BAYLE’S DICTIONARY

AARON.

The history of Aaron, high-priest of the Jews, and brother of Moses, is so fully related in the Pentateuch, and in the dictionaries of Moreri and Simon, that I may be excused from making an article of it in this place. I shall only observe, that his weakness in complying with the superstitious request of the Israelites, in the matter of the golden calf, has occasioned a great variety of fabulous notions. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, one Monceau or Moncæius published an Apology for Aaron, which was condemned by the inquisition at Rome, as had been foretold to the author by the Jesuit Cornelius à Lapide. In that Apology it is supposed that Aaron designed to represent the very same form which Moses exhibited some time after, namely, a cherub; but that the Hebrews fell down and worshipped it, contrary to his intention. An effectual confutation of this notion was published in the year 1609, by one of the doctors of the Sorbonne, who was a canon of the church of Amiens. Some say, that the powder of the golden calf burnt by Moses, which he mingled with the water that the Israelites drank, stuck in the beards of those who had worshipped

it; by which means their beards appealed gilded, as a special mark distinguishing the idolaters. This fable is inserted in the 32d chapter of Exodus, in a French bible, printed at Paris in the year 1538 by Anthony Bonnemere, who says in his preface, that this bible in the French tongue was first printed, at the desire of his most Christian majesty Charles VIII, in the year 1495, and has since been corrected and reprinted. And in the same preface he informs us, that the French translator had inserted nothing but “ pure truth,” as it is found in the Latin bible; and that nothing was omitted but what was improper to be translated. So that all which relates to the gilded beards is to be received as undoubted fact, as well as another story of the same kind, which is also inserted in this very chapter; namely, that the Children of Israel spat so violently in the face of Hur, who had refused to make gods for them, that they suffocated him. It has also been asserted that this criminal compliance on the part of Aaron was owing to his apprehension of being stoned to death. He hoped, it is said, Somewhat waggishly, it might be presumed, if the manner in which the fathers, and their successors, the doctors of the middle ages, frequently defend or palliate the conduct of scriptural characters, when opposed to the moral sense of mankind, was not often quite a* ridiculous. See, in articleAbraham, a defence of his dissimulation to Abimelech and Pharaoh, by St Chrysostom.—Ed. ² to elude the desires of the people by proposing to the women that they should contribute their earrings on the occasion, on the supposition that they would rather choose to renounce the presence of a visible deity than divest themselves of their personal ornaments. He found himself however mistaken, and that nothing is deemed too costly when the human mind is intoxicated with superstition and idolatry.—Art.Aaron.

ABEL.

The first murder originated in the first religious dispute,

The Targum of Jerusalem relates, that Cain and Abel being in the field, the former asserted that there was no judgment, nor judge, nor life eternal, nor rewards for the good, nor punishment for the wicked; and that the world was neither created, nor governed by the goodness of God; “ for,” says he to his brother, “ my oblation was not received, but yours was.” Abel answered him in his own words, substituting only the affirmative for the negative; and, as to his principal complaint, his answer was, that his works being better than those of Cain, were the occasion of the preference given to his offering. The dispute growing warm, Cain fell upon Abel, and slew him. This was the impious beginning of disputes in religion, and a fatal presage of the terrible confusions they were to cause in the world. It affords us likewise an instance of the foolish vanity of man, who is never so much led to doubt of a Providence as when things do not succeed according to his wishes. Give him but prosperity—his doubts vanish. The reason is, that he thinks he holds too considerable a rank in the universe to be overlooked by an equitable and judicious dispenser of good and evil. “ I acknowledge ye, O ye Gods !” cried Statius, when Rutilius Gallicus, a man of distinguished honesty, had recovered from a dangerous disease. On the contrary, if any thing fell out which they did not like, the ancients either denied the being of the gods,or charged them with cruelty and injustice. Hence Ovid, upon the death of Tibullus,—

“ Cum rapiant mala fata bonos, ignoscite fasso, Solliciter nullos esse putare Deos.”

“ When, snatched by cruel fate, the good and just Perish, and sink untimely to the dust, (May 1 the bold confession be forgiven !) I almost think there are no gods in heaven.”

This is the language of one of the best orators of the sixteenth century Muretus. ³.—Art,Abel.

ABELARD. The history and amours of Abelard and Heloisa are so well known, that the details of Bayle in that respect would possess little novelty. This article therefore only supplies a few of his remarks or explanations which have been deemed incidentally illustrative or amusing. ⁴

The explication of the Trinity,

The occasion which induced Abelard to write upon this subject was, that his scholars demanded from him a philosophical account of it. “ They were not satisfied with words—they desiredideas—and declared loudly, that it was impossible for them to believe what they did not understand, and that it was an imposition upon mankind, to preach up a doctrine equally incomprehensible to the teachers and the hearers; which was as if the blind should lead the blind, according to our Saviour himself Abelard's Works, page 20. Bernard's Epist. p 190 ⁵." Upon which he set himself to explain to them the Unity of God, by comparisons drawn from human things. Pasquier accuses him of maintaining, that we ought not to believe a thing, of which we can give no reason; “ which,” adds he, “ is in plain terms, to destroy the general foundation of our faith.” I do not ask this author, who told him that a professor approves all the conceits of his scholars, when he is so complaisant as to prevent, to the utmost of his power, the ill consequences of them. It is indeed probable that Abelard did not

disapprove of the maxims which he ascribes to his hearers; but the passage quoted by Pasquier is no proof of this; we ought rather to found it upon these words of St Bernard: “ Quid magis contra fidem, quam credere nolle quidquid non possis ratione attingere? Denique exponere volens (Abæ-lardus) illud sapientis,Qui credit cito levis est corde, cito credere est, inquit, adhibere fidem ante rationem.”----“ Can any thing be more contrary to faith, than to refuse assent to every thing which reason cannot reach? Abelard having to explain the saying of the wise man, He who believes hastily is light of heart,—to believe hastily, says he, is to give assent before reason.” The treatise which Abelard wrote upon this subject was universally approved, except by those of the same profession with himself, I mean the divinity professors. They were so chagrined that another had explained and illustrated what they could not, that they cried out he was an heretic, and alarmed the people so much, that Abelard narrowly escaped being stoned.— “ My two forementioned rivals so blackened me, both to the clergy and laity, that upon the first day of my arrival, with a few of my scholars, the people were near stoning us; crying out, as it has been insinuated to them, that I both preached and writ, that there were three Gods Abelard’s Works, p. 10. ⁶.” Their cabals were so powerful, as to extort from the pope’s legate a condemnation. They made it believed, that Abelard admitted of three gods: nevertheless it is certain that he was very orthodox in the mystery of the Trinity, and that all the accusations brought against him in this affair were wretched chicanery, and proceeded either from malice or ignorance. The comparison he drew from logic—for logic was his strong hold—tended rather to reduce the divine persons to one, than to multiply the essence of God into three; and yet he was accused, not of Sabellianism, but of Tritheism. His comparison is, that as the three propositions of a syllogism are but one truth, so the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are but one essence. “ Sicut eadem oratio est propositio, assumptio, et conclusio; ita eadem essentia est Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.” The inconveniences arising from this analogy are not equal to, at least do not exceed, those which flow from a comparison of the Trinity with the three dimensions of matter. Therefore, as no one disputes the orthodoxy of Mr Wallis, the Oxonian mathematician, who laid great stress on the analogy of the three dimensions, neither ought we to doubt of Abelard’s, on account of his comparison of the syllogism. By the way, neither the syllogism, nor the three dimensions, account for the mystery of the Trinity, although a certain Protestant divine made use of the parallel of the three dimensions in the year 1685. See Examen of Mr Jurieu’s Theology, by Mr Saurin, page 831.

Artifice employed against Abelard by the Monks.Abelard, on the condemnation of his book on the Trinity, was commanded to return to the convent of St Denis, where the liberty he had taken of censuring the corrupt manners of the monks had exposed him to the hatred of them all. Happening to say that he did not believe their St Denis to be Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in scripture, the observation was immediately carried to the abbot, who was greatly pleased at the opportunity to accuse him, not only of false doctrine, but of offence to the state. This artifice has been so often made use of since the Jews employed it against Christ, that it is strange any one should venture at present to put it in practice. Ought it not to be expected,

that so worn out a contrivance as this should be incapable of success? No: the world is too unteachable, to profit by the follies of past ages. Every age behaves as if it were the first; as the spirit of persecution and revenge has hitherto endeavoured to engage princes in its private quarrels, it will endeavour to do the same to the end of the world: and we may apply to this purpose the saying of Solomon—“ The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun Eccles, i. 9. ⁷.” Our posterity may say, as well as we,—

Qui méprise Cotin, n’estime point son Roi,
Et n’a, selon Cotin, ni Dieu, ni Foi, ni Loi.
Who slights Cotin, affronts his master too,
No pardon to such insolence is due:
All crimes into that one Cotin can draw; “The wretch,” says he, “regards nor God nor law It will be seen by the accompanying Summary of the life of Bayle, how feelingly he must have made this observation, the truth of which is as obvious as even—Ed. ⁸.”

Policy of Abelard to get released from the Abbey of St Denis.

Abelard, not being able to obtain from the abbot of St Denis permission to retire, had recourse to the engines of policy. He knew, that the more the monks of St Denis plunged themselves into irregularity, the more authority the court exercised over this abbey, and the greater profit they drew from it. He therefore gave the king to understand, that it was not for his majesty’s interest that a religious as he was, who was perpetually censuring the bad lives of these monks, should continue long among them. The meaning of this was understood at half a word; and orders were given to one of

the chiefs of the court, to inquire of the abbot and of his confidants, for what reason they would retain a monk by force, whose life did not agree with theirs, and who for that reason was not serviceable to them, and might easily procure them some disgrace. The conclusion was, that Abelard retired. Let us however quote his own words: “ By the intervention of friends, this matter was represented to the king and his council, by which means I obtained my desire. For Stephen, the king’s cupbearer, demanded of the abbot and his brethren, why they detained me against my will, since my manner of life was so different from theirs, that it might reflect disgrace upon them, and could not prove to their advantage. I knew very well, that the king’s council were of my opinion, that the more irregular the abbey was, the more subject would it be to the king in regard to temporal profit. I imagined therefore, that the king and his council would readily consent to my petition; which fell out accordingly.” A few pages after, he says that a certain Breton lord had taken occasion, from the vicious lives of the monks of Ruis, to seize on their possessions. To take from men who by the sanctity of their lives have acquired the veneration of the people, what the charity of the faithful has given them, is no easy attempt; but there is no great danger in robbing those who are a scandal to the public But some difficulty; for whatever the palpable nature of the frauds by which much of the property in question has been obtained, or however misused, in violation of the intention of those who have bestowed it, the least symptom of nationally dealing with it uniformly produces an uproar. On these occasions, even Protestant divines and Anti-Catholics can feel for monks and Jesuits. Property of this kind should be transferred to thetrue church, not be restored to the people.—Ed. ⁹.

Further Treatment of Abelard by the Monks.

Abelard at length obtained leave to live monastically where he pleased; on which he chose his retirement in the diocese of Troyes, and there built an oratory which he named the Paraclete. A great number of scholars followed him thither; which again awakened the envy that had so often pursued him. But in this encounter he fell into the most dangerous hands in the world; I mean, he was exposed to the attacks of two pretended restorers of ancient discipline, and grand zealots, St Norbert and St Bernard; who, like new apostles, had insinuated themselves into the favour of the people. They spread so many falsehoods concerning him, that they corrupted the principles of his friends, and obliged even those who continued to love him to conceal it from him. They so imbittered his life, that he was upon the point of abandoning Christendom; but his fate permitted him not to procure to himself this repose, and engaged him afresh with Christians and monks, worse than Turks. The monks of the abbey of Ruis, in the diocese of Vannes, chose him for their superior. He hoped he had met with an asylum in this place; but he found that he had only varied his misery. The incorrigible behaviour of the monks, and the oppression of a certain lord who robbed them of the best part of their revenues, insomuch that they were obliged to maintain their concubines and children out of their private incomes, exposed him to a thousand disquiets, and even to great dangers. The monks frequently endeavoured to poison him; and, not being able to accomplish their design in his ordinary food, by reason of the precautions he took, they sought to poison him in the bread and wine of the sacrament. One day, not having eaten

of a particular dish which was prepared for him, he saw his companion, who had tasted it, drop down dead. The excommunications which he thundered against the most mutinous among the religious, did not remedy the disorder. At length, he was more in fear of assassination than of poison, and compared himself to him whom the tyrant of Syracuse placed at his table under a sword which hung only by one thread. It must be admitted, that the misfortune of Abelard, and the cause of it» made certain censures proceed from his mouth with a very bad grace. His remonstrance and his excommunications might be regarded as the mere virtues of impotence; and it was very natural for them to exclaim—“ Our abbot only blames us because he cannot resemble us, and excommunicates us because he is deprived of the power from which we derive such infinite satisfaction.”

Representation of Foulques, Prior of Devil, to Abelard, of the rapacity of the Court of Rome in the 12th Century .

Foulques speaks so much to the disadvantage or the court of Rome, that if he has not been placed in the catalogue of the witnesses of truth, it is not his fault. He says that the avarice of the Romans is insatiable, and that if Peter Abelard visits the pope without good store of money, his journey will turn to no account. Let us hear his own words:— “Have you never heard of the avarice and corruption of the chiefs at Rome? Who ever could glut a courtesan’s all-craving appetite with his substance? Or who from his purse could fill the bags of Rome’s restless desires? —Your stock of wealth, which cannot be great, and may be nothing, is far from being sufficient to defray the expenses of a visit to the Roman pontiff. Wherewith will you answer the cravings of the papal court? If money should fail

when you come to your journey's end, every body knows what success you will meet with. Whoever in our times has undertaken such an expedition before he has laid in an immense store, has had the mortification to see himself baffled, and his suit rejected.” This mischief continues to this very day, if we may believe Mr Hallier, in his letter from Rome to father Dinet the Jesuit, dated the 16th of June, 1653. Mr Hallier was one of the deputies that solicited the condemnation of Jansenism. “It would be very just,” says he, “that they should have a greater regard for us, after the extraordinary charge we have been at on this occasion. You cannot imagine how much money goes away in presents and bribes. Every little saint must have his fee. The Jansenists have spent here above a hundred thousand livres, perhaps above a hundred and fifty thousand. So much for the mainspring of infallible decision.—Ed. ¹⁰ ”

The partial Socinianism of Abelard.

Abelard taught plainly, that Jesus Christ did not die to redeem us from the tyranny of the devil; but that the love which God showed to mankind by the incarnation of his Son, should incline us to love him reciprocally, and to follow the instructions and the example of an incarnate God. This doctrine is half Socinian, and, according to St Bernard, whoever maintains it deserves less to be confuted than to be cudgelled. “ An non justius os loquens talia fustibus tunderetur, quam rationibus refelleretur?” Here also is another offensive doctrine; namely, that things which never were, nor ever shall be, are not possible. This was without doubt Abelard's opinion; and I do not see that they who say that God is determined by his infinite wisdom to do what is most worthy of himself, can

consistently with themselves deny the doctrine. The Protestants are more inclined to condemn Abelard than many Catholics. Hornbeck, at the beginning of his “ Apparatus ad controversias et dis-putationes Socinianas,” notices Abelard’s heresies. Perizonius, in his “ Specimen Apolegeticum anti-Gualterianum,” gives likewise an ample description of Abelard and of his opinions, and shows at large— “ Pontificios, et nominatim Jesuitas, in multis cum Abailardo convenire:—That the Roman Catholics, and particularly the Jesuits, agree in many things with Abelard.” He draws a parallel between them, and shows in another place, “ Quàm pulchrè Socinianis præluxerit, minimi obscurum est:—That it is well known how he prepared the way to Socinianism.” Beckmannus, in his “ Theological Exercitations,” Exercit. 2, says that Socinus borrowed this error (that Christ did not die for our sins) from the ancients; since in the year 1140 Peter Abelard taught the same in France.

Miracles at the Tomb of Abelard.

Abelard died on the 21st April 1142, at the age of sixty-three. His body was sent to Heloise, who caused it to be interred in the Paraclete. A manuscript of Tours relates, that when the corpse of Heloise was placed in the same tomb, Abelard opened his arms and closely embraced her. At that time he had been dead more than twenty years, in the way of objection a mere trifle, as the following and other examples of similar wonders evince: —Gregory of Tours relates a story of two married persons, who nevertheless respectively maintained their virginity, and were called by the inhabitants of the country “ the Two Lovers.” The wife died first; and the husband, when burying her, thus exclaimed:—“ I thank thee, my Lord and my God, that I have returned thee this treasure in the

same parity thou wert pleased to commit it to me.” On which the dead woman arose, smiling upon her bier, and said to him, “ Why inform people of that about which they do not inquire?” The husband died soon after, and was buried over-against his spouse; but on the morrow their bodies were found both in the same grave. That blunt interrogatory of the deceased female might give occasion to some of the profane to think, that the virgin wife was not willing the world should know her husband had been so very cold. She confined herself to the merit of her continence, without wishing to be exposed to opinions that might be prejudicial to her charms. Ten chapters after, the same chronicler relates that a senator of Dijon, called Hilary, having been buried a whole year, lifted up his hand to embrace his wife’s neck, when she was laid in the same tomb.—Arts.Abelard, Berenger, Foulques,andHeloisa.

ABELIANS, OR ABELONIANS.

This sect of heretics rose in Champagne, near Hippon, and had been some time extinct in St. Augustin’s days. They professed very strange principles, and such as were not likely to continue long. They ordained that each man should be in possession of his particular woman; they thought it improper, and would not allow, that a man should continue single; it was necessary, according to the statutes of the order, that he should have a helpmate like unto himself: but it was not permitted him to lean upon this prop, that is, to be corporeally united to his wife: she was to him the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which was forbidden him under severe penalties. These people were for regulating matrimony upon the footing of the terrestrial paradise, in which Adam and Eve were united only in their affections; or rather they

followed the example of Abel: for they pretended that Abel was married, but that he died without ever having any knowledge of his wife; and from him the sect borrowed its name. When a man and a woman entered into this society, they adopted two children, a boy and a girl, who succeeded to their goods, and who married together upon the same condition of not getting children, but of adopting two others of different sexes. They easily met with poor people in the neighbourhood to furnish them with children. This account is given us by St Augustin; and as he is almost the only author who mentions them, we must imagine that this sect was known but in a few places, and had but a short continuance. It is believed, that it began in the reign of Arcadius, and ended in that of Theodosius the younger. All those who composed it, being at last reduced to one single village, reunited themselves to the Catholic church.

Such a state of continency between a man and his wife, who had every thing else in common, and whose union was esteemed a true marriage, was too great a violence offered to nature, to be of long continuance. “ Nullum violentum durabile:—Nothing violent is lasting.” The Abelians were only a moderate sort of Encratites and Novatians, who absolutely condemned matrimony, while the Abelians approved of and retained it. It is true, it was barely the name: they preserved its appearance, but denied its power. “ Hi nomen quidem conju-gii et nuptiarum retinuerunt, vim autem et effec-tum earum prorsus sustulerunt.” Had they looked upon marriage to be a sacrament, their opinion in this point would have been like that of the Zuinglians concerning the Eucharist; they would have admitted the figure, but not the reality: and this must have contributed towards extinguishing the sect. You will find in Furetiere’s dictionary, that

Boire, et manger, coucher ensemble,
C’est mariage, ce me semble.

This is the natural idea of that state: and in this description, the last character passes for the principal and the specific distinction. It is that which ties the knot, and renders it indissoluble. It is the end, the mark, and the crown of the work. It is thene plus ultra. It is therefore very improbable, that such numbers of people, even after the notion became common, should choose to submit both to the name and the restraint of matrimony, and to renounce the most shining honours of celibacy, without tasting of the fruits and the joys of marriage. To adopt a child, among them, supplied the intention of getting one; and therefore we cannot apply to the Abelians the remark of Florus on the first inhabitants of Rome: “ Res erat unius ætatis, populus virorum:—It was an establishment calculated to continue but for one race, as consisting entirely of men for, if other causes had not concurred, this sect might have continued to the end of the world. “ Per sæculorum millia (incredibile dictu !) gens æterna est, in qua nemo nascitur:—They are a race of people, which (incredible to relate !) is never extinct, though no one is born among them,” says Pliny of the Essenians; and the observation is every day applied to the monks The observations of Bayle have been fully borne out by the fate of an attempt to form a society upon similiar principles in the United States, which has necessarily failed.—Ed. ¹¹.—Ari.Abelians.

ABRAHAM AND SARAH

Abraham, the father and source of the faithful, was the son of Terah. He descended from Noah by Shem, from whom he was nine generations distant.

The opinion that supposes him born in the 130th year of Terah, seems to me more likely than that which places his birth in the 70th year of the same Terah. It is very likely that he was born in the city of Ur in Chaldea, whence the Holy Scripture informs us that his father went to the land of Canaan. Abraham went out with his father, and stayed with him at Haran until his death. He afterwards followed his first design, which was the journey into Palestine. The Scripture shows the divers stations he made in the land of Canaan; his journey to Egypt, where they took his wife from him, who was also his sister by his father; his other journey to Gerar, where she was likewise taken from him, and afterwards restored again as at the first time; the victory he obtained against the four kings that had plundered Sodom; his complaisance to his wife, who was willing he should have children by their maid-servant Hagar; the covenant that God made with him, sealed with the sign of circumcision; his obedience to the order he had received from God to offer up his only son; the manner how that act was hindered; his marriage with Keturah; his death at 175 years of age; and his being buried near his first wife Sarah in the cave of Machpelah. It would be useless to enlarge on these things; the Protestants know them at their fingers’ end; they learn them at the fountainhead from their youth; and as for the Roman Catholics, they have no need of a new dictionary to instruct them; those of Mr Simon and Mr Moreri do it sufficiently. It is more proper for such a compilation as mine to mention the falsities and the uncertain traditions that concern Abraham; but their great number would be able to discourage the most indefatigable writers. For what has not been supposed concerning the motives of his conversion? What exploits have not been ascribed to him against idolatry, both in Chaldea and the city of Haran? How many sciences and how many books have been attributed to him? The Jews ascribed to him the privilege of having been born circumcised, and of possessing the same soul with Adam. They believe that David had the same soul, and that it shall be the soul of the Messiah, as Bartolocci remarks in his Bibliotheca Rabbinica. The Mohammedans have also invented several idle stories about that patriarch, as may be seen in the Koran, and in one of their chief authors called Kissœus. They make him take a journey to Mecca, and pretend that he began to build the temple there. See Mr D’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale, in which a thousand curious particulars are to be found. If we had the book that Hecatæus composed on Abraham, we should perhaps see many things in it that have not been heard of. The Christians would not be the only persons guiltless of stories concerning Abraham; for they made him plant trees of a very singular virtue, the wood of one of which formed the cross on which Christ suffered.

Idolatry of Abraham.

It is a common opinion, that Abraham sucked in the poison of idolatry with his milk; and that his father Terah made statues, and taught that they must be worshipped as Gods. Some Jews have asserted, that Abraham exercised Terah’s trade himself for a considerable time, that is to say, that he made idols and sold them. Others say, that the impiety which reigned in those countries being the worship of the sun and the stars, Abraham lived a long time in that idolatry, from which he converted himself by the reflections he made on the nature of the planets. He admired their motions, their beauty and order; but he observed also

imperfections in them; and from all this he concluded, that there was a Being superior to the whole frame of the world, an author and a director of the universe. It is certain that Josephus, without owning that the patriarch was for some time infected with idolatry, maintains that, by his wisdom and by the consideration of the universe, he ascertained the unity and the providence of God; and that he was the first that durst oppose the popular error concerning it. He found an opposition strong enough to make him resolve to forsake his country; which was perhaps the first time that any body exposed himself to banishment from religious zeal. If so, Abraham would be, in relation to that kind of punishment, under the law of nature, what St Stephen was, in regard of capital punishment, under the law of grace. He would be the Patriarch of the Refugees, as well as the Father of the Faithful. I do not see how it can be denied that his father was an idolater, seeing that the Holy Scripture assures us of it, calling him by his name; but all that can thence be inferred is, that Abraham before the age of discretion was of his father’s religion.

His Timidity and Dissimulation.

We ought not to forget that Sarah his wife was very beautiful, and that the complaisance she had for her husband, not to call herself his wife but his sister, exposed her to two rapes which resemble one another like two drops of water. In both of them Abraham concealed his being Sarah’s husband, and bid her say he was her brother; and he did it because he was afraid they would kill him, if they knew he was her husband, and to the end that they might be kind to him for her sake, if they believed that she was not his wife. In both of them the ravishers were punished from above, before they could

satisfy their lust: they restored Sarah, giving large presents to her husband, and reproaching him with his lies. The first rape happened in Egypt by king Pharaoh; the second in Gerar by Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Sarah was at least sixty-five years old when Pharaoh took her away, and ninety when she was taken by Abimelech; for she was ten years younger than her husband; and their voyage into Egypt was after their going out of Haran, that is to say, after the seventy-fifth year of Abraham. As for the journey to Gerar, it was after the foretelling of the birth of Isaac, that is to say, when Abraham was 100 years old. Say what you will, this history is [a proof that Abraham feared death more than any conjugal dishonour, and that he was far from being a jealous husband. He leaves to the paternal care of Providence the honour and chastity of Sarah, but he is beforehand for the preservation of his life, and neglects no human means. Not to acknowledge therein the infirmity of corrupt nature, is to be voluntarily blind. That patriarch might have said on this occasion, “ Homo sum, humani nihil à me alienum puto: --- I am a man, and therefore think myself liable to any thing which may happen to men.” Those who believe that the fear of danger made him reason ill, are mistaken; “ There is no fear of God in this country,” said he; “ and they will kill me because of my wife.” He believed therefore, that those who would make no scruple to kill a man, would make some to take away a married woman. Yes—he believed it, and not without reason. The good of society, without doubt, more than the love of virtue, caused the rape of a married woman to be regarded as an enormous injustice, the ill-consequences of which sovereigns themselves dreaded; but it was not deemed extraordinary, if a great lord took away a woman that was not married, in order to increase the number of his concubines. Therefore Abraham, reasoning solidly, inferred that the laws of society would hinder the Egyptians and the Philistines from taking away his wife, and at the same time suffering him to live, because he would be a perpetual witness of the violence done to a married woman. The reasonable conclusion of this was, to be afraid lest they should privately dispatch him, that they might keep Sarah, and yet not be reproached with taking away a married woman: for the public would have had no knowledge of the husband, if he had been quickly dispatched. This fear is not the worst passage of this history. Who does not know the underhand dealings of David, in order to destroy the husband of his mistress?

The desire of being well treated, as being the brother of the beautiful Sarah, is more blamable than the fear of being killed. However, we ought to abhor the brutality of Faustus the Manichæan, and content ourselves with what St Jerome says of the matter. St Chrysostom and St Ambrose have found here matter for a panegyric on the charity of Sarah, who was willing, in favour of her husband, to expose her chastity to the greatest dangers. Origen was of another opinion; he found such a scandal in the literal sense, that he had recourse to types and allegories.“Otherwise what edification shall we have in reading that so great a patriarch as Abraham not only told a lie to the king, but also betrayed the chastity of his wife? Or how shall the wife of so great a patriarch edify us, if we suppose that she was prostituted by the connivance of her husband? Let the Jews imagine these things, and such who are friends to the letter and not to the spirit.” Others have recourse to inspiration, and pretend that Abraham was directed by a prophetical spirit ! a mode of argument which would be endless. This remedy ought to be better

managed, and never to be used but like extreme unction. Some apply it to Sarah, and her desire that her husband should lie with her servant maid. As for those who, to excuse Abraham, say that his life was so necessary for the accomplishment of the divine promises, that he was obliged to preserve it at any rate, even at the expense of his wife’s honour, they confute themselves. They allege for his justification, what is against him; for if his life was necessary for the fulfilling of the divine decrees, he might have been assured that nobody could kill him. The loose casuists and protectors of equivocations take advantage of this conduct of the patriarch; nor is it easy to clear the conduct of Abraham and Sarah in this matter, any more than in the affair of Hagar.

Defence of the above conduct of Abraham and Sarah by St Chrysostom.

St Chrysostom, in adverting to the virtues of Abraham, observed to his auditors, that nothing vexes a husband more than to see his wife suspected to have been in the power of another; and yet this just person here made use of all his efforts to cause the act of adultery to be accomplished. It might be expected after this, that the preacher would censure the patriarch; but on the contrary he praises his courage and his prudence very much; his courage, which conquered the motions of jealousy so far as to permit him to advise such things; and his prudence, which dictated such a sure expedient to draw him out of the troubles and dangers that surrounded him. St Chrysostom did not forget to ’ give a lively representation of the terrible force of jealousy, to make his hearers apprehend the great courage which had surmounted that passion; but on the other side he heightens Abraham’s prudence by saying, that seeing Sarah was too

fair to be able to escape the incontinency of the Egyptians, by saying either that she was his wife or his sister, he would have her to say that she was his sister, because he hoped to save his life by that means.“Behold,”cried St Chrysostom, “with what prudence that just person imagined a good mean to frustrate all the ambuscades of the Egyptians.” Afterwards he excused him for haring consented to his wife’s adultery, because death, which had not yet been stripped of its tyranny, inspired much fear in those times. After this eulogy of the husband, he passes to the praises of the wife, and says that she gladly accepted the proposition, and that she did all she ought to act that comedy well. Whereupon be exhorts wives to imitate her, saying, “ Who would not admire that great easiness to obey? Who can ever praise Sarah sufficiently, for being willing, after such a continency, and at her age, to expose herself to adultery, and give her body to barbarians to save her husband’s life?” I do not think that a preacher durst manage so nice a matter in Chrysostom’s manner in the present day: he would give profane persons too much ground to jest; and I question much if the inhabitants of Antioch, who were naturally slanderers, could have heard such a sermon without taking the liberty to fall into malicious reflections. St Ambrose gave no less eulogies to Sarah’s charity; and St Augustin was almost in a like illusion. It is a strange thing that these great lights of the church, with all their virtue and all their zeal, were ignorant that we are not permitted to save our own lives, nor those of others, by crime.

THE ONE OR TWO ABIMELECHS.

It is not impossible that the Abimelech who showed so much kindness to Isaac, was the same who took away Sarah. I do not build upon the long life

which we must allow to Abimelech, if he were alive at the time when Isaac came to Gerar. This journey was later than the purchase which Jacob made of the right of eldership: we may suppose, therefore, that Isaac was then eighty years old; for he was sixty when Esau and Jacob were born; and Esau was already a great hunter when he sold his birthright. On the other side, Abimelech, who took away Sarah, was a king, and married, before Isaac was born: he must then at least have been a good hundred years old when Isaac journeyed to Gerar. But is this much? Did not men at that time live to above an hundred and fifty years? One would scarce believe one’s own eyes, that learned men should be capable of objecting these words of the Preacher,—“ Omnis potentates vita brevis:” as if, supposing the canonical authority of this book, it was contrary to Revelation, that a man’s reign should continue a hundred years. What induces me to believe that Abimelech who took away Sarah was not the same who entered into alliance with Isaac, is this:—the latter Abimelech readily believed, upon Isaac’s word, that Rebecca was but his sister; and when he was undeceived, not by the words but by the actions of Isaac, he reproved him mildly for his deceit, without saying to him,—“ You follow your father’s example; Abraham heretofore played me the same trick.” Now is it probable, if he had been already imposed upon by Abraham, that he would have again fallen into the same snare? or if he had, that he would not have passed a severe rebuke upon Isaac, on account both of his father’s and his own hypocrisy? He would hardly have forgotten Abraham’s, which drew such misfortunes upon him. St Chrysostom thought this so likely, that he boldly declared from the pulpit, that Abimelech actually did reproach Isaac with Abraham’s dissimulation; but all this has no better

foundation than rhetorical license. That Isaac’s Abimelech might not be a young man, though he was not the same who took away Sarah, I frankly own. I believe he was a good old man, because he formed no design upon the beautiful Rebecca, though he did not believe her to be married; and because he did not tell Isaac that she had been in danger 'from him, but from his subjects. As these people were so depraved, that every beautiful stranger, who was not thought to be married, was in great danger, I can see no reason more probable for Abimelech’s continency towards Rebecca, than his old age. “ There is a time,” say youthful libertines, “ when one is too wise.” The Philistines must have been furious folks in love matters, since Abimelech their king is surprised that no one had attempted Rebecca, who passed only for Isaac’s sister. We learn from hence, at the same time, their great regard for marriage. As for unmarried women, it seems in this country to have been thought they were the first comer’s right. Witness Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, who was decoyed by them as she was taking a walk. She was first violated, and then demanded in marriage.—ArticlesAbraham,' Sarah,andAbimelech.

ABRIDGMENTS.

Of all the labours of the pen, that of abridging well is possibly the most difficult. It requires more than a common discernment to judge of the circumstances the suppression of which makes an abridgment obscure or otherwise. Justin abridged with little judgment; and I am certain that Trogus Pom-peius would have exclaimed a thousand times against him, had he known in what a sad condition his works have been placed by his labours. Justin, and such as resemble him, never consider that abridgments should resemble pigmies, who have all the parts of

a perfect human body, although each of them in miniature. Contract the parts of a narrative in an abridgment, but do not omit any.—Art.AchillesandArsinoe.

ABSOLUTION.

The book of the taxes of the Roman chancery was printed at Paris in the year 1620. It is not the first edition, as some have imagined; the edition of Bois-le-duc, 1664, shows that this book was printed at Rome in the year 1514, and at Cologne in 1515; and was entitled “ Regulæ, Constitutiones, Reservationes, Cancellari S. Domini nostri Leonis Papæ decimi, noviter editæ et publicatæ.” In folio 67 it has these words: “ Taxæ Cancellariæ, per Marcellum Silber, alias Franck, Romæ, in Campo Florae, anno mdxiv, die ⅩⅤⅢ Novembris impresse, finiunt feliciter:—The Chancery Taxes, printed by Marcellus Silber, alias Franck, at Rome, in the Campus Florae, the 1Sth of November, 1514, is happily completed.” This is attested by two of the echevins of Bois-le-duc, together with the town-clerk, who had collated this edition of Rome, word for word, with that published by Stephen du Mont, bôokseller at Bois-le-duc, in the year 1664.

The edition of Bois-le-duc is entitled, “ Taxæ Cancellariæ Apostolicæ, et Taxæ Sacræ Pœnitentiariæ Apostolicæ.” In pages 95 and 96 we find the passage quoted by d’Aubigné from the Paris edition in 1530: “Absolutio pro eo qui matrem, sororem, aut aliam consanguineam vel affinem suam, aut commatrem, carnaliter cognovit, gr. v. Absolutio pro eo qui virginem defloravit, gr. vi.— The absolution of him who has lain with his mother, sister, or other relation, either in consanguinity or affinity, is taxed at gr. v. The absolution of him who has deflowered a virgin, gr. vi.” Let nobody however mistake the matter: the tax

set down in that book is not all that must be paid. The sinner must besides treat with a datary, and compound with him according to his ability. Du Pinet published an edition of this famous book in 1564, under the title of “ The Tax of the casual forfeitures of the Pope’s Shop.” It is Latin and French, and largely annotated. He was greatly to blame in not mentioning on what authentic copies he formed his edition; for it differs from the others both in the order of matters and in the denomination of monies. This mentions only tournois, ducats, and carlins; the others only gros—at least the ducat and carlin are very rarely mentioned. D’Aubigné affirms that the Paris edition says, “ The murder of a father or mother is rated at one ducat and five carlins but in the edition of Franeker, and in that of Bois-le-duc, it is “ Absolutio pro eo qui interfecit patrem, matrem, sororem, uxorem, g. v. vel vii.—The absolution of him who has murdered his father, mother, sister, wife,—at gr. v. or vii.” I am suprised, that the article of incest should be missing in the edition of Du Pinet, in which we find more enormous articles: as for instance,—“ The absolution and pardon of all acts of fornication committed by a cleric, in what manner soever, whether it be with a nun, within or without the limits of the nunnery, or with his relations in consanguinity or affinity, or with his god-daughter, or with any other woman whatsoever; and whether also the said absolution be given in the name only of the cleric himself, or of him jointly with his paramours, with a dispensation to enable him to take and hold his orders and ecclesiastical benefices, and with a clause also of inhibition,—costs thirty-six tournois and nine ducats. And if, besides the above, he receives absolution from crimes against nature, with the dispensation and clause of inhibition as before, he must pay ninety tournois, twelve ducats, and six carlins. But if he only receive absolution for the same crimes, with the dispensation and clause of inhibition, he pays only thirty-six tournois and nine ducats. A nun, having committed fornication several times within and without the bounds of her nunnery, shall be absolved, and enabled to hold all the dignities of her order, even that of abbess, by paying thirty-six tournois and nine ducats. The absolution of him who keeps a concubine, with dispensation to take and hold his orders and ecclesiastical benefices, costs twenty-one tournois, five ducats, and six carlines.” I conjecture that Du Pinet followed the edition which the Protestant princes inserted amongst the causes of their rejecting the council of Trent, and which was entitled “ Taxæ Sacræ Pœnitentiariæ.” Mr Heidegger recites some pieces of it, which exactly agree with the edition of Du Pinet.

The Roman and Spanish inquisitors have placed the “ Taxes of the Chancery,” in the third list of prohibited books, under this title—“ Praxis et Taxæ Officinæ Pœnitentiariæ Papæ, ab Hæreticis depravata.” Observe, that it is only condemned on the supposition of its having been corrupted by heretics. But let them suppose as much as they please that it has been corrupted by heretics, the editions of it which cannot be disowned, as that of Rome in 1514; that of Cologne in 1515; those of Paris in 1520, in 1545, and in 1625; and those of Venice, one in the sixth volume of the “ Oceanus Juris,” published in 1533, the other in the fifteenth volume of the same collection, reprinted in 1584,—these editions are more than sufficient to justify the reproaches of the Protestants, and to cover the Church of Rome with confusion.

There is room for much surprise that such a work has seen the day, and that even after the Protestants have made it a subject of so much triumph,

it has been authentically reprinted. Let us attend to a reproach made by a minister of Paris to the bishop of Bellay: the following are his words: “ I dare say of this book all which has been written of it by the doctor d’Espence, and even to apply to it the line

Prostat et in questu pro meretrice sedet.”

So far from shame being felt, it is continually republished and exposed to sale. I have seen three editions of that of Paris; I have among my books the edition of 1520, and that which we have seen published in 1625. I have compared them and found them conformable, particularly in the following passage, which calls for vengeance before God:—“ Et nota diligenter quod hujusmodi gratiæ et dispensationes non conceduntur pauperibus; quia non sunt ideo non possunt consol ar i.— Take particular notice that such graces and dispensations will not be conceded to the poor, who, not having the means, cannot be indulged.” These words I repeat, which are to be found in folio 23 of the ancient edition of 1520, and are also to be met with in page 208 of that of 1625, and in folio 130 of that of 1545.

The Romish controversialists, who have not a word to say against the authority of the edition of Rome, or that of Paris, are under great perplexity. This appears from the answers of the abbé Richard to the “ Préjugés” of Mr Jurieu. This minister had published the “Abominations of the Tax of the Chancery.” The abbé replies, that these were only particular facts which had never been authorized by the laws and canons of the Church of Rome. “ We find indeed,” continues he, “that Mr Jurieu quotes these taxes from an old book of the Romish chancery. But is it not extremely ridiculous, to endeavour to pass upon the world a

book of taxes for laws and canons? Would it not be making a jest of all civil law, to insert tables of taxes into the code, and reckon them in the number of laws? Would not this be doing great honour to the gentlemen concerned in them Î Let Mr Jurieu therefore inform himself what are the laws and canons of the Church of Rome; and let him know in the meantime, that these old taxes of the chancery of Rome, are not only of no authority in the church, but have always been regarded by her with horror. These taxes of the chancery began only under the pontificate of John XXII, about the year 1320; the taxes of the penitentiary appeared only towards the year 1336, under Benedict XII; and both were immediately suppressed, and ever afterwards ranked in the number of prohibited books, according to the remark of Mr du Mont, who printed them in the year 1664; which sufficiently shows the church of Rome’s abhorrence of these taxes, and that she is far from proposing or observing them for rules, as Mr Jurieu would make us believe she has done. Let him therefore consider, that the acts of the officers of the court of Rome are but particular acts, and not at all the acts of the church.” This answer is far from sufficient; for, in the first place, the church of Rome has never shown, by the suppression of these taxes, that she has had them in abhorence. They have been printed thrice at Paris, twice at Cologne, and twice at Venice; and some of these editions have been published since Claude d’Espence exclaimed publicly against the enormities of this book. We have seen, that the inquisition of Spain, and that of Rome, have condemned it only as they suppose it to have been corrupted by heretics. I must add, in the second place, that the suppression of such a work is not a sure sign of disapproving the rules it contains. This may only signify, that they repented of the publication of it, as it gave so fair a handle for the heretics to reproach the court of Rome, and to wound the Church of Rome through the sides of the pope. They ought to be esteemed mysteries of state,arcana imperii,not to be divulged. Are there not persons of the same opinion as to the ceremonies? I pass by many other considerations which a controversialist might allege against Mr Jurieu’s adversary; but I shall not content myself with observing, that Claude d’Espence exclaimed very loudly against the abomination of these taxes; I must also remark, that the Protestant controversialists cite this in all their disputes, and that the Spanish inquisition would have this passage expunged from that doctor’s book The French editor of the “ Analyse Raisonnée” of Bayle thus observes on these accusations:—“Suppose all the alleged facts are true, to what do they amount? That John XXII, Benedict XII, Alexander VI, and others, sought to make money of every thing ,5 that they trafficked in benefices, indulgences, and dispensations; that they even sold absolutions. Of what consequence to us are these reproaches? One word will suffice in reply; which is, that the memory and abominable practices of these popes are as sincerely abhorred by Roman Catholics as by the most zealous Protestant ministers.” This is no doubt true; but what becomes of the infallibility of such pontiffs, and of theauthority of the proceedings which men like them influence? Regarded merely as wicked priests, the French editor argues soundly; but alas ! these men, with the mob of Catholics, are also God’s vicegerents on earth, and spiritually incapable of error. “ Hinc illæ lachrymæ.”—Ed. ¹².

ABSTRACTION(Spiritual).

All who have heard of Labadie, know that he recommended to his devotees, both men and women, some spiritual exercises, and that he prepared them for inward recollection and mental prayer. It is said, that having given to one of his devout women

a subject of meditation, and recommended to her earnestly an entire and close application to this great object for some hours, he came near her when he thought that she was most absorbed and put his hand into her bosom. She repulsed him briskly, and haring declared her great surprise at this kind of proceeding, was preparing to censure him, when he prevented her. “ I perceive, my child,” said he to her, without being disturbed, and with a devout air, “ that you are still very far from perfection: confess humbly your weakness; beg pardon of God for having been so little attentive to the mysteries you are meditating upon. If you had had all the attention that was necessary, you would not have perceived that which was done to your bosom. But you were so little abstracted from sense, so little concentred with the Deity, that in a moment you knew when I touched you. My design was to try your fervour in prayer, whether you were raised above matter, and united to the Sovereign Being, the living source of immortality and spirituality; and I perceive with much grief, that you have made but a very small progress. Let this, my child, fill you with confusion, and excite you to perform better for the future the holy duty of mental prayer.” It is added, that the maiden, having good sense as well as virtue, was no less angry at these words than at the action of Labadie, and that she would hear no more of such a guide. I do not warrant the certainty of all these facts; but I do affirm, that it is very probable, that some of these spiritual devotees, who make people believe, that a strong meditation will ravish the soul, and hinder it from perceiving the actions of the body, may be disposed to toy with their devout sisters with impunity, and to do still worse: of which the Molinosists are accused. In general, there is nothing more^dangerous to the mini than mystical and abstracted devotion, and doubtless the body in that case runs some hazard, and many are glad to be deceived.—Art.Mamillarians.

