and an impious falsity.

According to his own hypothesis, and considering the system he had formed to himself, his complaints were well grounded. It may also be said that the Pagans, in the obscurity wherein they lived, as to another life, reasoned very inconsequentially on the reality of virtue. It belongs to Christians alone to argue upon it aright, and, if those good things to come, which the Scripture promises the faithful, were not joined to the exercise of virtue, that and innocency might be placed in the number of those things on which Solomon pronounces his definitive decree, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” To trust to one’s innocency, would be to trust to a broken reed, which pierces the hand of him that leans upon it. God, as being the disposer of events, and the distributer of good and bad success on earth, has submitted virtue and innocency to general laws, no less than health and riches. One of the most considerable states of Europe lost and gained by turns, as long as it made only unjust wars; nay, it gained more than it lost. Ever since it has been engaged only in just wars, it does nothing but lose. How happens this? It was powerful at that time and now is not so. To conclude, whoever shall go upon Brutus’s system, and look upon virtue as the fountain of good temporal successes, may happen one day to complain, as he did, of having taken that for a reality which is only a name.

But let us beware of the headstrong reflections of those extravagant spirits, who pretend, that to have an ill cause is the readiest way to carry it. We say on the contrary, that all things being in other respects equal, reason and justice on our side is a good step towards the victory. How great soever the disorders of human kind are, they are not yet come to such a height that it can with truth be said, that right averts or retards the victory. I was not long ago This was written in 1698. ¹⁴⁸ in company where

the discourse turned upon two princes, who had been named for a very high dignity: opinions were not much divided; almost all agreed that such a one would baffle the pretensions of his competitor. They grounded themselves on several reasons, which were particularized, as the interest of all Europe to favour one of the two pretenders, the situation of the countries whence each was to expect assistance, the overgrown power of the promoter of him whose ill success was foretold, and a hundred other considerations besides. “And now you think you have said all,” said a Frenchman sullenly, who had not spoken a word before, “but it is a mistake; I will give you one reason stronger than all. A certain person has right of his side, his election is regular, and therefore he must sink; the election of another has all possible defects; it is contrary to the most essential formalities, and to the fundamental laws of the nation; that alone were enough to secure him the superiority and the triumph.” This argument was laughed at; but some, who were by, were willing to give themselves the trouble of coolly examining it, and these alleged that injustice, in itself, is fitter to prejudice a cause than to forward it, and that it is only by accident that justice is an obstacle to good success on several occasions. It happens very often that they who are concerned for a good cause are less active than their adversaries. They flatter themselves, like Brutus, that heaven will declare for them; they imagine that right needs less support than injustice; hereupon they slacken their vigilance, and sometimes they are such honest people that they would not make use of ill means to support the good cause. But they, who are engaged in bad causes, scruple not to add iniquity to iniquity; and if they doubt the success, they have recourse, with an extreme activity, to all imaginable expedients; they forget nothing that may either forward their own work, or retard the progress of the enemy, although on some occasions they miscarry, because they dare not be wicked enough. It may also be supposed in the hypothesis of good and bad angels, that, from the same principles, the latter are much more active. However it be, there is no arguing from the justice or the injustice of a cause, to its good or ill success; and, except in cases where God works by miracle, which happens but seldom, the fate of a business depends on the circumstances, and the concurrence of the means that are used; whereby it sometimes happens that injustice miscarries, and that one may say, “tandem bona causa triumphat. ---The good cause triumphs at last.”—Art. Brutus.

WISDOM.
(Allegorical Representation of.)

