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PREFACE

TO THE EDITION

:

OF

THE DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES;

1758.

THE subject of these Volumes had occasionally led me to say many things of the genius and constitution of PAGAN Religion, in order to illustrate the divinity of the JEWISH and the CHRISTIAN: Amongst the rest, I attempted to explain the true origin of that opprobrium of our common nature, PERSECUTION FOR OPINIONS*: And I flattered myself, I had done REVELATION good service, in shewing that this evil owed its birth to the absurdities of Pagan Religion, and to the iniquities of Pagan Politics: for that the persecutions of the later Jews, and afterwards, of the first Christians, arose from the reasonable constitution of these two Religions, which, by avoiding idolatry, opposed that universal principle of paganism, INTERCOMMUNITY OF WORSHIP; or, in other words, That the Jews and Christians were persecuted as the enemies of mankind, for not having Gods in common with the rest of the World.

But a learned Critic and Divine hath lately undertaken to expose my mistake; He hath endeavoured to prove, that the first persecution for opinion was of Christian original; and that the Pagans persecuted the primitive Church, not, as I had represented the matter, for the unsociable genius of its Religion, which forbad all intercourse with idolaters, but for its NOCTURNAL and CLANDESTINE ASSEMBLIES. From whence it follows, as will be seen by and by, that the first Christians were fanatics, libertines, or impostors; and that the persecuting Emperors, provident for the public safety, legally pursued a bigotted or immoral, sect, for a CRIME OF STATE, and not for matter of opinion.

* See Div. Leg. Vol. II. b. ii. sect. 6.

If it be asked, How a Doctor of Laws, a Minister of the Gospel, and a Judge ecclesiastical, would venture to amuse us with so strange a fancy; all I can say for it is, he had the pleasure, in common with many other witty men, of writing against The Divine Legation; and he had the pleasure too, in common with many wise men, of thinking he might indulge himself in any liberties against a writer whom he had the precaution not to name.-But he says, he never read the D. L. I can easily believe him: And will do him this further justice, that, when many have written against it without reading it, he is the first who has had the ingenuity to own it.

His system or hypothesis, as, we find it in a late quarto volume, called Elements of the Civil Law*, is, in substance, this," That the same principle, which

set the Roman Senate upon prosecuting the abomi"nable RITES OF BACCHUS, excited the Roman Emperors to persecute the PRIMITIVE CHURCH."

But it is nt, this marvellous discovery should be revealed in his own words-It may be asked (says he) in that almost universal licence and toleration, which the ancients, the Romans particularly, extended to the professors of all religions whatsoever, why the christian profession alone, which might have expected a favourable treatment, seems to stand exempted, and frequently felt the severity of the bitterest persecution.If the learned Critic be serious in asking a question, which had been answered, and as would seem, to the general satisfaction, near twenty years ago, I suppose it is, to intimate that no other answer will content him but one from the Persecutors themselves. This then he shall have; though it be of sixteen hundred years standing.

PLINY the younger, when proconsul of Bithynia, acquaints his master with the reasons why He persecuted; and the satisfaction he had in so doing:-" Ne

que dubitabam, qualecumque esset quod faterentur, (c certe PERTINACIAM, ET INFLEXIBILEM OBSTINATIONEM debere punirit. What was this froward and inflexible obstinacy? He tells us, it was refusing *By the Rev. Dr. TAYLOR, Chancellor of Lincoln. ↑ Page 579. Lib. x. Ep. 97.

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all intercommunity with paganism; it was refusing to throw a single grain of incense on their altars.

TACITUS, speaking of the persecution which followed the burning of Rome by Nero (the impiety of which action that mad tyrant had charged upon the Christians) says, "Haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam ODIO 66 HUMANI GENERIS convicti sunt*. By which, I understand him to mean,-That though the emperor falsely charged them with the burning of Rome, yet the people acquiesced in the persecution, on account of the enormous crime of which they were convicted, [i. e. judged guilty in the opinion of all men ;] their hatred to the whole race of mankind; for nothing but such an unnatural aversion, they thought, could induce men to persevere in rejecting so universal a principle, as intercommunity of worship.

The good emperor AURELIUS was himself a persecutor. It is not to be doubted, when he speaks in condemnation of the Christian sect, but that he would tell the worst he conceived of them and it must cer

Ann. 1. xv. c. 44.

Tacitus, speaking of the Jews, observes that the end of their peculiar Rites was to separate them from all other people. From their separation he inferred their aversion. In this sense we are to understand him and other Pagan writers, when they exclaim against the Jews for their peculiar Rites. Each Nation had its own: so that, peculiarity was a circumstance common to all. What differenced the Jewish Rites from all others was their end; which was to keep the People from all intercommunity with the several religions of Paganism; each of which, how different soever in their Rites, held fellowship with one another.-But here a famous French Critic, who writes de omni scibili, comes in support of our English Critic's system of the PSEUDO-MARTYRS of the primitive Church, and says, we all mistake Tacitus's Latin. His words are these-" J'oserais dire que ces mots odio humani generis convicti peuvent bien signifier, dans le stile de Tacite, convaincus d'étre hais du genre-humain, autant que convaincus de hair le genre-humain." [Traité sur la Tolerance, 1763, p. 60.] He tells us, He dare say,-what not one of

"Westminster's bold race

dare say, that these words, odio humani generis convicti, may well signify, in the style of Tacitus, convicted of being hated by the human race, as well as convicted of hating the human race." And now Tacitus, so long famed for his political sagacity, will be made to pronounce this galimatias from his oracular Tripod, "The Jews were not "convicted so properly for the CRIME of setting fire to Rome, as for "the CRIME OF BEING HATED by all mankind."