ADAM As one of the objects in these selections is to afford a specimen of whatever the industrious learning of Bayle may supply in illustration of the eccentricities of human opinion, we here give an example of the vagaries of imagination in respect to Adam. We shall not however fatigue our readers much in this way, satisfied that while such lore ma interest in regard to a few leading traditional characters it cannot be materially extended with profit to any party.—Ed. ¹³.

Specimen of the strange and visionary Opinionsconcerning him.

The stem and father of all mankind was immediately produced by God on the sixth day of the creation; his body having been formed of the dust of the earth, God breathed a spirit of life into his nostrils; that is to say, he animated him, and made the compound that is called man, which comprehends an organized body and a rational soul. The same God which produced Adam, placed him in a fine garden; and, to put him in a state to impose a name on the beasts, he made them all come to him; afterwards he caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and took a rib from him, of which he made a woman. Adam knew that the woman was “ bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh and they lived together without being ashamed to see themselves naked. There was a tree in the garden, of which God had forbidden them to eat on pain of death; yet the woman, seduced by a serpent, did not forbear to eat of it, and to persuade Adam to eat of it also. From that time they perceived that they were naked, and made themselves aprons with fig-leaves sewed together. God came and pronounced to them the punishment that he would inflict upon them, drove them out of the garden, and made them clothes of skins. Adam called his wife Eve, and consummated his marriage. He became the father of Cain and of Abel, and afterwards of Seth, and of divers other sons and daughters, the names whereof are not known, and died at the age of 930 years.

This is all the certainty we have on the subject of Adam. A great number of other things that have been said of him, are either very false or very uncertain; it is true, some of them are not contrary to the analogy of faith, or to probability. I place in that last rank what is asserted of his vast science, of which we read nothing in Genesis but what is less fit to promote that idea than to discourage it. According to the common opinion, Adam knew more, the very first day of his life, than any man besides can learn by long experience. Scarce any thing beside future events, the thoughts of the heart, and one part of individual beings, escaped his notice. Cajetanus, who ventures to rob him of the perfect knowledge of the stars and of the elements, was much censured for it. Some, having made it a question whether Solomon ought not to be excepted out of the general position which gives the preference to Adam’s knowledge above that of all other mortals, have been reduced to acknowledge that Adam was more knowing than Solomon. It is true that Pinedo excepts politics; but no regard is paid to his particular opinion; and it is determined, that the speculative understanding of the first man was endowed with all the philosophical and mathematical knowledge which human nature is naturally capable of; and that his practical understanding possessed a consummate prudence with respect to every thing that men ought to do, either in a public or private capacity;

and besides contained all the moral sciences and all the liberal arts.

The Beauty of Adam.

If some authors had been contented to say, that he was a fine person, and well made, they would have said nothing but what was probable; but instead of this they have fallen into the gaieties of rhetoric and poetry, and even into visionary notions of this matter. It has been fabled that God, intending to create man, assumed a perfect and beautiful human body, and that he formed the body of Adam on that model; whence God might say, in relation to this body, that he made man after his own image. They add, that this apparition of God under a human form was the first prelude to the incarnation; that is, that the second person of the Trinity clothed himself with the appearance of the same nature which he was one day to assume in the flesh, and that, under the likeness of the finest man that ever was, he laboured in the production of Adam, whom he made a copy of that great and divine original of beauty which he had assumed. “ The most element and fair, assuming this divine form and beauty, which he was in process of time to clothe himself withal, even to flesh and bones, created man, bestowing on him this noble form, himself the original archetype, the most beautiful creator of a most beautiful creature.” It is not wonderful that exclamations should be made— “How great must be the beauty of the first man ! And what charms must dwell in his countenance !” In short, the form which the Word assumed was like that which was seen by St Peter on mount Tabor, and by Moses on mount Sinai, and which appeared with Moses and Elias on the day of transfiguration. What is still more surprising Adam himself saw his own Maker, and the manner in

which his body was formed by the fair hands of its Author. “ When man was formed, he beheld those divine hands, that ambrosial countenance, and those beautiful arms, which formed his body, and fashioned every member of it.” A very learned man published these airy notions; and people exist who approve at least one a part of them.

Of the sexual form of Adam.

A great number of the rabbis believed that Adam’s body was created double, male on the one side, and female on the other; and that the two bodies were joined together by the shoulders; the heads looking directly opposite, like the heads of Janus. Thus they pretend that when God made Eve, he only divided the original body into two: the part which was of the masculine sex forming Adam, and that which was of the feminine sex Eve. Manesseh-Ben-Israel, the most learned rabbi of the seventeenth century, maintained this fantastical opinion, if we may believe Heidegger. The learned Maimonides, the honour and glory of the Jewish nation, had already maintained a similar notion; and Antoinette Bourignon pretends, that before Adam sinned, he had the principle of both sexes in himself, and the virtue to produce his likeness without the help of woman. The necessity that each sex has at present to unite to each other for multiplication, is (she says) a consequence of the alterations that sin has made in human bodies. “ Men think that they have been created by God as they are at present, but it is not true, seeing that sin has disfigured the work of God in them, and instead of men as they ought to be, they are become monsters in nature, divided into two imperfect sexes, unable to produce their like alone, as trees and plants do, which in that point have more perfection than men or women, who are incapable to produce by

themselves, but only in conjunction with each other, and with pain and misery.” The particulars of all this mystery are explained in another work, as it was revealed from God to Mrs Bourignon. She believed that she had seen in a trance how Adam was made before sin, and how he alone could produce other men. Nay, she believed she had learned that he had put that rare faculty in practice, by the production of the human nature of Jesus Christ, and she very specifically describes the operation Bayle supplies the whole of this pious vision. It will not be necessary here to be quite so profuse; but a part may be safely given, to show, in the language of our author, to what extravagances the human mind is liable. “ God represented to her in a vision, without the assistance of corporeal eyes, which could not have endured such brightness, the beauty of the first world, and the manner how he formed it out of the original chaos. All was bright, transparent, and radiant, with an ineffable light and glory. In the same spiritual manner he made the first man Adam appear to her, whose body was more pure and transparent than crystal, all light and volatile in appearance; in and through which were seen vessels and streams of light, penetrating from the inside to the outside, through all his pores; vessels which contained most lively and diaphanous liquors of all sorts and colours, not only of water, and milk, but also of fire, air,&c. His motions were wonderfully harmonious; every thing obeyed him; nothing resisted or could annoy him. He was of a larger stature than men are at present; his hair short and curled, inclining to black; his upper lip covered with small hair?” ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ ⁎ “The first man whom Adam produced by himself in this glorified state, was chosen by God to be the theme of the divinity, the origin and instrument by which God would communicate himself eternally with mankind: that is, Jesus Christ united to the human nature both God and man.”— So much for the mysticism of Antoinette Bourignon, whose Opinions at one time obtained so much root in Scotland, that a declaration against Bouriguonism was required in the examination of a minister. Some remnants of her sect were even discoverable until very lately.—Ed. ¹⁴.

Curious scriptural mistake, in a licensed sermon, respecting the birth of Adam.

A modem author, designing to show that the Roman Catholics are in the wrong to think themselves more learned than the Protestants, reproaches them, among other mistakes, with that of a preacher who said that Adam was formed of one of Eve’s ribs. He reported, that a philosopher, having proposed these three questions to Theodorus, a disciple of St Pacomus—What man is not born but is dead? What man is born but is not dead? What man is born and dead but not corrupted?—had for answer, that the three persons in question were Adam, Enoch, and Lot’s wife. Adam is not born, added the preacher; for he was formed of one of Eve’s ribs. His sermon was printed at Vienna in Austria, in the year 1654, with the approbation of the subdean of the professors in divinity, who was at that time father Leonard Bachin, a Jesuit. The licenser declared that he had read the book, and that he found nothing in it contrary to the faith, or against good manners:—a proof of the little attention wherewith the censors of books examine certain manuscripts.

Of Adam as an author.

The Jews pretend that Adam wrote a book concerning the creation of the world, and another on the Deity. Masius mentions the former. A Mohammedan author, whose name is Kissæus, reports, that Abraham went into the country of the Sabei, and opened Adam’s strong box, wherein he found his books, with those of Seth and Edris. This last name is that which the Arabians gave to Enoch. They say that Adam received twenty books fallen from Heaven, which contained divers laws, and promises, and threatenings from God, and

predictions of many events. Some rabbis attribute the 92d psalm to Adam; and there are several manuscripts wherein the Chaldaic title of that psalm imports that it is a song of praise, recited by the first man on the sabbath-day. The good Eusebius Nierembergius, who was credulity itself, mentions two canticles which he faithfully copied out of the revelations of the blessed Amadeus in the library of the Escurial. It is said, that Adam was the author of these two pieces; he made the one the first time he saw Eve; the other is the penitential psalm which he and his wife sung after their fall.

Burial place of Adam.

St Jerome imagined, without any ground, that Adam was buried at Hebron; but we have as much reason to be of his opinion, as to think with many others, that he was interred upon Mount Calvary. I confess the latter opinion is preferable,per la predica, for the preacher’s use; for it is much more fertile of allusions, antitheses, moral application, and all kind of rhetorical figures. But it is enough for us to be informed, that the fathers generally believed that the first man died in the place where Jerusalem was built afterwards, and that he was buried on a neighbouring hill, which was called Golgotha or Calvary, and which is that where Jesus Christ was crucified. If you ask how Adam’s grave could resist the waters of the deluge, and how his bones could maintain their place, in order to receive the sprinkling of the blood of our Lord, Barcepha will quote a doctor to you, very much esteemed in Syria, who said that Noah dwelt in Judæa; that he planted the cedars, wherewith he built the ark, in the plain of Sodom; that he took Adam’s bones with him into the ark; that, after he was come out of the ark, he divided them among his three sons; that he gave the skull to Shem;

and that the offspring of Shem, having taken possession of Judæa, buried this skull in the same place where Adam’s grave had been. Cornelius Lapide says, that the Hebrews have a tradition that, by the command of an angel, Seth put some of the seed of the forbidden tree into Adam’s mouth, who was already buried; that it produced a tree, of which the cross of Jesus Christ] was made; and that it was but just that the same wood which had caused Adam’s sin, should be that on which Jesus Christ should expiate it.—Art.Adam

ADAMISM.

The founder of this religion, which sprang up in the bosom of Christianity in the commencement of the second century, according to Theodoret, was Prodicus, who embraced the abominable opinions of the Carpocratians, to which he added the community of women, and a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes at ecclesiastical feasts; that is to say, that at these repasts, which the ancient Christians called Agapæ, it was a rule for the lights to be extinguished, and the sexes to pair themselves as chance might direct, which he called communicating and being initiated into the mystery.

Such is the recital of Theodoret; but I do not find that he had any reason to ascribe this additional doctrine to Prodicus, since Clemens Alexandrinus, on whose credit he speaks, imputes the whole matter to Carpocrates. Theodoret therefore alleges an author who is against him; which author observes, that the men, before they went to those feasts, acquainted the women to whom they were inclined, that they made choice of them. This is likely enough: the passions are too ingenious to be inactive on such occasions, and to refer the whole matter to chance. The Carpocratians knew therefore, pretty nearly, who would fall to

their share, and were not wholly in the case mentioned by a Roman poet.

“ Mox juniores quærit adultéras
Inter mariti vina: Deque eligit
Cui donet impermissa raptim
Gaudia luminibus remotis.”
Hor.Ode, vi.b, iii.

Thus, soon after the time of the Apostles, the doctrine of the mystical union which ought to exist among the faithful, was interpreted into a carnal connexion between the sexes, and persons dared to affirm that in it consisted a true participation of the mysteries. St Epiphanius and St Augustine, however, do not give so disadvantageous an idea of the Adamites, and it is lively that Clement and Theodoret have exaggerated particulars. St Epiphanius asserts that the name of Adamites came to them from a certain Adam, who lived at the time, but I am more disposed to follow the opinion of St Augustin, who asserts that they called themselves after the patriarch Adam. These miserable people imitated the nakedness of our first parents during their innocence, and condemned marriage, because Adam knew not Eve while in that state, whence they concluded, that if he had not sinned he would not have married. Therefore according to St Epiphanius, they made profession of continency, and of a monastic life. As for nudity, they only practised it when assembled for the exercises of religion. They met together in a small chamber, under which was placed a stove. On entering they took off their clothes and sat together, men and women, ministers and laity, as naked as they came into the world. They seated themselves promiscuously on benches that were placed above each other, and having performed their devotions dressed themselves and returned home. If any

committed a fault, they were not received any more into the assembly. They said that like Adam, having eaten of the forbidden fruit, they were to be driven like him out of paradise, for so these people called their communion.

Therefore, although St Epiphanius attributed this conduct to a secret design of exciting concupiscence, he does not say that any impure actions were committed in these assemblies. Or does either he or St Augustin make mention of the monstrous indecencies mentioned by Clement of Alexandria; and it is strange that such should be the case, for they are things that fame suffers not to be lost, when once it has seized on them, unless the falsity of them becomes altogether palpable. Nor does it always happen that time loses its hold in that case either. In a word, when I consider the calumnies of the Pagans against the primitive Christians, and those of the Catholics against the Protestants, as to their nocturnal assemblies, I do not lightly believe all the imputations of the prevailing party.

Evagrius makes mention of some monks of Palestine, who by an excess of devotion, and to mortify their bodies, went, women as well as men, into solitary places quite naked, with the exception of a girdle, and there exposed themselves in a very strange manner to the rigour of the seasons. The solitaries of whom I speak were satisfied with wearing only a girdle, and as for the rest, they renounced humanity as much as they could. They would not eat of the food that served other men, but fed like beasts, and ate but as much as would keep them alive. At last they became like brutes; their figure altered, and their sentiments also. When they saw other persons they ran away, and, if they found themselves pursued, fled as fast as they could, or hid themselves in some inacessible hole. Some appeared in public again, and

pretended to be fools to show a greater contempt of glory. They went to eat in public; houses, they entered into public baths, they conversed and washed themselves with the other sex; but with complete insensibility. They were men with the men, and women with the women; and would be of both sexes. It is likely they had not much trouble to counterfeit the fool, and that they were so in reality.

In the twelfth century Tandemus, an heretic, rose in Germany, under the emperor Henry V, and spread his errors particularly among the citizens of Antwerp. He was a layman, with a smooth tongue, and exceeded the greatest scholars of his time in subtilty, eloquence, and many other things. He was richly clothed; he kept a good table, and was attended by three thousand armed men, by whose means he brought about what the charms of his language could not effect. He had infatuated his followers to such a degree, that they drank the water in which he bathed himself, and kept it as a relic. One may very well wonder, though perhaps it is no wonder at all, how he could seduce many people with such odious doctrines and actions as his were. He maintained that it was no sensual action, but rather a spiritual one, to lie with a maid in her mother’s presence, and with a wife in the sight of her husband, and practised that abominable doctrine. He killed those whom he could not persuade. He ascribed no virtue to the sacrament of the eucharist, and acknowledged no distinction between laymen and those in orders. A priest, with whom he happened to be in a boat, gave him a blow on the head, which killed him. His errors were not quickly extirpated; but at length those erring people were brought back into the pale of the church, and Norbert was the chief instrument of their conversion.

The fourteenth century produced a new sect of Adamites, still more abominable than those of whom I have already spoken, called Turlupins. It is not easy to discover the true origin of this name, which Vignier derives from a savage place exposed to the inroads of wolves. They taught that when man was arrived at a certain degree of perfection, he was freed from the yoke of the divine law; and contrary to the doctrine of the stoics, who made the liberty of their wise man consist in being free from passions, they placed this liberty in being no longer subject to the precepts of eternal wisdom. They did not believe they ought to pray to God any otherwise than mentally; but what was yet more shocking in their sect was, that they went naked, and followed the example of the cynics, or rather of brutes, in view of all the world; affirming that we ought not to be ashamed of any thing which nature has bestowed on us. Notwithstanding these profane extravagancies, they affected a very spiritual and devout air, the better to insinuate themselves into the women’s favour, and allure them into the snare of their unchaste desires. For this is the fatal rock of all those sects who aim at distinguishing themselves by paradoxes in morality. Examine to the bottom the visions of the pretenders to new light, and of the Quietists, &c., you will find if any thing can unmask them, it is something relating to the venereal pleasure. This is the weak part of the place, where the enemy makes the assault; it is a worm which never dies, and a fire which never goes out. These heretics appeared in France in the reign of Charles V, and their principal scenes were Savoy and Dauphiny. They affected to call themselves the “ Fraternity of the Poor.”

The following passage, from an ancient register, affords us a specimen of the diligence which was

exercised to extinguish them. “To James de More, of the preaching order, inquisitor of the —— of France, as a gift bestowed on him by the king, by his letters patent of the 2nd February, 1373, for and in consideration of several pains, missions and expenses which he had been at and suffered in the pursuit of the male and female Tur-lupins, whom he found and took in the said provinces, and who by his diligence have been punished for their errors and falsities, the sum of fifty francs, which are worth ten Paris livres.”

Gaguin observes, in his life of Charles V, that “ the books and vestments of the Turlupins were burnt in the hog’s-market at Paris, without the gate of St Honoré; that one Joan Dabentonne, and a man, being the chief holders-forth of that sect, were also burnt.” Du Tillet says also, that under Charles V, “ the superstitious religion of the Turlupins, who had called their sect the ‘ Fraternity of the Poor,' was condemned and abolished, and their ceremonies, books, and clothes condemned and burnt.” But how do these clothes which were burnt agree with the report of those who tell us that they went naked? We must suppose the nakedness of all these sorts of fanatics to have been limited with regard to times, places, and certain members. We have seen that the Adamites did not strip themselves any where but in the stoves where they met. The cold and rain would not permit them to go always naked: it is not at all probable that they durst regularly and continually appear naked in those cities in which they were not strong enough; and it seems that the Turlupins discovered the parts only which distinguish the sexes. They had clothes notwithstanding their impudence; and probably before uninitiated persons or those whom they sought to entangle, did not immediately expose themselves.

Towards the year 1440, another fanatic resumed the errors of the Adamites. His name was Picard: he went from Flanders into Germany, and as far as Bohemia. It has been said that he deceived the people with prestiges. However it be, he had in a little time a great number of followers, both men and women. He commanded them to go always naked: which was more than was practised by the Adamites mentioned by St Epiphanius, who were contented to strip themselves naked in their assemblies. He styled himself the Son of God, and pretended that he was sent into the world by his father, as a new Adam, to restore the law of nature, which he said chiefly consisted in two things,viz., the community of women, and the nakedness of the body. He retired into an island of the river Lusmik, seven leagues from Thabor, the place of arms of the famous Zisca. It happened unluckily for him, that forty of his followers, having committed great disorders, drew the forces of that famous general upon the whole crew. Those forty Adamites being gone upon a party, plundered some country houses, and killed above 200 people. Whereupon Zisca caused the island to be attacked, made himself master of it, and put all the Picards to the sword, except two, whose lives he saved, that he might know from them what was their religion; for which action the Protestants have much praised him.

It is said, that though there were no marriages amongst them, yet no man took a woman without the permission of the head of the sect; one of the great principles of which was, that they were the only free persons in the world, all other men being slaves. This is what some women of that sect deposed, whom a Bohemian lord kept prisoners for some time. They said that those who used clothes, especially those who wore breeches, ought

not to be accounted free. They were brought to bed in prison; and having been condemned to be burnt with their husbands, they suffered that punishment laughing and singing. There has been some doting men among the Anabaptists, who had a mind to renew the extravagancies of the Picards, with respect to nakedness.

If I had no other authority than Lindanus, I should doubt if such extravagancies had occurred in Amsterdam; but a much more credible witness, Lambertus Hortensius, in his relation of the tumults of the Anabaptists, dedicated to the magistrates of Amsterdam, whilst the memory of these things was still fresh, says, that on the 13th Feb. 1535, seven men and five women met at Amsterdam, in the house of John Sibert. One of these men, whose name was Theodore Sartor, pretended to be a prophet; he lay upon the ground to pray to God, and having made an end of his prayers, he told one of his brethren that he had seen God in his majesty; that he had spoken to him; that he was descended from heaven into hell, and that he knew that the day of judgment was near at hand. They met again the same day, and after they had spent four hours in prayers and explications, the prophet all of a sudden pulls off his helmet and his armour, and throws them into the fire with the rest of his arms, and shows himself naked to all the company. He bids them all do the like, and every one obeys so exactly, that they did not so much as leave a ribbon upon their heads to keep their hair tied. They throw every thing into the fire, as a burnt-offering unto the Lord. Then the prophet bids them to follow him, and do as he does. They go out all of them, and run into the streets with most horrid cries, “Væ, væ, væ, divina vindicta, divina vindicta, divina vindicta!—Wo, wo, wo, divine vengeance, divine vengeance, divine vengeance !” The

people being frighted with such howlings, think that the town is taken, take up their arms, and go out. The naked crew are apprehended, and brought before the judges, where they scorn to put on the clothes that are presented to them. In the mean time the house from which that infamous procession set out, was burning, and they had much trouble to put out the fire. On the 28th of March the seven men were put to death; and nine of their accomplices were punished in the same manner some few days afterwards.

We cannot sufficiently wonder that such a whimsical fancy should be so often renewed amongst Christians. Paganism affords us only the sect of the cynics who hit on this impudent practice; and it must also be observed that this sect was not numerous, and that the greatest part of the cynics did not discover their nudity, as it was said of Diogenes. The Indian Gymnosophists were not naked in those parts which the Adamites, Turlupins, Picards, and several Anabaptists discovered. We ought then to grant, that in that respect the Christians have been more irregular than the Pagans; at which we shall not be surprised, when we observe that a Gospel principle, of which the Pagans were ignorant, is liable to this abuse. I mean that the second Adam came to repair the evil which the first had introduced into the world. From hence a fanatic ventures to conclude, that those who are once partakers of the benefits of the covenant of grace, are perfectly restored to the state of Adam and Eve. I own that fanaticism must be far advanced, and the dose must be very large, which is able to overcome the impressions of modesty which nature and a Christian education have stamped on us; but what is not the infinite combination of our passions, imaginations, and animal spirits capable of doing?—ArticlesAdamites,

Picard, Prodicus, Tandemus, Turlupins.Text and Notes.

ADULTERY.

Theodore Beza relates, that on the 26th of March, 1563, the Sieur de Saint-Cyre, otherwise called Puy-Greffier, who had been appointed governor of Orleans from the time that the prince left that town, a good man, and a great enemy to vice, caused a new and remarkable execution to be made in the persons of Deslandes Sieur du Moulin, formerly secretary to the king, and of Godarde, the wife of John Godin, lieutenant to the provost-marshal of Blois. Whilst this Godin was in the army, du Moulin seduced his wife at Orleans, for which crime he was hanged with her in the square du Martroy. This story being told at court, appeared so strange, that many were not ashamed to say, that if there were nothing else in the reformed religion, they would be sure not to embrace it. The courtiers were in the right to say that Puy-Greffier’s severity was out of fashion; nay, the civilian Faber, quoted by Thuanus, expressly says, that it was never heard that any body had been punished for adultery in France. Few people were able to refrain saying in that respect, “ Let us beware of innovations.” It must also be granted that this severity was not of long continuance among the Protestants, according to the maxim, “ nullum violentum durabile.” It lasted longer at Geneva, but at last it vanished away: and it may be said in general, to the shame of Christians, that they have suffered the penal laws, which many Pagan nations had enacted against adultery, to be abolished time out of mind. There is hardly any crime which oftener escapes with impunity; for whoever prosecutes any person for it, must rather expect to be the talk of the town, and to be laughed at by every body, than to procure

any redress The English action for damages, so much laughed at by foreigners, is after all, possibly as effective a mode of checking this offence as any that could be devised with due chance of execution. The notion of money, as a compensation for dishonour, doubtless appears inconsistent; but in point of fact, this form of the case amounts to little more than a legal fiction, that favourite road through which English law reaches justice in almost all cases,—the shortest line between two points being any thing but aright line in the eyes of a lawyer. The only operative benefit of an action for damages, as regards society and morals, is punishment, not recompense; and damages paid as a fine would no longer appear incongruous. It must be confessed, however, that in this case the discrepancy between form and fact is of no great moment.—Ed. ¹⁵. I do not pretend to approve in every thing the penal laws of the heathens on this head; for what could be more horrid than the custom which Theodosius suppressed at Rome? Women guilty of adultery were condemned to live in little cells, and to prostitute themselves to all comers; and to make every one sensible that the punishment was executed, little bells were rung during the time of the execution Socrates, Hist. Eccles, lib. v. cap. xviii. ¹⁶.

Any one, who compares Thuanus’s words with the epistle dedicatory of Brissonius’s book, “ ad legem Juliam de adulteriis,” will wonder that this great historian should speak of the impunity of adultery, as he does; for it appears that Brissonius, dedicating his book, the 29th of November, 1557, to Christopher de Thou, president in the parliament of Paris, and the historian’s father, praises him for having caused some persons guilty of that sin to be punished; and adds, that this public example was applauded by all good men, which put the author upon writing a commentary on the law which that magistrate had revived. It is very probable, that notwithstanding all the applauses of good men, Christopher de Thou relaxed, and that

perceiving he could not put a stop to the corruption, he was obliged to let things take their usual course. Hence it is that his son took no notice of that short interruption of impunity. Brissonius intimates, that if there had been accusers in former times, the judges of France would have made it appear that they were not unwilling to punish adulterers. Indeed I believe that the accusers for this crime have been few; but the difficulty of proving such an accusation, and the shame that attends those who carry the cause, are more than sufficient to prevent most suits of that kind. Montaigne has been very explicit on this subject. It must be confessed, that it is not so much the connivance of the magistrates, or the silence of preachers, as the greatness of the evil, that prevents the execution of the laws. A professor of philosophy at Groningen published, in 1663, a collection of dissertations, wherein he says, that the divines of Strasbourg prevailed about thirty years before with the magistrates, to inflict a capital punishment on adulterers; and he wishes the reformed divines of the low countries would not express so much zeal against dancing, as against the too great indulgence for adultery. He fancies, that if they had thundered to purpose against that abuse, they would, with God’s blessing upon their endeavours, have engaged the magistrates to inflict a more severe punishment than a fine. Had he been a minister, he would not have found it so easy to follow his own advice.—Art.St Cyre.

ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY.

Jovian Pontanus says of Antony Panormita Antony Panormita was a learned and distinguished Sicilian writer of the 15th century. ¹⁷, that he was always cheerful, whether his affairs went well or ill; his principle was to refer all to God, and to

suppose that the causes of good or ill fortune were hidden from us, and that many accidents are thought unhappy, which are not really so, since they are only occasions which Providence offers us to show our constancy. “Who could be more pleasant than Antonius was in prosperity? or more cheerful in adversity? There was a wonderful force in his speech, inducing us to despise worldly affairs, and to bear misfortunes patiently, for he referred all to God, and said we are ignorant of the causes of good and evil. That many things seem evil, which are not really so, but are opportunities given us by Providence to show our constancy and courage. For what man would be found steady, if all things were quiet and secure? Men are born to acquire virtue, and to improve their minds, and none can do this without much labour; but we are deceived in our notions, and deal too meanly and effeminately with ourselves; running water is more wholesome and agreeable; standing water is noxious and pestilent. Providence therefore offers to every brave and virtuous man, troubles and afflictions, that he may exert and distinguish himself above others. Generals commit the most difficult and dangerous enterprises to those they love best, and whose courage is most unquestionable. And indeed, this kind of warfare is the most glorious, not that which seeks for booty and spoil. But it is the part of a weak and cowardly soul to hate labour, to shun trouble, and to languish in sloth and idleness.”

There is nothing finer than these common places, according to the condition of men; but at the same time, it must be acknowledged, that they suppose that condition to be a very strange one; for what can he more astonishing and incomprehensible, than to see a man reduced to such a state, that he must be unhappy to avoid greater evils? Why is he not

conducted from one good to another, until he arrives at perfection? Why should vexation, grief, and misery, be the least inconvenient way that he can take? The Pagans could answer nothing that was good to this difficulty, and they were stupid enough hardly to think of it; revelation alone can solve it.

The inconstancy of men’s reasonings with respect to Adversity and Prosperity.

The reasonings of men upon this subject are quite opposite; for you will be told, that they who will live godly, must suffer persecution, and that godliness has the promise of this life, as well as of that which is to come. It is asserted both, that God suffers the wicked to prosper in this life, and that, if we observe it narrowly, we shall find the maxim of Livy true,— that those who fear God, succeed in their designs, and that fortune is an enemy to the ungodly. Nor is this all; for as to the general thesis, it is agreed that we should not judge of things by the event, and that those who do so, deserve to be unhappy,

-----------careat successibus opto
Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat.—Ovid.Ep.

May he still want success in all his deeds,
Who thinks no action good but what succeeds.

Let us represent to ourselves two great opposite parties, one of which has formed an important enterprise; if it succeed, they fail not to infer that it is just; and to maintain, that this good success is a mark of God’s approbation. The other party, on the contrary, will assert, that we must keep to the general thesis, and to the “ careat successibus opto,” &c., and that God, for the punishment of men, very often permits the wicked to succeed in their pernicious designs. But if the party who gives such lessons of morality, soon

after forms an enterprise of consequence, and sees it successful, you shall no longer hear it speak of the general thesis; but assert in its turn, that good success is a mark of the justice of that affair, and that it is plain God has approved it, since he has so visibly accompanied it with his holy benediction. The former party will then not be ashamed to say, that we must not judge of things by the event, “ careat successibus opto,” &c., and to vent a hundred fine commonplaces. Is any thing more convenient than this? Is it not to be furnished with principles, as we are with clothes, some for summer, and some for winter?—Arts.Panormita,andMahomet II.

ADVOCACY.

Mark Antony, the orator, never would publish any of his pleadings lest he should be convicted of speaking in one cause contrary to what it might be convenient to allege in another. The morality of the Bar did not deem it a scandal in those days for a lawyer to say and unsay things in favour of his client. The precautions of this advocate are necessary for persons of his profession, and yet not always sufficient to save their honour. I remember a letter that was published in the year 1685, inquiring into the causes of the contradictions of authors. The lawyers are there brought upon the stage, and here is what is said in regard to them. “ It is sometimes diverting enough to hear the same lawyer plead in one and the same week for a husband against his wife, and for a wife against her husband. If he have a fruitful imagination, he dwells altogether in his first plea upon the power of husbands, and grounds his arguments on nature, on reason, on the word of God, and on custom. He quotes the Scriptures, he quotes the fathers, the civilians, and those who have written travels. He

declaims against women, and dwells only on general propositions. Two days after the scene changes; he entertains other thoughts, quite contrary to the former. He calls the husband’s authority usurpation; he runs over the Holy Scriptures, the code, physic, history, and the moral law in favour of women, still haranguing on general principles; for a vehement spirit thinks it proves nothing, unless it affirms and denies without exception; and consequently if obliged to maintain opposite interests, must necessarily contradict itself.” It must be owned, that a lawyer, who has pleaded publicly with all the fire of his imagination for the privileges of women, might be confuted the easiest in the world next time he pleads for the privileges of men. There needs no more than referring him to his own minutes. It were easy to show, that lawyers are not the only persons who make use of this way; our polemic divines do the same, according to the different tenets of those they have to deal with. Bellarmine, disputing against the enthusiasts, maintains, that the Scripture abounds with characteristics of its own divinity, but insists against the Protestants, that it is obscure, and stands in need of the authority of the church. A certain minister, whom I shall not name, maintains against those of the Roman church, that the Scriptures exhibit throughout the character of divine; but writing against Mr Pajon, he uses another language. This privilege ought to be wholly left to poets and orators. Cicero has observed, that the good memory of auditors is the bane of lawyers who contradict themselves. Nor is it a less plague to ministers, who, far from contradicting themselves, repeat from time to time, almost word for word, the same sermon. If he had given examples, he might have made it appear, that the precautions of Mark Antony were insignificant; but it must be owned, that what he adds is sufficient to justify the conduct of that orator. It is this: Marcus Brutus pleading against L. Plancius, who was defended by L. Crassus, got two of his friends to stand up in court, and read out certain passages in an audible voice, which he had culled out of two speeches of L. Crassus; some of them highly raising the authority of the senate, and others depressing it. This put the orator a little out of temper, and obliged him to frame excuses on the difference of times and causes, which had extorted from him these contradictory opinions:—“ For my own part (says Cicero) I willingly follow the authority of many others, including the eloquent and wise L. Crassus, who undertook the defence of L. Plancius, against the accusation of M. Brutus, an energetic and artful orator. Brutus having procured two persons to repeat passages alternately out of two of his orations, which were contradictory to each other, Crassus is said to have been somewhat perplexed, and in his reply, set forth the different junctures of time, in order to show that what he had said resulted from the different circumstances of the case Cicero: Oratio pro Cluentio. ¹⁸." Thus Cicero disapproved the part which Crassus chose on this occasion. When he found himself in the same circumstances, his adversaries having repeated a passage in one of his speeches, quite contrary to an argument he had then in hand, he answered, that “ the passage which they repeated, did not contain his true sentiments; and that what a man offers as an advocate, ought not to be considered as if spoken by him in quality of a witness; that it is the language of the cause, and not that of the orator. They must speak according to the interest of the cause, and the conjuncture of time, and not according to their private opinions. If I indeed said anything of this kind, I neither offered it on my own knowledge, nor in quality of evidence; it was rather the language of the occasion than of my own judgment and authority. It is a great mistake in any one to look upon the orations which I have spoken in different causes, as so many written opinions under my own hand. They are all the language of the particular cause and time, and not of the orator himself Oratio pro Cluentio. ¹⁹." Let it be remarked, that these principles subsist still They do indeed, and without entering into the merits of the theory, it may be thought reasonable that these robed mental posture-masters should advert with due consciousness and humility to the occasional versatility of journalists and others who may offend in the same way. It is admirable to hear “robustious perriwig-pated fellows,” who avowedly as Lucio says, speak “ according to the trick,” for a certain number of guineas, dilate with affected horror on the political or other scribbler, who opines for so much a sheet. However ancient and conventional this legal and oratorical license, its ultimate operation upon his own mind forms a critical piece of moral consideration for the barrister. It evidently makes a sad piece of work with mediocre men.—Ed. ²⁰.—Art,Mark Antony,the Orator, Notes B and C.

AGREDA (MARY D’).

Mary D’Agreda was a fanatical nun, who lived in the seventeenth century, and became famous for a work censured by the Sorbonne. Francis Coronel, her father, and Catherine d’Arena, her mother, who lived at Agreda, a town of Spain, moved by a particular revelation, founded a convent in their house the 19th of January, 1619. Mary took the nun’s habit in it at the same time with her mother and sister, the 2nd of February, 1620. She was elected superior in the year 1627, and during the first ten years of her superiority, she received divers

commands from God and the Virgin Mary to write the life of the Holy Virgin. She resisted those orders until the year 1637, when she began to write, and having finished it, she burnt it with divers writings that she had composed on other subjects, by the advice of a confessor, who directed her in the absence of her ordinary confessor. Her superiors and regular confessor reprimanded her severely for so doing, and commanded her to write the life of the Holy Virgin a second time; and God and the Holy Virgin also reiterated the same command. She began to obey on the 8th of December, 1655, and divided her work into three parts, containing eight books, which have been printed at Lisbon, at Madrid, at Perpignan, and at Antwerp. The first was translated out of Spanish into French, from the edition of Perpignan, by Father Croset, a Recollect, which translation was printed at Marseilles in the year 1696. We find there, “ That as soon as the Virgin came into the world, the Almighty ordered the angels to carry that lovely child into the empyreal heaven; which they did divers times. That God appointed an hundred of each of the nine choirs of angels, that is to say, nine hundred to serve her: and that he appointed twelve others to serve her in a visible and corporeal form, and eighteen more of the highest rank, who descended on Jacob’s ladder, to make embassies from the queen to the great king. That to conduct that invincible squadron the better, St Michael, the prince of the heavenly militia, was placed at the head of it. That the first conception of the body of the most Holy Virgin was on a Sunday, correspondent to that of the creation of angels. That if the Virgin did not speak as soon as she was born, it was not because she could not, but because she would not: that before she was three years of age, she swept the house, and the angels assisted her,&c. There are I know not how many such like imaginations in it.” These are the extracts that a Protestant journalist gave of it; and another journalist, who is a good catholic, assures us, “ that nothing is to be found in the six first chapters, but visions, by which the sister Mary of Jesus says, that God discovered the mysteries of the Holy Virgin to her, and the decrees he made to create all things.—That in the twentieth chapter, she gives an account of what happened to the Holy Virgin in the womb of St Anne; that she comes afterwards to the birth of the Holy Virgin, to the name that was given her, to the angels that were charged to guard her, to the occupations of the first eighteen months of her childhood, to the conversation she had with God at the end of those eighteen months, to her conversations with St Joachim and St Anne, and to the holy exercises wherein she employed herself until she was put into the temple of Jerusalem.” If any body should fancy that among so many visions there is nothing that concerns St John’s Revelations he would be greatly mistaken; for our Mary, not satisfied to have explained the 12 th chapter of the Revelations, enlarged very much on the 21st, which she expounds of the conception of the Holy Virgin. If you desire to know the title of her work in the translation of Thomas Croset, read what follows. “The mystical city of God, miracle of the Almighty, abyss of grace, divine history of the life of the most Holy Virgin Mary, mother of God, our queen and mistress, manifested in these last ages by the Holy Virgin to sister Mary of Jesus, abbess of the convent of the Immaculate Conception of the city of Agreda, of the order of St Francis, and written by that same sister by the command of her superiors, and of her confessors.”

There were so many follies in the work of a nature to please the passionate admirers of the Virgin,

that the faculty of Paris deemed it necessary to censure it, and they attained their end in spite of the opposition of manydoctors of the society. The censure which they published is only known tome by the “ Journal of the Learned,” wherein I have seen, 1. that the sixth condemned proposition contains, “ That God gave the Holy Virgin all that he would, and would give her all that he could, and could give her all that was not the being of God.” That the seventh proposition is conceived in these terms,—“ I declare by the force of truth, and of the light in which I see all those ineffable mysteries, that all the privileges, the graces, the prerogatives, the favours, and the gifts of the most pure Mary, comprehending the dignity of the mother of God in it, depend and take their original from having been immaculate, and full of grace in her conception, insomuch that without that privilege all the rest would appear faulty, or like a stately building without a solid and proportionable foundation.” That the ninth proposition explains literally of the Holy Virgin the words of the 8th chapter of the Proverbs, and insinuates that by her kings are raised and maintained on the throne, princes command, and the rulers of the earth administer justice. That the thirteenth proposition is, “ That if men’s eyes were penetrating enough to see the light of the Holy Virgin, it would suffice to conduct them to a blessed eternity.” That besides these propositions, divers others are comprised under the fourteenth article, all which are respectively condemned as rash, contrary to the wisdom of the rules that the church prescribes; to which is added, that most of them are like the fables and ravings of apocryphal authors, and expose the Catholic religion to the contempt of impious men and of heretics. That finally the faculty declares, that it does not pretend to approve divers other things contained in that book, and chiefly the passages where the author abuses the text of the Scripture, in applying it in her own sense, and those wherein she asserts, that some opinions that are merely scholastic, were revealed to her. Let us make some small reflections upon this That is to say, that it has neither beginning nor end. ²¹

In the first place the scholastics teach generally, that the distinctive character of God and of the creatures, is, that God has nothing that comes from elsewhere, and that the creatures have nothing but what proceeds from elsewhere. This is what they express by the barbarous wordsaseitas, andabalieitas, from whence they conclude that all the attributes of God are communicable to the creature except theaseitas; and consequently that it is possible for a creature to be eternal,à parte ante et à parte post In this article Bayle supplies a pleasant specimen of what the Sorbonne found itdifficult to condemn, and what a fanatical party in France is doing much to restore. Nor was this trashever censured in Spain, or, it is believed, out of France. In fact the gods of vulgar apprehension are uniformly, deified mortality. The imagination wants flesh and blood to rest upon: the truth of this assertion, in respect to Paganism, it is unnecessary to mention, and dropping the Virgin Mary, Christianity has much indulged in it.—Ed. ²², and infinite as to knowledge, power, local presence, goodness, justice, &c. They commonly teach, that by the obediential power creatures are susceptible of the faculty of operating all sorts of miracles, and also of the power of creating. So that if God did effectually confer on the Holy Virgin all that he could confer upon her, it follows, according to the doctrines of the school which the sister Mary of Jesus valued much, that the Holy Virgin existed from all time, that she can do all things, that she knows all things, that she fills all places, and that she is infinite in all regards. I need not suppose that our abbess of Agreda followed the doctrine of the Spanish schoolmen for I am not concerned whether she knew, or was ignorant of it. She teaches plainly, that God gave the Holy Virgin all that he could give her, and that he could give her all his attributes, except the divine essence itself. This suffices me to draw the conclusion that I have drawn, which being so, one may very

well wonder that the Sorbonne should say only, that “ that proposition is false, rash, and contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel.” Is such a censure severe enough? Ought they to have been contented with those weak qualifications? Was it sufficient to affirm that it was a rash mistake to apply the literal sense of these words of Solomon,— “ By me kings reign, and the rulers of the earth administer justice,” to the Holy Virgin?

Secondly: Those that have attentively examined all that has been said of the power of the Holy Virgin, and all the share that is given her in the government of the universe, have taken notice that the latest comers have always a mind to outdo the foregoing, until at last the utmost bounds of flattery have been found out. But as the reasons of going always forward have never ceased;—for when the people’s devotion is to produce a revenue to many persons who have a mind to live at ease, it must be quickened and reanimated from time to time with relishes of a new invention;—I say, considering this, there is reason to wonder that the barriers have not been broken, and that among so many monks and nuns, who have been so great refiners, nobody has yet said that the Holy Virgin governed the world alone. How comes’ it that Spain has not yet produced writers that have boasted to know by revelation, that a long experience having made God the Father know the infinite capacity of the Holy Virgin, and the good use she made of the power wherewith he had invested her, had resolved to abdicate the empire of the world; and that God the Son believing he could not follow a better example, had followed the same resolution; so that the Holy Ghost, always conformable to the wills of the two persons from whom he proceeds, approving this fine design, the whole Trinity had remitted the government of the

world into the hands of the Holy Virgin, and that the ceremony of the abdication, and that of the translation of the empire was solemnly made in the presence of all the angels; that an act of it had been drawn up in the most authentic form; that ever since God concerned himself with nothing, and relied altogether on the vigilancy of Mary; that orders were given to several angels, to notify that alteration of government upon earth, that men might know to whom, and in what manner they ought to have recourse for the future in their prayers; that it was no longer to God, since he had declared himselfemeritus, et rude donatus, nor to the Holy Virgin, as to a mediatrix, or to a subordinate queen, but as to the sovereign and absolute empress of all things. How comes it, once again, that such an extravagancy is yet to start? I was asked one day, if I had never heard of it? I answered no, but I would not swear that the thought did never appear, and yet less, that it will never be hatched in a brain sick of devotion; and perhaps if Mary d’Agreda had lived ten years longer, she would have brought forth the monster, and given us a copy of the act of the abdication, wherein we should have seen that the Trinity being willing to live henceforth a quiet life, and to acknowledge their obligations to the Holy Virgin, who since so many ages sustained so wisely a considerable share of the fatigues of the regency of the world, thought they could do nothing more proper, nor pitch upon a reward more suitable to her, than to divest themselves in her favour of the absolute authority of all things.

