PREFACE

TO THЕ

EDITION

T

of MDCCLVIII.

HE fubject of thefe Volumes had occafionally led me to fay many things of the genius and conftitution of PAGAN Religion, in order to illuftrate 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 myfelf, I had done REVELATION good fervice, in fhewing that this evil owed its birth to the abfurdities of Pagan Religion, and to the iniquities of Pagan Politics; for that the perfecutions of the later Jews, and afterwards, of the first Christians, arofe from the reafonable constitution of these two Religions, which, by avoiding idolatry, opposed that univerfal principle of paganifm, INTERCOMMUNITY OF WORSHIP; or, in other words, That the Jews and Chriftians were perfecuted as the enemies of mankind, for not having Gods in common with the reft of the World,

* See Dip. Leg. vol. i, b. ii. fect, 6.

But

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 perfecuted the primitive Church, not as I had represented the matter, for the unfociable genius of its Religion, which forbad all intercourse with idolaters, but for its NOCTURNAL AND CLANFrom whence it follows,

DESTINE ASSEMBLIES.

as will be feen, by and by, that the first Christians were fanatics, libertines, or impoftors; and that the perfecuting Emperors, provident for the public fafety, legally pursued a bigotted or immoral fect for a CRIME OF STATE, and not for matter of opinion.

If it be asked, How a Doctor of Laws, a Minifter of the Gofpel, and a Judge ecclesiastical, would venture to amufe us with fo ftrange a fancy, all I can fay 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 wife 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 fyftem or hypothefis, as we find it in a late quarto volume, called Elements of the Civil Law", is, in fubftance, this,-" That the fame principle, which fet the Roman Senate upon profe

66

By the Rev. Dr. TAYLOR, Chancellor of Lincoln.

“cuting

"cuting the abominable RITES OF BACCHUS, ex"cited the Roman Emperors to perfecute the 66 PRIMITIVE CHURCH."

But it is fit, this marvellous discovery should be revealed in his own words.-It may be asked (lays he) in that almost univerfal licence and toleration, which the ancients, the Romans particularly, extended to the profeffors of all religions whatsoever, why the chriftian profeffion alone, which might have expected a favourable treatment, feems to ftand exempted, and frequently felt the feverity of the bittereft perfecution.

-If the learned Critic be ferious in asking a queftion, which had been answered, and as would feem, to the general fatisfaction, near twenty years ago, I fuppofe it is, to intimate that no other anfwer will content him but one from the Perfecutors themselves. This then he fhall have; tho' it be of fixteen hundred years standing.

PLINY, the younger, when proconful of Bithynia, acquaints his master with the reasons why HE perfecuted; and the fatisfaction he had in fo doing:

"Neque dubitabam, qualecumque effet quod "faterentur, certe PERTINACIAM, ET INFLEXIBI"LEM OBSTINATIONEM debere punirid." What was this froward and inflexible obftinacy? He tells us, it was refusing all intercommunity with paganism; it was refufing to throw a fingle grain of incenfe on their altars.

TACITUS, fpeaking of the perfecution which followed the burning of Rome by Nero (the impiety of which action that mad tyrant had charged upon

* Page 579.

Lib. x. ep. 97.

the

the chriftians) fays, "Haud perinde in crimine "incendii, quam ODIO HUMANI GENERIS Convicti "funt." By which, I understand him to mean, -That tho' the emperor falfely charged them with the burning of Rome, yet the people acquiefced in the perfecution, 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 fuch an unnatural averfion, they thought, could induce men to persevere in rejecting fo universal a principle, as intercommunity of worship.

* Ann. 1. xv. c. 44.

Tacitus, fpeaking of the Jews, obferves that the end of their peculiar Rites was to feparate them from all other people. From their feparation he inferred their averfion. 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: fo that, peculiarity was a circumftance 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 Paganifm; each of which, how diffe rent foever in their Rites, held fellowship with one another. But here a famous French Critic, who writes de omni scibili, comes in fupport of our English Critic's fyftem of the PSEUDOMARTYRS of the primitive Church, and fays, we all mistake Tacitus's latin. His words are thefe," J'oferais dire que ces mots odio humani generis convicti purraient bien fignifier, dans le ftile 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 fay, what not one of

"Westminster's bold race

dare fay, that these words, odio humani generis convicti, may well fignify in the file of Tacitus, convicted of being hated by the hus man race, as well as convicted of hating the human race." And now Tacitus, fo long famed for his political fagacity, will be made to pronounce this galimatias from his oracular Tripod, "The Jews were not convicted fo properly for the CRIME of "Setting fire to Rome, as for the CRIME OF BEING HATED by all "mankind."