Charron caused wisdom to be represented in the title-page of his Book on Wisdom, “by a woman stark naked, with a healthful, manly, and smiling face, standing with her feet joined, on a cube; having on her head a crown of laurel and olive, representing victory and peace; and an empty space about her, signifying liberty. On her right side, these words, “I know not,” which is her motto; and on her left side these other words, “peace and little,” which is the author’s motto; beneath, are four little, ill-favoured, vile, and wrinkled women, chained; and their chains are fastened to this cube which is under Wisdom’s feet, who despises, condemns, and tramples upon them, two of which are on the right side of the title of the book, to wit, Passion, and Opinion. Passion is lean, and has a disordered face; Opinion appears with wild looks, fickle, heedless, supported by many persons, which are the mob; the other two are on the other side of the title, Superstition, with a chilled face, joining

both hands, like a servant trembling for fear; and False Science, an artificial, acquired, and pedantic virtue, a slave to laws and customs, with a face puffed up, proud, and arrogant, with lofty eye-brows, reading in a book, wherein are the words, “yes, no.”

Art. Charron.

WOMEN HATERS.
(Was Euripides one.)

A man is never more disposed to rail against the fair sex in general, than when he knows the person who loves him and whom he loves hearkens willingly to the courtship of others, that she consents to familiar conversation, and is very merry when he is absent, &c. He would have the woman that has an amorous intrigue with him, look down with contempt upon every body else, and scornfully reject all their civilities, and become to them ill humoured, rude, cruel, and unsociable; and when he sees the exact contrary, as it often happens, he grows peevish, and enraged with so little reason, that all the fair sex must suffer for it. He inveighs against all women, charges them with being essentially coquets, and if at that time he should be writing a treatise of logic, when he comes to the chapter of universals, he would assign coquetry for the “proprium quarto modo” of the female sex, for that propriety “quæ convenit omni, soli, et semper subjecto, et cum eo reciprocatur.” If he were not in love, he would be far from this injustice, and would see nothing to be condemned in the pleasure they take in being flattered and cajoled, and in their civil and obliging way of answering a compliment. Nay, he is not thus unreasonable when he is deeply in love, and his mistress is a coquet to nobody but himself. Therefore it is jealousy that makes him exclaim and rave, not only against his unfaithful or pretended unfaithful mistress, but against

all women in general, as if coquetry were inseparable from them.

The Athenians affected to give Euripides the title of woman-hater. Suidas and Moschopulus assure us that it was given him on account of his austere and indifferent temper. Some Greek verses quoted by Aulus Gellius observe that “He was extremely grave and serious, and industriously declined the pleasures of gallantry, for which reasons he was named the woman-hater.” He neither laughed, nor cared for the pleasures that are enjoyed with the fair sex. Such was the cause of that epithet. If after this he is seen pointing a hundred common places in his tragedies against women, and taking a pleasure to discover the ill qualities of some of them under general characters, this did but confirm the title to him, and there is no question but his stars having engaged him in an unhappy marriage, that personal and domestic reason fed his ill humour, and furnished him with satirical thoughts. “He is said to have conceived a violent aversion to most of the female sex, either from a natural antipathy to their company, or because he had two wives at the same time (such practices being allowed by a decree of the Athenians) and was thoroughly weary of his consorts.” But otherwise, nothing is more false than to maintain, that having quitted his own country because of the disorderly lives of his two wives, he conceived a general hatred against the whole sex, and endeavoured to expose them all for the faults of some among them. This is confuted without a reply, by shewing that he did not leave his country till a few years before his death, and after the stage of Athens had echoed a hundred and a hundred times with his invectives against the women. Euripides, stung with this ignominious treatment, is said to have withdrawn himself into Macedonia, and from a resentment of the leud practices of his wives, conceived a perpetual hatred of the