Just as was the censure of the Sorbonne, it gave offence to a great number of persons, and the apprehensions of the scandals which it might excite, obliged the faculty to make a solemn protestation, that by that censure they do not pretend to diminish any thing of the lawful worship that the Catholic

church pays to the Holy Virgin; that they honour her as the mother of God; that they have a particular confidence in her intercession; that they hold the sentiments of the fathers concerning the immaculate conception, and that they believe her assumption into heaven in body, and in soul.” The censure wherein they acknowledged the conception and the assumption of the Virgin, was made by the syndic and the deputies after the body of the faculty had finished the judgment. This shows that they had not the courage to publish the censure of the faculty, without adding some preservatives to it. and thereby we may know to what dangers persons expose themselves who disapprove the most palpable errors that amplify the honours of the Holy Virgin. They not only expose themselves to the indignation of the people, but also to that of the monks and of divers other ecclesiastics, and endeavour to ward off the blow by studied prefaces. What servitude ! and how incurable the disease ! What Livy said of the republic of Rome, agrees at present with the church of that name. It can neither endure the disease, nor the cure. The work of Mary d’Agreda is plainly full of fables, and of absurd doctrines; yet because it favours the false ideas people entertain of the high dignity and unlimited power of the Holy Virgin, they must make use of all sorts of means, to be able to censure it in Paris.

There is, however, a particular reason that may have obliged the Sorbonne to be cautious, by exposing them to the oppositions of many doctors. It is, that so many consequences have been drawn from the epithet of Mother of God, that there is scarcely any overstrained thought concerning the excellency and the power of the Virgin, that may not be maintained in some measure by the argumentsad hominem, which those consequences afford.

Your adversaries lead you by degrees where they please, you are undone by the subtilties of the schoolmen. If you recoil, they convince you of inconsequence; from whence it comes that those who pretend to argue consequently, and to favour the popular devotion all at once, had rather advance more and more, than recoil. And yet their system is not of a regular figure; the divinity of Mary is wanting in it in the literal sense, seeing the Mother of God ought to be a Goddess of course, and of the self-same nature with the Son. She would be so if they would adopt the imagination of the Chevalier Borri, but it has been condemned. Perhaps a time will come that they will know the necessity of it, and by that means square the irregular figure. It is thought that many wish for it. Such a thing might be done under certain circumstances, if there were a combination of temporal and spiritual interests. Every thing passes when princes concur with the heads of an ecclesiastical party, during certain dispositions of general affairs Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary, has borrowed this argument of the Dutch ministers, and illustrated it in a pleasant dialogue, with his usual wit and humour.—Ed. ²³.—ArticleAgreda.

AMPHIARAUS.

Amphiaraus was praised because he endeavoured tobe an honest man, and not toappear so. For this reason, Plutarch informs us that on the recital of some verses of Æschylus on the Athenian stage, in commendation of the above quality in Amphiaraus, the spectators immediately turned their eyes

upon Aristides, as if the eulogium particularly applied to him. This spontaneous action formed one of the finest encomiums in the world; and it shows, that if the Pagans did not practise true virtue, they at least perfectly understood it. They praised those who in their performance of a good action looked neither to pecuniary nor public applause; and they despised those, whose end, in the exercise of virtue, was reputation, glory, or the admiration of their neighbour. Be as disinterested as you please with respect to riches and employments; if you are not so with respect to praise, you still act meanly; if you are not recovered from the disease of self-love, you are only disengaged from the grosser snares, you only wear finer chains. It seldom happens that the desire of applause is the only end of those who are not satisfied with the testimony of their own consciences. Observe the persons who aspire to these two things, the one to be virtuous, and the other to appear so, and you will find, that the ambition of the former is not contented with the reality, nor that of the latter with the appearance of virtue. The mere steam of incense does not satisfy their desires, they wish for something more solid to attend it. Reputation alone seems to them a reward too spiritual; they endeavour to incorporate it with the conveniences of life. They soon make a merit of the praise and approbation of the world to those who have the distribution of honours and employments, and then make use of this credit, to enrich themselves, or to gratify all their passions. The surest way therefore to preserve the purity of the soul, is to follow the example of Amphiaraus and Aristides. Endeavour tobe a virtuous man, let that be your chief end; seek not to appear so, for such an endeavour is attended with more dangerous consequences than you are aware of.

Socrates is reported to have said, “ that the shortest way of attaining to virtue, was to endeavour to be such as one would desire to be thought.” So likewise Horace:

Tu rectè vivis, si curas esse quod audis.—Lib. i.Ep. 16.

This advice is very judicious; for the desire of appearing with lustre, and of obtaining public applause, is so strong and common, even among those who have no great inclination to be internally virtuous, that we may expect great advancement in virtue from him who will endeavour to produce a perfect conformity between the real state of his soul, and the opinion he would have others entertain of him. But it must be confessed, that there is less disinterestedness in this way, than in that of Amphiaraus. “ Seem to be an honest man, and be so: enjoy a fair reputation, but deserve it; do not usurp the esteem of your neighbour Such is the counsel of Socrates, who would not deprive any one of the incense of praise. Amphiaraus would have simply said, “ Be an honest man, and do not trouble yourself whether it be known to others or not.”

It may be said, perhaps, that these two things generally go together, and that if a good reputation may be acquired by false virtues, that is to say, by the art of concealing a bad heart under the appearance of honesty, it may be more certainly obtained by real virtues. I answer, that oftentimes it is easier to be an honest man than to be accounted so, and that there is no necessary consequence from one of these things to the other. To become a virtuous man, you have nothing to do but to conquer your own passions; but to appear so, you must conquer those of others. You have cunning and violent enemies, who spread many ill reports of you: if you are an honest man, as I

suppose you to be, are you able to discover the contrivances of these enemies, and the oblique ways of working upon the minds of the vulgar? Had you not rather leave the latter in an error, than spend all your leisure in disputing the ground with calumniators Î Will your vigilance be sufficient to remove the impressions, which their malignity has made upon credulous men, who are infinitely more susceptible of calumny, than of the best reasons you can allege in your vindication? From all which it follows, that to appear virtuous depends materially upon others, to be so on ourselves.—Art.Amphiaraus.

ANABAPTISTS.

This sect sprang up quickly after the rise of Lutheranism. Nicolas Storch, Mark Stubner, and Thomas Munzer laid the foundation of it in the year 1521, by making an ill use of a doctrine which they had read in the book, “ De Libertate Christiana,” published by Luther in the year 1520. They found in it the proposition, that “ a Christian is master of all things, and is subject to nobody.” This doctrine which Luther promulgated in a very good sense, and deemed it adapted to gain the common people, each of them treated according to his talent. Storch having no learning, boasted of inspiration; Stubner who had wit and learning, dealt in subtle explications of the word of God; and Munzer, a bold and passionate man, made use of impudence, and gave a full scope to the most restless passions. They were not contented to cry down the ecclesiastical tyranny of the court of Rome, and the authority of consistories, but also taught, that the power of princes was a usurpation, and that men under the gospel ought to enjoy perfect liberty. They rebaptized their followers; and to make this practice the more current, they taught that infant baptism was null. They

however insisted much on rigid morality, and recommended mortifications, fastings, and plainness in apparel, by which means they seduced a vast number of people. After these successful beginnings, Munzer became so bold as to exhort the people publicly to oppose the magistrates, and force sovereigns to lay down their authority. Such a gospel proved so acceptable to the German peasants, who found the yoke of their masters a little too heavy, that they rebelled in several places, and committed abundance of outrages. Troops were raised against them, which easily defeated them, and a great number of them were put to death. Munzer who had imposed upon them, and who boasted so much of enthusiasm, was taken and beheaded in the year 1525. The disciples he had left in Switzerland multiplied the sect there, and occasioned many troubles, so that the magistrates were forced to have recourse to the most severe penal laws, in order to stop the progress of Ana-baptism. There was a necessity to do the like in several cities of Germany, and elsewhere.

The Anabaptists made a great progress in Moravia, and it had been greater notwithstanding the severe oppositions of the secular power, if they had not divided themselves into two factions. Every body knows that they made themselves masters of Munster, and that John of Leyden, the king of that new Jerusalem, defended himself as long as he could, until the town being taken at last, he was punished with death in the year 1536. Though the Anabaptists of Holland and Friesland disapproved the conduct of their brethren of Munster in several particulars, yet they occasioned many troubles. It is true that by degrees they have undeceived themselves; they boast no more of enthusiasm; they do not oppose the orders of the magistrates; they preach no more a total freedom from all manner of

subjection, the community of goods, and such like things. They divided themselves into many branches, as it is unavoidable by all sects that do not govern themselves by the principle of authority. They boast of a great many martyrs, and their martyrology is a large book in folio. I do not be\1 \2lieve that any author has spoken of them with so much equity as George Cassander. Being tolerated in the United Provinces, M. Turenne, who was one day in a coach with the Dutch ambassador, M. Van Benning, expressed his dislike of that indulgence, on which the latter made the following strong and lively reply: “ Why (said he) should they not be tolerated? They are very good and quiet people: they do not aspire to dignities; an ambitious man never meets them in his way; they never oppose us by any competition and canvassing. It were to be wished that one half of the inhabitants of the world would make a scruple of suing for places, the other half would get them with less trouble, and without using so many cunning, base, and unlawful means. We do not fear the rebellion of a sect, that teaches among other things, that men ought never to bear arms. Is it not a happy thing for a sovereign to know that such a doctrine will prevent the mutinies of his subjects, whatever imposts or taxes are laid upon them? The Anabaptists bear their share of all the charges of the state. We desire no more: we raise troops with their money, which do us more service than they would do by listing themselves. They edify us by their simplicity; they apply themselves to arts and trades, without lavishing away their estates by luxury and debauchery. It is not so in other communions; their voluptuousness and vain expenses are a continual cause of scandal, and weakens the state. But they refuse to swear. What signifies that? The authority of the courts of justice suffers no prejudice by it. Those people think themselves as much bound by their promise to speak the truth, as if they took an oath. All the use of oaths consists in this, that those who break them are afraid of a more severe punishment from God, and expose themselves to infamy, and even to be punished by men. The Anabaptists fear the same thing if they lie after they have given their word that they will speak the truth, and therefore they are no less bound than other men The wild conduct of certain fanatical sects, still furnishes the Catholics with their strongest offensive arms against Protestantism. This is the usual practice of religious controversialists: the folly,and fanaticism, and cruelty exercised by the Church of Rome, in its turn, is left quite out of observance. Each side tells much truth respecting the other.—Ed. ²⁴.”

The controversialists of the Roman party made use of this conjuncture with an extraordinary activity to cry down the Reformation, and arm all the powers against it A striking picture of active and passive fanaticism. ²⁵; but the reformers were no less vigilant to keep themselves from the scandal under which they endeavoured to bring them. They mightily exclaimed against the Anabaptists, they confuted them in writing, and engaged them in disputes wherever they could. In the year 1527, they were confuted at Bern in a public disputation, but in private they said that their reasons seemed still good to them; wherefore that the triumph of truth might be more authentic, another disputation was ordered in the year 1532, which lasted nine days, the acts whereof were published. They would have settled at St Gall, if the magistrates had not banished them. It was there that Thomas Schucker cut off his brother’s head in the year 1527. He convened a numerous assembly,

and declared to them that he was seized with the spirit of God; whereupon he caused his brother to kneel down, and took a sword. His father and mother and some other persons asked him what he was going to do. “ Be easy,” answered he, “ I will do nothing but what shall be revealed to me by our heavenly Father.” They waited impatiently to see the issue of all this, when he drew his sword and cut off his brother’s head It is not intended to select from all the notices of the Grecian philosophers found in Bayle, but from those only that contain valuable observations or illustrations of his own, which is the case with the article Anaxagoras, and a few others. Setting aside this motive to selection, it is scarcely necessary to observe, that in regard to the history and opinions of these ancient luminaties, more formal sources of information are available.—Ed. ²⁶. He was punished by the magistrates according to the heinousness of his crime; but he showed no sign of repentance, and declared on the scaffold, that he had only executed the orders of God. You may believe that the edicts of banishment were renewed at the sight of such a fanaticism.

Remarkable anecdote of an Anabaptist woman.

The magistrates of Augsburg putting the laws in execution against the Anabaptists, whereby sectaries are forbidden to meet in conventicles, and to perform the exercise of their religion, they were banished and imprisoned. There was a woman of good family, who boasted in prison, that if she had a conference with Regius, she would prove to him, that the cause of the Anabaptists was very good; she was therefore sent for to dispute with him in a full senate. She appeared there with the equipage of a prisoner, that is, with her hands chained, and her feet in irons. She alleged abundance of passages out of the Holy Scripture to maintain her opinions. Regius answered her, and clearly showed the true sense of those passages. But he could not undeceive her; she continued in her errors; and spoke to the minister thus:—“ Without doubt, brother Urban, this is a very strange way of disputing. You sit upon a soft cushion among the

burgomasters, and you speak like an oracle, and as it were from Apollo’s tripod. But as for me, I am prostrate on the ground, and forced to plead my cause in irons.” “ Sister, (replied Regius), there is nothing in it but what you deserve; since after you have been freed from the slavery of the devil through Jesus Christ, you have been willing to undergo that infamous yoke again. A furious spirit makes you appear in such livery, for an example to others.” The woman was at last banished from the town.

This woman wanted no wit: she made a very judicious reflection, and seasoned it with a great deal of salt; but she had too great a confidence, or rather, she was too rash. She believed, that if she should dispute with a minister of the prevailing religion, and before the judges who had already condemned Anabaptism, and imprisoned those who taught it, she might persuade them of the justice of her cause. To hope for such a thing, it is not enough to be in the right, one must besides hope for an extraordinary assistance of the divine spirit; for, according to the usual course of things, it does not appear that a prisoner for religion can confound such adversaries as speak to him with the greatest contempt, and who have on their side an outward pomp, and all the company prepossessed against him. Regius sat in an honourable place, and was surrounded with marks of favour; he spoke for a cause protected by the sovereign, and against a cause persecuted by the sovereign. His antagonist was a woman loaded with chains, and in the posture of a criminal already condemned. A very good reason alleged by that woman in such circumstances would not have balanced a very indifferent one alleged by Regius, with all the weight and emphasis of a man sitting on the bench of the burgomasters, and on a kind of tribunal. If Regius had disputed against a priest at Ingolstad,

in quite different circumstances from the dispute of Augsburg; if he had been in chains, and if the priest had sat on a cushion among the senators, this affair would have ended with Regius’s banishment, or something worse. He had been looked upon as a caviller, who wrested the Holy Scriptures; and the priest had been admired as a faithful interpreter of the word of God.—ArticlesAnabaptistsandRegius.

ANAXAGORAS Plutarch in vita Periclis. ²⁷.

Anaxagoras, one of the most illustrious philosophers of antiquity, was born at Clazomenæ, in Ionia, about the seventieth Olympiad, and was a disciple of Anaximenes. His noble extraction, his riches, and the generosity which induced him to resign his whole patrimony to his relations, made him very famous. He applied himself wholly to the study of nature, without intermeddling in any public affairs. Accordingly he placed the supreme good, or the end of human life, in contemplation, and that freedom of condition which it produces. He was but twenty years of age when he began to philosophize at Athens. Some authors say he was the first who removed the school of philosophy thither, which had flourished in Ionia from the time of its founder Thales. It is certain that he had several famous disciples at Athens, and particularly Pericles and Euripides; and some add Themistocles and Socrates, but chronology is

against them as to the former. There is scarcely any thing which gives us a greater idea of his abilities, than the nature of the progress which Pericles made under him; for he inspired him with those grave and majestic manners which enabled him to govern the Republic; he qualified him for that sublime and victorious eloquence, which rendered him so powerful; and he taught him to fear the gods without superstition. Add to this, that his councils assisted him greatly in supporting the weight of government. He not only slighted all honours, but did not so much as take care to procure to himself what was necessary for his subsistence. He did not seek to heap up riches by the credit and friendship of Pericles, nor did he consider the necessities of old age. His inquiries into the secrets of nature swallowed up all his other passions. He found at last that his contempt of riches should not have been so great; for in his old age he was reduced to want, and in this necessity he took up a calm resolution to starve himself to death. Let us hear Plutarch:—“Pericles,” says he Bayle does not however act as if he thought so, for with the exception of quoting the well-known objections of Lucretius, he proceeds most scholastically to overthrow the doctrine by arms of his own. In the present stage of physical science, there is little necessity to dilate on the doctrine of the Homœomeriæ.—Ed. ²⁸, “ assisted several poor people with his riches, and among others Anaxagoras; of whom it is said, that Pericles being so busy that he had no leisure to think of him, he found himself forsaken by every body in his old age; and having muffled up his head, laid himself down with a resolution to die by hunger. Pericles being informed thereof, went immediately to him in great concern, and begged of him most earnestly, that he would alter his mind and live, bemoaning himself that he should lose so faithful and wise a counsellor in the occurrences of public affairs. Then Anxagoras uncovered his face, and told him; “Pericles, those who want the light of a lamp, put oil in to feed it.”

The constancy of this philosopher was very great: on learning that the Areopagus had passed sentence of death against his sons, he exclaimed, “ Nature has long ago pronounced the same sentence against both them and me.” And again, “ I knew very well that I had begotten them mortal.” When his friends at Lampsacus asked if he would after his death be carried to Clazomenæ, where he was born, “ It is not necessary,” he replied; “ the way to the Elysian fields is not farther from one place than from another.” When they offered to pay to his memory all the honours he could desire, he rejected that favour, and requested nothing but that the day of his death might be a play-day for the scholars. Anaxagoras died at Lampsacus at the age, as it is said, of seventy-two, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral. An altar was also consecrated to him, and his tomb was adorned with the following epitaph, which has been preserved by Ælean and Diogenes Lærtius.

Ένθάδε πλεῖστον ἀληθείας ἐπὶ τέρμα περῄσας
Ὀυρανίου κόσμου, κεῖται Αναξαγόρασ

Ilic situs ille est, cui rerum patuere recessus,
Atque arcana poli, magnus Anaxagoras.

Entomb’d here Anaxagoras lies,
Who taught the secret of the skies.

It is asserted that Anaxagoras was the first philosopher who published books, and these did not satisfy Socrates, as will be hereafter shown. He also distinguished himself by the novelty and singularity of his doctrines. He taught, that there were hills, valleys, and inhabitants in the moon; and that the sun was a fiery mass of matter, and bigger than Peloponnesus. He believed that our eyes are incapable of discerning the true colour of objects, and that our senses deceive us; and therefore that it is the business of reason and not of our eyes to judge of things. He moreover admitted

as many sorts of principles as of compound bodies; for he supposed that each kind of body was made up of many similar particles, which he calledhomœomeriœ, by reason of their conformity. According to this doctrine the production of a herb is nothing else but the assemblage of several small herbs: the destruction of a tree is nothing but the separation and dispersion of several trees. “ We see,” added he, “ that the simplest food, as bread and water, is converted into hair, veins, arteries, nerves, bones,; there must be therefore little hairs, veins, arteries, &c. which indeed our senses do not discover; but they are not invisible to our reason or understanding.” It is evident that he went upon the false supposition, that something would be made out of nothing, if the parts of bread, which supply the bones with nourishment, had not the nature of bones, in the bread itself. It is surprising that so great a genius should reason in this strange manner. Could he not perceive that a house is not made out of nothing, though it be built with materials which are not a house Î Do not four lines, none of which are squares, make a square? Is it not enough, that they are placed in a certain manner? Is not a doublet made of several pieces of cloth, none of which is a doublet? Is there any creation in this? Since then, in artificial things, the bare change of figure and situation of parts is sufficient to form a whole, which, as to its species and properties, differs from each of its parts, could he not apprehend that nature, which infinitely exceeds human art, can form bones and veins, without putting together parts which are already bones and veins; and that it need only work upon such particles, as are capable of receiving such or such a situation or figure? By this means, without any creation, properly so called, that which was not flesh, will become flesh, &c.,is sufficient to destroy this hypothesis of Anaxagoras Vide Plutarch in the Life of Lysander. ²⁹. The chief excellence of his system was, that whereas his predecessors had reasoned about the formation of the world by admitting on the one side unformed matter, and on the other a mere chance, or blind fatality, as the agent; he was the first who supposed that an intelligence produced the motion of matter and disentangled chaos. This no doubt is the true reason why he was surnamed Νοῦς, or Understanding. His orthodoxy was however still deficient, which is the less to be wondered at, seeing the ignorance of the philosophers who preceded him in regard to a great truth which had been so often sung by the poets.

I must not forget to observe, that the strength and sublimity of the genius of Anaxagoras, his labours, his application, and his various discoveries led him only to uncertainty, for he complained that “every thing was full of obscurity that “all consisted in opinion,” and that “ objects are such as we would have them;” that is only as they appear to our deceiving senses. He taught that the soul of man was an aerial being, yet believed it to be animated. He honoured it more than the world; for he thought that heaven and earth would perish. He also believed that beasts possessed a reasonable soul as well as man, and that all the difference consisted in the power of man to analyse his determinations, which could not be done by beasts.

It is pretended that Anaxagoras predicted that a star would fall from the sun, and that one fell accordingly in the river Egos, which was honoured

as a holy relic This exposition of the objections of Socrates to the lucubrations of Anaxagoras, forms an admirable reproof of a species of theological jealousy, in respect to the pursuit and diffusion of practical science, which has been observable in all ages of the world, but especially on the dawn of the light which followed the darkness of the middle ages. It also shrewdly hints at the danger of cultivating science on the principle of a detection of tinal causes, a most illusive species of research, as may be proved by Derham’s Physico-Theology, and other books of that class, whose assignment of the creation of this thing for one purpose, and that for another, the further discoveries of science have proved to be in the highest degree imaginary. In fact, Socrates requires what no research can furnish, and on that account will not receive what it really may supply; being the opposite defect to that of the common sense philosophy, which inculcates the propriety of inquiry within a circle, but is somewhat too much inclined to bound it. Socrates may however be pardoned; visionary and purely intellectual hypotheses in regard to the origin and principles of things, occupied attention in his days as fruitlessly as the quibbles of the schoolmen at a later date, and impressed with their futility, he carried his objections too far—a common case.—Ed. ³⁰. He applied himself to geometry, and he wrote in prison concerning the square of the circle. He also cultivated astronomy, calculated eclipses, and reasoned upon comets, earthquakes, the origin of wind, thunder, and other phenomena of nature. His capacious mind sufficed for all; nor did his philosophical speculations prevent him from studying the poems of Homer with the attention of a man who was desirous of making discoveries and improving literature. He was the first who supposed that these poems contained premeditated morals, in which wisdom and virtue were taught under allegorical narrative.

His particular sentiments were the cause or rather the pretext of a vexatious prosecution before the Areopagus. The facts and the issue of the process are differently described: some asserting that he was condemned, others that he was acquitted. What may be relied upon is, that his accusers were of a contrary faction to Pericles. It was not therefore out of zeal for religion that they persecuted that philosopher; but with a design to maintain their cabal, and weaken the authority of Pericles. They could not better succeed than by maliciously causing the suspicion of irreligion to fall upon him, by accusing Anaxagoras of impiety. This is generally the first cause of this sort of accusations: when men will be revenged of any body or remove an obstacle to authority and fortune, they call the passions of the people to their assistance, pretending that the honour of God is concerned in it. It is not true, therefore, as Vossius asserts, that the accusers of Anaxagoras grounded their accusations on his acknowledging that the divine Intelligence made the world; they maintained, that by saying the sun was a stone, he

deprived it of its divinity; which was also the ground of the sentence of condemnation. He was not merely condemned because of the distinction which he made between God and his works; but because he did not teach as the poets did, that the sun was both the work of God, and a god; that is to say, Apollo the son of Jupiter, one of the great deities. Eusebius has reason to think it strange that Anaxagoras should have been nearly stoned as an atheist, notwithstanding his orthodoxy as to the existence of a God, the author of this world; a doctrine which he taught first of all among the Greeks. Is it not astonishing that in so learned a town as Athens, a philosopher might not explain the properties of the stars by physical reasons, without running the hazard of his life? Is it not deplorable rather than advantageous, for a man to be more knowing than a superstitious mob, guided by senseless men? To what purpose serves this superiority of genius and knowledge among such people? Is it not a crime? does it not expose a man to a thousand infamies and dangers? Arc not the conveniences of life much better enjoyed by following the current of ignorance and superstition? Pericles on this occasion rendered a great service to Athens, and the most general opinion is, that he saved his preceptor’s life by making him quit it. This transaction gave rise to a fine passage in Lucian, in which he supposes that the greatest of gods endeavoured to crush Anaxagoras to pieces, but that he missed him because Pericles turned aside the thunderbolt, which burnt a neighbouring temple, and was nearly broken to pieces against a rock. For the rest, it is only surprising that such a remarkable trial as that of Anaxagoras, in which Pericles the chief man of Athens was so far concerned, has not been better known to historians. They mention it with a thousand variations; and some of them affirm on the chief point exactly what others deny; which is not for the honour of antiquity.

Objections of Socrates to the books of Anaxagoras» I have observed, that Socrates was not satisfied with the books of Anaxagoras. I will now lay two things before you, an abridgment of his complaint, and some reflections upon the nature of it. “ When I came to know (says he) that Anaxagoras laid down in one of his books that an understanding produces and governs all things, I was well pleased with that sort of cause, and imagined that from thence it would result that each being was qualified and situated in the best manner possible. I joyfully hoped to find in Anaxagoras, a master who would instruct me in the causes of each thing, and inform me whether the earth was round or flat, and then give me the reason of what he had determined. I also believed and hoped that as this reason would be grounded upon the idea of the highest perfection, he would show me that the state the earth is in, is the best wherein it could be placed; and that if he placed it in the centre he would tell me why that situation was the best of all. I resolved to look for no other cause, provided he made that clear to me; and only to inquire, with respect to the proportions of swiftness, revolution, &c. which are found between the sun, moon, and other planets, what is the best reason that can be assigned, why these bodies, in quality of agents and patients, are just what they are? I could never have imagined, that a philosopher, who says, that an Intelligence governs all these things, would allege any other cause, but prove, that the state in which they are, is the best that can be. I believed likewise, that having in this manner explained the particular nature of each

body by such a cause, he would in general explain their common good. Full of this hope, I applied myself with the greatest eagerness to the reading of his writings, that I might speedily know what is most excellent, and what is wrong; but I found that this philosopher does not employ an Intelligence, nor any cause of arrangement, but refers all things to the air, the ether, the water, and such other impertinent subjects, as to their original. This is just as if any one, after having said, that whatever I do, I do by my understanding, should afterwards account for all my particular actions after this manner:—Socrates sits, because his body is composed of bones and nerves, which, by the rules of mechanism are the cause that he can bend his limbs. He speaks, because the motion of his tongue impels the air, and conveys its impression to the ear, Such a one would forget the true cause, to wit, that the Athenians having judged it best to condemn me, I have thought it better for me to sit down here; and that it was befitting, that I should suffer the punishment which they have ordained. Now, if any one objects, that, without my bones, nerves, &c.,I cannot perform what I would, he judges rightly; but if he pretend, that I perform it because of my bones, nerves, &c., and not through a choice of what is best, since he supposes that I act by my understanding, his discourse is very absurd.”

You see plainly the taste of Socrates. He had forsaken the study of natural philosophy, and applied himself wholly to moral; wherefore he required that all natural things should be explained by moral reasons, and by the ideas of order and perfection. I venture to assert that he censured Anaxagoras improperly. Every philosopher, who has once supposed, that an Intelligence has moved matter, and ranged the parts of the universe in order

is no longer obliged to have recourse to this cause, when he is to give a reason for each effect of nature. His business is to explain, by the action and reaction of bodies, by the qualities of the elements, by the configuration of the parts of matter,&c., the vegetation of plants, meteors, light, gravity, opacity, fluidity,&c. Such is the method of the Christian philosophers, of whatever sect they are. The schoolmen have an axiom, that a philosopher ought not to have recourse to God, “ Non est Philosophi recurrere ad Deum they call this recourse the sanctuary of ignorance. And indeed what could you say more absurd, in a piece of physics than this;—stones are hard, fire is hot, and cold freezes rivers, because God has ordered it so? The Cartesians themselves, who make God not only the first mover, but also the only, continual, and perpetual mover of matter, make no use of his will and actions in explaining the effects of fire, the properties of the loadstone, colours, smells,&c., they only consider the second cause, the motion, figure, and situation of the corpuscles. So that if the remark of Clemens Alexandrinus, mentioned above, were grounded only on this discourse of Socrates, it would be very unjust. To approve of it, we should know, not merely that Anaxagoras explained many things without mentioning the divine intelligence, but that he expressly excluded it, in explaining part of the phenomena of nature. I do not condemn Socrates for desiring such an explication of the universe, as he mentions; for what could be more excellent or curious than to know distinctly and particularly why the perfection of the machine of the world required that each planet should have the figure, magnitude, situation, and swiftness, which it has, and so of all the rest? But this science was not designed for man; and it was very unjust to expect it from Anaxagoras. Unless we had the idea which God followed in creating the world, it will be impossible to give the explications which Socrates desired. All that the greatest philosophers can say upon this occasion, amounts to this: that since the earth is round, and situated at such a distance from the sun, this figure and situation were necessary to the beauty and symmetry of the universe; the Author of this vast machine having infinite intelligence and wisdom. Hence we know, in general, that every thing is right in this machine, and that there is no defect in it; but, if we should undertake to make it appear, piece by piece, that every thing is in the best state possible we should infallibly assign very wrong reasons. We should act like a peasant, who, having no notion of a clock, undertakes to prove that the wheel, which he sees through a chink, must necessarily be of such a thickness, and bigness, and precisely placed there, because if it were less, thinner, and set in another place, great inconveniences would follow. He would judge of this machine, as a blind man doth of colours, and without doubt he would be a wretched reasoner. The philosophers are not much better qualified to judge of the machine of the world, than this peasant of a clock. They know but a small part of it, and are ignorant of the model of the artist, his design, his ends, and the reciprocal relation of all the parts. If you say that the earth must be round, that it may turn the easier on its axis, you may be answered, that it would be better if it were square that it might turn more slowly and afford us longer days. What could you reasonably reply, if you were obliged to specify the inconveniencies the world would suffer if Mercury were greater or nearer the earth? Would sir Isaac Newton, who has discovered so many mathematical and mechanical beauties in the heavens, pretend to warrant, that if things were not such as he supposes them, as to magnitude, distances, and velocities, the world would be an irregular work, ill built, or ill contrived? Is not the divine understanding infinite? God has therefore the ideas of an infinity of worlds, different from each other, all of them beautiful, regular, and mathematical to the last degree. Do you think he could not, from an earth of a square figure and nearer Saturn, draw such uses as would be equivalent to those of our earth? Let us conclude then, that Socrates ought not to have expected that Anaxagoras should prove to him, by a particular deduction, that the present state of every thing is the best it can be. God alone can prove it after this manner.

How should we perform what Socrates required, with regard to the machine of the world, since we are at a loss to do it, with respect to the machine of an animal, after so many dissections, and so many lectures of anatomy, which have taught us the number, situation, and use of its principal organs? By what particular reasons can it be proved, that the perfection of man, and that of the universe require that our two eyes be situated as they are, and that six eyes placed round the head would occasion a disorder in our body, and in the universe? It may be reasonably pretended that, in order to give a man six eyes round his head, without departing from the general laws of mechanism, the other organs must have been so altered, that man’s body would have been framed after another model, and would have been another kind of machine: but no particular reasons can be given for this; for all that you could say would be opposed with objections as probable as your proofs. We must adhere to this general reason. The wisdom of the artificer is infinite, therefore the work is such as it ought to be; the particulars are out of our reach,

and they who pretend to engage in a detail of them, generally expose themselves to ridicule Voltaire, indignant at the superstitious accusations against him, sides with the comparative innocence of the marshal d’Ancre. Bayle gives some strong reasons for a different decision, and makes some judicious reflections on the baleful influence of queen-regents in France; as also on the baseness of the nobility and people, for suffering their king for many years to be enslaved by a foreigner. In fact the French aristocracy have during the whole course of their history since the reign of Louis XI, exhibited the extremes of insolence and servility. With respect to the figure presented by Louis XIII in this curious sketch, it may be once for all observed, that there is not such a very slave in the world, as a weak-minded despot.—Ed. ³¹.

We can prove by this discourse of Socrates, that he was not the disciple of Anaxagoras; for, if he were, would he have stood in need of being informed by one who had read the books of Anaxagoras, that according to that philosopher a divine Intelligence was the cause of all things.—Art.Anaxagoras.

ANCRE (MARSHAL D’), AND WIFE.

Concino Concini, known by the name of marshal d’Ancre, abused the goodness of the queen-mother, Mary de Medici so excessively, that in order to stop the career of his ambition, it was thought fit to make away with him without any trial. It would have been too dangerous a thing to undertake it in due

form; which is sufficient to show that he was a wicked man. He was born at Florence, where his father, from a mere notary, came to be secretary of state. He came into France with Mary de Medici, the wife of Henry IV; and at first he was only gentleman to that princess, but he was made afterwards her master of the horse, and raised himself prodigiously by the credit that one of the queen’s maids, whom he married, had with her majesty. He bought the marquisate of Ancre a little after the death of Henry IV, and was governor of Amiens, Peronne, Roie, and Mondidier; he also became first gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and afterwards marshal of France. He endeavoured to have the government of Picardy, but the duke of Longueville having the choice of that government, and of that of Normandy, chose the first, and by that means the marshal d’Ancre was excluded from his pretensions, but he obtained the second. He caused Quillebeuf to be fortified in that province, notwithstanding the parliament had forbidden it, and got the particular government of Pont de l’Arche, and endeavoured to have also that of Havre de Grace. In short, there was no longer reason to doubt that he designed to have all things at his disposal; for he removed the wisest heads from the king’s council, and filled their places with his creatures. He disposed of the finances, he distributed the offices, he got friends in the armies and in the towns, and terrified those who opposed his faction, by examples of a severe revenge.

There being no other remedy for all those great disorders, than that of killing him, a commission was given to Vitri, one of the captains of the lifeguards, who executed it on the drawbridge of the Louvre, the 24th of April 1617, where several pistols were fired at that marshal. The next day

the mob having taken the body out of the grave in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois, dragged it up and down the streets, and discharged their anger all manner of ways. The footman of a gentleman who had been lately put to death to gratify the marshal, began the tumult in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois. He cried out, that the body of that excommunicated jew ought to be taken out of his grave, and thrown on a dunghill, and the populace went about it immediately with so much fury, that if any one had represented to them that they ought to have some respect for the holiness of the place, they would have buried him alive in the marshal’s grave. When they had opened the coffin, they dragged the body to the end of the Pont-Neuf, and hanged it by the heels on one of the gallows that the deceased had caused to be set up for those who should speak ill of him. They cut off his nose, his ears,&c., and a little after took him down again, and dragged him to the Grève and to other places, and then dismembered him, and cut him into a thousand pieces. Every one would have some part of him; his ears were sold very dear; his entrails were thrown into the river; part of the body was burnt before the statue of Henry IV on the Pont-Neuf, and some roasted portions of his flesh in the fire, and gave it to their dogs. The author of the relation printed with the history of these favourites, relates some things that are still more surprising. The great provost appearing with his archers to put a stop to the beginning of the tumult in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois, was threatened to be buried alive if he advanced farther. The same author adds, that a man in a red coat was so enraged, that having thrust his hand into the dead body, he took it out again all bloody, and licked the blood, and swallowed also some little pieces that he had torn from the body; that another pulled his heart out, and broiled it on some coals, and eat it publicly with vinegar. That author relates the particulars of the conduct of the mob, according to the several stations where the body was hanged, dismembered, and burnt; he says, that on the next day the ashes were sold for fifteen sous an ounce. The parliament proceeded against the memory of the deceased, declared him convicted of high treason, both divine and human, condemned his wife to be beheaded, and declared their son ignoble.

The wife of the Marshal d’Ancre, Leonora Galigai, was daughter of a joiner, and of Mary de Medici’s nurse. That princess was much attached to her, and brought her into France on her marriage with Henry IV, and under the title of woman of the bedchamber she governed the queen entirely. Both husband and wife fermented the division between Henry IV and the queen, and by their artifices and false reports occasioned the domestic jars which made that great prince weary of his life. After his death they found it still more easy to manage the queen, and engrossed all the riches and best places in the kingdom. On the death of the marshal, they found in his pockets in assignments from the treasury, in notes of receivers, or in bonds, the sum of 1,985,000 livres. So great had been the pride of this woman, that M. Dupuy in his relation of the death of marshal d’Ancre, states that “ she would not even allow the princes, princesses, and the greatest persons of the kingdom, to come into her chamber, nor suffer people so much as to look her in the face; saying ‘ that she was frightened when people looked upon her, and that they might bewitch her by Booking upon her.’ For this reason she would not look full upon some of her servants, only for having looked on her; and towards the

end of her favour, she had even banished from her chamber, upon that account, M. de Lusson, and Feydeau, who had been the last in her favour.” Her superstition, as to witchcraft, and her ugliness, were the reason of this more than her vanity.

The end of all this was as fatal to the wife as to the husband. She was arraigned and tried by the Parliament, and sentenced to be beheaded and burnt; which was executed the 8th of July, 1617. She took up at last a good resolution, and died with constancy enough, and like a Christian. She was convicted, among other crimes, of having not only judaized, but likewise of having used magical arts to obtain her ends. She was condemned for high treason against God and the king, and for several other particular crimes. She was more united to her husband by interest than by affection. She heard without shedding tears, that he was murdered; and her first care was to save her jewels, which she put in her straw bed, and causing herself to be undressed, she went to bed. The provostmen that went into her chamber not finding the jewels, made her rise to search her bed, where they were found. She said afterwards to those that kept her, “ Well, they have killed my husband, is not this enough to satisfy them? Let them suffer me to go out of the kingdom.” When they told her they had hanged the corpse of the marshal, “ she seemed very much moved at it,” says Dupuy, “ without tears however; but yet she said, that he was a proud insolent man; that he had nothing but what he deserved; that she had not lain with him for the three last years; that he was an ill man; and that to part from him, she had resolved to retire into Italy this spring, and had made every thing ready for her journey; which she offered to justify.” When Messieurs Aubri and le Bailleul went to

interrogate her about her rings and other goods, she spoke to them with as much assurance as if she had no manner of fear; and even told them, she hoped to come again into favour.

Louis XIII was for several years a slave to these Florentines, an assertion which is no slander invented either by the marshal d’Ancre’s enemies, or by those of Louis XIII, since that prince owns his servitude himself in the letters that he wrote to the governors of the provinces the day that the marshal was killed. “ I make no doubt,” says he, “ that in the whole course of affairs ever since the death of the late king, my lord and father (whom God absolve), you have easily observed how the marshal d’Ancre and his wife, abusing my youth, and the power they acquired by degrees over the mind of the queen my lady and mother, have projected to usurp all the authority, to dispose absolutely of the affairs of my state, and debar me from the knowledge of them. This design they have carried so far, that there was nothing left to me hitherto but the name of king, and that it would have been a capital crime for any of my officers and subjects to see me in private, and to entertain me with any serious discourse. God of his infinite goodness having made me sensible of this, and of the imminent danger that my person and state would be exposed to in such exorbitant ambition, if I had given any sign of my resentment, and of the extreme desire I had to give the necessary orders against it; I have been forced to dissemble, and to hide my good intentions by my outward actions, waiting till it should please the same Divine Goodness to prepare the way, and afford me an opportunity to remedy it.” The author of the relation says, that when the king heard that the marshal was dead, he looked out at the window, and exclaimed, “ I thank you, I thank you, now I am a

king.” He went afterwards to other windows, and cried out, “ Take your arms, my friends; God be thanked, now I am a king.” The lieutenants, ensigns, and the exempt of the guards, whom he sent into the streets of Paris to prevent any disorder, cried out all over the city, “ Long live the king, the king is king.” The bishop of Luçon, who was afterwards cardinal Richelieu, had been one of the marshal’s favourites, and performed at that time the functions of first secretary of state. He came into the king’s chamber some time after the execution was done: “ Monsieur,” said the king to him, “ God be thanked, this day we are freed from your tyranny.” He did not know at that time that his deliverance would not continue long, and that he spoke to a man who was designed to leave him only the title of sovereign.

All however bent the knee to the idol whom they inwardly hated. The marshal said one day, that “ the people of France are not what they are thought to be; for although they speak very ill of me, yet as soon as I come into any part of the provinces, all the officers make speeches to me as to the king.” Such base flattery did not only deserve to be mentioned, but also to be described with more indignation than is found in the following passage from Le Grain.—“We must not omit that many princes and lords of the court, many deputies of the states, many of the chief magistrates, a great part of those who depended on the nobility, a great number of the officers and citizens of towns, did not only bear, but were not ashamed to advance the grandeur of that tyrant with all their might, in order to obtain his favour; and in the mean time they neglected the love and fidelity which God commands us to show to our king and country, and the ancient generositv being banished from the hearts of the

French, was altogether inclined to support the foreign usurper.”

In the memoirs of the regency of Mary de Medici by marshal d’Etrées, it will not be found that any of the actions of the marshal d’Ancre were at all flagitious, but I should act imprudently to prefer the testimony of this author before that of so many writers, who have spoken ill of Concino Concini. Not but that I think it very possible, that with indifferent faults, a man who has great imprudence and many enemies, may become the aversion of the people, and pass for a very wicked man. A cunning, malicious, and powerful enemy, will make the mob believe many lies. Nay I believe that many things have been strained concerning that unfortunate Florentine, and that no fewer obstacles must be overcome to discover the properties of the loadstone, than to know exactly, and with the nicest distinction, the truth of Concini’s affairs. And on this occasion I shall observe, that in many cases historical truths are not less impenetrable than physical ones It is chiefly as a forcible illustration of the truth of this remark that the article is retained.—Ed. ³².—ArticlesAncreandGaligai.

ANTINOUS.