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tainly have been that worst, which made him a Persecutor, so much against the mildness of his nature and the equity of his philosophic manners. Now this sage magistrate, in his book of Meditations, speaking of the wise man's readiness to give up life, expresses himself in this manner," He should be so prepared that his "readiness may be seen to be the issue of a well"weighed judgment, not the effect of MERE OBSTI"NACY, like that of the Christians *." For intercommunity being in the number of first principles, to deny these, could be owing to nothing but to mere obstinacy, or downright stupidity. Here, the mistaken duty of the magistrate, overcame the lenity of the man, and the justice of the philosopher: at other times, his speculations happily got the better of his practice. In his constitution to the community of Asia, recorded by Eusebius, he says," I know the Gods are watchful to "discover such sort of men. And it is much fitter that they themselves should punish those who REFUSE TO WORSHIP THEM, than that we should interfere in

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"their quarrel†. The emperor, at length, speaks out: and what we could only infer from Pliny, from Tacitus, and from the passage in the Meditations, he now declares in so many words; viz. that THE CHRIS

TIANS WERE PERSECUTED FOR REFUSING TO WORSHIP THE GODS OF THE GENTILES.

Lastly, the imperial Sophist, who, of all the idolaters, was most learned in this mystery of iniquity, as having employed all his politics and his pedantry to varnish over the deformities of persecution, frankly owns, that "the Jews and Christians brought the execration of the world upon them, by their AVERSION TO THE GODS OF THE GENTILES."

* Τὸ δὲ ἔτοιμον τῦτο, ἵνα ἀπὸ ἰδικῆς κρίσεως ἔρχεται, μὴ κατὰ ψιλήν παράταξιν, ὡς οἱ χριστιανοί. L. xi. § 3.

Η Ἐγὼ μὲν οἶδ ̓, ὅτι καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς ἐπιμελές ἐσι, μὴ λανθάνειν τὰς τοιάτες· πολὺ γὰρ μᾶλλον ἐκεῖνοι κολάσαιεν ἂν τὰς μὴ βελομένως αὐτὸς προσκυνεῖν . Eccl. Hist. 1. iv. c. 13.

† Αλλὰ τὸ, Οὐ προσκυνήσεις θεοῖς ἑτέροις. ὃ δὴ μέγα τῆς περὶ τὸν θεόν φησι διαβολῆς Θεὸς γὰρ ζηλωτής φησι Αφες τέτον τὸν λῆρον, καὶ μὴ τηλικαύτην ἐφ' ὑμᾶς αὐτὸς ἕλκείς βλασφημίαν. JULIAN apud Cyril cont. Jul. lib. v.

We

We have seen, from the MAGISTRATE's own testimony, what it was for which he persecuted. We shall now see, from the PEOPLE'S demand, that they required the exertion of his power, on no other account. It was usual in their sanguinary shows, when criminals and offending slaves were exposed to the beasts, to call out for and demand execution on the Christians, by the formula of AIPE ΤΟΥΣ ΑΘΕΟΥΣ. This was their early language, when they required Polycarp for the slaughter. The name ATHEIST was only one of their more odious terms, for a rejector of their Gods. And it was but too natural, when they wanted to have their rage and cruelty thus gratified, to use expressions, which, at the same time that the terms were most calumniating, implied the very crime for which the magistrate was wont to persecute.

What says our learned Civilian to this evidence? He allows Antiquity to have proved the Fact, that the pagan emperors did persecute. But for what, is a question (says he) that may still be asked. And the true answer, with your leave, he thinks himself better able to give than the Persecutors themselves. My reader (these are his words) will grant the fact; and I COME NOW TO ACCOUNT FOR IT. The account, we find, had been settled long ago. What of that? It had never passed through his philologic Office; and therefore lay still open till our master-critic was at leisure to examine it.

It is not true (says this redresser of wrongs) that the primitive Christians held their assemblies in the nighttime to avoid the interruptions of the civil power. But the converse of that proposition is true IN THE UTMOST LATITUDE, viz. that they met with molestations from that quarter, because their assemblies were nocturnal*.

He says, it is not true: The Christian Church says, it is. Who shall decide? A bundle of Grammarians; or the college of Apostles? I know his mind: and I guess at my reader's: And of the two, being at present more disposed to gratify the latter, I shall, for once, venture to bring our Civilian before a foreign Judicatory, that is to say, HOLY SCRIPTURE.

✦ Elements of the Civil Law, p. 579.

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