"such as

inclined to judge hardly of a writer, who frankly opposes those pretensions. "Because" (to use the words of the great author last quoted *) "openly reprove supposed disorders of state, are "taken for principal friends to the common benefite "of all; and for men that carry singular freedome "of mind. Under this fair and plausible colour, "whatsoever they utter passeth for good and currant. "That which wanteth in the waight of their speach, "is supplied by the aptness of mens minds to accept "and believe it. Whereas on the other side, if we "maintaine things that are established, we have to "strive with a number of heavy prejudices, deeply "rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein. "we serve the time, and speak in favour of the "sent state, because thereby wE EITHER HOLD OR $6 SEEK PREFERMENT."

pre

*Hooker's Eccl. Pol. Lib. I. Sect. 1.

No

NOTES TO BOOK III.

P. 243. [A].

O man ever carried human liberty to the ridiculous excess, in which we find it in the writings of J. J. Rousseau, the Celebrated Citizen of Geneva, Yet, with the appearance of the like extravagant caprice in the other extreme, he deprives men of that most precious branch of their liberty, the worshipping of God according to their conscience. "As to Religions once established, or tolerated in a state, I "think it (says he, in a letter to the archbishop of Paris) unjust and barbarous to destroy them by "violence; and that the sovereign hurts himself in maltreating the followers of them. There is a great difference between men's embracing a new religion, "and living and continuing in that in which they were born. The first only are punishable. The " civil power should neither suffer diversities of opi"nion to be new planted, neither should it proscribe "those which have already taken root. For a son "is never in the wrong for following the religion of

his father: and the public peace requires that there "should be no persecution."-Lettre à M. De Beaumont, l'Archeveque de Paris, p. 86. I have given the original in another place.

This one might expect from a man of paradox; but, to find so sage an advocate for liberty as M. de Montesquieu speaking in the same strain, appears at first sight, very unaccountable." See then (says he) the fundamental principle of civil laws with

"regard

"regard to religion. When the civil power is the "master, whether it will receive a new religion into "the state, or whether it will not, It should not re“ceive it. When it hath already gotten footing in "the state, it should be tolerated."—Voici donc le principe fondamental des loix politiques en fait de religion. Quand on est Maître de recevoir dans un état une nouvelle religion, ou de ne pas recevoir, il ne faut pas l'y établir; quand elle y est établie, il faut la tolérer.-De l'Esprit des Loix, 1. 25. c. x.

This decision of these two philosophic legists appears to be as contradictory to their own general principle, as it is absurd and unjust in itself. The only way I know, of accounting for it, is to suppose (and I believe I do small injury to truth in supposing it) that both of them consider RELIGION as a mere ENGINE OF STATE; an useful one indeed, when rightly applied; but very mischievous when not conducted by as able politicians as themselves. Suppose this; and then, as discordant as their decision is to their civil principles of liberty, it is very consonant to their religious principles of an engine of state. if religion be only thus to be considered, any one mode of it will serve the turn: more than one may be too much, and occasion civil disorders: therefore more than one ought not to be admitted. But if several have already taken root, they are to be tolerated and left in peace, for the very same reason: because the attempt to eradicate them might be attended with the same civil mischief which a new introduction of them would produce.

For

But neither of these celebrated writers seemed to consider, that though THEY regarded religion as a mere engine of state, yet that RELIGIONISTS thought otherwise, and esteemed it of divine original; and that con

sequently, it was matter of CONSCIENCE to Believers to worship God according to that mode which they judged most acceptable to him. Now to restrain such in the exercise of what they deem their chief duty, is one of the greatest violations of the NATURAL RIGHTS of mankind: Yet these two ingenious men openly profess, nay boast, that the defence and preservation of THESE RIGHTS was the great and principal end of their learned labours,

P. 251. [B]. The equal conduct of the best and greatest of our monarchs, in his very different stations of Prince of Orange, and King of England, will do great credit to this reasoning. When king James, a papist, demanded of his son-in-law, with whom he was then on good terms, his approbation of a TOLERATION and ABOLITION OF THE TEST: The Statholder readily concurred with the scheme of a toleration, but utterly condemned an abolition of the test. When afterwards, he became king of a free people, the Protestant Dissenters, likewise, in their turn demanded both: His conduct was uniformly the same; He gave them a toleration, but was advised not to give his consent to the abolition of the test.

End of NOTES to Book III,

APPENDIX

TO

THE FIRST EDITION

OF

THE ALLIANCE;

1736*.

HE substance of the preceding Discourse being

THE

no other than a single Chapter of a Treatise which I have now by me, and which, therefore, I had oft occasion to refer to as I went along, I thought it not amiss, for these reasons (not to mention others), to give the Reader some short account of a work that may, I hope, on its appearance, engage his further attention. It is intitled, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated (on the Principles of a Religious Theist), from the Omission of the Doctrine of a Future State in the Jewish Dispensation. For having chalked out a plan for a defence of revealed religion against Deists, Jews, and Mahometans, which we are desirous of raising as a lasting monument to the glory of the Christian name, we were not reduced to that poverty of invention, or ignorance in design, to frame it of old or already-formed materials. Such second-hand labours are only worthy the adversaries of our holy faith; whose cause relying on the strength of half a dozen plausible sophisms, their business is to cook them up in different disguises, just as the palate

* See the Discourse prefixed to this Edition of the Author's Werks, Vol. I. p. 16,

of