This minion of the emperor Adrian was a native of Bithynia. On his death there were no divine honours which Adrian thought too sublime for this object of his regard. Some say that Antinous had given the highest proof of affection by a voluntary death in accordance with certain magic rites; others affirm that he drowned himself in the Nile, during the stay that Adrian made in Egypt towards the 132nd year of the Christian era. However it be, this emperor mourned for him with tears unfeigned, and ordered temples and altars to he erected to him; which was performed with all the expedition that could be expected from a nation accustomed to the vilest flatteries. Among the base complaisances for the passions of Adrian, Casaubon mentions that the poet Pancrates showed Adrian as a miracle, the lotus-flower, which is not unlike a rose, saying it ought to be named the Antinoun, and that it grew in the very spot which had been sprinkled with the blood of a lion, which he the emperor had killed in hunting. The emperor was so pleased with this discourse, that he ordered Pancrates a pension in the museum of Alexandria. He would also have it believed, that Antinous delivered oracles; and some were given out in his name, and the people could scarce be persuaded but Adrian had forged them. He caused the town in which his favourite died to be rebuilt, and called after his name. Pausanias notes expressly that that town stood on the Nile. The emperor was overjoyed when they told him a new star appeared in the heavens, supposed to be the soul of Antinous; and he himself used to say, that he had seen the star of Antinous. What is most surprising in all this, is not the profane complaisance for this prince’s weakness, which in private was a

jest, but that this worship should subsist a long time after his death, and be still in vogue under the reign of Valentinian, when there was no occasion for flattering this prince, or fearing the special edict ordaining his worship. The adoration of Antinous rested entirely on a ridiculous fondness in the people for every thing they find established Lamprid. in Alexandro Severo, c. 29. ³³. The fathers of the church made their advantage of this foolish superstition to expose the vanity of the Pagan religion, it being easy to trace this new divinity to the source, and make the original of all the rest suspected. They spake in different styles of Antinous, according to the differences of time; when they addressed themselves to Antoninus Pius, the adopted son and heir of Adrian, or to Marcus Aurelius, adopted by Antoninus Pius according to the intention of Adrian, they were not so imprudent as to note the infamous cause of his deification. They touched upon that string, during the lives of those emperors, with the gentlest hand. But Tertullian, who lived under princes who had not the same interest in that point, kept no measures. Prudentius has pleasantly observed, that Adrian’s minion was raised to a higher station than Jupiter’s, seeing that Antinous sat down to table, while Ganymede filled the liquor. The former might have said,

-------- Mediis videor discumbere in astris
Cum Jove, et lliaca porrectum sumere dextra
Immortale merum.

The children of this world have in all ages made their court more exactly to the gods of the earth than to those of heaven.—Art.Antinous,Text and Notes.

APICII (The Three),

There have been three Apicii in Rome famous for their gluttony. The first lived before the change of the republic; the second under Augustus and Tiberius, and the last under Trajan. Athenæus means the first Apicius, when having said on the testimony of Posidonius, that in Rome they preserved the memory of one Apicius who had outdone all men in gluttony; he adds, that it was the same Apicius who had been the cause of Ruti-lius’s exile. It is well known that Posidonius flourished in Pompey’s time, and that Rutilius was banished about the year of Rome 660.

The second Apicius was the most famous of the three. Athenæus places him under Tiberius, and says, he laid out prodigious sums on his belly, and that there were several sorts of cakes which bore his name. It is he whom Seneca speaks of in his ninetyfifth letter, and in the eleventh chapter of his book, “ De Vita Beata,” and in the treatise of consolation which he wrote to his mother Helvia under the emperor Claudius. We find in the last of these works, that this Apicius lived in Seneca’s time, and kept as it were, a school of gluttony in Rome; that he had consumed two millions and a half in good cheer, and that being much in debt, he at last bethought him of inquiring into the condition of his estate, and finding he had but 250,000 livres left, poisoned himself, lest he should be starved with such a sum. Dion, who calls him M. Gabius Apicius, reports the same thing. Pliny calls him M. Apicius, and often mentions the ragouts which he invented;Nepotum omnium altissimus gurges. A book had been written on his gluttony, which is quoted by Athenæus. It is not to be doubted but this is the Apicius of Juvenal, Martial, Lampridius,&c.

The third Apicius lived in Trajan’s time. He

had an admirable secret for preserving oysters, which he showed when he sent some to Trajan into Partida: they were still fresh enough when Trajan received them. The name of Apicius was for a long time given to several dishes, and made a kind of sect among the cooks. We have a treatise “ De re Culinaria,” under the name of Cælius Apicius, which some critics judge ancient enough, though they do not take it to be composed by any of these three. Some choose to call the author of this book Apicius Cælius. A learned Dane is of the number, who ascribes this work to him who sent the oysters to the emperor Trajan. This book was found by Albanus Torinus in the island of Maguelone near Montpellier, who published it twelve years after at Basil. It had been found elsewhere near an hundred years before by Enoch d’Ascoli, in the time of Pope Nicholas V. There was in the title-page M. Cæcilius Apicius. Vossius is of opinion that the author’s name was M. Cælius, or M. Cæcilius, and that he entitled his work, Apicius, because it treated of the kitchen.—Art.Apicius.

APOLLONIUS TYANÆUS.

Apollonius Tyanæus was one of the most extraordinary persons that ever appeared in the world. He was born at Tyana in Cappadocia, towards the beginning of the first century. At sixteen years of age he became a rigid observer of the rules of Pythagoras, renouncing wine, woman, and all manner of animal food, wearing no shoes, letting his hair grow at full length, and clothing himself in linen only. He soon after set up for reformer, and fixed his residence in the temple of Esculapius, whither many sick persons resorted to be cured by him. When he came of age he gave part of his estate to his elder brother, and distributed another

part among his poor relations, retaining but a very small share for himself. He lived six years without speaking a word; yet during his silence quelled several seditions in Cilicia and Pamphylia. He travelled, and turned legislator, and pretended to understand all languages, without having learned them; to know the thoughts of men, and to explain the oracles which birds deliver by chirping. He condemned dancing, and other volatile diversions, but recommended works of charity. He travelled over most of the known countries in the world, and at Cadiz prevailed on the inhabitants of that province to revolt against Nero, which draws the following observations from M. Tillemont:— “ Philostratus, thinks it for his honour, that he induced the governor of Cadiz, and the country about it, to rebel against Nero; nor did the other fhilosophers make any more scruple of this than he. [There being no institution but the Christian religion, which teaches us to consider men, not as they are in themselves, but in the order wherein God has placed them, nor ever to violate the fidelity, which has once been sworn to them.]” M. Tillemont might very well have omitted this moral reflection, and indeed the whole parenthesis. Christianity has certainly the most real and sublime advantages above all philosophy; but, as to the point here in question, I cannot see that it has had any right, for these thousand years past to insult the philosophers. The Christians and they have been pretty even on this score for a long time. We may say of this engagement, “ Never to violate the faith which has once been pledged,” what the poet said of chastity:

Credo pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
In terris, visamque diu.------Juv.Sat. 6.

In Saturn’s reign, at Nature’s early birth,
There was that thing, called chastity, on earth.—Dryden

The life of Apollonius has been fully related by Philostratus. That which Damis, originally of Nineveh, the most devoted to him of all his disciples had composed, was properly no more than memoirs, and ill enough written. They fell into the hands of the empress Julia, the wife of Severus, and “ she (says M. Tillemont) gave them to Philostratus, who, from them, and by the help of what he could gather from Apollonius himself, and from other memoirs, composed the history we at present have of him.” He died at a very great age without its being certainly known where, and the Pagans were gradually led to oppose his pretended miracles to those of Christ, and to draw a parallel between them, and even St Augustin confessed, that at worst he was greatly superior to the Jupiter of the Gentiles. To prove his popularity, we need only read a work of Eusebius, against one Hierocles, a great enemy of the gospel, in the reign of the emperor Dioclesian. It appears, that Hierocles’s design in the treatise which Eusebius confutes, was to draw a parallel between Jesus Christ and Apollonius Ty-anæus, and that he gives the preference to the latter. “ Apollonius (says M. Tillemont), by the seeming innocency of his life, and his pretended miracles, was one of the most dangerous enemies the church had in its infancy. It seemed, according to his own panegyrists, as if the devil had sent him into the world, about the same time that Jesus Christ was to appear, either to counterbalance his authority in the minds of those who should take the illusions of this magician for real miracles, or that they who should discover him to be an arrant impostor and magician, might thereby be brought to doubt of the miracles of Jesus Christ and his disciples.”

It cannot be denied, that this philosopher received very great honours, both during his life and

after his death. The inhabitants of Tyana built a temple to their Apollonius after his death. His statue was erected in several other temples. The emperor Adrian collected as many of his letters as he could, and kept them in his fine palace of Antium, with a little book of this philosopher concerning the answers he had received from the oracle of Trophonius. This book was to be seen at Antium, during the life of Philostratus; nor did any curiosity render this small town so famous as Apollonius’s book. Caracalla had an extraordinary veneration for Apollonius, and built a temple to him as to an hero. The emperor Severus kept the image of this philosopher in a particular place in his palace, among those of Jesus Christ, Abraham, and the best princes. Aurelian, having resolved to sack Tyana, was prevented by Apollonius’s appearing to him in a vision and forbidding it; and he not only obeyed this order of Apollonius, but vowed an image, a temple, and a statue to him. Vopiscus in relating this, declares himself his admirer and votary, with a promise to write his life. The words of Lampridius, concerning the manner of the emperor Severus’s worship, are no less worthy of a place here. “ Usus vivendi eidem hic fuit: Primumut, si facultas esset, id est si non cum uxore cubuisset, matutinis horis in larario suo (in quo et divos principes, sed optimos electos et animas sanctiores, in queis et Apollonium, et,quantum scrip-tor suorum temporum dicit, Christum, Abraham, et Orpheum, et hujuscemodi deos habebat, ac majo-rum effigies) rem divinam faciebat August. Epist. iv. p. 23. ³⁴.—The same emperor’s manner of life was this: First, if he was duly prepared, that is, if he had not lain with his wife, he performed early in the morning religious ceremonies in his chapel, in which he kept the effigies of the best emperors, and of those who had been the most remarkable for sanctity, among which was Apollonius, and, if we may believe the historian of his own times, Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus, and the like kind of gods, together with the effigies of his ancestors.” Eusebius tells us, that in his time, there were persons who pretended to effect enchantments, by invoking the name of Apollonius.

The reputation of Apollonius continued as long as paganism. M. de Tillemont, who denies this, alleges the testimonies of Lactantius and Eusebius. I confess Lactantius supposes that no one honoured Apollonius as a god, but he does not deny what the author whom he confutes had advanced, that a consecrated statue of Apollonius was still honoured at Ephesus, under the name of Hercules. He thinks it sufficient that Apollonius was not honoured under his own, but a borrowed name; “ Ideo alieni nominis titulo affectavit divinitatem, quia suo nec poterat, nec audebat:—He therefore affected divinity under a borrowed name, because he neither could, nor dared do it under his own.” This is more subtle than solid; for when the Ephesians consecrated the statue, they had no other intention than to honour Apollonius, and only made use of the title of Hercules ἀποτρέπαιος, or Alexicacus, to denote that Apollonius had delivered them from a plague. It is probable there was no artifice in this: Apollonius did not endeavour to conceal himself under a borrowed name, for fear his own should raise scruples in the minds of the people. Here then is a fair testimony produced by Lactantius, in proof of the worship which was still paid to our Apollonius, in the beginning of the fourth century. But with all the respect due to this father of the church, I cannot persuade myself that the inhabitants of Tyana had discontinued

their veneration, or that the images of Apollonius were removed out of all the temples. I find in Eusebius, that in his time a report was spread that many things were performed by invoking the name of Apollonius. He calls them magical or superstitious; but there can be no doubt, that many pagans took them for real miracles. I find in St Augustin, that in his time, the Christians were so pressed with the chimerical parallel between the miracles of Apollonius and those of Jesus Christ, and by the ridiculous pretence that the first equalled or even surpassed the latter, that they had recourse to this great light of the church for a solution of this difficulty. “ On this occasion,” writes Mar-cellinus, “ I add my request that you, whose reply whatever it be, will be of use to many, would condescend to exert your utmost efforts in refuting the false pretences of these objectors, who would place the works of our Lord on a level with the actions of mere men. For they produce against him their Apollonius, and Apuleius, and other dealers in magic, whose miracles they assert to have been greater than his.” Then it was that St Austin declared that Apollonius Tyanæus was superior to Jupiter. “ Quis autem vel risu dignum non putet, quod Apollonium et Apuleium cæteros-que magicarum artium peritissimos conferre Christo vel etiam præferre conantur, quamquam Tolera-bilius ferendum sit quando illos ei potius comparent quam Deos suos: multo enim melior, quod fatendum est, Apollonius fuit, quam tot stuprorum actor et perpetrator, quern Jovem nommant.—But who does not think it even matter of laughter that they should pretend to compare Apollonius and Apuleius and others, skilful in art magic, to Christ, and even to give them the preference; though the comparison of such persons with Christ is more tolerable than that of their gods: for we must confess that Apollonius was much better than their Jupiter, as they call him, the author and perpetrator of so many acts of lewdness.” The same father observes, that “ the pagans, who laughed at the history of Jonas, would have believed a like adventure to be true, if reported of Apuleius, or Apollonius Tyanæus, or any of those to whom they gave the name of magicians or philosophers Amm. Marcell. lib. xxiii. cap. 6, p. 370. ³⁵.” Upon the whole, I find that in the beginning of the fifth century Eunapius wrote, “that Apollonius was not so much a philosopher, as something between a god and a man; and that Philostratus ought to have entitled the history which he wrote of him, the Descent of a God upon earth.” Am I to blame then in affirming, that Apollonius’s honour continued as long as paganism?

It remains only that I answer Eusebius’s authority; and this is easily done, since it is plain, from the facts now alleged, that Eusebius supports an hyperbole which has not the least shadow of truth. How can it be true that in his time no one did Apollonius the honour to call him philosopher, when Ammianus Marcellinus in the same century, speaking of a fountain near Tyana, failed not to remember Apollonius with this eulogy:—“ Ubi amplissimus ille philosophus Apollonius traditur natus.—Where the most celebrated philosopher Apollonius is reported to have been born Euseb. in Hierocl. page 514. ³⁶.” I should choose, for the honour of Eusebius to say, that he was speaking of Philostratus; so that his meaning will be, that it is not necessary to refute at large the dreams of Philostratus, since he is an author of no repute, and not so much as ranked in the number of philosophers. I confess there is some difficulty in this explication; but it is plain

that Eusebius’s design was to attack the phantom of Philostratus, and not the true Apollonius. Does he not declare that he had always esteemed Apollonius as a learned man, and allow that he deserves to be ranked with all imaginable honour among the philosophers? That he only rejects the fabulous and supernatural virtues which Philostratus and some other panegyrists ascribed to him, and that in direct opposition to Philostratus, he will show that Apollonius, as described by him, is unworthy to be ranked not only among the philosophers, but even among men of moderate virtue; so far is he from coming into any competition with Jesus Christ Sidon. ApoIlin. Epist. iii. lib. 8, page 486. ³⁷.

Apollonius left some works, which have been long since lost. He wrote four books of Judicial Astrology, and a Treatise on Sacrifices, showing what was to be offered to each deity. This last piece became very famous: Eusebius cites it, Suidas also mentions it, and adds to it a Testament, a Collection of Oracles and Letters, and the Life of Pythagoras. The Theology, of which Eusebius cites a passage, is perhaps the same piece with the Treatise on Sacrifices. Apollonius 'wrote a great number of Letters, some of which Philostratus has inserted in his History; all of them very short. He also wrote some Memoirs, whence we may learn how fond he was of philosophy. He was so strict a Pythagorean, that he would have encountered fire and faggot for his philosophy; and made so open a profession of his belief in the metempsychosis, that he caused a lion to be adored, under pretence that the soul of Amasis inspired the body of that beast. His life, from the Greek of Philostratus is translated into French, with an ample commentary; and an English translation of the same book, with

notes, borrowed it is said from a manuscript of the famous Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, gave great offence to pious minds. This new translator of Philostratus was an English gentleman, whose name was Charles Blount. In the year 1693, he published a treatise, the title of which was, the Oracles of Reason, and accompanied it with some other small pieces of the same stamp. The same year he died a tragical death. He was greatly in love with his brother’s widow; and pretended he might legally marry her, and even wrote a treatise to prove it; but seeing no likelihood of obtaining the church’s consent, he fell into despair, and killed himself. Besides Philostratus, Nicomachus, who lived in the reign of Aurelian, wrote the life of Apollonius, on that which Philostratus had composed; Tascius Victorianus wrote another upon that of Nicomachus. Sidonius Apollinaris wrote a third, and followed the plan of Victorianus rather than that of Nicomachus. We read in Suidas, that Soterichus, a native of Oasis in Egypt, had composed the life of Apollonius. This author lived in the reign of Aurelian. Had we what a cotemporary philosopher, named Euphrates, satirically wrote against Apollonius, we should be furnished with an ample detail of scandal; for when such rivals once declare war against each other, they bring many secrets to light. Sidonius Apollinaris has given us a description of Apollonius, which represents him as the greatest of heroes in philosophy. That every one may judge of this, let us here produce his words. He had written the life of Apollonius, and sending it to a counsellor of Evarigus, king of the Goths, he addresses him after this manner.— “ Read (by the Catholic Church’s permission), this life of a person, in many things not unlike yourself; that is, one courted by the rich, but not courting riches; covetous of science, but moderate in his desire of wealth; at banquets abstemious; amidst those in purple, habited himself in linen; amidst sweet ointments and perfumes, a rigid censor of manners; amidst a race of fops, rough and unpolished; and amidst perfumed and smooth courtiers, valuable for his venerable unattire. And as he was not indebted to his own flock either for food or raiment, he was the admiration rather than jealousy, of the countries he travelled over; and having the fortunes of kings ever at his command, he asked no other favours, than such as he was wont rather to bestow, when offered, than receive Vita Hobb. page 106. ³⁸.”

The author of this description does not forget to make his excuses to the Catholic Church.—Art Apollonius.

APPARITIONS.

It has been said that Hobbes was afraid of apparitions and spectres, but his friends call this a fable. “ He was as falsely accused by some of being unwilling to be alone, because he was afraid of spectres and apparitions, vain bugbears of fools, which he had chased away by the light of his philosophy †.” They do not however deny that he durst not be alone, but insinuate that it was in consequence of a fear of assassination. If his philosophy freed him from the former fear and not from the latter, it did not hinder him from being miserable; and a thought of Horace might be applied to him:

Somnes terrores magicos, miracula sagas
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?
* * * * *
Quid te exempta jurat spinis de pluribus orna?

Say, can you laugh, indignant at the schemes
Of magic terrors, visionary dreams,

Porteptous wonders, witching imps of hell,
The nightly goblin, and enchanting spell?
* * * *
Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain,
What boots it, while so many more remain?—Francis.

In fact his principles of philosophy were not proper to rid him from the fear of apparitions; for to reason consequently, there are no philosophers who have less right to reject magic and diabolism, than those who deny the existence of a God. But you will say that Hobbes denied the existence of spirits; say rather, that he believed there are no substances distinct from matter. Now, as that did not hinder him from believing, that there are many substances which design and do good or ill to others, he might believe that there are beings in the air or elsewhere, as capable of mischief as the corpuscles, which in his opinion formed all our thoughts in our brain. But how come these corpuscles to be better acquainted with the means of doing mischief than other beings? And what reason is there to prove, that other beings are ignorant of the manner of acting upon our brain to give us the sight of an apparition?

Let us consider the matter another way. We should not only be very rash, but also very extravagant, to maintain that there never was a man that imagined he saw a spectre; and I do not think that the most opinionated unbelievers have maintained this. All that they say amounts to this, that the persons who have thought themselves witnesses of the apparition of spirits have had disturbed imagination. They confess then, that there are certain places in our brain, that being affected in such or such a manner, excite the image of an object which has no real existence out of ourselves, and make the man, whose brain is thus modified, believe he sees at two paces distance a frightful spectre, hobgoblin, or menacing phantom.

The like things happen to the most incredulous, either in their sleep, or in the paroxysms of a violent fever. Will they maintain after this, that it is impossible for a man awake, and nut in a delirium, to receive in certain places of his brain an impression almost like that which by the laws of nature is connected with the appearance of an apparition? If they are forced to acknowledge this possibility, they cannot be able to promise that a spectre will never appear before them; that they shall never, when awake, believe they see either a man or a beast when they are alone in a chamber. Hobbes then might believe, that a certain combination of atoms agitated in his brain might expose him to such a vision, though he was persuaded that neither an angel, nor the soul of a dead man would occasion it. He was timorous to the last degree, and consequently he had reason to mistrust his imagination when he was alone in his chamber in the night. The memory of what he had read and heard concerning apparitions would involuntarily revive, though he was not persuaded of their reality. These images joined with the timidity of his temper might play him false; and it is certain, that a man as incredulous as he was, but of greater courage, would be astonished to think he saw one whom he knew to be dead enter into his chamber. Apparitions in dreams are very frequent, whether a man believes the immortality of the soul or not. Supposing they should once happen to an incredulous man awake, as they do in his sleep, we should find him afraid, though he had ever so much courage; and therefore we ought the more to believe that Hobbes might have been terribly affrighted It will be seen, that the philosophical reasoning of Bayle in regard to apparitions, in substance agrees with the physiological essays of Dr Ferriar, and others, in reference to these joint delusions of the senses and the imagination.—Ed. ³⁹.—Art,Hobbes,Note N.

ARBRISSEL (The Singular Life of).

Robert D’Arbrissel, founder of the famous abbey of Fontevraud, in the diocese of Poitiers, in the province of Anjou, was born about the year 1047, in the village of Arbrissel, seven leagues from Rennes. He went to Paris in the year 1074, and was there made a doctor of divinity. A bishop of Rennes, who though no scholar loved learned men and employed them, called him back to Britanny about the year 1085, and conferred upon him the dignities of arch-priest and official, and had the satisfaction to see him boldly struggle with the disorders that disgraced his diocese, in which the quarrels, simony, and concubinage of the clergy caused a great deal of disturbance and scandal. After Robert had for four years endeavoured to stop these disorders, seeing himself exposed by the death of his bishop to the ill will of the canons, who did not like his spirit of reformation, he bent his thoughts another way. He first went to Angers to teach divinity, but seeing the depraved manners of the age, he grew out of conceit with the world, and withdrew into a desert. His austere life in that place making a noise, many came to him to see and hear a saint, and he kept some of them with whom he began to make a sort of regular canons about the year 1094. Urban II. being in France two years after, heard so good a character of him that he sent for him, and willing to hear him preach, he ordered him to preach a sermon at the consecration of a church. He was so edified, that he created him apostolical preacher, and the Baron of Craon was so affected with this discourse, that he founded, the next day, an abbey, and gave it to Robert, who performed the office of abbot till the year 1098. He then concluded that his character of apostolical preacher did not allow that he should

be always shut up in the same place with his regular canons, and therefore quitted his abbey, and went from place to place to employ his talent of preaching. Having done this for two years, followed by a great multitude of men and women, he resolved to rest himself, and to fix his tabernacles in, the forest of Fontevraud. He wanted for nothing, every body striving to send him what was necessary to subsist the pious souls who remained with him; and in a short time he was in a capacity to give alms out of the surplus.

There was at the same time two other famous preachers, who agreed with him to share the two sexes between them, and to leave him the care of the women, whilst they took charge of the men. The names of these preachers were Bernard de Tiron, and Vitalis de Moriton. In vain were representations made to Robert of the hazard he would run by his zeal to instruct the fair sex, he rejected the advice as an artifice of the devil, and fortified himself with the example of St Jerome He despised the tempter, bade defiance to his cunning, and persevered in his female charge—imitating therein St Jerome, who was reviled by certain dealers in defamation for writing to the women, and preferring them to the men, whose cavils he refuted in a beautiful and copious encomium upon the fair sex.”—Main ferme,Clypei, vol. i. ⁴⁰. As soon as he had settled some good laws in his monastery of Fontevraud, he betook himself again to his business of ambulatory preacher, and preached in several provinces of France, and principally in Britanny and Normandy. He accomplished at Rouen one of the greatest things that one of his profession can effect, for in one of his exhortations he converted all the ladies of pleasure that were in a brothel wherein he went to preach the word. In the year 1104 he was present at the council of Beaugenci, and sat among the prelates. During

the years 1107 and 1108 he travelled all over Anjou, Poitou and Touraine, exercising his function of apostolical preacher, and his travels at least produced the effect of spreading the order of Fonteraud in all these provinces. The bishop of Poitiers went to Rome in the year 1106, to beg of his holiness the confirmation of this order. He obtained of Paschal II. a bull, whereby this pope declared, that he would take a particular care of it, and put it immediately under the jurisdiction of the Holy See, and pressingly exhorted Christians to be kind to this new institution. He confirmed all its privileges by a new bull in the year 1113. This order was already mightily increased, because its founder going into other provinces of France to preach, omitted not to settle convents in all of them. He also persuaded queen Bertrada to take the habit of his order, which she did not wear long, because its austerity soon killed her.

Robert found himself declining in the year 1115, and with the advice of several prelates, abbots and monks, whom he called together,conferred the generalship of the order on a woman. This choice hath been much censured; and there is nothing more singular in the monastic world, than to see a very numerous order composed of monks and nuns acknowledge a woman for their head and general; which is what the monks and nuns of the order of Fontevraud are obliged to do by their statutes. Robert d’Arbrissel made a law diametrically opposite to the Salic law; he thought it not enough that his ordermight fall under the government of a woman; he ordered that a woman should always succeed another woman in the dignity of its head and general. Father de la Mainferme employs all his third volume to justify this management of his founder. He answers all the objections that are commonly made, and he insists very much on

the blessed Virgin’s having commanded God himself; for it is said in Scripture that Jesus Christ was subject to his mother. If God, the necessary Being and Creator of all things hath not refused to obey a woman, shall we men, who are but vile creatures think much to do it? If ever the Romish church should do knowingly, what some pretend that she did ignorantly in the reign of pope Joan, father de la Mainferme’s book contains an apology ready for her; and I cannot see if the apology for Fontevraud be once allowed, why they should scruple to create a female pope. Besides, according to the hypothesis of most of the votaries of the communion of Rome, God hath bestowed on the blessed Virgin the empire of the world; for nothing is more common in these gentlemen’s books than the title of “ Queen of Heaven, Queen of Angels,” when they speak of the Virgin; it is even the language of their public worship, I mean the hymns of the church. A monk of Fontevraud made use one day of the following argument, and Father de la Mainferme relates it without censuring him for it: “ It happened once, that a monk, whose name I omit, and who could not digest our institution, told me speaking of it, that our kingdom was fallen into the hands of a woman; and he spoke more truly than he thought, and contrary to his intention, did us a great deal of honour. For it is true that it is in the hands of a woman, as the kingdom of the universe, heaven and earth is in the hands of a woman; namely, as it is ruled and governed by the sovereign power and authority of her, who, a strong woman,manam suam misit ad fortia; et digiti ejus apprehenderunt fusum, Prov. xxxi. v. 19:—layeth her hands to the spindle, and her fingers to the distaff.”

Robert fell sick as he was preaching in the diocese of Bourges in the year 1117, and caused

himself to be carried to the monastery of Orsan, where some few days after he died. The archbishop of Bourges with his clergy, and a great number of gentlemen and plebeians went with the corpse as far as the monastery of Fontevraud, where he solemnised his funeral twelve days after his decease. The earl of Anjou, the archbishop of Tours, the bishop of Angers, several abbots, and an incredible multitude of clergymen and other people went to meet this funeral pomp before it went out of the diocese of Tours.

Father de la Mainferme, a monk of Fontevraud, hath put out three apologetic volumes, wherein he earnestly labours to justify his patriarch, whom some have accused of sleeping with his nuns, only to expose himself to the strongest temptations. The accusation is founded upon a letter of Geoffry, abbot of Vendome, published by father Sirmond in 1610, from a manuscript in the abbey of La Couture. It informs Robert of the scandalous report that was spread concerning his conduct, and of the inconveniences which might arise from it. The words of the letter are, “Fœminarium quasdam, ut dicitur, minis familiariter tecum habitare per-mittis, et cum ipsis etiam, et inter ipsas, noctu frequenter cubare non erubescis. Hoc si modo agis, vel aliquando egisti, novum, et inauditum sed infructuosum martyrii genus invenisti.... Mulierum quibusdam, sicut fama sparsit, et nos ante diximus, sæpe privatim loqueris et earum accubitu novo martyrii genere crucians.— It is said that you suffer some of the women to live with you in too great a familiarity, and scruple not to lie with them and among them frequently in the night. If this be, or have been your practice, you have found a new and indeed unheard of, but fruitless kind of martyrdom ! It is reported, as I have said before, that you converse in private with some of the

women, and inflict upon yourself a new kind of martyrdom by laying with them.”

Another letter which is ascribed to Marbodue, bishop of Rennes, contains the same information. “ Mulierum cohabitationem diceris plus amare. Has ergo non solum communi mensi per diem, sed et communi accubitu per noctum dignaris, ut re-ferunt.—It is reported that you are too fond of living with women, and that you do not only admit them to your table by day, but into your bed at night.” He also blames Robert for allowing young girls to take the habit too rashly, and represents to him the ill consequences of such a proceeding. Some of them, as the ninth month drew on had broken out of the cloister to lie in elsewhere, and others were brought to bed in the midst of their cells. “ Taceo de juvenculis, quas sine examine religionem professas mutata veste per di versas cellulas protinus inclusisti. Hujus igitur facti temeritatem miserabilis exitus probat. Aliæ enim urgente partu, fractis ergastulis elapsæ sunt aliæ in ipsis ergastulis pepererunt.” In the letter ascribed to Godfrey ‘of Vendome, Robert d’Arbrissel is also accused of having a respect of persons. “There are some women, says the letter, with whom you are in a pleasant humour, quick, active, brisk, and so complaisant, that you spare nothing to express your civility to them; but to others, you never vouchsafe to speak, but scold them; use them with a great deal of severity, and leave them exposed to hunger, thirst, and cold. Illis siquidem te semper sermone jocundum os tendis, et alacrem actione, omneque genus humanitatis exhibes, nulla servata parcitate.” And again “Aliis vero, si quando cum ipsis loqueris, semper locutione nimis durus appares, nimis districtus correctione: illas etiam fame, et siti ac nuditate crucias omni relicta pietate.” This insinuates what Theophilus Raynaud affirms, that Robert pitched upon the

most beautiful when he had a mind to expose himself to temptation by being a bed with a woman. Observe, in the second place, that father de la Mainferme doth not quote all that is said in the pretended letter of Marbodus. I have seen it more full in Mr Menage, and have found that Robert is told, that he had been formerly faulty with women. It is not strange that the father should so earnestly exert himself against the author of this accusation. He denies the matter of fact Father de la Mainferme with great safety denied the existence of the epistle of Geoffry of Vendome, since according to the testimony of Menage, it had been abstracted from the collection at the instance of Joan Baptiste de Bourbon, a legitimate daughter of Frances, abbess of Fontevraud, after its publication by father Sirmond. Menage’s quotation from the letters of Marbodus mentions in addition to the passage in the text, that “Robert was reproached with taking a great many women with him in his travels, and dispersing great numbers of them in divers provinces, in the inns and hospitals promiscuously with the men, under the pretence of serving the poor and strangers.” It is added, that this fine arrangement produced a sufficient number of children to prove beyond all doubt that Robert exposed his female followers to very great dangers.—Ed. ⁴¹, and it is the best way to form his apology, for nothing is more inconsistent with purity of heart and person, than this mortification in the resistance of a voluntary temptation. Mr Menage deserves to be consulted on the proofs that father de la Mainferme hath rejected, as also “ The Apologetical Dissertation for theBlessed Robert d’ Arbrissel.”

Remarks on continency, as connected with the conduct of Robert d’Arbrissel.

The sins arising out of sexual desire are not of the nature of those that are to be conquered by assaulting, encountering, and crushing them. À running fight, or rather a downright flight, is the surest way to obtain victory. Is it not a strange

rashness, and a punishable contempt of this wholesome advice,Quisquis amat periculum peribit in illo, to provoke so dangerous an enemy, and to attack him in his strong holds? Arbrissel ought scarcely to have looked him in the face, and yet he was rash enough to take him by the neck, (as is reported) in order to wrestle with him:

Cervi luporum præda rapacium
Sectamur ultro, quos opimus
Fallere et effugere est triumphus Horat. Ode iv.lib, 4,

We feeble stags the ravenous wolves defy,
And madly follow what we ought to fly,
To scape from such a foe is victory.

If those that make a vow of chastity be wise, they ought carefully to seek for the gift of forgetfulness, and wholly exclude from their minds all lascivious ideas, far from sleeping by living objects.

Let us see what Socrates advised his disciples:— “ Thou thinkest, 'thou senseless fellow,” says he, “ that love kisses are not poisoned, because thou dost not see their venom: know that a fine woman is an animal more dangerous than scorpions, because these cannot wound us unless they touch us; but beauty wounds at a distance: on which side soever we perceive it, it darts its venom upon us, and oversets our understanding. It is perhaps for this reason that love is represented with bows and arrows, because a handsome face wounds us afar off. I advise thee therefore, Xenophon, when thou seest a beauty, to run away, and never look back; and as for thee, Critobulus, I think it convenient that thou shouldest be absent for one whole year; for this absence will not be too long to cure thee of thy wound Xenophon’s Memorabilia. ⁴².” Let us add what St Jerome said to those who approved not a retirement in deserts, and

who pretended that it was not fighting vice but flying it, and that none but those who encountered and overcame it, deserved to be crowned. Among other things he answered, that the surest way ought to be selected; and therefore that it was better to fly than to keep the field, when one might as well be beaten as conquered. There is no safety, added he, to sleep near a serpent; for it may happen that it will not bite, but it may also happen to bite. He expresses himself so handsomely on this head, that I cannot forbear transcribing his own words. They are so many thunderbolts against that carriage which is laid to Arbrissel’s charge. “ Who being conscious of his own inferiority, and sensible that the vessel which he carries is brittle, is afraid to make a false step lest he should fall and break it. For which reason he shuns the sight of woman, especially of the younger sort, and keeps so strict a guard over himself as to be afraid in the midst of security. You will ask the reason of my retiring into solitude. It is that I may not hear or see you, that I may not be moved by your passions, that I may not be exposed to a war with you, that no wanton eye may enslave me, that no ravishing beauty may lead me to forbidden embraces. You will answer that this is not to fight but to fly; keep your rank, stand to your arms, that having conquered you may receive the crown. I own my weakness; I would not fight in hopes of victory, lest I should fail in the success. If I fly, I escape the sword. If I encounter, I must conquer or fall. Where is the necessity of quitting certainty and following uncertainty. Death may be avoided either by fighting or by flying. You who fight may be either conquered or a conqueror; I that fly do not conquer by flight, but fly that I may not be conquered. No man can sleep in safety when a serpent is near him. It is possible it may not bite, but it is also possible that it may.”—Hieronym. Epis. adv. Viqilantium. The author of a book printed at Paris in the year 1630, and entitled “ Le Miroir des Chanoines,’ hath gathered a great many sentences, which loudly condemn the rash behaviour of those who draw as near danger as they can. “ Joseph,” says he, “ leaves his mantle, rather than to struggle with Potiphar’s wife; because as it is contagious and venemous to touch a woman, it ought to be as much dreaded as the biting of a mad dog.” This comparison is of St Jerome, “ Ipse mulieris contactus quasi contagiosus et venenatus est viro fugiendus, non minus quàm rabidissimi canis morsus.” Our author adds, that St Jordan, in St Antoninus, chides severely a monk for having only touched a woman’s hand. But she is a pious woman, answered the monk: No matter, replies St Jordan, for the earth is good, water is also good; but if these two elements are mixed, the result is dirt. St Jerome perceiving what prejudice the resort of women, however free from suspicion and scandal, did to clergymen,—“ Let a woman,” says he, “ never, or at least seldom, come into thy chamber; because whoever loves their company cannot dwell with God with all his heart. A woman burns the conscience of him with whom she dwells. Let women know thy name, but not thy face; neither do thou know theirs.—St Cyprian confutes subtilely and learnedly those daring spirits who, presuming on their integrity, are not in the least afraid of women, generously hoping not to he foiled by them. This is his thought: It is impossible to be surrounded with flames without being burnt; and it is more expedient to fear well, than to presume ill. It is more useful that man should acknowledge his weakness to become strong, than appear strong to become weak. That man is deceived, who believes himself something, and is really nothing. Who can place a firebrand to his breast and not bum his clothes? Yes, but I would overcome, that I may afterwards triumph. Hast not thou thy own flesh to encounter with and to conquer? Why wilt thou have laurels out of another soil? The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Let this be said once for all: the conversation of women is the devil’s own birdlime, to catch and enslave men. Unaccountable blindness ! to choose one's abode in a place where there is every day an absolute necessity to perish or overcome; and to imagine that it is possible to sleep securely near a viper.” Our author prescribing afterwards some remedies against the lust of the flesh, puts abstinence in the first place, and to frequent good company in the second; and then he says that the third must be never to come near women, and to see them afar off; as Lacides (in Lærtius) said to king Attalus, that pictures ought to be seen. St Augustin, on these words of St Paul,fuqitefornicationem, observes, that St Paul doth not say resist, but flee; because victory is more certain by flight than by resistance.

Tu fugiendo fuga, quem fuga sola fugat:
Defeat by flight, what flight alone defeats.

These maxims, so certain, and in themselves so considerable, and besides so commendable, because they are laid down and approved in the writings of great saints, for whom people have a mighty veneration; these maxims, I say, are very often inculcated into the minds of those who have most need of them. All this is every day preached to them, and exposed to their view in an infinite number of books, and yet they willingly follow the custom of venturing themselves. One would think that they set up for bravery, and that running

away seems to them as shameful an act of cowardice as it would be to soldiers. They boldly and cheerfully expose themselves to blows. And the fair sex, whose business is not to be brave, yet shows in that respect a great deal of undaunted courage; for these are as well pleased to be visited in their cloisters as men are to visit them. They behave themselves on both sides as if neither feared an overthrow; and it is very likely they are so secure, not because they rely on their strength, but because neither party is very willing to come off conqueror in this conflict; and at the worst the encounter itself, let the issue be what it may, is not without some pleasure. If they get a victory, it is so much got from Nature; but if they be overcome, it. is so much gained for her. Let this be said without doing any prejudice to those who have sincerely made a vow of chastity, and who no doubt, if they do not put in practice St Jerome’s advice, are assured that their visits, their long conversations, will not excite in them any evil desires. However, they will readily condemn the excessive rashness whereof some thought the founder of Fontevraud guilty The learning displayed by Bayle on this curious subject, is evidently made a vehicle for the poignant irony of his conclusion. It may be suspected that a literal attention to the advice of St Jerome, on the part of the priesthood of any religion would materially check its propagation.—Ed. ⁴³.—Art,Arerissel.

ARISTOTLE.

It will be an everlasting subject of wonder to persons who know what philosophy is, to find that Aristotle’s authority had been so much respected in the schools for several ages, that when a disputant quoted a passage from that philosopher, he who maintained the thesis, durst not say “ Transeat,” but must either deny the passage, or explain it in his

own way—just as we treat the Holy Scriptures in the divinity schools. The parliaments In the year 1624, the Parliament of Paris banished out of its jurisdiction persons who attempted to maintain theses publicly against the doctrine of Aristotle, and forbade all persons to publish, sell or vend the propositions contained in these theses, on pain of corporal punishment; or to teach any maxims contrary to the ancient approved authors, on pain of death.—Mercure Fronçait, t. 10, p. 504. ⁴⁴, which have proscribed all other philosophy but that of Aristotle, are more excusable than the doctors; for whether the members of the parliaments were really persuaded that that philosophy was the best of any, or whether they were not, the public good might have induced them to prohibit the new opinions, for fear the academical divisions should spread their malignant influences on the tranquillity of the state. That which ought most to amaze wise men is, that the professors should be so furiously prepossessed in favour of Aristotle’s philosophical hypotheses. Had the prevention been limited to his poetry and rhetoric, there had been less cause of wonder; but they have been fond of the weakest of his works, I mean his logic, and natural philosophy; in which no one pretends to deny that many things are found which discover the elevation and profoundness of his genius; but nothing can exceed the hyperboles in the praises of Casaubon, and in the following passage of father Rapin:—“ Nothing appeared regular or fixed in logic before Aristotle. That genius so fraught with reason and knowledge, searches so deeply into the abyss of human wit, that he penetrates all the secrets of it, by the exact distinction which he has made of its operations. This vast source of the thoughts of men had not yet been sounded to the Bottom: Aristotle was the first who discovered that new way to attain to science, by the evidence of demonstration, and by proceeding geometrically to that demonstration in the way of syllogism, the most accomplished work, and the greatest effort of human wit. This is in miniature the whole art and method of Aristotle’s logic, which is so very sure a one, that there can be no perfect certainty in reasoning but by this method, which is a certain rule for thinking aright on what we ought to think of.” That philosopher’s treatise of syllogisms may be praised to its desert, without using any such extravagant expressions. There are several most sublime questions in his natural philosophy, which he discusses and clears like a great master; but the main part of that work is good for nothing,infelix operis summa. The chief reason of the defect is that Aristotle forsook the way which the most excellent naturalists took who had philosophized before him. They believed that all the alterations which happen in nature are only a new disposition of the particles of matter; they admitted no generation, properly speaking. This doctrine he rejected, and by so doing committed himself; for being thus obliged to teach that new beings are produced, and that others are destroyed, he distinguished them from matter, gave them unheard-of names, and affirmed or supposed things whereof he had no distinct idea. Now it is as impossible to philosophize well without the evidence of clear ideas, as to sail well without the polar star or the compass. To be void of that perspicuity is to mislead ourselves; it is to imitate a traveller in a strange country without a guide, or to grope in a strange house by night without a candle. Every one knows the many forms and faculties distinct from substance, which Aristotle’s followers have introduced. He led them into that maze; and if in the seventeenth century natural philosophy began to appear again with a new lustre, it was by restoring the ancient principles which had been forsaken, and by insisting on sufficient evidence. In short, it was by excluding the great number of entities of which our mind has no manner of idea, out of the doctrine of generation, and adhering to the figure, motion, and situation of the particles of matter; of all which we have a clear and distinct conception.—Art,Aristotle,

ARMINIANISM.

It was a great pity that Arminius did not govern himself by St Paul’s rules. That great apostle, inspired by God and immediately directed by the Holy Ghost, in all his writings raised to himself the objections which natural light forms against the doctrine of absolute predestination. He apprehends all the force of the objection; he proposes it without weakening it in the least. “ God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” This is St Paul’s doctrine, and behold the difficulty which he starts upon it. “ Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?” This objection cannot be pushed farther: twenty pages by the subtilest Polinis could add nothing to it. What could they infer from it more than that in Calvin’s hypothesis, God will have men to commit sin? Now this is what St Paul knew could be objected against him. But what does he answer? Does he seek for distinctions and mollifications? Does he deny the fact? Does he allow it in part only? Does he enter into any particulars? Does he remove any equivocation in the words? Nothing of all this; he only alleges the sovereign power of God, and the supreme right which the Creator has to dispose of his creatures as it seems good to him. “ Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?” He

acknowledges an incomprehensibility in the thing which ought to put a stop to all disputes, and impose a profound silence on our reason. He cries out, “ O the depth and the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out !” All Christians ought to find a definitive sentence here, a judgment final and without appeal, in the dispute about grace; or rather they ought to learn by this conduct of St Paul, never to dispute about predestination, and at the first motion to oppose it in bar to all the subtilties of human wit, whether they offer of themselves while they are meditating on that great subject, or whether another suggests them. The best and shortest way is, to oppose this strong bank betimes, against inundations of argument, and to consider the definitive sentence of St Paul, as one of those immoveable rocks whose foundation is in the midst of the sea, against which the proudest billows cannot prevail, but turn to froth, dash and break themselves upon them in vain. All the arrows shot against such a shield, will have the same fate as that of Priam. Thus ought men to behave themselves, when the dispute happens between Christian and Christian. And if ever it be safe to give the mind some exercise on points of this kind, at least we ought to sound a retreat betimes and retire behind the bank I have spoken of. Had Arminius acted thus as often as his reason suggested to him difficulties against the hypothesis of the Calvinists, or at all times when he found himself called to answer any disputants, he would have taken a perfectly wise and apostolic course, and made use of the lights of his understanding just as he ought to have done. If he conceived that there was any thing too harsh in the ordinary doctrine, or if he found himself relieved by adopting a lest rigid method, he should have gone what lengths he thought fit for his own particular; but then he should have been content to have enjoyed that conveniency in silence: I mean without disturbing the rights of possession, since he could not do this without raising a dangerous storm in the church. His silence would have saved himself a great deal of trouble; he would have done well to have remembered an old fable,minus invidiœque. Horat. Epist. 17. lib. 1.