whole sex; but by the leave of these would-be critics, let me say what I shall prove; namely, that the origin of this name was owing to another cause. For Euripides was not so much distinguished by the name of woman-hater, for introducing so many vicious women, so many sorceresses, adultresses, murderers of husbands, and incestuous characters of that sex, as for those severe reflexions wherewith he had so frequently lashed the whole female part of the creation. Besides, a great number, if not all of his Tragedies, wherein he treats them with so much severity, were acted before he ever thought of going into Macedonia. It must be remembered that if Euripides has brought some very wicked women upon the stage, he has also brought heroines upon it, making an honourable mention of the fair sex upon many occasions: but this did not efface the character he had obtained, the remembrance of an injury destroying that of a benefit. Let it be remembered also, that Aristophanes, by seeming to defend the fair sex against Euripides, has abused them more than Euripides did. I speak of the comedy wherein Aristophanes supposes the women to bring their action against Euripides. It must be allowed, that in the “Thesmophoriazusæ,” the poet does not seem so much to lash Euripides, against whom the plot of that piece is thought to be laid, as the whole female sex, indulging his peculiar fondness for finding fault, and forwarded therein by the strength of his fancy. For, at the same time that he supposes Euripides was condemned by the ladies for speaking disrespectfully of them in his tragedies, he publishes more enormities of that sex in that single comedy than Euripides had ever mentioned in all his tragedies. Thus, by arraigning Euripides, he acquits him, and by seeming to declare himself an advocate for the women, he blackens their characters the more. But would you see a man, who has said more against the fair sex in three words than ever Euripides had done in fifty tragedies, consider this answer of Sophocles. Being one day asked why the women he brought upon the stage were good and honest women, whereas Euripides introduced none but what were very bad,—he answered, “Euripides represents them as they really are, and I as they ought to be.”

Arts. Eve & Euripides.

WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER.
(Identity of.)

James Le Fevre maintained that the woman that was a sinner, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the sister of Lazarus, are three different women; when he published a book upon this subject, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, the unlearned and the learned, the populace and the doctors, agreed in saying that Mary, the sister to Martha and Lazarus, did not differ from the woman who was a sinner, mentioned in the seventh chapter of St Luke, nor from her out of whom Jesus Christ cast seven devils. The hymns and office of St Mary Magdalen, in the Roman breviary, are agreeable to this opinion. This did not hinder our Le Fevre from combatting it, whose book was reprinted in 1518 and 1519. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester wrote against Le Fevre in defence of the common opinion concerning the unity of those three women, a book which was printed at Paris in 1519. This dispute caused a great deal of heat, both because the least innovations alarmed the Catholics in the beginning of Lutheranism, and because they were but little satisfied of James Le Fevre’s orthodoxy; but when these personal animosities ceased, they began to relish his sentiment, so that at the end of the sixteenth century, . and long after, it was looked upon as consistent with reason and faith. It was allowed to be publicly maintained in the Sorbonne, provided a small distinction was added to it, which really destroyed the whole decree in favour of which it was invented.

They were obliged to say that they did not acknowledge a triple woman, which would have been to affirm what the decree of the faculty had condemned; but three different women, one of whom was named Magdalen. The thing went so far that the most learned men would have been ashamed to have continued in the common opinion, and the correctors of the breviaries of Paris, Orleans, and Vienna, put a distinction between Lazarus’s sister, the sinner, and Mary Magdalen. Things being in this state, some doctors took pity of the doctrine they saw forsaken, and which had been led in triumph by what appeared so false, when James Le Fevre ventured to swim against the stream. Father Alexander, who afterwards published the reformation of the office of Paris, after having weighed the authorities and reasons of both parties, has concluded in favor of the opinion which makes them but one single person. After this, father Lamy, priest of the Oratory, not content with having endeavoured to re-establish this opinion in his new Evangelical Concord, which he wrote in Latin in 1689, has published a particular dissertation upon it in a French treatise, by way of letter, printed in 1691; since which, father Mauduit, also a priest of the Oratory, and Dom Pezron, have each of them written a dissertation in a work they published in French upon the gospel, wherein they defend the common opinion. M. Du Hamel, of the Academy of Sciences, retains the same opinion. I borrow this from a book printed at Roan in 1699, by M. Anquetin, curate of Lyons, under the title of a “Dissertation upon St Mary Magdalen, to prove that Mary Magdalen, Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the woman who was a sinner, are three different women.” Observe, that Erasmus wrote to the bishop of Rochester, that all the world gave the latter the victory; but that there were some people who were sorry he had treated so severely a person who had done so much service to the sciences as James Le Fevre.— Art. Le Fevre.