But, say they, would not he have been a prevaricator, and unworthy of the ministry, if he had neglected the instruction of his auditors, whom he believed to be engaged in a false doctrine? I answer, that two capital reasons excused his speaking out: one was, that he did not believe the hypothesis which he disapproved prejudicial to salvation; the other, that his new method was useless towards removing the chief difficulties that are to be met with in the matter of predestination. We must confess, absolutely speaking, that the least truth is worthy to be proposed, and that there is no falsity so inconsiderable, but it is better we should be healed, than tinctured with it. When, however, the circumstances of time and place will not permit any novelties to be proposed, be they never so true, without causing a thousand disorders in the universities, in families, and in the state at large; it is infinitely better to leave things as they are, than undertake to reform them: the remedy is worse than the disease. Our conduct in this case ought to resemble that towards certain sick persons, who can take no physic without stirring several ill humours, the agitation of which is more pernicious than the coagulation. I except one case where the saving of souls is the point, and the snatching them out of the jaws of the devil; for in this case charity will not suffer us to stand still, how great soever the commotions may be which are accidentally

occasioned; we must then submit all consequences to the care of Providence. In this respect Arminius was no way pressed to oppose the common doctrine, he did not believe that any one ran the hazard of salvation, by following the hypothesis of Calvin. Let us see another circumstance by which he rendered himself inexcusable. To a system full of great difficulties, he substituted another system, which to speak truly, draws after it no fewer difficulties than the former. One may say of his doctrine, what I have said of the innovations of Saumur. It is more earnest and less constrained than some opinions on the subject, but after all, it is no better than a palliative remedy; for the Arminians have scarcely answered some objections, which, as they pretend, cannot be refuted on Calvin's system, when they find themselves exposed to other difficulties which they cannot get clear of but by a sincere acknowledgment of the infirmity of the human mind, and by a consideration of the incomprehensible infinity of God. And was it worth while to contradict Calvin for this? Ought he to have been so very delicate in the beginning, seeing in the end he must have recourse to such an asylum? Why might not he as well begin with it, since he was doomed to come to it soon or late? He is mistaken who imagines, that after having entered the lists with a great disputant, he will be allowed to triumph only because he had some small advantage in the beginning. A runner who should outstrip his adversary three parts or more of the race, does not win the crown, unless he preserve his advantage to the end of the course. It is the same in controversies; it is not sufficient to parry the first thrusts. The replies and rejoinders must all be satisfied, till every doubt is perfectly cleared. Now this is what neither the hypothesis of Arminius, nor that of the Molinists, nor that of the Socinians, is able to do. The system of the Arminians is only fit to obtain some advantages in those preludes of the combat in which the forlorn hope is detached to skirmish; but when it comes to a general and decisive battle, it is forced to retire as well as the rest behind the intrenchments of an incomprehensible mystery This is a smart exposition of the difficulties attendant on the subject, which in fact involves the great question of the origin of evil, and the doctrine of philosophical necessity, a ground which cannot be taken from under the Calvinistic predestination, in itself so startling.—Ed. ⁴⁵.—Art,Arminius.

ATHEISM—ATHEISTS.

Certain learned men contend for three degrees of Atheism. The first, is to maintain that there is no God. The second, to deny that the world is the work of God. The third, is to assert that God has created the world by the necessity of his own nature, and not by the inducement of free will.

Atheism less injurious than Idolatry Bayle with his usual caution, ostensibly refers to Paganism only, but his reasoning applies to every species of superstition or doctrine which, whatever its profession, dishonours the Supreme Being, excites baleful passions, and does nothing to advance social well-being on this side the grave. The general application was felt in his own days, and hence no small degree of rancour and contumely from theologists of very opposite sentiments.—Ed. ⁴⁶.

If the judgments of the Atheists in their denial of the existence of a Supreme Being be attended to, it will be manifest that they are exceedingly blind and ignorant of the nature of things; but is there less extravagance in the notions of God which were entertained by the Pagans? The Pagans thought that a great number of divinities existed with different interests, views, and passions; that the honours paid to Jupiter would do nothing to assuage the anger of Juno, and that men may be

favoured by one god, and have another for an enemy. They attributed different sexes to the deity, and created the relationship of father and child, husband and wife, as among mortals. They believed, that if the driver of a chariot in a procession by chance took the reins with the one hand, instead of the other, the inadvertence would prevent the repentance and good intentions of an entire population from appeasing a portion of divine indignation, that would otherwise have been allayed. Such opinions, and a number of others Hume justly remarks, that however lofty the attributes which the multitude bestow upon the Divinity, their real idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language is inconceivably mean and frivolous. The following passage pleasantly supports the illustration of Bayle’s Charioteer:“That original Intelligence, say the Magians, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himselfimmediatelyto the mind and understanding alone; but has placed the sun as his image in the visible universe; and when that bright luminary diffuses its beams over the earth and the firmament, it is a faint copy of the glory which resides in the higher heavens. If you would escape the displeasure of this divine Being, you must be careful never to set your bare foot upon the ground, nor spit into a fire, nor throw any water upon it, even though it were consuming a whole city.—Who can express the perfections of the Almighty? say the Mahometans. Even the noblest works, if compared with him, are but dust and rubbish. How much more must human conception fall short of his infinite perfections ! His smile and favour render men for ever happy; and to obtain it for your children, the best method is to cut off from them, while infants, a little bit of skin, about half the breadth of a farthing. —Take two bits of cloth, say the Roman Catholics, about an inch, or an inch and a half square; join them by the corners with two strings or pieces of tape about sixteen inches long; throw this over your head, and make one of the pieces of cloth lie on your breast, and the other upon your back, keeping them next your skin(the scapulary). There is not a better secret for recommending yourself to that infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity ”—Dissertation on the Natural History of Religion.—Ed. ⁴⁷ of a kindred description, which it would be tedious to particularize, evidently suppose the divine nature to be bounded, and subject to weaknesses, which would scarcely be pardoned in an honest man. They despoil God of his omnipotence, eternity, spirituality, and justice, and reduce him to a state of existence which is more contradictory to reason than his nonexistence altogether. From all which it follows, that the errors of the Pagan worship were more injurious and quite as opposed to rationality as Atheism itself.

It is sometimes asserted by those who contend for the worship of false gods as superior to the denial of the existence of any, that the miscreants who committed the greatest crimes among the Pagans, were in reality Atheists. But were it even true that a Tarquin, a Catiline, a Nero, and an Heliogabalus believed not in the gods; can the same thing be affirmed of all the Romans who have been murderers, poisoners, spoilers, and perjured men? It cannot even be truly asserted of the monsters in question; for according to Suetonius, Nero himself dared not assist at the Eleusi sinian mysteries, knowing that it was customary for an herald to cry aloud, that no impious or wicked man was allowed to approach them. According to the same authority, he also suffered from remorse of conscience, and was frightened with bad dreams and auguries, and pleased with good ones. He even thanked Heaven that having neglected other superstitions, he had always persevered in the worship of the small image of a child, to which he sacrificed three times a day. Similar proofs exist as to Tarquin, Catiline, Caligula, and Heliogabalus, who were therefore no Atheists. I wish not to displease the reverend fathers, the Minims, when I observe, that the journey of St. Francis de Paulo, from the lower end of Calabria, to the court of king Louis XI., produced in me no great

idea of the sanctity of that prince. Possessing all his life a duplicity of heart altogether opposed to the Christian doctrine, few persons might, with less apparent rashness, be accused of irreligion than he. Yet if we examine facts, nothing can be more false, than that this king whom historians describe as so barbarous and detestable, was not persuaded of the truths of religion. The proofs are innumerable, and one of them is very curious: for instance, he was overheard saying his prayers before the grand altar of our lady of Clery, in the following words:—“ Ah ! my good lady, my little mistress, my greatest benefactress, in whom I have always found consolation, I pray of thee to supplicate God for me, and be my advocate with him, to pardon me the death of my brother, whom I caused to be poisoned by that wicked abbot of St Jean. I confess the truth to thee, as my; indulgent mistress.—Procure, then, my pardon, good lady, and I know that I will bestow on thee,”&c.&c.During his last sickness, he not only sent for St Francis de Paulo, and for relics from Rome, to ward off the approach of death; but caused himself to be surrounded with the latter, as a sort of fortification, thinking that death would not have the boldness to pass them, and assail him. It is impossible, therefore, to deny that this prince was persuaded of the truth of the doctrines of his church, and that he supplies in his person a conspicuous example of the perfect accordance of a soul altogether wicked, with even such a belief in the existence of God, as amounts to the most extravagant bigotry Bayle relates a number of instances of an entire reliance upon, and fervent devotion towards the Virgin on the part of many other persons engaged in criminal pursuits, all tending to prove his main position—the more injurious tendency of superstition or false religion, than of Atheism.—Ed. ⁴⁸.

It is not, in fact, to be pretended, that all who have lived wickedly either as Christians or Pagans, have not entertained sentiments of religion. Would it not be absurd to assert, that certain provinces and districts, which evinced so much enmity and rage towards the early Christians were destitute of religion, when it is evident, that it was exclusively on account of it that their indignation was excited. The zeal of the Christians against their gods, led them to attribute the internal calamities to the anger of the deities, who afflicted them by way of punishment; and so far from a deficiency of religious sentiment exciting them to persecution, their intolerance actually sprang from an excess of it It is easy to perceive how Bayle might have strengthened his argument, by the massacre of St Bartholomew, and other instances, which, however instigated by the ambition and intrigue of leaders, were clearly the result of bigotry and superstition in the mass of the perpetrators. This indeed he has done, in the course of the inquiry, but not in such a wav as to render it necessary to lengthen an article which may be more briefly rendered conclusive.—Ed. ⁴⁹.

On the other hand, Atheism does not so necessarily imply a corruption of manners, as false religion; and to imagine so, can only arise from neglecting to attend to the genuine principles of human actions. The usual mode of reasoning, is as follows:— “ Man is by nature reasonable, he never loves without knowing why; he is naturally actuated by a regard to his own happiness, and a dislike to his own misery, and consequently he prefers the objects which operate accordingly. If he be convinced that a Providence governs the world, which nothing can escape, and which recompenses virtue with everlasting happiness, and punishes vice with eternal torment, he will not fail to embrace virtue, and fly from vice. But, if he be ignorant of, or deny such

a Providence, he will regard the gratification of his own desires as his final object, and the rule of all his actions. He will follow the impulses of his selfishness, commit perjury for the least inducement, and should he find himself in a situation in which he can disregard human laws, as well as the voice of conscience, there are no crimes which may not be expected from him. Even the pious frauds of Paganism and superstition have prevented a quantity of crimes, which Atheists would have committed, who being by disbelief inaccessible to all such considerations, must necessarily be the most incorrigibly wicked beings in the universe,” &c. &c.

All which has just been quoted is fine, and sounds very well when things are regarded metaphysically, and in the abstract; but the misfortune is, that it is any thing but conformable to experience. No doubt, if a notion were to be formed of the manners of Christians, by the inhabitants of another world, who were simply told, that they were beings endowed with reason, anxious for felicity, and persuaded that there was a paradise for those who obeyed God, and a hell for those who disobeyed him, they would not fail to conclude that the Christians would strictly observe the precepts of the Gospel, and that they would all be distinguished by works of mercy, prayer arid forgiveness of injuries. But from what would they thus conclude? From an abstract idea. If they came among us, and saw the real and proximate sources of action, they would quickly discover, that in this world the doings of men are regulated by other springs than the light of conscience. In short, let them be reasonable creatures as much as may be, it is not the less true, that they seldom or ever act in consequence of their principles. Man has great strength in affairs of speculation, and seldom draws false consequences: in matters of theory his error

usually consists more in the adoption of erroneous premises, than in false modes of inferring from them. In respect to morals, it is quite another affair: seldom giving into bad principles, and almost always retaining natural ideas of equity, mankind almost invariably act in obedience to their passions» Whence is it, that with so much diversity among men, on the manner of serving God, certain motives and passions act equally in all countries, and in all ages. That the Jew, the Mahometan, the Turk, the Moor, the Christian, the Infidel, the Indian, the Tartar, the Islander, and the inhabitant of Terra Firma, the nobleman and the plebeian—in a word, that all sorts of people who unite in nothing else, but in the general notion of man, are so alike in regard to the operation of the passions, that they are in that respect copies of each other throughout the world. How can this arise, (I except the influence of the Holy Ghost,) if the true spring of action in man be composed of any thing but temperament, natural inclination for pleasure, a taste contracted for certain objects, habits gained by early intercourse, or some disposition in the bottom of his nature, which will show itself wherever born or however abounding with education or acquirements.

This, in fact, must be the case, since the ancient Pagans loaded as they were with an incredible multitude of superstitions, perpetually occupied in appeasing the anger of their idols; frightened with innumerable prodigies; and believing their gods the dispensers of adversity or prosperity, according to the lives which they led, were guilty of all sorts of crimes. If it were not so, I repeat, how is it that Christians who see so clearly by the light of a revelation, sustained by miracles, that vice ought to be renounced in order to be eternally happy, and to avoid being eternally miserable;

who possess so many excellent preachers, who are paid for delivering the most pressing exhortations in the world;—who abound in learned and zealous directors of conscience, and in myriads of books of directions. How, I say, were it otherwise, would it be possible for Christians to live as they often do—the slaves of vice, and the constant victims of their passions? It has been asserted, that a moral Atheist would be a monster beyond the power of nature to create: I reply, that it is not more strange for an Atheist to live virtuously, than for a Christian to abandon himself to crime! If we believe the last kind of monster, why dispute the existence of the first?

Not, however, to let the affair rest on simple conjecture, I affirm, that the few persons who are spoken of as professed Atheists among the ancients, were men of regular habits. Their lives, indeed, appeared so admirable in the eyes of Clement of Alexandria, that he denied their right to the appellation, and asserted that they were only called so, because, by their penetration and justness of deduction, they had detected the errors of Paganism. He deceived himself, and I wonder how a man with so much erudition did not perceive that the Pagans distinguished those who doubted the existence of the gods, from those who denied it; and those who attributed to them the government of the world, from those who allowed them a state of idle beatitude. They never confounded the opinions of those who denied there are gods at all, with those who entertained more modified opinions. They have always confined the name of Atheists to the former, and have always included among the number, Theodore, Diagoras, and those whom Clemens Alexandrinus would take take away. Cicero, Plutarch, and Diogenes Laertius are so express upon the point, that no chicanery can do away

with their testimony. Socrates passed for a philosopher, who acknowledged the unity of God, yet he is not classed among the Atheists, with Diagoras and Theodore. Lactantius stoutly maintains that the unity of God was known to many Pagans, to Orpheus, to Virgil, to Thales, to Pythagoras, to Cleanthes, to Anaximenes, and to Cicero, and proves it by passages from their works; but those great men were never defamed as Atheists. It is, therefore, without reason that Clemens Alexandrinus doubts the Atheism of Diagoras, Theodore, Nicanor, Hippo, and others. Nevertheless, they were such honest men, that a father of the church would claim them, for the honour of virtue and true religion.

It appears from some passages in Pliny, that he believed not in God, but he was not a voluptuary, and no man was more attached, than he, to occupation, which became a worthy and illustrious Roman.

Epicurus, who denied a Providence, and the immortality of the soul, was one of the ancient philosophers who lived the most exemplary; and though the sect has been finally condemned, it is, nevertheless, certain that it has contained a great number of persons of honour and of probity, and that those who dishonoured it by their vices, did not become vicious by precept. They were debauchees by temperament and habit, and sought to veil their coarse passions beneath the mantle of this great philosopher. They became not libertines in consequence of embracing the doctrines of Epicurus; but embraced a corruption of his doctrines because they were libertines. Such is the testimony of Seneca, although the member of a sect altogether opposed to that of Epicurus, of whose frugality and moderation, even St Jerome speaks most advantageously, in opposing these qualities to

the irregularities of the Christians, whom he thus sought to cover with confusion.

The Sadducees, among the Jews, openly denied the immortality of the soul; but with this offensive opinion, I cannot perceive that they led a more corrupt life than the other Jews. On the contrary, it appears probable that they were honester men than the Pharisees, who so piqued themselves on their attention to the law of Moses.

Balzac, in his “Christian Socrates,” gives us the last words of a prince who lived and died an Atheist; and assures us that “he wanted not the moral virtues, that he attended to his oaths, drank no wine, and was extremely careful in respect to all which appeared to him unbecoming.”

Vanini, who was burnt at Toulouse for Atheism, in 1619, was extremely correct in his manners, and whoever might have undertaken to prosecute him for any thing but his doctrines, would have run a great risk of being proved a calumniator.

In the reign of Charles IX, in the year 1573, they burnt, in Paris, a man who had dogmatized upon Atheism privately. He maintained that there was no other god in the world than the preservation of bodily purity; and it was said, that, in consequence, he had not parted with his virginity. He had as many shirts as there are days in the year, and sent them into Flanders to be washed in a fountain famous for the purity and clearness of its water, and for its admirable property of whitening linen. He had an aversion for every species of impurity, whether of actions or words; and although he maintained his heterodox opinions until death, he always pronounced them with a sweetness and gentleness of manner, and from a mouth made up for the delivery of the most refined phraseology.

I will not place the Chancellor L’Hôpital in thernumber of Atheists, for I doubt not that he was a

good Christian. I will only observe that he was very much suspected of having no religion; and although nothing could be more grave, austere, and composed than his deportment, or more exemplary than his life, he was roundly accused of Atheism, by Peguillon, Bishop of Metz. His testimony is, no doubt, to be suspected, as the accuser was tutor io the Cardinal de Lorraine, but it is quite sufficient to set aside the bold assertion that Atheism is in separable from moral depravity, to know that a chancellor of France was suspected of it, whose excellent conduct was known to all the world. It was something extraordinary, not to say scandalous, 'that all men distinguished for strictness of morals in those days, were deemed bad Catholics, while a man, however dissolute, was deemed altogether orthodox, provided he kept clear of the new opinions.

I am not certain that we may not apply to religion, that which Julius Caesar said to those who came to tell him that Mark Antony and Dolabella were plotting against him. “ I have very little distrust,” observed he, “ in respect to men so sleek and well combed; I much more suspect those pale and lean persons,” speaking of Brutus and Cassius. The enemies of religion, those minds who believe nothing, and who make to themselves a title to mental strength, by doubting every thing; who seek answers to arguments in proof of the existence of a God, and who refine upon the difficulties which are objected to a Providence, are not ordinarily self-indulgent and luxurious men. People who pass all their days amidst bottles and glasses, who like to resort to a ball every night, and court beauties brown and fair; who lay snares for the chastity of women; who seek only to kill time in debauchery, and to avoid disgust by a diversity of pursuits— these are not persons to trouble themselves with arguments on the existence of God, or the spirituality

of the soul. They have no time to throw away on abstractions which afford few charms to persons immersed in sensuality. They confide in the truths of which they have been informed; they implicitly believe in their catechisms; they even persuade themselves that, in doubting nothing, they advance their own eternal welfare, and that faith is not less conducive to tranquillity of soul, than necessary to the salvation in the expectation of which they may rationally divert themselves. On the contrary, men who partake of the spirit of incredulity; who pique themselves on rationally doubting, care little for the tavern, treat coquetry with contempt, are melancholy, lean, and pale, and ponder even over their repasts. So much is this the case, that instead of saying with Cato, that of all who sought to extinguish liberty in Rome, Cæsar alone was temperate; it must be admitted, that among all those who have disturbed the unity of the church, invented heresies, sought to overthrow religion, or denied the existence of God, few have been drunkards or debauchees. Cicero having observed that Cæsar scratched his head with the tip of his finger only, and that he was well combed, and took great care in the arrangement of his hair, thought him incapable of plotting against the liberty of the republic. He was deceived in his conjecture; but it is not the less true, that a man plunged in sensuality is not likely to allow himself to be burnt, either for Heresy or Atheism. I do not assert that all those who are destitute of religion are moral and austere; I believe there may be, among them, every species of criminal; I simply maintain that many of that class exist who are no way distinguished for their vices, a fact which cannot be denied me, as I have experience on my side. Now if Atheists exist, who, morally speaking, are well-disposed, it follows that Atheism is not a necessary cause of immorality, but simply an incidental one in regard to those who would have been immoral from disposition or temperament, whether Atheists or not.

To conclude ! The fear and love of God are not the only spring of human actions: other principles actuate men—The love of praise, the fear of disgrace, the natural temper, punishments and rewards in the magistrates’ hands, have a very great influence. He who doubts of it, must be ignorant of what passes in his own breast, and what the common course of the world may demonstrate to him every moment. It is not, however, probable that any man should be so stupid as to be ignorant of such a truth; what, therefore, I have asserted concerning these other springs of human actions, may be placed in the number of truths which are beyond dispute.

The fear and love of God form not always the most powerful principle. The love of glory, the fear of infamy, death, or torments, the hopes of preferment, act with greater force upon some men, than the desire of pleasing God, and the fear of breaking his commandments. If any one doubt of it, he is ignorant of some of his own actions, and knows nothing of what is doing daily under the sun. The world abounds with people who choose rather to commit a sin, than displease a Prince who can either make or ruin their fortune. Men daily subscribe formularies of faith against their conscience, in order to save their estates, or to avoid imprisonment, exile, death, &c. An officer who has quitted all for his religion, finding himself under the alternative either of offending God if he revenge himself for having received a box on the ear, or of being accounted a coward if he do not, never rests till he has satisfaction for this affront, though at the peril of killing or being killed in a state that must be followed with eternal damnation.

It is not likely that any man should be so stupid as to be ignorant of such things. Therefore, let this moral aphorism be placed among indisputable truths,—‘ That the fear and love of God form not always the most active principle of human actions.’ This being so, it ought not to be reckoned a scandalous paradox, but rather a very possible thing, that some men, without religion, should be more strongly excited to a good moral life by their constitution, in conjunction with the love of praise and fear of disgrace, than some others by the instinct of conscience. The scandal ought to be much greater, that so many people are convinced of the truths of religion, and at the same time plunged in all manner of vice This article is a mere abstract, in his own language, of the parallel between Atheism and Idolatry, in our author’s “Pensées sur les Comètes.” It was unnecessary to dwell so much on the vices of Paganism, at this time of day; as the value of the argument consists, at present, in its application to all impure and debasing systems of religion, and in abatement of the jargon on the tendency of the speculative opinions of men, which is often as false in fact, as erroneous in reasoning.—Ed. ⁵⁰.—Pensées sur les Comètes. Appendix to Dict.

Bayle's Defence of himself for doing Justice to the moral Characters of Atheists and Epicureans.

In order to remove all suspicions of a vicious affectation, I have taken care to mention, as often as possible, the bad morals of Atheists. If I have not done it oftener, it was because I wanted materials. The public knows, that I called for information; nobody has been pleased to give me any, and I have not as yet been able to make any further discovery by my own inquiries. I do not pretend to deny, that there have been in all countries, and at all times, men, who, by their debaucheries, and long criminal habits, have stifled

the explicit belief of the existence of a God; but history having not preserved their names, it is impossible to speak of them. It is probable, that among those banditti, and hired assassins, who commit so many crimes, there are some who have no religion; but the contrary is still more probable, since, among so many malefactors who pass through the hangman’s hands, there are none found to be Atheists. The ordinaries, who prepare them for death, find them always sufficiently disposed to desire the joys of heaven. As for those profane Epicureans, who, in the judgment of Father Garasse, and many other writers, are downright Atheists, I could not bring them into the list; the question not being concerning those we call practical Atheists, people that live without any fear of God, though they are persuaded of his existence; but concerning theoretical Atheists, such as Diagoras, Vanini, Spinosa, &c., whose Atheism is attested, either by historians, or by their own writings. The question only turns upon the morals of this class of Atheists, examples of whose bad lives, I have desired might be shown me. There is a great difference, as Bayle observes elsewhere, between the fact of men being wicked because they are Atheists, or Atheists because they are wicked. The necessary immorality of the former speculative class is alone denied, and with respect to the latter, they are generally cured by the first fit of sickness, and, moreover, would have been immoral, whether believers or not.—Ed. ⁵¹ If I had found any, I had made an exact mention of them. There is nothing easier to be found in history than some wretches, whose abominable actions make the readers tremble; but their very impieties, and blasphemies, are a proof that they believed a Deity. This is a natural consequence of the constant doctrine of Divines, that the devil, the most wicked of creatures, but incapable of Atheism, is the promoter of all the sins of mankind; whence the greatest wickedness of man, must have the character of that of the devil; that is, be joined with the persuasion of the being of a God. ,

If what I have been saying, is capable of edifying people of a tender conscience, now it is proved that the assertion which frightened them agrees with the most orthodox principles, they will find no less a subject of edification in what I am going to propose—That the most wicked men not being Atheists, and that the greatest part of Atheists, whose names are come down to us, having been virtuous men in a worldly sense, is a proof of the infinite wisdom of God, and ought to make us admire his providence. It has set bounds to man’s corruption, that there might be societies upon earth; and if it have favoured but a few with a sanctifying grace, it has dispersed a general repressing grace; which, like a strong bank, restrains the floods of sin, as much as is necessary to prevent a universal inundation. It is commonly said, that the means God has made use of to arrive at this end, have been, to preserve in the souls of all men the ideas of virtue and vice, with a sense of a providence which superintends all, punishes vice, and rewards virtue. This notion will be found in the bodies of divinity, and in a great many other orthodox books. What is the natural consequence of this proposition? That if there be some persons whom God forsakes not so far as to suffer them to fall into Epicurus’s system, or that of the Atheists, they are chiefly those brutish souls, whose cruelty, audaciousness, avarice, fury, and ambition, are capable of bringing a flourishing country to speedy ruin: that if he forsake some people, so far as to permit they should deny either his existence, or providence, they are chiefly persons, whose temper, education, lively ideas of virtue, love of fame, or sense of

dishonour, serve as a strong curb to keep them to their duty? These are two consequences that naturally flow from the above-mentioned theological principle. Now, as by informing my readers in some places of this dictionary, that the most profligate wretches have had some religion; and that those who have had none, have lived according to the rules of virtue, having said nothing but what agrees with these two consequences, there is no longer any ground for a just offence.

I also desire it may be observed, that in speaking of the good morals of some Atheists, I have not ascribed anytrue virtues to them. Their sobriety, chastity, probity, contempt of riches, zeal for the public good, good offices to their neighbour, neither proceeded from the love of God, nor tended to honour and glorify him. They themselves were the principle and end of all this: self-love was the only ground and cause of it. They were only shining sins,splendida peccata, as St Augustin says of all the good actions of the heathens The 13th article of a certain church says, that these works “ discover not the grace of congruity; yea rather as they are not done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sin?” ⁵². I have, therefore, done no prejudice to the true religion by what I have said of some Atheists. It will still remain true, that good actions cannot be effected without it; and what is it to the true religion if the worshippers of the false gods are not better in their actions than those who have no religion? What advantage would accrue to it, if the adorers of Jupiter and Saturn were not equally plunged in the gulf of perdition with the Atheists?

If those who are scandalized pretend that we cannot praise the good morals of Epicurus, without

supposing it the same thing to a good life, to have no religion, or to profess any religion whatever, they are ignorant in the art of consequences, and perfect strangers to the question. I never com» pared Atheism except with Heathenism, and, therefore, the true religion is no way concerned in it; the question being only about religions introduced and kept up by the devil, and to inquire whether those who have professed a worship so infamous in its origin and progress as this, have been more regular in the practice of morality than the Atheists. I suppose it is a point undoubted and fully determined, that in the true religion there is not only more virtue than elsewhere, but that there is no true virtue at all, nor anyfruits of righteousness out of it. To what purpose then is this pretended fear that I injure true religion? Is it concerned in the ill that may be said of the false one? And is it not to be feared that the great zeal thus manifested, will scandalize men of sense, who will see that it is pretending to niceness in favour of a worship, detested by God, and set up by the devil, as is owned by all the doctors of divinity.

I could not have taken just exception to these complaints, if I had made a romance, in which the persons spoken of had been virtuous, and atheistical; for, as I should have been master of their words and actions, I had been at liberty to describe them in a manner suited to the taste of the most scrupulous readers. But my Dictionary being an historical work, I ought not to represent people as they should have been, but as they actually were. I can neither suppress their faults nor their virtues. Seeing then that I advance nothing concerning the morals of some Atheists, but what the authors I cite relate of them, nobody has reason to be offended with me. To make my critics sensible of

the truth of what I say, I need only ask them, whether they believe the suppression of true facts to be the duty of an historian? I assure myself they will never subscribe to such a proposition. Not but I believe there are some ingenuous enough to confess, that a matter of fact ought to be suppressed by an historian, when it is likely to lessen the abhorrence of Atheism, or the veneration of religion in general. But I most humbly entreat them not to take it amiss that I continue to believe, that God has no need of the artifices of rhetoric; and if this may be allowed in a poem, or a piece of eloquence, it does not follow, that I ought to admit it in an historical dictionary Bayle has been accused of a disposition for grave irony; every one who studies the three last paragraphs must perceive how underservedly.—Ed. ⁵³.—App. to Dict.

Women seldom Atheists.

Atheism is not the vice of women; they make it a virtue not to enter into deep reasonings, so that they adhere to their catechism; and are much more inclined to superstition than impiety. They are great followers of indulgences and sermons, and so much possessed with the croud of minor passions which fall to their lot, that they have seldom either the time or capacity to call in question the articles of their faith. They are more quick in discovering the secret of reconciling passions and religion together, than in the adoption of the expedient of believing in nothing.—Art.Barbara.

ATOMISM.

Almost all authors allow that the Grecian philosopher Leucippus, the place of whose birth is not agreed upon, was the inventor of the Atomical System. We scarcely need pause upon Posidonius

who, according to Strabo, attributes this discovery to a Phoenician philosopher, who lived before the siege of Troy.

Epicurus is blamable for not acknowledging how much he was indebted to the invention of Leucippus, and he is still more blamable for not having better profited by it. But this is a common failing with distinguished 'men; they are reluctant to confess how much they have derived from the notions and lights of others, and would be thought to derive every thing from the brilliancy and strength of their own genius. Epicurus was so ungrateful as even to deny that Leucippus had ever existed.

Lactantius has developed with sufficient force and precision the hypothesis of Atomism, but is guilty of much confusion in his confutation of it. He has employed all his abilities to put down the doctrine of Leucippus, as to the origin, direction, and qualities of atoms. He has succeeded in his first point, but is pitiable in his second. The epithets of madman, dreamer, or visionary, may be due to whoever imagines that a fortuitous concourse of infinite corpuscles produced the world, and is the continuous source of generation; but to apply the same epithets to men who maintain that all bodies are formed from various combinations of atoms, is to prove the absence of all idea of, or taste for, natural philosophy. It must be confessed that in the following words, Lactantius advances good and bad objections, and confounds what he ought to distinguish. He first asks when and whence are those seeds, by whose fortuitous concourse it is pretended that the world is created. “ Who ever saw them; who ever perceived or heard them? Had Leucippus alone eyes or understanding? rather, he alone of all men was blind and stupid who talked of things more vain and empty than a sick man’s dreams. The ancient philosophers taught that all things were made out

of four elements. Leucippus would not allow it, that he might not seem to tread in the steps of others; but of the elements themselves he pretended that some were primordial, which could neither be touched, seen, nor felt by any part of the body, and others so small, that there is no edge fine enough to divide them, whence the name of atoms. Here, however, an objection arose, for if they were all of the same nature they could not form the various things we see in the world. He pretended, therefore, that they were smooth, rough, round, cornered, and hooked. How much better to have said nothing, than to have talked so vaguely and miserably. How extravagant,” continues Lactantius. “If these atoms are smooth and round they cannot unite into one body; just as if we should endeavour to unite millet into one mass; the very smoothness of the grains would prevent a coalition. If they are rough, and cornered, and hooked, that they may be capable of adhering together, then they must be likewise divisible and friable, for they must have hooks and points, which may be cut off, and what may be cut off and torn away may be both seen and felt.”

A man would be laughed at in our days who should make such objections, for ever since the banishment of the chimerical qualities invented by the schoolmen, the only alternative is the admittance of insensible parts in matter, whose figure, angles, hooks, motion, and situation, constitute the particular essence of the bodies which strike our senses. Lactantius has committed the fault of ascribing the same fault both to the figures of the atoms, and to their fortuitous concourse. The modems have distinguished better; they reject the eternity of atoms, and their fortuitous concourse, but preserving in all other respects the hypothesis of Leucippus, make a consistent system of it. The objections of Lactantius against the indivisibility of

atoms are the weakest that can be objected to Leucippus: the followers of Aristotle and Descartes propose much stronger. But after all they prove nothing more than the possible division of all sorts of extension; for as to actual opinion, all sects are obliged to stop somewhere. It is plain that there are necessarily innumerable corpuscles which are never divided, and this alone is sufficient to invalidate the objections of Lactantius.

To judge more rationally of the system of Leucippus, we must attend to the opinion of Dr. Thomas Burnet. This learned man observes that Leucippus and Democritus, the zealous propagators of the system of atoms, were illustrious and gifted men, whose hypotheses, though false, gave occasion to philosophize more strictly and accurately. These philosophers did not look for the principles of bodies, or their power of acting amongnumbers, proportions, harmonies, ideas, qualities, orelementary forms, as others have done, but went to the bodies themselves, and examined their physical and mechanical states, motion, figure, situation of parts, smallness or magnitude, and the like; and from these they estimated the virtues of each, defined their actions, explained their effects, and that so far rightly and solidly. But when they proceeded to call these parts indivisible, to give them a tendency to certain places, and lastly, to be disunited in empty space, these and the like suppositions were not only without foundation, but contrary to reason. However this may be, since they opened a more sound method of reasoning upon natural bodies, and, in this respect, deserved well of the world, let us not rob them of the praise which is due to them.

Let us therefore allow that the system of Atoms is by no means so weak as many other theories,

and that it is not so absurd as Spinosism. The Atomists acknowledge at least a real distinction between the things that compose the universe. It is not incomprehensible, upon their theory, that whilst it is cold in one country it is hot in another, and that whilst one man enjoys a perfect health, another should be sick; while in Spinosism, according to which the whole universe is but one substance, it is a perfect contradiction. Supposing an infinite number of atoms to exist, distinct from each other, and all essentially endowed with an active principle, one may conceive the action and reaction, and the continual alterations that happen in nature: but when there is but one principle, there can be no action and reaction, nor any alteration. So that he who departs from the right way, which is the system of a God, who freely created the world, must necessarily admit of a multiplicity of principles, acknowledge antipathies and sympathies among them, and suppose them independent from each other as to their existence and power of acting, and yet capable to annoy each other by action and reaction. Ask not why, in certain cases, the effect of reaction is rather this than that; for no reason can be given for the properties of a thing, but when it has been made freely by a cause that had some reasons and motives in producing it.

I have often wondered why Leucippus, Epicurus, and other celebrated Atomists, never were led to suppose that each atom possessed an inherent vital principle. This supposition would have delivered them from a great part of their perplexity, and there is as much foundation for it as for the eternity and inherent motion which they attribute to these indivisible corpuscles. They might then have had some sort of answer to the objection which they have never been able to solve, that

Plutarch proposes to Colotes the epicurean, and which has been urged with great force by Galen. It consists in this; that every atom being destitute of a soul and sensitive faculty, no combination of atoms can become an animate and sensitive being. But if every atom had a soul and sensation, we might easily conceive how a combination of atoms should make a compound capable of certain particular modifications, as well with respect to consciousness and sensation, as with respect to motion. The diversity observable betwixt the passions of rational and irrational creatures, might in general be explained by these different combinations of atoms. It is, therefore, very surprising, though Leucippus overlooked the interests of his system in this point, that those who came after him should be so blind as never to have added so material an article; for the easiness of improving the inventions of others, and the stress of the dispute, might very well have enabled them to carry their views farther than Leucippus had done.

We have reason to believe that Democritus had in some measure remedied in this manner the faults in this hypothesis. St Augustine allows us not to doubt that he assigned a soul to every atom, which is confirmed by the testimony of Plutarch: “ Democritus supposes that all things are endued with some kind of soul, even carcasses themselves, for as much as they manifestly partake of some degree of heat and sensation, the greatest part being evaporated.” But as none of Democritus’s writings are preserved to us, it is no easy matter to give a just and exact summary of his thoughts on this head; and besides, we know that this notion has not been followed by the sect of the Atomists. Neither Epicurus nor his successors ever maintained that atoms were endued with life or sense,

and they have considered the soul as a compound of several parts.

The Atomist would have found another great advantage in the hypothesis of animate atoms; for their indivisibility might have furnished some answers to an insurmountable objection, which their opinion is exposed to, who maintain that matter may think, that is, be capable of sensation and consciousness. This objection, which is founded on the unity, properly so called, which must belong to thinking beings, gravels the ancient epicureans and modern materialists; but if they had been induced to give a soul to every atom, they would thereby have united thought to an indivisible subject, and they had as good ground to suppose atoms animated, as to suppose them uncreated, and endued with a moving virtue. It is as difficult to conceive this virtue in an atom, as that of sensation. Extension and solidity constitute the whole essence of an atom in our idea. The power of moving is not included in it. It is as foreign and independent of body and extension, as that of consciousness. Why then, since the Atomists suppose in their corpuscles a self-moving force, would they rob them of thought? I know they could not have avoided all difficulties, by arbitrarily ascribing it to them; they might still have been pressed with invincible objections. Yet there had been some glory in parrying a thrust here and there. Let us observe, that very great philosophers have made the principal properties of the soul to consist in a self-moving power. It is by this attribute they have characterized and defined it. Would any one then have thought it strange, that they who gave atoms the principle of motion should also give them a soul?

Let us observe that there was a sect of philosophers in the east, who admitted the hypothesis of

atoms and a vacuum, with this amendment, that God had created these atoms. The famous Rabbin, Maimonides, speaks at large of this sect of philosophers. They were called, “ the Speakers.” They principally exercised themselves on these four points: 1.That the world is not eternal. 2. That it was created. 3. That its creator is one.4. That he is incorporeal. This Rabbi mentions the twelve principles they laid down for their foundation. The second of which was, that there is a void, and the third, that time is made up of indivisible instants. It does not appear that their atoms were like those of Leucippus; for they gave them no magnitude, and made them all exactly alike. Maimonides presses them hard on their being forced to deny that one moveable went faster than another, and that the diagonal of a square was longer than one of its sides. These difficulties obliged them to say that the senses deceive us, and that we must trust to our reason alone. Some even went so far, as to deny the existence of a square figure. Let us say, by the by, that they might have retorted these difficulties, and let us challenge all the patrons of divisibilityin infinitum,to answer the arguments which prove that the diagonal of a square is not longer than one of the sides. For the rest, these Arabian philosophers supposed in part what I have said Leucippus ought to have done; they taught that every atom of animate bodies was animated, and every atom of sensitive bodies sensitive; and that the understanding resided in an atom. There was no dispute amongst them on this point; but as to the soul, they divided into two opinions about it: some said it was lodged in one of the atoms, of which man, for example, is composed. Others compounded it of many very subtile substances. They were divided much the same as to knowledge. Some placed it in a single atom, and others in each of the atoms which constitute the knowing person.—Arts.DemocritusandLeucippus.

ST AUGUSTIN.

This illustrious father of the church was born at Tagaste, in Africa, the thirteenth of November, 354. His father, whose name was Patricius, was but a mean citizen of that place; his mother was named Monica, and remarkable for her virtue. Their son had no relish for learning, but his father put him to it against his inclination, resolving to advance him in this way, and sent him to study classical learning at Madaura. At the age of sixteen he took him from school, and sent him to study rhetoric at Carthage. St Augustin went thither towards the end of the year 371. He made a great progress in the sciences, but gave himself up to debauchery with women. He had a mind to read the holy scriptures, but the simplicity of the style disgusted him; he was yet too great an admirer of the Pagan eloquence to have a taste for the Bible. He had, in general, a great desire to discover truth; and, being in hopes of finding it in the sect of the Manicheans, he engaged in it, and maintained most of its doctrines with much fervency. Having lived some time in Carthage, he returned to Tagaste, where he taught rhetoric with so much applause, that his mother was congratulated upon having so admirable a son. This did not hinder the holy woman from being extremely afflicted on account of her son’s heresy and debauchery. He returned to Carthage in the year 380, where he taught rhetoric with a great deal of reputation. It was at this time he reformed so far as to avoid following various objects, and took a concubine, to whom he kept constant, and had by her a son

whom he named Adeodatus (the gift of God), who had very good parts. He became a little wavering in his sect, because he could meet with no satisfactory answer to the difficulties he had to propose; he, however, did not forsake their opinions, but waited for better explications. His good mother, Monica, went to him at Carthage, to endeavour to draw him from his heresy and luxury; nor did she despair, though she found that her remonstrances were then to no purpose. He wanted a new theatre for displaying his learning, and resolved to go to Rome; and, that he might not be diverted from this design, he embarked without communicating it either to his mother, or to his near relation Romanian, who had maintained him at school. He taught rhetoric at Rome with as much applause as at Carthage; so that Symmachus, prefect of that city, understanding that they wanted at Milan an able professor in rhetoric, appointed him to that employ in the year 383. St Augustin was very much esteemed at Milan; he made a visit to St Ambrose, and was kindly received by him. He went to his sermons, not so much out of a principle of piety, as that of a critical curiosity. He wanted to know if that prelate’s eloquence deserved the reputation it had obtained. It pleased God to make this the means of his conversion; St Ambrose’s sermons made such an impression upon him, that St Augustin became a Catholic in the year 384. His mother, who was come to him to Milan, advised him to marry, that he might effectually forsake his former irregularities. He consented to the proposal, and sent his concubine back into Africa; but as the wife designed for him was so very young that he was to wait two years before he could marry her, not being able to resist his natural inclinations so long, he relapsed to his usual incontinence. At length, the reading of St Paul’s Epistles, the solicitations and tears of his mother, and the good discourses of some friends, procured for him the finishing stroke of grace. He felt himself a good Christian, ready to forsake all for the Gospel; he left off teaching rhetoric, and was baptized by St Ambrose on Easter-eve, in the year 387. The following year he returned into Africa, having lost his mother at Ostia, where they were both to have embarked. He was ordained priest in the year 391, by Valerius, bishop of Hippo; four years after, he became coadjutor to that prelate, and did very considerable services to the church by his pen and his piety, until his death, which happened the 28th of August, 430. The particulars of his episcopal life and writings would be superfluous here; they may be found in Moreri, and in Du Pin; and if those gentlemen had not too lightly passed over St Augustin’s irregular life, I might wholly have dispensed with this article: but, for the better instruction of the public, it is proper to discover both the good and the bad of great men.

The approbation which councils and popes have given St Augustin, on the doctrine of grace, adds greatly to his glory; for, without that, the Jesuits, in these latter times, would have highly advanced their banner against him, and pulled down his authority. We have shown elsewhere, that all their politics could scarce keep them in decorum, and prevent their attacking him indirectly. It is certain, that the engagement which the church of Rome is under to respect St Augustin’s system, casts her into a perplexity which is very ridiculous. It is manifest to all men who examine things without prejudice, and with sufficient abilities, that his doctrine and that of Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, are one and the same; so that we cannot, without indignation, behold the court of Rome boasting to have condemned Jansenius, and yet preserved St Augustin in all his glory, the two things being altogether inconsistent. More than this, the council

of Trent, in condemning Calvin’s doctrine of free will, did necessarily condemn that of St Augustin; for no Calvinist ever denied, or can deny, the concurrence of the human will, and the liberty of the soul, in the sense which St Augustin has given to the words concurrence, co-operation, and liberty. There is not a Calvinist but acknowledges free will, and its use in conversion, if that word be understood according to St Augustin’s idea. Those condemned by the Council of Trent do not reject free will, but as it signifies a liberty of indifferency. The Thomists reject it also under that notion, and yet pass for very good Catholics. Behold another strange scene ! The physical predetermination of the Thomists, the necessity of St. Augustin, that of the Jansenists, and that of Calvin, are all one and the same thing at the bottom; and yet the Thomists disown the Jansenists, and both of them think it a calumny to accuse them of teaching the same doctrine with Calvin. If one might be suffered to judge of other persons ’ thoughts, here would be great room for saying, that doctors are, in this case, great comedians, and are only acting a part, and that they cannot but be sensible that the Council of Trent either condemned a mere chimera, which never ’ entered into the thoughts of the Calvinists, or else that it condemned, at the same time, both St Augustin and the physical determination. So that, when they boast of having St Augustin’s faith, and never to have varied in the doctrine, it is only meant to preserve decorum, and to save the system from destruction, which a sincere confession of the truth must necessarily occasion This division in the Catholic church is not much unlike that of High and Low Church in England, now usually denominated the High Church and the Evangelicals. The seventeenth article of the Church of England includes the identical dilemma of St Augustin.—Ed. ⁵⁴. It is a great happiness for some persons, that the people never trouble themselves to demand of them any account of their doctrine; they would, otherwise, oftener mutiny against doctors than against tax-gatherers. They would say to them, “ If you do not know that you deceive us, you deserve to be sent to the plough for your stupidity; and, if you do know it, you deserve to be shut up within four walls, with bread and water, for your wickedness.”

The Arminians deal very sincerely with this father of the church: they might have perplexed the world, as well as the Jesuits; but they thought it much better to give up St Augustin wholly to their adversaries, and to acknowledge him for as great a predestinarian as Calvin. Without doubt the Jesuits would have done the same, if they durst have condemned a doctor whom the popes and councils had approved.—Art.Augustin.

BABELOT.

This implacable zealot was chaplain to the Duke of Montpensier, and distinguished himself so much by his cruelty, during the civil wars of France, under Charles IX, that he has acquired a very considerable place in history. He was a Franciscan Friar, who left the monastery to follow ”the army, out of his implacable hatred to the Calvinists. He had so little regard to his character and profession, that, instead of saving the lives of those whom the fortune of war reduced to the mercy of Montpensier, he earnestly solicited him to put them to death; and could not endure that any of them should be pardoned. This thirst after the blood of the Calvinists, which the two first wars could not allay, grew more raging in the third, when the

prince’s soldiers being informed that Babelot had imprudently shut himself in Champigni, gave such a furious assault to that place that they took it. The pleasure of finding themselves masters of the person whom they looked upon as their executioner, made them more humane to the inhabitants of Champigni, whom they pardoned, and discharged all their revenge on Babelot. They hanged him on an extraordinarily high gibbet; and if they gave him time to prepare himself for death, it was only to have leisure to reproach him for his cruelty. The vengeance which the Duke of Montpensier, who loved him, took for his execution on the Calvinists, when chance or weakness put any of them into his hands, caused for some weeks anunfair war between the two parties. The soldiers of Brissac cut the throats of the garrison of Mirebeau, though they had capitulated in due form; and d’Andelot treated that of St. Florent in the same manner.” Here was a man altogether destinated for the destruction of the Huguenots, since, even after his very death, he occasioned the slaughter of many of them. Brantome believed him guilty of another sort of crime; that is, of inspiring his master with the brutality of causing women to be violated by his Guidon.

BALZAC.

The style of Balzac is too much laboured, and the turn of his thoughts sometimes too much affected, and seldom natural; but although his letters have not the happy air and sprightliness of those of Voiture, they are very pleasing, and possess a certain lively and serious gaiety almost inimitable. There also appears, in all his writings, a great many touches of learning, well chosen and well applied; and, considering the state in which he

found the French tongue, it is surprising how he could arrive at such neatness of style. In consequence of his fame as an epistolary writer, his correspondence became so great as to overpower him; for, in addition to composing with extreme difficulty, he knew that his letters would be shown to everybody, and must therefore be very exact. See how he describes his own case in this respect: “ He receives all the bad compliments of Christendom, to say nothing of the good ones, which give him yet more trouble. He is persecuted, he is killed, with the civilities which come to him from the four quarters of the world; and last night there lay fifty letters on the table in his chamber, which required answers; and those eloquent ones, and such as might be shown, copied, and printed.” He says, in another place: “At this very time I am speaking to you, there lie a century of letters on my table, which wait for answers: I owe some to crowned heads.” As he was the first, in France, who acquired a great name by this sort of writings, so he obtained the title of the “ great epistolizer.” The first letters he published were not by many degrees so good as those which he wrote after his retirement; and yet the latter had not so large a sale as the former. This shows the capricious humour of the public.—Art.Balzac.

BATTLES, (recital of.)

Isocrates, one of the most celebrated of the Athenian orators, observes that the prudence, philosophy, and justice of Hercules, were qualities infinitely more valuable than the strength of his arms: and yet that the orators and poets praised him only for the actions he performed by the latter; and suffered the perfections of his mind to fall into oblivion, such as his prudence, his justice, and his knowledge, virtues infinitely more estimable than

personal strength. They did so not only because they themselves were more affected with what is shining, than with what is solid, but because they were persuaded that their auditors and readers would much more applaud stories of battles, than a description of virtues which are exercised in times of peace. Horace has very well observed this, in supposing that the shades lent a favourable ear to the poesies of Sappho and Alcæus, but were more delighted with the latter, because they treated only of war, revolutions of state, and banishments. In fact, tyrants overcome, monsters subdued, and times of confusion and slaughter, are subjects more proper to show the wit and eloquence of a writer, than is the conduct of a uniform life, led according to the rules of virtue. An historian, who has no great events to describe, falls asleep over his work, and makes his readers yawn; but a civil-war, two or three conspiracies, as many battles, the same leaders sometimes humbled, sometimes exalted, sharpen his pen, warm his imagination, and always keep his readers in breath. I really believe that if he were commanded to write a history of a quiet reign, of little variety, he would complain of his fate much in the same manner with Caligula, who complained, that in his reign there did not happen any great misfortunes. “ He used openly to lament,” says Suetonius, “ the condition of the times in which he lived, because they were not distinguished by any public calamities; saying that the reign of Augustus would still be remembered, on account of the defeat of Varus; and that of Tiberius, by the fall of the theatre at Fidenæ; but that he was in hazard of falling into oblivion, because of the prosperity of the times.” Desolations, and public calamities, are an advantage to an historian, and give lustre to his writings. He pities, if he be a good man, the illustrious vestal who was buried alive; he abhors the tyrant who, to make his reign more remarkable, oppressed her; but yet it is a favourable topic, and very advantageous to his pen, and an ornament to his book. His work is a vessel that never sails better than in a storm; a tempest is his best gale: a calm is as disagreeable to it as to a real ship; and when an historian can begin, like Tacitus, with “ Opus aggredior opimum casibus, atrox præliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace sævum. Quatuor principes ferro interempti. Tria bella civilia, plura externa, ac plerumque permixta.—I begin a work fruitful in great events, horrid with wars, divided by seditions, and terrible even in peace. Four princes slain; three civil wars, more foreign, and for the most part both joined together;” he prepossesses his readers in his favour, and knows very well he has found an advantageous subject.

But after all, it is a mark of a depraved taste to prefer an account of warlike actions before that of an equitable conduct; and to admire a man more for the strength of his arms, and for his boldness, that give him the victory over a wild boar, or a bull, than for his virtue, that makes him master of his passions, and moves him to establish good laws amongst his neighbours. This virtue, though it shines less than the other, has much more of true grandeur in it; there is more reality in the qualities of Hercules, which writers have passed over in silence, than in those which they have so pompously magnified; but then they followed the taste of the public.

It may be observed that young people are. much more delighted with romantic than real histories; and that after age has ripened and rectified our judgment, we would rather read a Thuanus and a Mezerai, than a Calprene or a Scuderi. But few people lose the taste of their childhood with

respect to the description of a peaceable reign, and to the history of one full of troubles and great events.—Art.Hercules.

BAUDOUIN, (reflections suggested by his character).

Baudouin A famous civilian of the sixteenth century. ⁵⁵ was a man of wit, learning, eloquence, and dexterity: he was a handsome man; and he understood the intrigues of the court; some of the qualities, which I have specified, were very eminent in him. Great princes employed him several times, in matters of consequence, which put him in the way of preferment; and yet he could never advance himself much, and I think, did not die very rich. How many persons, inferior in every respect to this great civilian, rise very high, attain to great offices, maintain themselves in them, acquire a good name, great riches, and much authority ! They have nothing shining in them; they do not excel in any thing, nor have any eminent qualities: in vain do we look for that in them which excites admiration; we shall sooner find it in other persons; who, nevertheless, continue always in a mean condition, how often soever they have had a favourable opportunity of raising themselves. Most of those who consider this train of human affairs, find something in it which displeases and vexes them; and they discharge their spleen on what they call the injustice or blindness of fortune. They seldom hit the true reason of it; and consider but little another cause, which oftener produces these failures than they imagine. They ought to know that eminent qualities will not raise a man to the height which they seem to promise, unless they are seconded by some other qualities, or

not crossed by certain defects; for, not being seconded, or being crossed, they are an insufficient cause, and consequently, according to the laws of mechanism, they must fail of their effect. Now this is the case of many of those who are men of great parts: they want certain things, with which these noble talents would perform wonders, and without which they can neither advance nor support them. Their qualities are not well sorted; there is not that harmony and proportion between them which ought to be, so that instead of assisting, they ruin one another. It is therefore no wonder if a man do not raise himself, and even if he miscarry, with such an equipage. As for those who attain to a great fortune, and maintain themselves in it without having any eminent qualities, there may be such a concert, or such a proportion between their good and bad qualities, that they reciprocally support each other, and form thereby a complete principle, which is sufficient for the production of a thousand profitable adventures. It is with this as with machines; for, how coarsely soever they are made, they will play better if their parts be arranged and proportioned as they ought to be, than the most admirable machine would do, if some pieces were taken from it, or if some were added to it which did not correspond with the rest.

It is not enough to join to a knowledge of the world that of books, much wit and eloquence, and several other eminent qualities; if you are otherwise rude, capricious, indiscreet, lazy, timorous, selfish, subject to mean jealousies, presumptuous, incapable of following a tedious business, inconstant, more disposed to begin a hundred new projects, than to support the fatigue of carrying on the same business for some time; I say, if you be a man of such a stamp, and if, notwithstanding your great qualities, you do not raise yourself, do not

blame fate, the iniquity of the age, or the malignity of your neighbours; but blame yourself for it: impute the cause of it to the disproportion between the qualities which have been allotted you. It may be observed that some persons of this stamp do themselves justice; they know the mixture which renders all their fine talents useless; and if they mur-mur, it is not against their neighbours, but against their own temper and against nature, which counter-balances whatever qualification she had given them for rising in the world. However, I do not intend to comprehend in this hypothesis a great number of particular cases, in which the causes of a bad or good fortune are altogether external. Many who, notwithstanding their eminent qualities, remain in obscurity, have had no favourable opportunity of raising their condition; and others who have attained to great preferment without merit, have found themselves in such an active current of circumstances, that they have had no occasion to second it by incapacity. But remember, thatBaudouin did not want opportunities; they were often thrown in his way.—Art.Baudouin.

BEASTS(Souls of).

Gomez Pereira was a Spanish physician of the sixteenth century, who affected to combat received opinions and support paradoxes. Among other strange notions, he maintained that brutes were mere machines. Although fiercely attacked, he formed no sect, and his opinions soon fell into oblivion; so that there is little probability that Descartes, who read little, and supported precisely the same position, ever heard of him. Some writers indeed, assert that this notion was entertained anterior to the time of St. Augustin, and even to that

of the Cæsars, 300 years before; as also that it was maintained by the Stoics, and by the Cynic Diogenes: but these allegations are not capable of demonstration. Vossius observes, that there have been philosophers who made no distinction between thought and sensation, whence they should have concluded, either that beasts possess reason, or that they are destitute of sensation. He adds, that the last proposition pleased nobody among the ancients, but that it was maintained in the seventeenth century by Gomez Pereira The present article is selected from a mass of argument and erudition, on this subject, in the articles Pereira and Rorarius in the original. The investigation of the opinions of the ancients, upon the mental faculties of brutes, being chiefly for the purpose of proving a negation; viz. that none before Pereira and Descartes regarded them as automata, or mere machines, is omitted. The various conjectures of the moderns, previously to Descartes, are equally unimportant, centred, as they all very nearly were, in the greatly modified Aristotelian notion of a sensitive and mortal soul in brutes; the most orthodox opinion, it is presumed, of the present day. The difficulties attendant upon both theories are smartly canvassed in these extracts, which exhibit the boundaries of purely intellectual discovery on this subject, pretty clearly. Whether the existing predilection for physiological research will carry conclusions further, it is not the province of a note to determine.—Ed. ⁵⁶.

According to Vossius, Pereira explained not the motions of beasts by mechanical principles, but by the occult qualities of antipathy and sympathy. He rejected the sensitive souls, because he believed not that a material, divisible, and mortal substance was capable of feeling; whence he concluded, that if beasts had a sensitive soul, it was not corporal. When he was put in mind of the actions of beasts; for example, of a dog, he answered, that it was not necessary they should proceed from a sensitive faculty; for if it were so, the peripatetics would be in the wrong not to ascribe to a rational soul so

many actions of a dog which are like those of a man. He had wit enough to take advantage of the weak side of the cause of his adversaries, which is the common shift of those who undertake to maintain absurdities.

The doctrine which so soon was forgotten from Pereira, was destined to produce a wide and ex-tensive controversy as modified and delivered by Descartes. The ill consequences of the opinion» which gives beasts a sensitive soul, was thoroughly exposed in this disputation. Whatever the weight of rational objection to theautomata of the Cartesians, there is, in fact, nothing more diverting than to see with what authority the schoolmen take upon them to set bounds to the knowledge of beasts. They will have it, that they know only particular and material objects, and that they only love what is profitable and agreeable; that they cannot reflect upon their sensations and their desires, nor infer one thing from another. One would think that they have searched more exactly into the faculties and acts of the souls of beasts, than the most expert anatomists into the entrails of dogs. Their temerity is so great, that though they had found out the truth by chance, they would yet have rendered themselves unworthy of praise, and even of excuse. But let us give them quarter; let us grant them all that they suppose: what do they hope for from it? Do they fancy that by this means they shall obtain from anybody that can reason, that it ought to be granted that the soul of man is not of the same species with that of beasts? This is a chimerical pretension. It is evident to any one that can judge of things, that every being that has sense, knows that it has it; and it would not be more absurd to maintain, that the soul of man knows actually an object without knowing that it knows it; than it is absurd to say, that the soul of

a dog sees a bird, without perceiving that she sees it. This shows that all the acts of the sensitive faculty are of their own nature, and by their own essence, reflective upon themselves.

It is conceded that the memory of beasts is an act that makes them remember what is past, and which tells them that they remember it. How, then can it be said that they have not the power of reflecting upon their thoughts, nor of drawing consequences? But, once more, let us not dispute upon that: let us give these philosophers leave to build their suppositions very ill; let us only make use of what they teach. They say, that the soul of beasts perceives all the objects of the five external senses; that among those objects it judges that some are suitable to it, and others hurtful; and that in consequence of this judgment, it desires those that are suitable, and abhors the others; and that in order to enjoy the object it desires, it transports its organs to the place where that object is; and that in order to fly from the object which it hates, it withdraws its organs from the place where the object is. I conclude from all this, that if it do not produce acts so noble as those of our soul, it is not its fault, or because it is of a nature less perfect than of the soul of man; it is only because the organs it animates do not resemble ours. I ask of these gentlemen, if they would allow that one should say, that the soul of a man is of another species at the age of thirty-five years, than at the age of one month? Or, that the soul of a madman, of an idiot, or of an old man become childish through age, is not substantially as perfect as the soul of a man of excellent parts? They would, without doubt, reject this opinion as a gross error, and with good reason; for it is certain that the same soul, which in children is only sensitive, meditates and reasons solidly in a grown man; and

that the same soul which makes its reason and wit to be admired in a perfect man, would only dote in an old man, talk idly in a natural, and exert sensation in a child.

We should be guilty of a gross error did we believe that the soul of man is only capable of thoughts which are known to us. There are infinite sensations, passions, and ideas, of which this soul is very capable, though it be never affected with them during this life. If it were united to organs different from ours, it would think otherwise than it does at present, and its modifications might be far more noble than those we now experience. If there were substances which in organized bodies had a train of sensations, and other thoughts far more sublime than ours, could it be said that they are of a more perfect nature than our soul? No, without doubt; for if our soul were removed into those bodies, it would have the same train of sensations, and other thoughts, far more sublime than ours. This may be easily applied to the soul of beasts. It will be granted us that it has a sensation of bodies; that it discerns them; that it desires some, and abhors others. This is enough: it is therefore a substance that thinks; it is therefore capable of thought in general; it can therefore entertain all sorts of thoughts; it can therefore reason; it can therefore know what is honest: the universals; the axioms of metaphysics; the rules of morality, &c. For as wax can receive the impression of one seal, it manifestly follows, that it may receive the figure of any seal; it must likewise be granted, that since a soul is capable of one thought, it is capable of any thought. It would be absurd to reason thus: “ This piece of wax has only received the impression of three or four seals; therefore it cannot receive the impression of a thousand. This piece of pewter has never been a

plate; therefore it can never be made one, and it is of another nature than the pewter plate I see there.” They reason no better who say: “The soul of a dog has never had any thing but sensations, &c.; therefore it is not capable of the ideas of morality, or metaphysical notions.” Whence comes it that a piece of wax bears the impression of a prince, and that another does not? It is because the seal has been applied to the one and not to the other. The piece of pewter that never was a plate, will be one if you cast it into the mould of a plate. Cast in like manner the soul of this beast into the mould of universal ideas, and of the notions of arts and sciences; I mean, unite it to a well-chosen human body; it will become the soul of a man of parts, and be no more that of a beast.

You may see therefore, that it is impossible for the school-philosophers to prove that the souls of men and those of beasts are of a different nature: let them say, and repeat it a thousand and a thousand times—“ That man’s soul reasons and knows universals and virtue, and that of beasts knows nothing of all this.” We answer them, “ these differences are only accidental, and are no marks of a specific difference. Aristotle and Cicero at the age of one year, never had more sublime thoughts than those of a dog; and if they had lived in the state of infancy thirty or forty years, the thoughts of their souls had never been any thing but sensations and little passions for play and eating; it is therefore by accident that they have surpassed beasts; it is because their organs on which their thoughts depended, have acquired such and such modifications, to which the organs of beasts arrive not. The soul of a dog in the organs of Aristotle or Cicero, would not have failed to acquire all the knowledge of those two great men.”

The following consequence is very false—viz.,

“such a soul does not reason, knows not universals, therefore it is of a different nature from that of a great philosopher.” If this consequence were good, it would follow that the soul of little children is different from that of men. What then do you dream of, you Peripatetic Divines, when you pretend that if the souls of beasts do not reason, they are essentially less perfect than souls that reason? You ought first to have proved that the want of reasoning in beasts proceeds from a real and intrinsic imperfection of the soul, and not from the organic dispositions on which it depends; but this is what you can never be able to prove, for it is clear, that a subject which is capable of the thoughts which you allow in the soul of beasts, is capable of reasoning, and of any other thought; from whence it results, that if it do not actually reason, it is because of certain accidental and external obstacles; I mean, because the Creator of all things has fixed every soul to a certain train of thoughts, by making it depend on the motions of certain bodies. This is the reason why sucking-children, naturals, and madmen do not reason.

One cannot calmly think of the consequences of this doctrine— “ That the soul of men and the soul of beasts do not differ substantially, they are of the same species, the one acquires more knowledge than the other, but these are only accidental advantages, and depending on an arbitrary institution.” Yet this doctrine necessarily and inevitably flows from what the schools teach about the knowledge of beasts. It follows from thence, that if their souls arc material and mortal, the souls of men are so likewise; and that if the soul of man be a substance spiritual and immortal, the soul of beasts is so too. Sad consequences ! turn which way we will. For if to avoid the immortality of the soul of beasts, we suppose that the soul of man dies with the body;

we overthrow the doctrine of another life, and sap the foundations of religion. If to preserve to our souls the privilege of immortality, we extend it to those of beasts, into what an abyss do we fall? What shall we do with so many immortal souls? Will there be for them also a heaven and a hell? Will they go from one body to another? Will they be annihilated as the beasts die? Will God create continually an infinite number of spirits, to plunge them again so soon into nothing? How many insects are there which live only a few days? Let us not imagine that it is sufficient to create souls for the beasts which we do know; those that we do not know are far the greater number. The microscopes discover them to us by thousands in a single drop of liquor. Many more would be discovered if we had more perfect microscopes. And let no man say that insects are only machines; for one might better explain by this hypothesis the actions of dogs, than the actions of pismires and bees. There is, perhaps, more wit and reason in the invisible creatures, than in those which are large. They also say, “ there is specific difference between the souls of men and those of beasts — that the soul of beasts is a material form, but that the soul of man is a spirit which God creates immediately. But how do they prove it? I suppose they only argue upon the principles of natural reason, without having recourse to scripture or the doctrines of religion; and I ask of them one good proof to show that the souls of beasts are corporeal, and that ours is not? They will allege the beauty and extent of human knowledge; and the smallness, grossness, and obscurity of the knowledge of beasts; and they will conclude, that a corporeal principle is capable of producing the knowledge of beasts, but not the reflections, the reasonings, the universal ideas, the ideas of honour and honesty, which are found in the soul of man; and that, by consequence, this soul ought to be of an order superior to matter, and ought to be a spirit. I will not say now that they assert rashly, that the soul of beasts does not argue, and that it has no idea of what is honest. Let us lay aside this objection, and only say, that it is a thousand times more difficult to see a tree, than to know the act by which we see it; so that if a material principle be capable of knowing an infinite number of outward things, it will be far more capable of knowing its own thoughts, and of comparing them together, and multiplying them; therefore, the reflections, and conclusions, and abstractions of man, require not a principle nobler than matter. A very learned peripatetic is of our side; let us hear him speak; his confession will be more persuasive than my objections. “ If you once admit,” says he, “ that all that is most wonderful in the actions of beasts, may be done by means of a material soul; will you not soon grant what follows, and say, that all that passes in man may be also done by a material soul?—If you once grant that beasts, without any spiritual soul, are capable of thinking, of acting for an end, of foreseeing things to come, of remembering what is past, of acquiring experience by the particular reflection they make upon it; why will you not grant that men are capable of exercising their functions without any spiritual soul? After all, the operations of men are no other than those which you ascribe to beasts; if there be any difference, it is only as to more or less; and so, all that you can say will only be, that the souls of men are more perfect than those of beasts, because men remember better than they, think with more reflection, and foresee things with more certainty; but in fine you cannot say, but that their souls are still material. You will say, perhaps, that in men there are some operations that cannot suit with beasts, nor proceed from any other principle than a spiritual soul; and those operations are universal knowledge; that ratiocination, whereby we infer one thing from another: and the ideas we have of infinity, and of things spiritual which do not fall under the senses; but those, who deny that there is any knowledge in beasts, do not deny for all that, that those thoughts and reasonings are in us, since we ourselves are conscious of them; so that they have always the same right which you have to prove the existence of the rational souk But besides, they add, that all those operations which you look upon to be so extraordinary, differ only in degrees from the operations which you attribute to beasts. And certainly, it seems that to act 'with a design, to improve by experience, to foresee things to come, (which you grant to beasts) ought to proceed no less from a spiritual principle than what is found in man. For, after all, what is an universal knowledge, but a knowledge which suits with many things that are like, as the picture of a man would suit with all the faces that should resemble it? What is reasoning, but a knowledge produced by another knowledge, as we see that a motion is produced by another motion? Certainly, if it be once granted, that thought, intention, and reflection, may proceed from a body animated with a material form; it will be very difficult to prove, that the reasonings and ideas of man cannot proceed from a body animated likewise with a material form.”

I desire all my readers to take notice of the unlucky condition the school-men are in, as to the doctrine of the sensitive soul. They allege against Descartes the most surprising actions of beasts; they choose them on purpose, the better to confound him; but afterwards they find that they have gone too far, and have supplied their adversary

with weapons to destroy the specific difference which they endeavour to prove between our souls and those of beasts. They could wish that one should forget all the examples of cunning, precaution, docility, and knowledge of things to come, which they have set forth with so much pomp, in order to show that beasts are not mere machines; they could wish that one should mind only the gross actions of an ox whose sole business is feeding; but it is too late to require such a thing; those very examples are made use of to confound them, and to prove against them, that if a material soul be capable of all those things, it will be able to do whatever is performed by the soul of man. Only a greater degree of refinement will be wanting to the souls of beasts. Must we not suppose that the soul of a dog, or of an ape, is not of so coarse a nature as that of an ox? In one word, if nothing but a spiritual soul can produce the actions of a dull-witted clown, I will maintain against you, that nothing but a spiritual soul can produce the actions of an ape; and if you say that a corporeal principle is able to produce whatever is performed by apes, I will maintain against you, that a material principle may be the cause of whatever is performed by stupid men; and that provided matter be subtilized, and disentangled from all gross particles, phlegms,&c., it may be the cause of whatever the most understanding man can do.

Some authors insinuate, that since the soul of man is endowed with free-will, and that of beasts is deprived of it, there must needs be a specific difference between them, and one must be spiritual and the other material. The Jesuit Theophilus Raynaud, published in 1630, a little book intituled “ Calvinismus Bestiarum Religio.” His chief design was to prove that “ Calvinism was to be accounted the religion of beasts; because, according to their

principles, man was degraded into the rank of beasts, and deprived of the degree and dignity of man. In order to the proof of which, two propositions were by him to be established. One is, that to man, considered as such, liberty of acting is essential. The other, that by Calvinism, liberty is destroyed.” He supposes that the liberty of indifference is the character whereby men are distinguished from beasts; for as to the liberty, which consists only in being free from constraint, or in spontaneity, no school-men can say that beasts are deprived of it. I will make it appear that it is most false, that a soul endowed with free-will is of another kind than a soul that is not endowed with it. The souls of children and madmen are destitute of free-will, and yet they are of the same species with the souls that are most free. To which may be added, that those who maintain the liberty of indifference, say, that it will cease after this life; and yet they acknowledge that a human soul is the same substance upon earth as in heaven or in hell. It is, therefore, manifest, that the liberty of indifference is not an essential attribute of creatures, but a gift, or an accidental favour bestowed upon them by the Creator; and, consequently, the souls that are not gratified with it, are not of a different species from those that receive it. This argument is therefore very wrong. The souls of beasts are deprived of free-will, but the souls of men are not deprived of it; therefore, the souls of beasts are material, and the souls of men are spiritual. I will go further and say, that those who admit of a sensitive soul, have no good reason to assert that beasts are not free creatures. Do not they say, that they do a thousand things with great pleasure, being directed by the judgment they make of the usefulness of objects, whereby they are prompted to unite themselves to those objects? If liberty consist only in being free from constraint, and in a spontaneity preceded by the discerning of the objects, is it not an absurd thing to deny the liberty of beasts? Has not a hungry dog the power of abstaining from a piece of meat, when he is afraid of being beaten if he do not abstain from it? Is not this to have the power of acting or not acting? Doubtless his abstinence proceeds from his comparing his hunger with the blows of a stick, which ho judges to be more intolerable than hunger. If you observe all the human actions that are ascribed to a liberty of indifference, you will find that a man does never suspend them, or never chooses one of the two contraries, but because, like the dog, having compared the reasonspro and con, he sees more inducements to suspend his action than to act, or has more motives for one action than for another.

One of the strongest arguments alleged for the liberty of man, is taken from the punishment of malefactors. All societies are agreed to punish them exemplarily, and even to extend, in some cases, the punishment to their dead bodies. They are deprived of burial, and exposed to the public view upon wheels and gibbets. If man did not act freely; if he were determined by a fatal and unavoidable necessity to have a certain train of thoughts; robberies and murders should not be punished, and no advantage could be expected from the punishment of criminals; for those who should see the dead body of a malefactor upon a wheel, would not be less subject than before to that prevailing power, which makes them act, and does not allow them the use of their liberty. This argument for a free-will is not so strong as it seems to be; for though men are persuaded that machines have no feeling, they will nevertheless give them a hundred blows with a hammer, when they are out of order, if they think that they may be set right by flatting

a wheel, or another piece of iron. They would, therefore, cause a pickpocket to be whipped, though they knew that he has no free-will, if experience had taught them that the whipping of people keeps them from committing certain actions. However, if this argument for a free-will have any force, it will manifestly show that beasts are not deprived of liberty. Men punish them every day, and mend their faults by that means. Ochinus, in the beginning of his Labyrinths, examines all the reasons which make us believe that we act freely; and says among other things against that which is taken from the punishments inflicted upon malefactors, that if the judges were sure that the hanging of a horse which had killed a man, and the leaving him a long time upon the gallows in the highway, would hinder other horses from doing mischief, they would use that punishment whenever a horse maims or kills anybody by kicking or biting. It is likely he did not know that in some countries they make use of such sights, to keep beasts in awe. Rorarius was an eye-witness of it; he saw two wolves hanging upon a gibbet in the duchy of Juliers, and he observes, that it made a greater impression upon the other wolves, than the mark of a red-hot iron, the loss of one’s ears,&c., does upon thieves The doctrine of philosophical necessity combined with that of preponderating motive, makes all these odds even, and applies equally to man and beast. The argument in relation to malefactors remains a favourite one with the advocates of free-will, to this day; but even in this short passage, Bayle proves the futility of the reference. There is more philosophy in this reported reply of the judge to the horse-stealers than is generally imagined.—“You are not hanged for stealing a horse, but that horses may not be stolen.” In other words, a stronger motive to leave horses unstolen, is furnished to men of your habits and character, one that has a greater chance of being more weighty than the temptation; and which, if so, willnecessarily prevail. Hawks and Kites are nailed to barn doors, on exactly the same principle, and what is more to the purpose, the mental, if not the moral operations are the same.—Ed. ⁵⁷.

In short, the facts which concern the capacity of beasts, put under great difficulties both the followers of Descartes, and of Aristotle. This needs no proof with respect to the Cartesians; there is nobody but knows that it is difficult to explain how mere machines can do what animals do. Let us only prove that the Peripatetics will find it very hard to give good reason for what they assert. Every Peripatetic, when he hears it affirmed, that beasts are onlyautomata, or machines, presently objects, that a dog that hath been beaten for falling foul upon a dish of meat, touches it no more when he sees his master threatening him with a stick. But to show that this phenomenon cannot be explained by him that proposes it; it is enough to say, that if the action of this dog be attended with knowledge, the dog must necessarily reason—he must compare the time present with that which is past, and from thence draw a conclusion—he must needs remember both the blows that were given him, and why he has received them—he must needs know, that if he should fall foul upon the dish of meat, which affects his senses, he should do the same action for which he was beaten; and conclude, that to avoid a new beating, he must abstain from that meat. Is not this true reasoning? Can you explain this act by the simple supposition of a soul that has sense, without reflecting upon its acts—without remembrance—without comparing two ideas— without drawing any conclusion? Examine well the examples which are collected, and which are objected to the Cartesians; you will find they prove too much, for they prove that beasts compare the end with the means, and that on some occasions

they prefer what is honest before what is profitable; in short, that they are guided by the rules of equity and gratitude. What some authors relate of the eagerness of dogs to assist their master, and to revenge his death,&c., are things absolutely inexplicable according to the hypothesis of the Aristotelians; so that all their dispute against the disciples of Descartes, is labour in vain. There is no need of anything, but of he dexterous management which Pereira made use of. “ You grant,” said he to his adversaries, “ that animals do many things which much resembles what the rational soul does, and yet that their soul is not rational.” Why then did you forbid me to maintain that they do several things, which much resemble what a sensitive soul does, though their soul be not sensitive? I do not wonder in the least, that neither Descartes, nor any of his disciples ever made use of a passage in the “ Code of Justinian,” where it is said that beasts are incapable of doing any injury, because they want sense; it is clear that the wordsensits in that law is taken for design and understanding.

What induces the Cartesians to say that beasts areautomata, is, that according to them, all matter is incapable of thinking. They do not content themselves to say, that only spiritual substances are capable of reasonings, and to join a long train of consequences, but they maintain that every thought, whether you call it reflection, meditation, inferring from principles; or whether it be called sensation, imagination, instinct, is of such a nature, that the most subtile and perfect matter is incapable of it; and that it is to be found only in incorporeal substances. By this principle, there is no man but may be convinced of the immortality of his own soul. Every one knows that he thinks, and consequently, if he reason after the Cartesian manner, he must own that what in him is the subject of his thoughts

is distinct from his body; whence it follows, that in this respect he is immortal; for the mortality of creatures consists only in this, that they are composed of several parts of matter, which are separated one from another. This is a great advantage to religion; but it will be almost impossible to preserve it by philosophical reasons, if it be granted that beasts have a material soul which perishes with the body; a soul, I say, whose sensations and desires are the cause of the actions which we see them do.

The Theological advantages of Descartes’s opi-nion concerning beasts being mereautomata, do not stop there. They diffuse themselves over many important principles, which cannot be sufficiently maintained, if beasts be allowed to have a sensitive soul. Mr Locke has declared himself to be against those who will not allow reason to brutes. The following words will show you wherein he places the difference between men and beasts. “This I think I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them, and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes; and is an excellency, which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident, we observe no footsteps in them of making use of general signs, for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine, that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words or any other general signs. And, therefore, I think we may suppose, that it is in this that the species of brutes are discriminated from men; and it is that proper difference wherein they are wholly separated, and which, at last, widens to so vast a distance. For if they have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines, (as some would have them) we cannot deny them to have some

reason. It seems as evident to me that they do, some of them, in certain instances, reason, as that they have sense; but it is only on particular ideas, just as they receive them from their senses; they are the best of them tied up within those narrow bounds, and have not, as I think, the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of abstraction It is pleasant in reference to the “Treatise on the Human Understanding,” then a new book, to read the following marginal testimony of Bayle: “ It is an excellent work, which deserved to be translated into French by M. Coste.”—Ed. ⁵⁸.”

There is in the “ Nouvelles de la République des Lettres,” an abstract of a book intituled, “ Essais nouveaux de Morale,” which was printed at Paris, in 1686. The author, who denies, on the one side, that beasts are endowed with the faculty of reasoning, confessés on the other side, that their actions are directed by an “ external reason,” and that “ the reason and wisdom which governs them, is a reason and wisdom more excellent and sure than that of men.” . ... “ The reason,” says he, “ which operates in beasts, is not in them .... it is, as St Thomas says, after all the ancient fathers, the sovereign and eternal reason of the supreme architect, who preserves his works, and directs them to the ends for which he created them, with the secret springs he has put in them, which are variously determined according to occurrences, to produce a thousand sorts of different motions, according to their several wants.” Add to this the following words of Mr Bernard:—“ The philosophers, who are most inclined to believe that beasts are mere machines, must ingenuously confess that they perform several actions, the mechanism of which it is impossible to explain. It would be much better to say in general, that God, who was willing that their machines should subsist from some time, has, through his infinite wisdom, disposed their

parts agreeably to such an intention. I think I have read somewhere this position, “ Deus est anima bru-torum: this expression is somewhat harsh; but it is susceptible of a reasonable sense.” Grotius says that some actions of beasts, wherein they give over their private interest in favour of others, proceed from an external intelligence. “Cæterarum animantium quædam utilitatum suarum studium, partim fœtuum suorum partim aliorum sibi congenerum respectu, aliquatenus temperant: quod in illis quidem procedere credimus ex principio aliquo intelligente extrinseco, quia circa actus alios, istis neutiquam difficiliores, par intelligentia in illis non apparet Grot. de Jure Belli et Pacis, Proleg. Num. 7. ⁵⁹.” “ Some of the other animals, do in some measure, abstain from what is profitable to themselves, in regard partly of their own young, and partly of those of others of the same species; which we believe to proceed from some outward intelligent principle, because about other actions not more difficult, the like understanding does not appear.” Gaspar Zieglerus, in his note upon this passage, complains of Grotius for not explaining more clearly his thoughts about the nature of that external principle; “ If it be the divine providence,” says he, “ Grotius lies open to the severe strokes of Dr. Juan Huarte, who shows that a philosopher ought not to explain phenomena by the immediate operation of God.” M de Vigneul Marville tells us that there was a certain philosopher, who in order to explain in M. Rohault’s conferences, how beasts, being mere machines, “acted nevertheless as if they had a soul,” made use of the hypothesis of the Comte de Gabalis, and by way of accommodation, made it serve his purpose; that is, he supposed that certain elementary spirits make it their business “ to put in motion all the machines of beasts, according to the rules of mechanics.” He gave so ingenious a turn to his discourse, that M. Pequet told him, that “ if his agreeable system were not true, it was however bene trovato” (well contrived Mélanges d’Histoire et d'Litterature, Tom. i. ⁶⁰). I make no doubt that some people will be pleased with it: but if I were to dispute about it, I could easily shew that it is insufficient to explain the phenomena, and that in some respects it is more intricate than that of Des Cartes.

You will find in the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, that M. Vallade, author of a philosophical discourse, concerning the creation and ordering of the world, has explained the most surprising actions of brutes by mechanical laws. The same journal informs us, that M. de la Bruyère was censured for asserting, that beasts are nothing but matter. There is in the fine book of Don Francis Lami, about the knowledge of one's self, an explanation, wherein the author shows that there is no solid reason to ascribe either knowledge or immortality to the souls of beasts; whereas it cannot be reasonably denied that human souls have both the one and the other. That explanation is worth reading, especially because it contains a solution of the most perplexing difficulty of the Cartesian system; for Don Lami shows that anybody may be convinced by very strong arguments, that other men are not mere machines: and yet the Anti-Cartesians draw such an inference from this position, viz., that brutes are made up of organs so well contrived, that they may do without knowledge whatever they do. If God, say they, were able to form such a machine, he might also

make others that would perform all the actions of man, and consequently we could not be sure that any other man thinks besides ourselves. To conclude, the combat of sects is like that of the Greeks and Trojans the night that Troy was taken: they overcome one another by turns, as they happen to change their way of fighting. A Cartesian has no sooner run down a school-man’s opinion about the souls of beasts, than he finds that he may be beaten with his own weapons, and that his adversary may show him that he proves too much, and that if he will argue, consequently he must give Over some opinions; which he cannot do without making himself ridiculous, and admitting manifest absurdities. A sect, though put to its last shifts, will always recover, if it cease to stand upon the defensive, in order to act offensively by way of diversion and retort, and it seems that God, acting like the common father of all sects, is not willing that any of them should entirely triumph over another, and sink it beyond recovery.—Arts.PereiraandRorarius.

BENSERADE.
A Hint to Laureates.

Isaac de Benserade was one of the finest French wits of the seventeenth century. He made himself known to the court by his verses, and had the good fortune to please Cardinal Richelieu, and Cardinal Mazarine; which was the means of making his fortune. I insert the following passage from a scarce book, entitled, “Arliquiniania.”

“Your story puts me in mind,” said Arlequin, “of a thing, which made Benserade’s fortune; I have it from himself. Were you acquainted with him?” “Yes,” said I, “I conversed with.

him till his death; he was the quickest wit, and the most zealous friend, that ever I saw; he was a good and gallant man, and I will tell you, one day, some particular things of him.” “ You know then,” replied Arlequin, “that Benserade, came young, agreeable, and full of merit, to court. He applied himself to Cardinal Mazarin, who liked him, but with such a friendship, as produced no advantage to him. Benserade, continuing to follow his genius, made gallant verses every day, which gained him a great reputation. The Cardinal, being one evening with the king, related to him after what manner he had lived in the Pope’s court, where he had spent his youth. He said, that he loved the sciences, but that his chief application had been to polite learning, and especially poetry, wherein he succeeded pretty well; and that he was, at the Pope’s court, what Benserade was at that of France. He soon after retired to his apartment. Benserade happened to come in an hour after; and his friends told him what the cardinal had said. They had scarce ended, when being filled with joy, he abruptly left them, without saying a word, and ran to the cardinal’s apartment, and knocked as hard as he could. The cardinal had just gone to bed; but Benserade was so pressing, and made so much noise, that they were obliged to let him in. He accordingly entered, fell on his knees by the bolster of his eminence’s bed, and, having begged a thousand pardons for his rudeness, he told him what he had heard, and thanked him, with inexpressible ardour, for the honour he had done him, in comparing himself to him, as to the reputation he had for poetry; adding, withal, that he was so proud of it, that he could not contain his joy, and that he should have died at his door, if he had been hindered from coming to pay him his acknowledgment. This zeal pleased the cardinal very much. He assured him of his protection, and promised him; that he would not be useless to him; and indeed, six days after, he sent him a small pension of two thousand livres; some time after, he obtained other considerable pensions on abbeys, and he might have been a bishop, if he would have been a churchman.”—Art. Benserade.

BOCCACCIO’S DREAM.

This production is a proof of the disorderly intrigues of its author with the fair sex, and of the troubles with which they were attended. It is an invective against women, and the author wrote it When he was angry with a widow whom he loved, who had jilted him. I observe indeed, that generally speaking, no writers so much slander the fair sex, as those who have most frequently loved and idolized them. Women therefore, ought to mind their slanders very little, being proofs of their dominion—the murmurs of a slave, who feels the weight of his chains, or who being freed, perceives the marks of his servitude remaining on his body.—Art.Boccaccio.

BOLEYN.
On the Trial of Anne Boleyn.

Sanders says, that Anne’s own father was one of those that condemned her. Dr Burnet had related the same thing on the credit of Dr Heylin, but retracted it in the additions. He discovered the records of the trial, but among the judges found not the name of the earl of Wiltshire, her father. It is remarkable, that this queen was indicted for high treason, for that she had procured her brother and four other persons to lie with her, which they

had done often; that she had said to them, that the king never had her heart, and had declared to every one of them by himself, that she loved him better than any person whatsoever, which was to the slander of the issue that was begotten between the king and her. This was treason according to the statute made in the twenty-sixth year of this reign, so that the law that was enacted for her and the issue of her marriage, was afterwards made use of to destroy her.

The bishop of Amelia goes farther than Sanders , for he says that Thomas Boleynpresided at the trial of his daughter. Pœnæ ministrum filiæ fortuna patrem dedit, qui forte capitalium rerum judex adversus earn capitis sententiam tulit. What he says, that all those who were accused of having lain with her, confessed it on the rack, is contradicted by Dr. Burnet, who says, that but one confessed it. He was a musician, whose name was Smeton; he owned that he had lain three times with the queen. It is observable, that in the long reign of queen Elizabeth, no endeavours were used to justify her mother. The catholics have taken advantage of this omission; but they are answered, that they should rather praise and admire the prudence of Elizabeth, who would have weakened her right, by endeavouring to defend it, and certain things must have been owned, which would have been very prejudicial.

Dr. Burnet, in his History of the Reformation in England, informs us that the lord Percy had told cardinal Wolsey that he had given his word to Anne Boleyn before witnesses, and that his conscience would not suffer him to call it in. That when that lord was pressed during the queen’s trial to declare that there had been a contract between him and Anne Boleyn, he took an oath in the presence of two archbishops, that there never

was any contract or promise of marriage between him and that lady, and to make that oath more solemn, he received the communion in the presence of divers councillors; and wished that the receiving of that sacrament might be his damnation if he had been in any engagement of that nature. That the queen owned nothing during her trial concerning her pretended engagement with that lord; but when she was condemned, she confessed that there had been a contract between her and Percy; and being brought before the ecclesiastical court, the 17th of May, she declared that there had been a just impediment to her marriage with the king, and that, therefore, the marriage could not be valid.—That upon her confession, the sentence of divorce was pronounced.—That the ori-ginal of that sentence was burnt; but what has now been said of it, is repeated in a law made by the parliament a little after, to regulate the succession—That the two sentences which were pronounced against the queen for adultery, and a pre-contract, are so opposite to each other, that at least one of them must have been unjust. For if that princess’s marriage from the beginning was null, she was noways guilty of adultery, since that invalidity hindered her from being Henry’s lawful wife. If the marriage were lawful, it was unjust to make it void; and if it were not lawful, the queen’s condemnation is plainly contrary to equity; and it cannot be maintained that that princess failed in her duty to the king, since she was not then obliged to keep her faith to him.

Many remarks might be made on this statement, but I shall be content with three. 1. The lord that denied with an oath, and with the sacrament in his hand, that there had been any engagement between him and Anne, was either a great impostor at that time, or when he declared he had

given his faith to that maid. If his oath were preferred before the other declaration, the queen, when ready to die, deposed falsely, that she had been engaged to that lord; if she were capable of deception at that juncture, it cannot be said in her justification, that she always protested her innocence, even on the scaffold; for a woman who, being ready to appear before God, does not scruple to tell a falsity, which makes her children illegitimate, may full as well deny a truth that loads her with dishonour. We have here a choice fact among divers others of the same kind, which shows that historical pyrrhonism may be proof against the oaths and protestations of dying persons.— 2. The art of historians is remarkable; they make use of a fact when they can draw any advantage from it, and they deny it when they find themselves incommoded by it. When it is to be proved, that Anne Boleyn did not press Henry VIII. to divorce queen Catherine, it is of use to show, that she intended, in good earnest, to be married to lord Percy. It is then requisite to own her engagement. But if on the other side, somebody should tell us, that by that engagement her marriage with Henry VIII. became void, and that therefore, queen Elizabeth was illegitimate, even though Catherine’s divorce had been just, then it is said that this engagement is a mere story, and Percy’s oaths and communion must be insisted upon.— 3. No arbitrary power ever went beyond that which the parliament of England exercised in the sixteenth century. All that the nation could do in the most authentic manner to annul the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catherine of Arragon, was done; their daughter Mary was declared illegitimate, and yet she was acknowledged for queen, as a legitimate child of Henry VIII. All that was necessary to annul the marriage of the same prince with Anne, was likewise done; and Elizabeth, their daughter, declared illegitimate, and yet she was acknowledged for their queen, as legitimate child of Henry. The original of the sentence of the divorce was also burnt, because they were not willing that a piece so disadvantageous to queen Elizabeth should be preserved.

Her Deportment during her Imprisonment.

In the time of her imprisonment she acted very different parts; sometimes she seemed devout, and shed abundance of tears, and then all on a sudden would break out into a loud laughter. As soon as the judges who came to examine her were gone, she fell on her knees, and melting in tears, cried many times, “ Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me and at the same time broke out into a laugh» Some hours before her death, she said, that the executioner was very handy, and besides, that she had a very small neck. At the same time she felt it with her hands and laughed heartily. Though Gratiani is not favourable to her, yet he owns that she died with great resolution, and that she took care to spread her gown about her feet, that she might not fall indecently. Postremo genibus positis, ultimos quoque pedes quo honestius procum-beret, veste contexit. The poets say the same of Polyxena; and the historians of Julius Cæsar.

Slanders of certain Catholic Writers. Some very bold performances of a similar nature, having been very recently published, in reference to this queen, we think a specimen of the unblushing inventions occasionally produced by theodium theologicum, may not be wholly unamusing.—Ed. ⁶¹

Nothing is more easy to be confuted than the story which so many persons have copied from Sanders, viz. that Anne was Henry ⅤⅢth’s daughter, that her

mother brought her into the world two years after the departure of Sir Thomas Boleyn on his embassy to France, to which the king nominated him, only that he might enjoy his wife more freely in the absence of her husband; that Thomas Boleyn at his return into England, hearing of his wife’s ill conduct, summoned her before the official of Canterbury for adultery, and sued for a separation; that the king ordered him to stop all his proceedings, and to take his wife into favour again; that he obeyed, but not till she had owned to him that the king was the father of the last daughter of which she was brought to bed; that at fifteen years of age Anne Boleyn was debauched by her father’s steward, and his chaplain; that she was sent afterwards into France to a lord, who educated her as a maid of great quality; that she behaved herself at the court of France with so little modesty that she was called the English hackney, and that because Francis I. had a share in her favour, she was called the king’s mule; that, during the love of Henry VIII. for that lady, Thomas Wyat, one of the chief lords of the court, came before the council to depose that he had lain with her, at a time when he did not believe that the king thought of honouring her so far as to marry her; that Henry not believing that deposition, Wyat offered to make the king an eye-witness of the favours he should receive from that lewd woman, but that he was called an impudent fellow, and forbade the court.

Dr. Burnet disposes of these inventions by three arguments. 1. Sanders reported them only on the credit of a work which nobody ever saw;— that is, The Life of Sir Thomas More, by Rastal. 2. These inventions were quite unknown when they might have been at once set aside. 3. That there are utter impossibilities in the whole ac-

count. To give the second of these reasons at length; “ if things were as Sanders reports them, how comes it, that at the death of Anne Boleyn, nobody was ever complaisant enough to the king, or enemy enough to that unhappy princess, to publish her infamy, which, on other accounts, could not be unknown? The facts of such a woman as Anne Boleyn’s mother being with child two years after her husband’s departure, who was sent on a considerable embassy; and of her husband’s suing for a divorce in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s court, and causing her to be summoned there, are such circumstances as the world do not readily forget. On the other hand, Anne Boleyn’s being in so ill repute, her suffering herself to be debauched in her father’s house; her ill life afterwards, and her being kept by two kings, are also circumstances which cannot be very secret. Besides, • when the records of the Archbishop’s court were yet extant, it was offered to the public to make it appear, that there was nothing in these records like the prosecutions which Sanders Speaks of. Lastly, all the writers on those times, as well those on the pope’s as on the emperor’s side, keep a profound silence about those things; which they had never failed to publish, if they had been true, or if they had come to their knowledge. But eight years after, a bigot takes it into his head to forge a history full of impostures; or at least published it, because it was then more safe to tell lies, all those who might have been able to discover the truth being dead.”

As for the third reason, I only relate it in short. Thomas Boleyn could not be sent ambassador to France by Henry. VIII., before the year 1509. Anne must therefore have been born in the year 1511, and debauched in her house in the year 1526. Where shall we then find the time when

she was with a great lord in France, and after-wards at court? Where shall we find that licentious life which got her the name of the English hackney? Where shall we find that time, since which she had returned into England in the year 1526? Sanders can never be justified. His best apologist, M. le Grand, forsakes him here: “As I do not pretend to palliate his faults,” says he, “I confess plainly, that he is too passionate against Anne Boleyn; that no author that I know, besides himself, has said that she was daughter of Henry VIII., or that she had led so disorderly a life.” Sanders affirms, that she was beloved by the king in the year 1526. Now, before she was beloved by that king, she had been debauched at her supposed father’s, at fifteen years of age; she had lived in France; she had returned into England, and she was taken in as maid of honour to queen Catherine. She was therefore at least, nearly twenty years of age in 1526, so that she was born in 1506, three years before King Henry VIII. ascended the throne, and five years before any of that king’s ambassadors could have been two years in his embassy. It has been found that Anne was born in the year 1507, and therefore, according to Sanders, Henry VIII. must have sent Thomas Boleyn ambassador in the year 1505; and he must have been, at that time, deeply engaged in an adultery. Now the first of these two tacts is false; for Henry was not yet king; and the other is not to be believed of a youth who was but fourteen years of age. Add to this, that Thomas Boleyn was not sent on his embassy till 1515. I ought not to pass over in silence what concerns Wyat. Dr. Burnet quotes an original piece, wherein the son of that cousin attests, that his father was a gentleman of the bed-chamber to king Henry all the time that the marriage with Anne Boleyn lasted; yet neither did he in discretion retire out of the court, nor did the king seem jealous, or the queen offended at him. Moreover» that his father was afterwards ambassador for several years to Charles V. So much for the malignant calumnies produced by religious hate.—Art.Boleyn.

BOOKS AND CHILDREN.

Not long since, I read in a Thesis de aquae calidæ potu, maintained at Helmstad, under Henry Meibomius, in the year 1689, that Andrew Tiraquellus, in French Tiraqueau, one of the most learned men in the country, who drank only water, was father of forty-five children, and author of as many books, on which occasion these four verses are mentioned:

Fœcundus facundus aquæ
Tiraquellus amator Terquindecim li brorum et liberûm parens.
Qui nisi restinxisset aquis abstemius ignes.
Implesset orbem prole animi atque corporis.

Learn'd Tiraquellus, though to water true,
Yet forty-five both books and children knew;
And had his fire not been by water chill'd,
His double offspring must the world have fill'd.

I dare aver that the fact is stretched too far. Thuanus could not have been ignorant of a thing so remarkable as this, and would undoubtedly have mentioned it if he had believed it true: but he contents himself with saying that Tiraquellus bestowed a book and a child on the public every year. Some other writers have particularized the number; but confine themselves to thirty. “ Tiraquellus was no less fruitful in the production of the children of his mind than of those of his body; for in thirty years not one passed in which he did not give the world a book and a son, and if on the one side he extended his name and family by a large number of children, all excellent persons,

which he had by a virtuous wife, he acquired full as large a share of glory by the great number of books with which he enriched the public; but what increases the wonder is, that he was thus fruitful though he drank only water.” M. Teissier, who cites Frey, Admir. Galliæ, confines himself also to thirty. Nor can we reach so far as forty-five if we regulate ourselves by the common observation of those authors who mention this; they aver that Tiraquellus had but one wife, and that all his children were lawfully begotten.

Observe, that in order to justify those who aver that Tiraquellus had forty-five lawful children, though married but once, we cannot suppose of him what the Menagiana relates of one Blunet, who had by his wife one and twenty children at seven successive births, three at each time; for if this learned Civilian’s wife had very often brought him two or three at a time, it would have been the principal circumstance which authors would have observed. But not one of them has mentioned any thing like it; on the contrary, they have told us that Tiraquellus produced every year a book and a child.Singulis annis singulos liberos reipub-licœ daret,—Art.Tiraquellus.

BORRI.

Joseph Francis Borri, in Latin Burrhus, a famous chemist, quack, and heretic in the 17th century, was a Milanese. He finished his studies in the seminary at Rome, where the Jesuits-admired him as a prodigy for his memory and capacity. He applied himself afterwards to the court of Rome, but that did not hinder him from making several discoveries in chemistry. He plunged himself into the most extravagant debaucheries, and in the year 1654 was obliged to take refuge in a church. A little while after he set up for a

religious man, and privately scattered many visionary notions. Affecting a great zeal, he lamented the corruption of manners that prevailed at Rome, saying that the distemper was come to the height, and that the time of recovery drew near. A happy time, wherein there would be but one sheepfold on the earth, whereof the Pope was to be the only shepherd. “ Whosoever shall refuse,” said he, “ to enter into that sheepfold, shall be destroyed by the pope’s armies; God has predestinated me to be the general of those armies, and they shall want nothing; I shall quickly finish my chemical labours by the happy production of the philosophers’ stone, and by that means I shall have as much gold as is necessary for the business. I am sure of the assistance of the angels, and particularly of that of Michael the Archangel. When I began to walk in the spiritual life, I had a vision in the night attended with an angelical voice, which assured me that I should become a prophet: the sign that was given me for it was a palm that seemed to me quite surrounded with the light of paradise.” He also boasted that St. Michael the Archangel had taken post in his heart, and that whole bands of angels revealed to him the secrets of heaven, and what passed in the conclave of Alexander VIL I only mention a small part of his chimerical notions, which are sufficient to make one judge of the rest.

After the death of Innocent X., finding that the new pope Alexander VII. renewed the tribunals, and caused more care to be taken of everything, he despaired of having time sufficient to increase the number of his followers, as his design required; and therefore he left Rome and returned to Milan. He acted the devotee there, and by that means gained credit with several people; whom he caused to perform certain pious exercises, which

had a great appearance of a spiritual life. He engaged the members of his new congregation to take an oath of secrecy to him; and when he found them confirmed in the belief of his extraordinary mission, he prescribed to them certain vows by the suggestion of his angel, as he pretended. One of those vows was that of poverty, for the performance whereof he caused all the money which every one had, to be consigned to himself. The fifth of those vows engaged them to a most ardent zeal for the holy propagation of the kingdom of God. It was to be the reign of the Most High, the reign of one sole flock, in the jargon of this new sect. Borri was to be captain-general of the troops which were to bring all mankind into one sheep-fold; he was to be assisted in a particular manner by Michael the Archangel; he had already received a sword from heaven, on the handle of which appeared the image of the seven intelligences, and the pope himself was to he killed if he had not the requisite mark on his forehead. He taught among other things, that the Holy Virgin was a real goddess, and properly the Holy Ghost incarnate, for that she was born of St. Anne in the same manner as Jesus Christ was born of her. He called her the only daughter of God, conceived by inspiration, and caused this to be added to the mass when the priests his sectaries celebrated it. He said that as to her humanity she was present at the sacrament of the Eucharist, and alleged certain passages of scripture to maintain his doctrine. He took it in his head to dictate a treatise on his system to his followers. I have said already that he boasted of having a great share of heavenly revelations: and it was by that means he had learned, that St. Paul had communicated to him the same power which God conferred on that apostle to censure St. Peter's conduct. He boasted that he could communicate to others the gift of illumination for understanding mysteries, and made use of the imposition of hands, beseeching the trinity to receive the novice into the religion of the evangelical nationalists.

His design was, in case he could get a sufficient number of followers, to appear in the great square in Milan, there to represent eloquently the abuses of the ecclesiastical and secular government, to encourage the people to liberty, and so to profess himself of the city and country of Milan, and then to pursue his conquests as well as he could. But all his designs miscarried by the imprisonment of some of his disciples, and as soon as he saw that first step of the inquisition, he fled with all the haste he could, and took care not to appear to the summons of that formidable tribunal. They proceeded against him for contumacy in 1659, and 1660: he was condemned as a heretic, and burnt in effigy, with his writings, in the field of Flora at Rome, by the hands of the executioner, the third of January, 1661. He staid some time in the city of Strasburg, where he found some support and assistance, as being persecuted by the inquisition, and also as a great chemist; but he wanted a larger theatre. He looked for it in Holland in the year 1661, and found it at Amsterdam. He made a great noise there; people flocked to him as to the universal physician for all diseases; he appeared there in a stately equipage, and took upon him the title of excellency; they talked of marrying him to the greatest fortunes, &c., but the tables turned, his reputation began to sink, either because his miracles no longer found any credit, or because his faith could work no more miracles. In short he broke, and fled one night from Amsterdam with a great many jewels and sums of money which he had pilfered. He went to Hamburgh, where queen

Christina was at that time; he put himself under her protection, and persuaded her to venture a great deal of money in order to find out the philosophers’ stone, which came to nothing. After-wards he went to Copenhagen, and inspired his Danish majesty with a strong desire to search for the same secret. By that means he acquired that prince’s favour so far as to become very odious to all the great persons of the kingdom. Immediately after that king’s death, whom he had put upon great expenses in vain, he left Denmark for fear of being imprisoned, and resolved to go into Turkey, Being come to the frontiers, at a time when the conspiracy of Nadasti, Serini, and Frangipani was discovered, he was taken at Goldingen for one of the accomplices; wherefore the lord of the place invited him to lodge at his house, and secured his person; and understanding that his prisoner’s name was Joseph Francis Borri, he sent that name to his imperial majesty, to see if he were one of the Conspirators. The pope’s Nuncio had audience of the emperor at the same time when the count of Goldingen’s letter was brought. As soon as he heard the name of Borri, he demanded, in the pope’s name, that the prisoner should be delivered to him. The emperor having consented to it, ordered that Borri should be sent to Vienna; and obtained a promise from the pope that he should not be put to death, and sent him to Rome, where he was condemned to remain all his life in the prison of the inquisition, and to make theamende honorable.

It was on the last Sunday of the month of October, 1672, that this impostor was condemned to make an abjuration of his errors in the churchdella Minerva; for which end, he was brought upon a scaffold that was raised on purpose for him, where one of his adversaries, who was a priest, read the

trial aloud, with his confession and abjuration. The sentence was pronounced by the holy office; he was upon his knees, with a torch in his hands, whilst his abjuration was reading; which being done, he arose, and thanked the sacred college for the mildness wherewith he had been treated, in not inflicting a greater punishment upon him, which he confessed he deserved. This was done in the presence of a vast crowd of people, who were curious to see so famous a man, and so solemn and extraordinary an action. He was surrounded with a great many archers, and officers of the holy office. Many prelates were also present there with the sacred college, and an innumerable multitude of other persons. The said Borii, seeing so many archers, and other men of the same profession about him, fell twice into a swoon. The ceremony being over, he was sent back into prison, with express orders to make him say the creed every day, and the penitential psalms once every week. He was also ordered by his sentence, to receive the sacrament once every day. Before he came out of the prisons of the inquisition, he was visited by several men and women, and also by some princes and princesses, knights, and other persons of quality. When be came out of the prison, they made him pass through a troop of the pope’s lancers, who made a lane. He mounted on the scaffold with his hands bound, between which, there was a burning wax taper, and he continued kneeling all the while his sentence was reading, by which he was condemned to a perpetual imprisonment, for having been (these are the very words of the sentence) an inventor of a new heresy; and for a penance, to wear the habit of the inquisition all his life-time, with a red cross on the stomach, and one on his back He was astonished to hear of a perpetual imprisonment; but the inquisitors comforted him by saying, that if that. expedient had not been preferred, they would certainly have taken away his life; the pope was so pleased with his abjuration, that he gave a plenary indulgence of all sins to all those that were present there; for that ceremony lasted above five • hours.

Some years after, he obtained leave to come out, in order to cure the duke d’Estrées, whom all the physicians had given over for lost, and he did cure him; which caused a saying, that an archheretic had done a great miracle in Rome. The duke obtained that his prison should be changed, and that he should be sent to the castle of St. Angelo. There was a report since that time, that he was permitted to go abroad twice a week, and to walk in the city with guards. I have it from very good authority, that the queen of Sweden sent for him sometimes in a coach; but that after the death of that princess he went no more abroad, and that none could speak with him without special leave from the pope. I have been assured that he pretended he was not a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, but that he lodged there, as it was a large palace, to apply himself to study and chemical operations, and that he neglected opportunities of making his escape, which frequently offered; but M. Masclari informed me that when he was at Rome, he saw the cavalier Borri several times, and that he could come no lower than a certain door in the middle of the stairs of the dungeon in the castle of St. Angelo; so far be waited upon those who came to see him; that he had a pretty good apartment, consisting of three rooms and a laboratory; that none could be admitted to see him without a note from cardinal Cibo, and that he looked upon that castle as a real prison to him, from which he did not despair but that the duke d’Estrées would deliver him. The

difference of these relations may be reconciled by distinguishing times, and those who know the character of our Borri, may easily see, that when he had obtained permission to go abroad sometimes, he might perhaps boast that he was no longer a prisoner.

Sorbiere thus expresses himself of Borri, “ I have only to add a few words concerning the famous cavalier Borri, whom I have seen at Amsterdam this last time I have been there. You have a mind to know how it came to pass that at such a distance he made so great a noise at Paris, that some persons of quality have been carried into Holland in litters to be cured by that quack; and that some ingenious persons have gone thither on purpose to see so great a man. I can say nothing more to it, sir, than this, that it is as true now, as it was formerly, that our poor humanity might be defined by the inclination to lying, and by credulity, ' homo animal credulum et mendax,’ man is a credulous and lying animal. Those that can so easily believe the stories which are told of those workers of miracles, such as Borri was taken to be before the world was undeceived, must have been accustomed without doubt in their infancy, to listen attentively to old wives’ tales; it is a mark of a good nature, and a very tractable disposition. Some people after they have laughed at physicians, on a sudden give entire credit to the promises of a quack, and suffer themselves to be bubbled by his new method, though he only sells the same ware. He whom I am going to describe to you, is a tall black man, pretty well shaped; he wears good clothes, and spends pretty high, though not so much as is imagined; for eight or ten thousand, livres will go a great way at Amsterdam. But a house of fifteen thousand crowns in a good situation, five or six footmen, a suit after the French

fashion, now and then a collation to the ladies, the refusing money in some cases, five or six rix-dollars distributed to the poor in a proper time and place, arrogant words, and such like arts, made some credulous persons, or some who could have wished it had been true, say that he gave handfuls of diamonds, that he had found the philosopher’s stone, and that he had the universal medicine. The truth is, the Sieur Borri is a cunning knave, the son of an able physician of Milan, who left him some estate; but he has added to it what he has got by the industry I am going to speak of. As he does not want for parts, and has some learning, he has found means to prevail with some princes to supply him with money, by giving them expectation that he would communicate to them the philosophers' stone, which he was upon the point of finding. He has without doubt some skill, or some practice in chemical preparations, some knowledge in metals, some imitation of pearls and jewels, and it may be some purgative or stomachical remedies, which are commonly very general. As most diseases come from that region, by this lure he has insinuated himself into the good opinion of those whom he stood in need of; and some merchants, as well as some princes, have fallen into the trap. Witness a promissory note for two hundred thousand livres, which he gave to one Demers, who had supplied his expenses, for which the heirs of that merchant are at law with the Spagyrist; for the spark has worded it in so odd a manner, that nobody knows what to make of it. At first he acquired some credit among the citizens; and maintained himself for some time by the support of an old burgomaster, whom he kept up with his cordial waters, till everybody discovered his knavery, and laughed at his artifices. They consist chiefly in a method of debasing coin with impunity, and in some alteration of metals, which is not yet well known.” This extraordinary impostor ended his life in the castle of St. Angelo, in the year 1695. The resemblance of the career and final fate of this impostor, to that of the celebrated Cagliostro, is very remark-able.—Ed. ⁶²—Art.Borri.

BOUCHIN
(His Curious Pleadings.)

This Civilian printed a second edition of his “ Pleadings,” at Paris, in 1620. This work is very curious, and contains a great many love stories. The first plea is, on the case of one pretended to be under age who was accused and brought to trial, for having said in several places that a married woman was criminally connected with the curate of her parish. The second against a young woman accused of having by a pretended charm hindered the consummation of a marriage. The third against a son, accused as a criminal by hit father. The fourth, for a husbandman condemned in a fine, for stealing some bread-dough in a time of famine. The fifth, touching the preference of creditors, and privileged persons, at the sale of goods left by an ecclesiastic. The sixth, on a charivary, or burlesque music, given to a woman that was married again immediately after the death of her husband. They who had given it, the next day demanded money of the new married couple for the charge they had been at; and being refused, they brought them before a judge, who ordered them a small sum. The married folks appealed from the sentence. Bouchin concluded by the evidence that it was ill judged, and the appeal good. He leaves no manner of commonplace untouched;

he begins with praising virginity, and widowers who do not marry again; then he proceeds to declaim against second marriages; and especially against the impatience of widows who marry too hastily, and against the impudence of old men that marry, and lastly against step-mothers; and then on a sudden, excuses or justifies all that he had been condemning; and confirms the whole by quotations and examples as before.

To give an idea of his motley style, I will give a specimen of it from the place where he details the inconveniences of second marriages Ibid. par. 330, and following. ⁶³.

“ So that one may say with Hesiod, that he who marries a second time

Naufragus navigat bis profundum difficile.
Ναυηγὸς πλώ ειδὶς βυθὸν αργάλενο
Hesiod. ex I. Epigram.

he is shipwrecked in a place where there is no bottom; after the death of one wife to seek a second, is, according to the opinion of the comic Philemon, to desire to float again on a sea of disquiet and misery: it is a game where chance has more share than reason, and an effect of a blank lottery, where everybody is hunting for benefits, and the luckiest get them: and it is in vain for the unlucky to complain that Cupid has not struck them with a golden dart armed with a shining point.

- - - cujus fuit aurea cuspis.
Ovid. vii. Met. Fab. 26. ver. 673.

which is the dart that begets love in hearts wounded with it; but, with that which is endowed with a contrary virtue, and creates hatred instead of love,

being quite blunt and armed only with lead.

---fugat hoc, facit illud amorem.
Idem. i. Met. Fab. ix. pag. 469.

That if there be in the wife some small remains of beauty plastered according to custom—

Quosit sit riguum pictum in pariete,
Plaut. in Merc. Act. 2. Sc. 2.

Says Plautus,

Nam isthæc veteres quæ se unguentis unctitans, interpoles
Vetulæ, edentulæ, quæ vitia corporis fuco occulunt,
Ubi sese sudor cum unguentis consociavit, illico
Itidem oient, quasi quom una multa Jura co u fun dit coquus.
Plaut. in Mostellaria, Act. 1. Sc. 2.

That if they adjust their hair with a little more artifice than ordinary—

------comptis arte manùque comis:

Ovid. i. Fast. ver. 406.

If they dip it in the water of the river Cratis or Cybaris, to make it look like thread of gold—

Electro similes faciunt auroque capillos:

Id. i. Met. ver. 315. Fab. 18.

If they never go without their chains and necklaces,

Auratis circumdata colla catenis:
Propert. lib. ii. Eleg. 1.

And if there is still any thing agreeable—

Et faciunt curâ,, ne videantur anus:
Ovid. ii. de Arte Amandi, ver. 678.

If, contrary to Sosastra in Plautus, they are complaisant and cajoling, the husband’s head aches, and he grows jealous:

Esse metus cœpit, ne jura jugalia conjux
Non bene servasset.
Idem. vii. Met. Fab. 26. ver. 715.

The wife, as susceptible of jealousy as the husband, more pale than the jealous Procris—

Palluit ut serâ lectus de vite racemus:

Idem. iii. de Arte Amandi, ver. 703.

More dry of this peccant humour, and yellower than leaves blown off’ by an ill wind, or nipped by the cold—

Frondes quas nova læsit Hyems;
Id. ib. ver. 704.

And who would not suffer her maids to enter the temple of the goddess Leucothea, if it were not to box them, may on the other hand complain with old Syra, that the husbands imagine they have greater privileges than the wives.

Ecastor lege durâ vivunt mulieres,
Multoque iniquiore miseræ, quam viri;
Nam si vir scortum duxit clam uxore, suâ,
Id si rescivit uxor, impune est viro:
Uxor vero, si clam domo egressa est foràs,
Viro fit causa, exigitur matrimonio.
Utinam lex esset eadem uxori, quæ est viro.
Plaut. in Merc. Act. 4. Sc.6.

She is susceptible of jealousy if a heifer but break into her pasture (these are the words of Oenone to Parié) or if her husband

Fundum alienum arat, incultum familiarem deserit;
Plaut. in Asinariâ, Act v. Sc. 2.

which she does not think more lawful for him than for herself. Periniquum est ut pudicitiam vir ab uxore exigat, quam ipse non prestet, says the civilian Papinian: if he takes too much liberty, or arrogates too much to himself, she commonly follows his steps:

Vitio est improba facta viri:
Ovid. ii. de Arte Amandi, ver. 400.

this, among other inconveniences of marriage, causes domestic quarrels, which happen, it may be, for want of having sacrificed to Juno Jugalis, the

inventress of marriage, who takes care of the nuptials—

Toris quæ præsidet alma maritis—
Idem. Epist. ii. Phil. Demophoon. ver. 4.

to whom Dido, desiring to marry Æneas, took care to make the first sacrifice—

Junoni ante omnes, cui jura jugalia curæ.
Virg. 4. Æneid. 49.

This ill custom, which prevailed not only at the bar, but also in the pulpit, is by degrees abolished. Mr de la Bruyere expresses this change very well. ' It is not an age ago, says he, that a French book was a certain number of Latin pages, with a few lines or a few words of French scattered here and there in them. Passages, instances, citations, would not suffice barely as such. Ovid and Catullus decided finally concerning marriages and wills, and came with the Pandects to the assistance of widows and orphans; sacred and prophane did not shun each other; they were got together even into the pulpit; where St Cyril, Horace, St Cyprian, and Lucretius, talked alternately. The poets were of the opinion of St Austin and all the fathers; they would talk Latin a long while together, and even Greek, before the women and sextons. A man must have a prodigious deal of learning to preach so ill. Different times, different customs: the text is still Latin; all the discourse is French, and fine French; the gospel itself is hardly cited. Now a man needs but little learning to preach well. The advocates were not alone in this practice; the advocates-general and first presidents ran into it as well as they. This appears by the collections of harangues pronounced at the opening of sessions, and arrêts pronounced in the red robe. Mr Balzac very much disapproved this custom, and makes merry with a first president who in the middle of his speech made an apostrophe

to the attorneys, telling them they might learn their duty in the Scholiast on Homer, on ten or a dozen verses which he recited. I myself heard him (the first president) in the midst of his discourse, addressing himself to the attorneys and solicitors in these words: “ Homer will teach you your duty, ye attorneys, in the tenth Iliad, and Eustathius, the Scholiast of Homer, on these verses which he repeated by heart to the number of ten or twelve, without any regard to numbers or accents, to let you see he was truly free from laws. This is an old distemper of the law courts of Paris, with which your Fayes, your Pibracs, your Brissons, tho’ really learned and excellent men, were miserably affected.’

Let us observe, by the way, that even when this mixture of literature was most in use at the bar, there were advocates who seldom cited classic authors, either because they saw the abuse, or they wanted the art to apply their learning, or else they were not well versed in the classics. Their method was certainly better than the other; for what purpose could this train of citations serve, but to withdraw the judge’s attention, and hide the true state of the cause? An advocate such as our Stephen Bouchin, pleaded more for himself than for his client; he laboured more to shew his own learning than to prepare the judges to determine rightly. What could Homer’s verses signify to the judges of Beaune? Did the people understand Greek in these little jurisdictions? It is to be feared that the opposite extreme, which we have since fallen into, will make the advocates despise learning as a piece of furniture entirely useless: but what can be done? It is destined that the remedy of one abuse should be the introduction of another. More modern advocates can manage to be tedious and long winded without classical quotation; and in respect to time, the pedant of the sixteenth century could scarcely prove more merciless than his counterpart of the nineteenth. In certain equity practice it is well known that half the oratory is utterly useless, and neither has, nor on the part of the advocate is expected to have, any effect on the bench. “ The court awards it, and the law allows it,” for the benefit of the professors.—Ed. ⁶⁴—Art.Bouchin.

BOURIGNON.

Antoinette Bourignon was one of those devout maids who think themselves directed by particular inspiration; for which reason she was called a fanatic. She published a great many books, full of very singular doctrines, and there was something extraordinary in her mind from her infancy to her old age. She was born at Lisle, the thirteenth of January 1616, so deformed, that it was debated for some days in the family whether she should not be stifled as a monster. Her deformity lessened, and they resolved to let her live. At four years of age, she discovered that Christians did not live according to their principles, and desired to be carried into the country of the Christians; for she did not believe that she was amongst them, since she observed that people did not live agreeably to the law of Jesus Christ. One of the greatest vexations she had in her family was, that they had a mind to marry her, which was not what she desired; a nunnery seemed to her preferable to a husband. She perceived her mother was unhappy in a married state; and besides being endowed with a surprising chastity, she found an extraordinary delight in weaning herself from the objects of the senses, to unite herself to her Creator in a more intimate manner. It is observed, in her Life, that God gave her the gift of chastity and conti-nency from her childhood in so high a degree, that she has often said, she never had in her life-time, not even by temptation or surprise, the least thought which could be unworthy of the chastity arid purity

of the virgin state. St Teresa says of herself, that God had formerly favoured her with the same grace; but Mrs Bourignon possessed it in so abundant a manner, that it redounded, if one may say so, on those that were with her. Her presence and conversation diffused such an odour of continency, as made those who conversed with her forget. the pleasures of the flesh; and I leave it to the experience of those who read her books with application, to judge whether they do not feel some impressions of it, and some inclinations to that virtue which is so pleasing to God. Had I not reason to say that the chastity of this maid was surprising? In school terms it might be called not only immanent but also transitive; since its effects were diffused outwardly, and did not terminate in her person. I think your mystical people rather use the word penetrative than the word transitive; for I remember a Carthusian says, that the Holy Virgin had a penetrative virginity, whereby those who looked upon her, though she was so beautiful, had none but chaste thoughts. He adds that St Joseph had the gift which they call infrigidation, which kept his body and soul free from all sense of impurity. It seems to me that the talent which God had granted to Antoinette Bourignon, ought to be called by that name. That word would admirably represent the effect which she produced on her neighbours. The gift of infrigidation ought to be that which makes those cold who come near us; but since use must determine the force of terms, I will not insist upon it. I shall only say that the clause— “ though she was never so beautiful,” which the Carthusian made use of, is not a needless parenthesis, since it was essential to his subject; for there the wonder lies; nature might very well confer a penetrative virginity without grace, a certain degree of ugliness would be sufficient for that. Wherefore I wish the author of Mrs Bourignon’s Life had inserted by way of parenthesis, that the gift of continency which she diffused outwardly did not proceed from any ugliness or other repulsive qualities. I conclude with a reflection which will be approved by a majority of votes. I believe there are not many young nuns that pray for a penetrative virginity. The most virtuous are contented with the gift of continency, and would be very unwilling to mortify all the desires of the men that look upon them. They would think themselves too much disgraced by nature, did they believe that they need only show themselves to make men chaste; such a thought would not please them. I believe therefore, that the most sublime and rarest degree of chastity, in a woman, is not only to wish to be chaste, but also to make all those chaste that are round about her, and with whom she converses. Generally speaking, women do not desire that this gift should have a great sphere of activity; the gift of continency is not a thing that many persons care for (I speak of those who are not engaged to it by a vow.) St Augustin asks it, and is afraid of being taken at his word; wherefore he desires God not to make too much haste.

The father of Antoinette, notwithstanding her objections, promised her in marriage to a Frenchman. The time was already appointed for the wedding; and to avoid the performance of it, she was forced to run away, on Easter-day 1636. It was not to throw herself into a cloister; she came to know that the spirit of the Gospel did not reign in convents; but it was to retire into some desart. She dressed herself like a hermit, and fled as fast as she could; but because she was suspected in a village of Hai-nault to be a girl, she was stopped. She never ran so much hazard, as to her virginity, as at that time: falling into the hands of a soldier, who did not let go his hold but by a kind of miracle. The curate of the place delivered her from this danger, and observing

the spirit of God in her, mentioned her to the archbishop of Cambray, who came to examine her, and advising her against a hermit’s life, persuaded her to return to her father. She was soon after troubled again with proposals of marriage, which obliged Her to run away a second time. She went to the same archbishop, and obtained leave of him to form a small commonalty in the country with some other maids of her humour; but he retracted it a little while after, which obliged Antoinette to go into the country of Liege, whence she returned to Flanders, where she spent many years in a retired life and in great simplicity, but not without inspiring a great deal of love in a man, who pretended to devotion that he might have access to her. He proposed to marry her; and not finding her pliable, he tried to supply by personal strength what he wanted in verbal efficacy. His name was John de St Saulieu; he was the son of a peasant; and if all must be believed that is said of him in the Life of our Antoinette, he was a great rogue. He insinuated himself in that maid’s favour by a devout countenance and a most sublime spirituality. “ The first time that he applied himself to her.....he spoke like a prophet, but like a moderate and reserved prophet, who having made an end of his prophecy, retires softly, without explaining any thing, and without insisting to make himself believed. The second time he spoke to her, he pretended, to be a man illuminated, charitable, and familiar with God.” Having well insinuated himself, he declared his passion; Antoinette took it heinously, and the spark seemed to be sorry for it: they fell out, and were reconciled; and at last he attempted force. Hear what the lady says of him: “ Being often in my house, he was so importunate and insolent with me, that I was obliged to give my maids notice to watch him, and to shut the door of my house against him. He came often with a knife in his hand, which he presented to my throat, if I would not yield to his wicked desires; insomuch that I was at last obliged to have recourse to the arm of justice, because he threatened to break the doors and windows of ray house, and to kill me, though he should be hanged for it in the market-place of Lisle. The provost gave me two men to secure me in my house, whilst an information was making of the insolencies that the said St Saulieu had committed against me.” The conclusion was, that the matter was made up between them; he promised never to go to the place where she should be, and retracted his slanders, protesting that he knew her to be a good and virtuous maid. “ Seeing,” says she, “ that he could not marry me by love or force, he kept company with one of my devout maids, who seemed also a mirror of perfection, and got her with child; after which he would not marry her, till after many entreaties and endeavours of the said maid, who at last mollified his heart by her great humility, he married her a little before she was delivered of a child. He lived very unchastely, as well as she.” I do not wonder at it: for the most difficult step is that of the door: as soon as a devout woman has once got over that first step by some gallantry that hath made a noise, her honour is lost: modesty, once turned out of doors, seldom returns again. What the Scripture says in general, that the devil transforms himself into an angel of light, is particularly true of the devil called Asmodeus, who is that of lewdness. The Bigots have invented a thousand arts to make a great many devout women fall into the snare, who had a sincere desire to behave themselves chastely. He who set upon Mrs Bourignon made her believe, “ that he was quite dead to nature; that he had been some years a soldier, and was returned from the war a maid, though several women had inticed him to lewdness, and had even come to bed to him with an ill design; that he had remained firm, because he conversed daily in his spirit with God.” He told her also, “ that he had lost the taste of meats and drinks, by his great abstinences and mortifications; and that he could not discern delightful meats from coarse ones, nor wine from beer or water; that all those things seemed to him to have the same taste; that he loved the one as well as the other, without discerning them.” Hereby we may know that a woman’s honour lies in the centre of a circle, the circumference whereof is blocked up by a thousand sorts of enemies. It is a mark which men try to hit all manner of ways, and even by the appearrances of the most mystical and illuminated theology, as witness Molinos, and the Quietists of Burgundy.

This pious maid therefore had not always had a good fame, or the talent of inspiring chastity. I say nothing of the design of the officer of horse who seized her in a village when she was disguised like a hermit, being about 20 years of age; soldiers, especially when they are lodged in a village, are very dangerous upon such an occasion, and but little penetrable by penetrative virginity: waving therefore this adventure, I shall only speak of the nephew of the curate of St Andrew’s near Lisle. Antoinette had shut up herself in a solitude in the neighbourhood of that parish. The curate’s nephew fell in love with her. “ He was so smitten with her that he walked continually about the house, and did not cease to discover his passion by words and addresses.” This solitary lady threatened to leave her post, if she was not delivered from that importunate person. The uncle thrust him out of his house. Then the young man “ turned his love into rage, and sometimes discharged his gun through the chamber of the recluse;” and seeing that he gained nothing by it, he gave out that he was to marry her. The thing was noised about all over the town; the devout women were offended at it, and threatened to affront her, if they found her

in the streets. The preachers were obliged to publish that there was nothing in that marriage. I do not think she was sorry to let the public know that she had appeared so lovely to some men, that they passionately desired to marry her. Old maids are pleased with telling such stories.

Antoinette had once resolved to give up her property, but soon changed her mind and resumed it. Three reasons of devotion persuaded her to it; for if she had not retaken it, she would have left it to those it did not belong to, who would have made an ill use of it: therefore to spare the crime of possessing the estate of others, and of employing it to do ill, she thought it her duty to take it from them, and devote it, by God’s order, to good uses. It did not lessen under her direction: on the contrary it increased: two reasons contributed to this increase; for her expences were small, and she gave no alms, that she might convert the superfluous part of her income into stock, which she did not fail to do. Not that she was covetous; she possessed her estate without any affection, and the poverty of spirit did not forsake her in the midst of her riches. What was it then? She would have enough to make greater expenses for the glory of God, when there should be occasion for it. The reason why she spent so little in alms was, because she found nobody that was in a real poverty, and she was afraid people would make an ill use of what she should give away. She herself informs us of those articles of her morals. “ The temporal estate I have,” says she, “ fell to me by succession, or increased by what I did not spend or give, because I could not find enough of people truly poor, or honest persons in necessity: therefore I have been sometimes obliged to increase my stock out of the superfluous part of my income; because sobriety requires no great expenses; and the truly poor are so scarce that they must be sought for in another world. The

assistances which are given in this wretched age serve often to commit more sins; wherefore he who has a greater yearly income than is necessary, is obliged to increase his stock in hopes of finding an occasion to employ it to the greater glory of God.” They, who accuse her of fanaticism, would make a wrong choice of their proofs, if they should allege these. There is nothing here that savours of visionary or of a fanatic; every thing in it shows a subtile wit, and a nice way of arguing.

In 1653 she became governess of an hospital, having taken the order and habit of St Augustin. By a very strange fatality, sorcery proved so general in that hospital, that all the girls who were kept there had contracted with the devil. Ill tongues thence took occasion to give out that the governess of the house was a sorceress. The magistrates of Lisle fell upon Mrs Bourignon, sent sergeants into her cloister, had her before them, and examined her. She answered them pertinently; but believing that her adversaries had as much credit as passion, she did not think it proper to remain exposed to their prosecutions, and therefore she fled to Ghent. This happened in 1662. She was no sooner at Ghent that “God discovered some great secrets to her.” She got a friend at Mechlin who proved always faithful to her. His name was Mr de Cort; it was, if one may say so, her first spiritual child-birth; but it had this singularity, that it gave her the same pains as a childbirth in a proper sense.

I shall set down the whole passage, though it be somewhat long; whereby it will appear that the disciples of our Antoinette were not always upon the high strain, and that they descended sometimes from the sublimity of their devotion to the innocent jests of men of the world. “When God gave him to Mrs Bourignon, it was after a very particular manner, and as the first of her spiritual children, for whom she

felt great bodily pains, and like the pressing pains of child-birth; for it is a certain thing, and known by the experience of all those who have conversed with her (let wicked and impious scoffers say of it what they please) that whenever any persons received so much light and strength, by her words or writings, as to resolve to forsake all, to give themselves to God,—she felt, wherever she was, some pains and throes like those of a woman in labour, as it is said of the woman whom St John saw in the twelfth of the Revelations. She felt them more or less, as the truths which she had delivered had more or less strongly operated in men’s souls; which occasioned an innocent jest of the archdeacon on Mr de Cort: for as both of them were discoursing with Mrs Bourignon of the Christian life, and of their good and new resolution, Mr de Cort having observed that she had felt more pains for him than for the other, when they resolved to be born again according to God,—the archdeacon, considering that Mr de Cort was fat and corpulent, whereas himself was but a little man, and seeing that he valued himself for having cost their spiritual mother dearer than he, told him smiling—It is no wonder that our mother suffered more for you than for me; for you are a very large child, whereas I am but a little one: which repartee made them all laugh.”

Mr de Cort, being twice divinely warned and threatened, if he did not obey that inspiration, had lent almost all his estate to some relations, who were endeavouring to drain an island in the country of Holstein, which the sea had overflowed, and had thereby acquired the tenths, and the direction, and part of that island. He sold a seat there to Mrs Bourignon, who was preparing to retire thither in the year 1668, after she had published at Amsterdam her book “ Of the Light of the World.” She had written many treatises, and letters in Brabant,

and even on the disputes of the Jansenists and Mo-linists, since her persecution at Lisle. Her stay at Amsterdam with her dear proselyte Mr de Cort was longer than she thought; and she was visited there by all sorts of persons, without excepting the imaginary prophets and prophetesses. This made her hope that the reformation which she preached might have some effect; nevertheless few persons took a firm resolution to conform to it. Labadie and his disciples were desirous to have settled with her in Noordstrandt, but would not join with them; and therefore, understanding that Mr de Cort had a mind to carry them there, she said to him, “ you may then go thither without me; because I perceive and know that we can never agree together. Their opinions and the spirit that governs them are altogether contrary to my light, and the spirit that governs me. She had already had some inward sentiments about him from God, and a divine vision, wherein he made her see, in the spirit, a little man very busy with a great pole in his hand to hinder the fall of a great building, or of a church that was falling; and by some conferences that she had with him, wherein she endeavoured, but in vain, to dissuade him from going to brave the synod of Naerden, and to convince them of their wicked doctrine of predestination. She was fully persuaded that he had no other light than what the learned of these times have, reading, study, some barren speculations, and some acts of his own mind; and for a motive of his conduct, only some infatuation and the motions of corrupt passions; without being any ways enlightened by God himself, or directed by the calm motions of his divine inspirations.” This passage will not be useless to those who have a mind to know by what spirit our Antoinette was led. It was a spirit that would not suffer any companion or colleague; wherefore we have seen all sects against that maid, and that maid against all sects. The very Quakers have written against her.

Having had conferences with some Cartesians, she formed a terrible idea of their principles. She composed more books at Amsterdam than she got followers; her conversations with God were very frequent there. She learnt a great many particular things by revelation; and it was then that she had the vision which I have spoken of in the article Adam. Mr de Cort died the 12th of November, 1669, and made her his heiress which exposed her for some time to more persecutions than her doctrine. Many law suits were instituted against her, to hinder her from enjoying the succession of her disciple; and if some were animated with zeal against her errors, there were some whose zeal for her estate was no less daring. This latter zeal heightened the first; for some of Mrs Bourignon’s persecutors cryed out against her doctrine, that they might exclude her from Mr de Cort’s succession. Being moreover sick and ill-attended, she endured many inconveniences, and left Holland in the year 1671, to go to Noordstrandt. She stopt in several places of Holstein, and was obliged to dismiss some disciples, who were come to list themselves under her banner. Perceiving that every body minded his own conveniencies and ease, she conceived that it was not the way to make a flock of new Christians. She provided herself with a printing house; for her pen went as fast as the tongue of others, I mean like a torrent. She had her books printed in French, Dutch, and German; and finding herself very much defamed by some books that were published against her tenets and morals, she vindicated herself by a work which she entitled “ Testimony of Truth,” wherein she mightily inveighed against the clergy. This was not the way to find peace. Two Lutheran ministers sounded the alarm against her, and wrote

some books wherein they said, that some persons had been burnt and beheaded, whose opinions were more tolerable than those of Mrs Bourignon.

The Labadists wrote also against her; and having been restricted from the use of her press, she retired to Flensburg in the month of December 1673. Her enemies, coming to know it, stirred the people so violently against her, calling her a witch and Circe, that she was very fortunate to be able to retire privately.

Persecuted from town to town, she was at last obliged to leave Holstein, and she retired to Hamburg in the year 1676. She was safe there as long as they knew nothing of her arrival; but as soon as they had notice of it, they endeavoured to secure her; God knows how they would have disposed of her, if she had been taken. She hid herself for some days, and went afterwards to East Friesland, where the baron of Lutzburg granted her his protection. She had the direction of an hospital there, and consecrated her cares and industry to the good of that house, but not her purse. I have already spoken of the reasons whereon her sparing was grounded. What I am going to say shall be a supplement to it. When she accepted the care of that hospital, she declared that “ she consented to contribute her industry as well for the building, as for the distribution of the money and inspection of the poor, but without engaging any part of her estate.” She alleged two reasons for it; one was that she had already consecrated her estate to God, for those who sincerely endeavour to become true Christians. The other was, that mankind and all human things are inconstant, so that it might happen that those, in whose favour she might part from her estate, might make themselves afterwards unworthy of it. This was an admirable reason, never to part with any thing, and to put off all manner of gifts till she should make

her will. The lady found by experience that she was not rashly diffident of the inconstancy of men; she was so far from finding any body in East-Friesland that deserved to have her estate, that she could not so much as find any upon whom she might bestow part of her revenue, meeting with none but poor, who had nothing less at heart than to think of a Christian life, who made use of what was given them to cheat, guzzle, and live in idleness; nevertheless, she and one of her friends distributed to them for some months certain revenues of that place, which were annexed to that hospital by the founder; but when she was asked whether she would not contribute something of her own, she answered in writing, “ that because those poor lived like beasts who had no souls to save, and abused the gifts of God instead of giving him thanks for them, she and her friends would rather choose to throw their estates, which were consecrated to God, into the sea, than to leave any part of them there. She and her friends have also in all their transactions carefully reserved to themselves the restitution of the money they should get to the day wherein they would retire from that place. Other countries were not better provided with persons that deserved her charity, and I have found none that are truly poor, and so have been forced to keep my estate to this time. I wish I had an opportunity of laying it to the glory of God, and then I would not keep it so much as one day; but I have found none hitherto; there are many who would receive it, but would not bestow it to the glory of God, as I intended to do.” So that this head of expense did not cost her much. It seems to me that the children of this age are not much more prudent in their generation, than such children of light. Neither was it her humour to spare those who stole any thing from her; and she took it very ill that her friends had not indicted some thieves who had robbed her.

Leaving East Friesland, she went into Holland in the year 1680, and died at Franeker in the province of Friesland, the thirteenth of October the same year. It would be a very difficult matter to give an account of her system. No coherency must be expected from a person who ascribes every thing to immediate inspiration. It cannot be denied that it is a strange error to pretend, as it is said she did, that the true church was extinguished, and that the liturgical exercises of religion ought to be laid aside. She had this in common with most devotees, that she was of a choleric and morose humour, and notwithstanding her peevishness, and all the fatigues and crosses of her life, “ one would not have thought her to be much above forty years of age, when she was above sixty.” She had never made use of spectacles. The most remarkable periods of her life, as her birth, her coming to be an author, and her death, were signified by comets. The author of her Life was not aware, that by saying this he gave occasion to think, according to the common hypothesis, that this maid was as a scourge of providence, and not a holy prophetess. The vanity and the danger she found in having her picture drawn, hindered her from suffering it to be done. She had a very singular opinion concerning Antichrist, which seemed to be taken from the hypothesis of many doctors concerning incubi. She believed he would be a devil incarnate. When she was asked, whether it was possible that man should be born by the operation of the devil, she answered, “ Yes: not that the devil can do this alone without the co-operation of man; but having power over lascivious men, It is unnecessary to state the manner in which, according to the rank imagination of Antoinette, this incarnation will he effected. Nothing is possibly more disgusting than the spirituality of devotees of the class, Antoinette Bourignon being more especially “ of the earth, earthy.”—Ed. ⁶⁵

that the devil will incarnate himself in that manner.” She believed that the reign of Antichrist ought to be understood two ways, the one sensually and the other spiritually. In the first sense, it will be the visible reign of a devil incarnate, and that is to come. In the second sense, it is the corruption and the disorders which appear in all Christian societies; and on this head she gives herself a full scope, and rails most bitterly against all those societies, and spares the Protestants no more than the Roman Catholics. As to the true and sensual Antichrist, viz. a devil incarnate, according to her principles, she had known him so well in a night vision ratified, that she gave a description of him, whereby one might see what complexion, stature, and hair, he should have. The verses which contained that description have been suppressed; for she even wrote verses. “ She learnt every thing from God, even the art of making verses, which she does in such a manner that it is manifest she never learned it of any master.” I must explain in a few words what is meant by a ratified vision. Antoinette little valued the visions “ which are made by the interposition of the imagination.” If she had any of that kind, she suspected them, ' till having recommended them to God in a profound recollection, and disentangled from all images, she learned from God what she ought to think of them, and God ratified the truth of them to her in so pure, so intimate, and so private a manner, in the recess of a soul so disengaged and so given over to God, that there could be no mixture of human thoughts or diabolical illusions. In that manner God ratified to her the truth of the vision of Antichrist.”

If this singular woman were predestinated to be the instrument of some revolution of religion, that lot was not assigned to her person, nor to the ministry of her voice. It will rather be an effect of her writings; for during her life she had but a very

small number of followers, and after her death this decreased every day in the countries where she was most admired, and wanted but little of being reduced to a single individual. But it is not the same thing in certain countries that were never honoured with her presence. I have read that the followers of Antoinette Bourignon are more numerous in Scotland than in any other part of the world. Some Scotch laymen and clergymen have embraced that sect, because, having been too fond of abstract speculations, they suffered themselves to be dazzled by the subtilties of Mr Poiret’s divine economy; others because, not being satisfied with the present state of things, they were easily charmed by the magnificent promises of Antoinette. The first thing that made a noise was the publishing an English translation of one of the most considerable pieces of our Antoinette in the year 1696. A very long preface was added to it, wherein the translator maintained that she ought at least to be looked upon as an extraordinary prophetess. Charles Lesley, a man of great merit and learning, is the first who wrote against the errors of Mrs Bourignon in Great Britain; and he and several other persons charged doctor Cockbum to refute them more fully. That doctor acquitted himself very well by publishing a book entitled “Bourignianism Detected, sive Detectio Bouignianismi.” This was followed by a second narrative printed in London, wherein, having represented all the magnificent things that Mrs Bourignon attributed to herself, he shews that if they were true, she ought not only to be preferred before the prophets and the apostles, but also before Jesus Christ. At length the fanaticism abated; but so great a root had it taken in Scotland that a declaration against it was for a long time demanded from any new-made minister. The history of this unamiable enthusiast has now dwindled into a mere subject for curious speculation on the part of those who delight in a study of the infinite varieties of the human mind.

Art.Bourignon.

BREAUTÉ.
His extraordinary duel.

Charles de BreautÉ, a gentleman of the country of Caux in Normandy, made himself famous by a duel, wherein he died. He was extremely brave; and after the peace of Vervins, finding no occasion in France to show his valour, he went into Holland with some French troopers, where he obtained a troop of horse. His lieutenant had the misfortune to suffer himself to be beat by a party of the garrison of Bois-le-duc, which was inferior to that which he commanded. He was taken, and conducted to Bois-le-duc, whence he wrote to his captain to desire him to procure his liberty; but his captain sent him an answer, that he would not acknowledge persons for his troopers who suffered themselves to be defeated by a lesser number of Flemings, instead of beating them, though they had been but 20 to 40, as he offered to do in any rencounter. That letter, having been read by the governor of that place according to custom, before it was delivered to the prisoner, proved so offensive, that the commander of the party of Bois-le-duc wrote immediately to Breauté, to offer him to fight with an equal number. His proposal was very acceptable, but the superiors on both sides could hardly be persuaded to consent to it. Nevertheless, they at last appointed the day and the place, and agreed upon other conditions. It was resolved that they should fight on horseback, twenty-two against twenty-two, on the fifth of February 1600. Breauté would have had the governor of Bois-le-duc to put himself at the head of his Flemings; but the archduke Albert would not suffer it. Their chief was the lieutenant of the governor’s troop, Gerard Abraham, who had beaten the

former party. He sent word by a trumpeter that the men had sworn not to give any quarter, for they undertook that combat more to defend their prince’s cause, and that of the Catholic religion, than for their own honour. He and his brother, and four more, began the fight with Breauté and five more; the rest engaged each his man. Breauté killed Gerard; the brother of the latter, and two others, were also killed; and the fifth was so wounded that he died some days after of his wounds. But this was all the loss of the Flemings; that of the other party was much more dismal; for Breauté’s valour could not hinder his men from being vanquished with the utmost shame. Fourteen of them were killed on the spot; and of the eight that fled, three died of their wounds. Breauté and one of his relations, being mortally wounded, in vain begged their lives, with a promise of a good ransom; but no regard was given to it. His body, wounded in thirty-six places, was carried to Dort, and drawn to the life, to have that picture sent into his country. It exasperated the friends and relations of the deceased to such a degree, that one of them went immediately into the Netherlands, to revenge his death. For that purpose he challenged the governor of Bois-le-duc to fight a duel with him; but the same reason that hindered that governor from being in the first fight, excused him again from this. The victors, to the number of eighteen, among whom four were wounded, were received in Bois-le-duc with the acclamations of the whole town.

Thus the thing is related by the historians of the Spanish party; but all the parts of their narration are not allowed to be true. Most of the historians in the Spanish interest say, that the ransom which Breauté offered was accepted, and that he was brought alive to Bois-le-duc; but that the governor, vexed at the death of the two brothers, reprimanded their comrades so severely, because they had not revenged their death

by that of the prisoner, that they killed him immediately in his presence. Thus, as Thuanus tells us, the writers of the Dutch party related the thing. D’Audiguier and Cayetgo yet further; they say that Grobendonck had no sooner censured them than they stabbed Breauté and his cousin. Bouterouë goes further still; he says that the governor ordered expressly that the four prisoners that were brought, whereof Breauté was one, should be killed in cold blood. Grotius says only, as a certain thing, that Breauté had already gone a good way, when some men from Bois-le-duc killed him with thirty wounds. The French assert that his life was granted him contrary to the declaration of the Brabanter, that the conquered should expect nothing but death. It is certain he was gone a good way as a prisoner, when he was stabbed in thirty places by persons sent from the city; notwithstanding he prayed that at least he might die armed and like a man: an action worthy the basest of mankind. This irrefragably confutes what is said by some, that he was killed by Leckerbitken’s seconds, who had engaged to do it by an oath.

It is also pretended that the fight was not with equal arms, since the French came only with swords and pistols, and the other party brought their carabines besides. There might be more imprudence in that case on the French side, than fraud on the other. Perhaps they had only said in their agreement, that each party should come armed as usual; and therefore if it had been the custom of the Flemings to wear swords, pistols, and carabines, and if it had been the custom of the French to wear only pistols and swords, the Flemings would not have acted knavishly: the French only would have been to blame, for being so heedless as not to specify the number and quality of the weapons which were to be used. But suppose the honesty of the Flemings was untainted, it would at least be certain that their victory would be no ways

glorious: let us see how d’Aubigné speaks of this duel. ‘ When that siege was over, there happened a duel between Breauté and nineteen more, with the lieutenant of Grobendonck, called Leckerbitken, on account of some injurious words and challenges sent by some prisoners. Being agreed on the time and place, Breauté, not finding his enemies, went to look for them very near Bois-le-duc; and there the two chiefs, distinguished with white and red feathers, made choice of each other before their troops. Breauté killed his enemy at the first charge, as also his brother, who, having dispatched his adversary, came to his assistance; but all the Walloons, having other fire arms besides pistols, made a second discharge, at which the French, having only their swords, were overthrown; Breauté, being forsaken by part of his men, was taken prisoner; and Grobendonck, hearing of the death of the two brothers, caused him to be killed in cold blood. The death of that gentleman was lamented by prince Maurice, who had used his endeavour to dissuade him from the combat, by reason of the inequality.’ An historian who is very partial to the Spanish Netherlands, owns that Breauté’s martial heat, which made him advance further than he should have done, was the reason why the duel was not fought in the place designed for it: they kept, says he, to the field of battle where they happened to meet. That author is far from acknowledging that the Flemings had more fire arms than the others; for he says of the latter that they had all their pistols in their hands, and that the Belgians had only their swords in their hands. He adds one thing that ought not to be omitted: ‘ the Belgians had the forecast to fasten little chains behind their bridles, for fear, if the enemies should happen to cut them, they should not be able to govern their horses. The French on the Dutch side had not that forecast, which contributed much to their defeat.’ We may infer from thence that the Flemings fought cunningly; they fell first upon their enemies’ horses; the bridles being cut, it was not easy for the troopers to save their horses from being killed. Father Gallucci observes, that at the first onset there were above twenty-six horses killed. Thuanus informs us, that almost all the horses of the French were lost there.

This is indeed the fate of all such duels; their success and circumstances are always related several ways. Breauté had married the daughter of Nicholas de Harlei-Sancy, by whom he left a son. She was a woman equally beautiful and virtuous, and not above twenty years of age. Though she was courted by several people, yet she renounced the pleasures of the world, and made herself a nun of St Theresa, which order was but newly settled in Paris. It is said, that their son, intending to revenge his father’s death, sent a challenge to the new lieutenant of the governor of Bois-le-duc during the siege of Breda, and that he was killed in that duel. I cannot tell whether a marquis de Breauté, who was killed at the siege of Arras in the year 1640, was descended from the duellist.—Art.Breauté.

BREZÉ.
(His Stern Revenge.)

According to the author of the “ Chronique Scandaleuse of Louis XI,” upon Saturday, the thirteenth of June, 1476, James de Brezé, count de Maulevrier, seneschal of Normany, son to Peter de Brezé, who was killed at the fight of Montleheri, being a hunting near a village called Romiers les Dourdan, which belonged to him, and having with him madame Charlotte of France his wife, and natural daughter to the late king Charles, and Mrs Agnes Sorel,—it happened unluckily, after hunting, that they returned to sup and lie at Romiers; and there the said seneschal went alone into a chamber to take his rest that night,

and his said wife went likewise into another. She, as her said husband reported, full of disorderly lust, carried in with her a gentleman of Poitou, called Peter de la Vergna, who was huntsman to the said seneschal, and made him retire with her. This being told the seneschal by Peter his steward, he immediately took his sword, and broke open the door of the chamber where the lady and huntsman were. The huntsman he found in his shirt, and struck him with his sword, and thrust it into his body, so that he killed him; and then he went into a chamber where he found his wife hid under a bed wherein his children were, and took her by the arm and threw her down; and as he threw her down, he struck her with the said sword over the shoulders; and she being down and on her knees, he thrust the said sword into her paps and stomach, and sent her into the other world, and had her buried with the service of the church in the abbey of Coulons. As for the huntsman, he had him buried in a garden joining to the house where he had killed him. In the time of the Romans such a punishment would have been permitted; but our laws do not suffer a husband to revenge the unfaithfulness of his wife in that manner. Lewis XI took it very ill, and designed to bring him to a trial for it; but the great seneschal redeemed himself for a fine of an hundred thousand crowns, for which he gave, among other lands, the county of Maulevrier. Lewis de Brezé, his son, marrying Diana of Poitiers for his third wife, recovered the lands that had been given for the fine. The king granted him that favour in consideration of that marriage.

Here is what I find in some manuscript notes which were sent me by Mr Baudrand: 'It is not true that this was transacted at Romiers near Dourdan; James de Brezé stabbed his wife in the village of Rouvres, on a little river called Vegre, two leagues from Houdan, and half a league from Anet. It was in his

house, joining to the parsonage, where there are yet some marks of her blood, together with her bust, as I have seen it several times, it being in a seat that belongs to me?—Art.Breze.

BURIDAN’S ASS.

John Buridan, born at Bethune in Artois, was one of the most distinguished philosophers of the fourteenth century. He discharged a professor’s place in the university of Paris with great reputation, and wrote commentaries on the Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics of Aristotle, which were much esteemed. A celebrated sophism of his, usually called Buridan’s ass, was a sort of proverb or example which subsisted a very long time in the schools.

They who hold free-will, properly so called, admit a power in man of determining himself, either to the right or to the left, even when the motives are exactly equal from the two opposite objects; for they pretend that our soul can say, without having any other reason than to make use of its liberty,—I chuse this rather than that, though I see nothing more worthy of my choice in this than in that. But they do not give that power to beasts; they suppose that the latter could not determine themselves, if two objects were present, which drew them with equal force opposing ways; that, for example, an hungry ass would starve between two bushels of oats, which acted equally on his faculties; for, having no reason to prefer the one before the other, he would remain unmoveable, like a piece of iron between two loadstones of the same force. The same thing would happen if he were equally pressed with hunger and thirst, and had a bushel of oats and a pail of water before him, which acted with equal force on his organs. He would not know where to begin; and if he eat before he drank, his hunger must be greater than his thirst, or the action of the water weaker than that of the oats; which is against

the supposition. Buridan made use of this example to shew that, if an external motive does not determine beasts, their soul has not the power to chuse between two equal objects. There was reason enough to laugh and break jests upon the supposition of such an ass, and a field for subtilizing the cavils of logic according to the mode of those times. It is no wonder then that Buridan’s ass became famous in the schools. It has lately occurred to me, that Buridan’s ass might be a sophism, which that philosopher proposed as a kind of dilemma, that, whatever answer were given him, he might draw some puzzling conclusions from it. He supposed either an ass much famished between two measures of oats of an equal force, or an ass equally pressed with thirst and hunger between a measure of oats and a pail of water, which acted equally on his organs. Having made this supposition, he asked, What will this ass do? If any body answered, He must remain immoveable; then, concluded he, he must die of hunger between two measures of oats—he must die of thirst and hunger within reach of meat and drink. This seemed absurd, and he must have the laughers on his side, against whoever should make him that answer. If he were answered, That the ass has more sense than to die of hunger and thirst in such a situation; then, concludes be, he must turn on the one side rather than on the other, though nothing moves him more strongly towards that place than towards this: then he is endowed with a free will; or, which is all one, it may happen that, of two weights poised in equilibrio, one may move and raise the other. These two consequences are absurd: there remained then only one answer, that the ass must ever find himself more strongly moved by one of the objects than by the other: but this was overthrowing the supposition; and thus Buridan gained his cause, in what manner soever his question was answered. This sophism puts me in mind of the crocodile of the Stoics, of the Electra of Eubulides, and of such like captious questions of the ancient logicians; to which they gave the name of the thing which they took for an example. Spinoza confesses plainly, that, if a man should be in that ass’s condition, he would die of hunger and thirst; but his concession is very ill grounded; for there are at least two ways whereby a man may disengage himself from the snare of the equilibrium. One I have already mentioned, viz. in order to flatter himself with the pleasing imagination that he is master at home, and does not depend on outward objects, he might resolve thus; “ I will prefer this before that, because I will have it so;” and in this case determination results not from the object; the motive is only taken from the idea that men have of their own perfections or of their natural faculties. The other way is that of the lot or chance. A man is to decide the precedency between two ladies; he finds nothing in them that determines him; but if he were of necessity obliged to prefer one to the other, he would not be at a stand, but make them draw lots. Chance would decide with whom he should begin; the equilibrium would not keep him in a state of inaction, as Spinoza pretends: a remedy would be found.

After all, the sophism called Buridan’s ass may be only the Pons Asinorum of the logicians, mentioned by Rabelais, book II, chap. XXVIII, where, being in doubt whether he ought to describe the battle between Pantagruel and the giants, or omit the recital of it, he invokes Thalia and Calliope, and beseeches them to draw him out of this difficulty. In the third chapter of the same book, Garagantua, being now old, is represented in the like embarrassment, not knowing whether he should cry for the loss of his wife Badabec, who died in child-bed, or laugh for joy of his new born son. “ The good man,” says Rabelais, “had sophistical arguments on one side and the other, which choaked him; but he could not solve them, and so he

remained entangled, like a mouse in a trap, or a kite in a snare.” We here behold the origin of our old proverb of “ the ass between two bundles of hay.” Half the acuteness of the scholars was in this manner thrown away upon the canvas of positions, possible only by hypothesis.—Ed. ⁶⁶—Art.Buridan.

CÆSAR.
(Evil consequences of an omission of etiquette.)

A piece of incivility was one of the chief causes of the ruin of Julius Cæsar, according both to Suetonius and Dion Cassius. “ The greatest offence which he gave,” says the former, “ was in receiving the whole senate, who came to present him with several decrees very much to his honour, sitting before the temple of his mother Venus. Some think he was kept from rising up by Cornelius Balbus; others, that he made no attempt to rise, and even frowned on Caius Trebatius, who put him in mind of getting up.” Dion Cassius relates the matter with all its circumstances. “ One day,” says he, Dio. lib. 42, pag. 255. ⁶⁷ “ as they were deliberating in the senate about great honours which they designed for Julius Cæsar, all the senators’ voices, except that of Cassius and of some others, concurred to the decree; after which, the company rose up, to carry the news of it to the emperor, who was sitting in the porch of the temple of Venus. He stayed there, that no one should say his presence had deprived the senators of he liberty of giving their votes. He did not arise tupon seeing the senators come to him, but heard what they had to say to him, sitting. This made not only the senators, but the other Romans, so angry, that it was one of the chief pretences of those who formed the conspiracy against his person. The historian does not know whether this incivility was a fatal stroke of Providence, or the effect of Cæsar’s great joy; but he observes, that no credit was given to those

who endeavoured to justify it by saying that Cæsar was then disordered in body, which made him fear to disturb the retentive faculty by rising up. This excuse was not admitted; for it was known that a little while after, he walked home on foot; so that the posture which he had kept was attributed to his pride.”

The reason assigned for the disbelief in the alleged cause of Cæsar’s apparent want of respect, does not appear to me to be conclusive. Bayle’s serious examination of this curious piece of personal history, is truly characteristic.—Ed. ⁶⁸ He might have been much disordered at the moment the senate came to him, and yet be able to walk home afterwards. If, after all, this excuse was well grounded, we should have great reason to admire the occasional strangeness of human events, and to exclaim, how the most important and most fatal often depend upon trifles, and are put in motion by the meanest springs. Cæsar, on this supposition, hastened his ruin because he could not put himself in a civil posture, by reason of a little disorder in his bowels; which on another occasion would have been of no consequence, but at that time was of great importance. The accident he feared, if he had risen, would have been attended with bad consequences: he would have been a laughing-stock to all the people of Rome, and the ill-affected would have put a strange construction upon it. What a contempt of religion and of the senate ! What ! in the very temple of Venus, and in the presence of the most august body in the world! The thing might have been rendered so odious in several respects, that it might have caused even a man who had well considered all the consequences of his sitting still, to resolve not to stir out of his place. Did not Constantine Copronymus draw a most odious and despicable epithet upon himself, which stains his memory to this very day? Did he not become the object of a

hundred invectives and injurious reflections, for having fouled the baptismal font without knowing what he did. “Impio patri scelestissima successit, proles Constantinus cognomento Copronymi, quod infans bap-tismi lavacro admotus mediis sacris alimoniæ excre-mento aquam polluerat.” It would have been much worse if the accident had happened to him in a church, whilst he made war against the protectors of images. Such a thing has been at all times looked upon as a great piece of contempt, or a subject of raillery; and however it be, Caesar’s apologists might have been better confuted than by the reason mentioned by Dion Cassius. They might have been told, that if bodily infirmity had been the reason why Caesar did not rise, he should have alleged that excuse to the senators; his not having done so, is a sign that he cared but little whether he was deemed wanting in civility to that august body, or not. We may imagine that the senators would have been satisfied with the reason; Laban, though he was very angry, was satisfied with almost a like excuse, when his daughter received him without rising. The reason given by Rachel, will be found in Genesis, xxxi. 35. ⁶⁹ Behold also another mode of excuse. “ One time, cardinal Du Perron found himself much perplexed, speaking for the clergy to the late queen-mother; for, being in a chair, where the gout forced him to remain before a princess so full of majesty, he had a mind to pass a compliment on her about it, which he had not prepared. ‘ Madam, ' said he to her, ‘I am upon my knees in my heart, though you see me sit’ --- At that word, perceiving that it was not respectful to name the part on which he sate, he for a good while sought for some more honourable expression, and finding none, added—‘ on my legs.'

I have just now read a passage that may make us doubt of Dion’s discernment. Plutarch observes, that Cæsar was very much concerned for the

incivility he had shewed the senate, and which displeased the people so much. “ Nevertheless it is said,” adds Plutarch, “ that to excuse that fault, he alleged his distemper, because the senses of those who are subject to the falling sickness, when they speak standing before a company, do not always remain sound, but are easily troubled and suddenly taken with a dazzling; but this was false.” We must believe, for Dion’s honour, that he had read Plutarch; how comes it to pass then that he says nothing of this excuse, and alleges another much more unlikely, and somewhat ridiculous?—Art. Julius Cæsar.

CAINISM.

The Cainites, a set of heretics who appeared in the second century, were so called because of their great respect for Cain. These people took their doctrine from the Gnostics, and were the spawn of Valentinus, Nicolas, and Carpocrates. They were so senseless as to assert, that the divinity which presides in the heavens and upon the earth, having resolved to punish Cain for the murder of Abel, could never catch him, possessing neither strength nor swiftness sufficient for the purpose. At length, some ætherial powers protected the fratricide from the pursuit and vengeance of God, and hid him in a place of safety, in “ supemo sæculo,” or the regions above.

The Cainites admitted a great number of genii whom they denominated “virtues,” and who, they said, were more powerful one than another. They pretended that the genius of Abel was inferior to that of Cain, which was the reason that Cain prevailed over Abel, and killed him. They professed to honour those whom the Scriptures brand with the most visible marks of reprobation, such as the inhabitants of Sodom, Esau, Corah, Dathan, and Abiram. They had, in particular, an extraordinary veneration for

the traitor Judas, under pretence that the death of Jesus Christ was the salvation of mankind; for they imagined I know not what powers, enemies to our salvation, which would have hindered Jesus Christ from suffering, had not Judas prevented the effects of their malice, by delivering his master up to the Jews, who condemned him to death, from whence sprung the salvation of mankind. They carried their presumption to such a height, as to condemn the law of Moses, and look upon the God of the Old Testament as a being who had sown discord in the world, and subjected our nature to a thousand calamities; so that in order to be revenged on him, they in every thing acted contrary to his commandments. They forged a pretended Holy Scripture, and had among other books a “ Gospel of Judas” and an “ Ascension of St. Paul.” In this last they pretended to record the unspeakable things seen and heard by that apostle, when he was taken up into the third heaven. There was no bodily uncleanness which they did not plunge themselves into, no sin they did not think they had a right to partake of; for, according to their abominable principles, die way to salvation was diametrically opposite to the precepts of Holy Scripture: they imagined every sensual pleasure had some genius presiding over it; and therefore they never failed, while they were preparing themselves for any unseemly action, to invoke by name, the genius presiding over the pleasures they were going to taste. When we read these things in the fathers of the Church, one can scarce forbear thinking that the case was the same with them in respect to heretics, as with the Heathens in respect to Christianity. The Heathens imputed to Christianity a hundred extravagances and abominations that had no foundation. The first who forged these calumnies, were undoubtedly guilty of the blackest malice; but the greatest part of those who vented them abroad, after they had been so maliciously sown, were only guilty of too much credulity; they believed common fame, and never troubled themselves to dive into the bottom it. Is it more reasonable to believe, that the fathers did not with all the patience requisite, thoroughly inform themselves of the real principles of a sect, than it is to believe, that those very men who held that Jesus Christ by his death was the Saviour of mankind, should at the same time hold, that the most sensual pleasures are the ready way to Paradise? Let those who will decide it: I am here no other than a bare relater. But it must be remembered that there is no absurdity of which the mind of man is not susceptible; and that, in particular, the doctrine of many genii, and those good or bad, superior one to the other, and appointed to divers offices, is agreeable enough to reason. A few remarks will explain my opinion.

The doctrine of the Cainites, in relation to the doctrine of the inequality of power between the genii, and of their influence upon the welfare and misfortunes of men, is very conformable to the opinion of the Pagans upon the tutelary genii. This sect of genii were principally called demons; and they believed that the good or evil fortune of every man depended on the comparative energy of his tutelary genius. Every genius laboured for the interest of his client; and whenever a man was defeated by another man, it was a certain proof that the genius of the conqueror was more powerful than that of the vanquished. The appropriation of the genii was an affair of chance; for as the souls sent into this road were drawn by lot, so also was the tutelar genius assigned to it.

There were some genii whose ascendancy over others was such, that their very presence confounded them. This effect had that of Augustus on Marc Antony’s. “Thy genius stands in awe of his: it is bold and lofty when alone, but at his approach becomes

humble and fearful. Astrologus Egyptins ad M. Antonium, apud Plutarch, in Antonio, pag. 930. ⁷⁰ And thus we see certain persons who in the absence of some others are witty, speak well, and rally finely: but when they are to enter the lists with them, seem much embarrassed. It was without doubt believed, that they who became emperors were attended by a genius of an eminent order; from whence proceeded those great honours which were paid to such genii. Nations and cities had likewise their particular genii. Now as they held that these tutelary demons presided over the birth of those who were to be under their direction, there wanted but a small remove to pass from this opinion into that of the Cainites. The latter only added, that every genius formed the body of him that he was to protect. The Platonists, I believe, would have been easily reconciled to this opinion, if it had been clearly represented to them that the formation of a human body requires the direction of a very excellent intelligence. If this hypothesis is not absolutely necessary for assigning the reason of an infinite number of historical phenomena (if I may so term human events) it is at least the most commodious and comprehensible.

We turn into ridicule the system of the ancient Heathens, their Naiads, their Oreads, their Hamadryads, &c. and we are much in the right, when we condemn the worship they paid to those beings; for we know from the Scripture, that God forbade all sort of religious worship which is not addressed directly and entirely to himself. But if were present to ourselves human reason abandoned to its own conduct, and void of the assistance of holy writ, I think it very easy to apprehend how it must conceive this vast universe as penetrated throughout by an active virtue, which knew what it was doing. Now, in order to give some account of so many effects in nature different from and even contrary to one

another, it was necessary to imagine either one single being, diversifying his operations according to the diversity of the subjects, or else an infinite number of souls and intelligences, assigned each to a certain employment; some appointed to overlook the sources of rivers, others to take care of mountains, woods, &c. There were some among the Heathens who, in the worship they paid to Ceres and Bacchus, intended no other than the honour of the Supreme Being, as him who produced corn and wine. Others pretended to worship that particular intelligence who, in the distribution of the intendencies of the universe, was to take care of the corn fields and vineyards. This foundation being once laid down, the number of deities must needs grow infinite: fear, fevers, winds,, and tempests, must need have their altars: an hierarchy, composed of innumerable degrees, must be raised; the combinations of interests extend to infinity amongst these intelligences never seen, but allowed as very active causes. If it be asked me what I mean by a reflection so far fetched, I answer, I am opening the way for those who will undertake to defend the fathers who stand accused of having imputed to the heretics an hundred absurdities which no body held. It is not so unlikely as one would imagine that men, who thought they reasoned well, should admit of many principles, some good, the others bad, and a perpetual contrast between beings of an unequal power and different inclinations. It is a great error, I must confess, but it presents itself several ways, and it is an easy matter to fall into it. I am apt to believe that the Gnostics and such like people, expressed themselves so confusedly, that it is very possible that some things may have been honestly charged on them, which they never allowed as part of their belief; and yet I am persuaded that they owned, in the main, those powers and principles which it is said they did. Then, by consequence of reasoning, after having established this variety of powers, they might suppose the Jewish nation governed by a mischievous being, and pass thence into all those impieties ascribed to them concerning the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But further, the belief of Intelligences charged with different employments throughout the universe, is of as large extent as the belief of a deity; for I believe there never was a people who had any religion, but thought there were mediate Intelligences. The most subtle philosophers, he who is called the genius of nature, Aristotle. ⁷¹ the most sagacious Cartesians, have all acknowledged some. The Aristotelians do, even at this day, unawares imply them in every thing; for they place in each body a substantial form, to which belong a certain number of qualities, whereby it accomplishes its desires, repels the enemy, and preserves itself the best it can in its natural state. Is not this to admit in plants an intelligence appointed to make a part of the universe vegetate, and operating for that end under the direction of a Supreme Being? They who deny a creation, the Spinozists, are so far from being able to get clear of these intelligences, that there is no system whatever which more necessarily and unavoidably implies them than theirs. This might easily be proved upon them, but that it is not proper in a book of this nature. In the system of a creation it is very difficult to admit of intelligences prone to evil, and who, according to the whimsies of the Cainites, preside over the sensual pleasures, like the Venus of the Heathens, who, by the confession even of the Epicurean poet, presided over the pleasures of love. See Lucretius’s Invocation to Venus, at the beginning of his poem. ⁷² But from a system that denies any creation it necessarily follows, that evil may exist as well as good, and that there may be mischievous genii as well as beneficent ones.

Lest I should be thought to have advanced without grounds what I just now mentioned of the most able Cartesians, I desire the reader to observe, that the greatest sticklers among them for the simple and general will of God, insinuate that there is an infinite number of occasional causes which we are unacquainted withal. Now these occasional causes are no other than the wills and desires of certain intelligences: they must necessarily be admitted, where the laws of the communication of motion are not capable of producing such or such effects. This will carry us a great way; it is impossible to conceive how those laws should be sufficient for the building of a ship. Every body will allow that motion alone, without the direction of some particular intelligences, could never produce a clock: consequently those laws are unable to produce the least plant or smallest fruit; for there is more art in the construction of a tree, or a pomegranate, than in that of a ship. We must therefore have recourse to the particular direction of some intelligence for the formation of vegetables, and with much more reason surely for that of animals. Talk of the laws of motion, of figure, rest, the situation of the particles, as much as you please: as motion alone by its general laws has not caused, nor could cause, the parts of the clock to acquire the figure and position they now have, let it not be thought, that the parts of a tree have obtained their situation and figure by the mere laws of motion. This goes very far, and leads us to a genius presiding over animated machines. But are minerals and meteors easily made? Is there not a great artifice in their construction?—greater than can be imagined. The school-men, instead of a genius or intelligence, make use of these words,“ Forma substantialis & Virtus plastica, &c” But words alter nothing. It is obvious, from the whole tenor of the controversial history of Christianity, that, as Bayle evidently suspects, the imputations against the Cainites were grossly slanderous. Upon their doctrine in regard to tutelary genii, as here described, our author is exceedingly ingenious; and his reasoning supplies another step towards that generalization of the religious sentiment, which traces the primary associations of“ the saint, the savage, and the sage,” on the subject of divinity, to our grand original. What does it signify, whether we talk of Jehovah and of Satan, of Oromazes and Ahrimanes, of Allah and of Eblis, of inherent genii, or of plastic natures and substantial forms, of the strength of the said genii, or of grace bestowed and withheld. As Bayle observes, “ Words alter nothing the secret source is the same. It is in its progress merely, that the grand current of religious idea diversifies and wanders: trace each meandering to its fountain, and it is the. fountain of the whole. A new sect of French philosophers are striving hard to build a system of practical philosophy on this basis, we suspect with no very immediate chance of success, although undoubtedly a step backward from the dryness and negation of mere scepticism.—Ed. ⁷³

CANONIZATION.

Cardinal Bessarim, seeing so many new saints canonized at Rome, whose lives he knew and did not approve, exclaimed rather drily, “ These new saints make me very doubtful and scrupulous in respect to what is said of the old ones.”

CAPISTRAN.

Mutual politeness of the Saints,

John Capistran, a monk of the order of St Francis, was born in the village of Capistran, in Italy, in the year 1385. He gained a great reputation by his zeal, eloquence, and manners, and was sent into Bohemia to undertake the conversion of the Hussites. He also preached up the crusade against the Turks in Germany, Hungary, and Poland, and so effectually seconded with his tongue the sword of the great Huimiades, that he had a great share in the victories

obtained by the Christians against Mahomet, especially in the famous battle of Belgrade in the year 1546. He died soon after the battle, and was buried at Willak in Hungary. He was canonized by pope Alexander VIII in 1690, having been previously beatified by Gregory XV.

Surprising things are related of the eloquence of Capistran. He went to Nuremberg in 1452, and was received in great pomp by the whole clergy. He had a pulpit erected in the middle of an open place, where he preached against vice for some days with so much eloquence, that he obliged the inhabitants to throw their cards and dice on a heap, and set fire to them; and afterwards exhorted them to the war against the Turks. The year following he went to Breslau in Silesia, where he afterwards inveighed vehemently against all instruments for gaming, and ordered them to be brought to him and burnt. The power of his eloquence was not confined to these remarkable executions upon inanimate subjects; the Jews felt the effects of it in a terrible manner, of whom he caused a great number to be burnt in Silesia, under pretence that they had been guilty of irreverence towards the consecrated bread. He used to preach two hours in Latin; after which, another was two hours explaining this Latin sermon in the vulgar tongue.

I must not forget to tell you, that his prayers were as efficacious as his sermons. These were so prevalent as to interrupt the miracles which were done at the tomb of one Thomas of Florence, who had been a lay-brother in a monastery of Franciscans. There was reason to fear, that whilst they were endeavouring to get St Bernardin canonized, the miracles of this lay-brother might retard the affair. For this reason Capistran addressed a very fervent prayer to him, to obtain that interruption. He was heard: Thomas of Florence, that he might not divert the

design, or give occasion to any accidents or obstacles, suspended his miraculous virtue, and did not renew it till after the canonization of St Bernardin. This is not the only proof that can be produced of the respect which the saints have for one another. We may venture to say, that St Germain had a complaisance for St Martin, which has all the air of human politeness. “ St Martin’s relics, being carried all over France, were brought to Auxerre, and deposited in the church of St Germain, where they wrought a great many miracles. The religious of Auxerre, looking on St Germain to be as great a saint as St Martin, demanded one half of the offerings, which were very considerable; but St Martin’s priests pretended, that he alone performing all the miracles which they saw, all the alms belonged to him alone. To justify the truth of what they had advanced, they desired that a sick body might be placed between the shrines of St Martin and St Germain, and then they should see which of the two did the miracle. They made trial on a leper, who was healed on that side which was next to St Martin, but not on that next to St Germain after which the side which still remained unaffected, being turned next to St Martin, was also healed. ‘ This was not,’ says cardinal Baronius, Boursault, Lettres Nouvelles, p. 397, 398. Edit. of Holl. 1698. ⁷⁴ ‘ because St Germain was not as great a saint as St Martin, or could not work as many miracles; but because St Martin had done him the favour of a visit, he suspended the power he had with God, in order the better to receive his guest.” So much absurd credulity might be deemed impossible, did we not witness a French king, and a train consisting of his family and some favourite courtiers, traversing the streets of Paris in three muddy processions in the 19th century;—and for what? To obtain the benefit of the plenary indulgence from an old man at Rome, which is to be obtained on those express conditions. A silver image of the Virgin is also making as large as life. Existing fatuity in fact might fully justify a belief in the above alleged or any other similar absurdity, even were the direct testimonies themselves less undeniable.—Ed. ⁷⁵Art,Capistran.

CAPPADOCIAN SLAVERY.

Cappadocia is a country of Asia; it furnishes a great number of slaves. This appears from these words of Tully, “ You would have thought him a Cappadocian just purchased out of a string of slaves and from this passage in Perseus—

Go miser, go; for lucre sell thy soul;
Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to pole;
That men may say, when thou are dead and gone,
See what a vast estate he left his son How large a family of brawny knaves,
Well fed, and fat as Cappadocian slaves.
Dryden.

We may add to this what Horace observes, that the king of Cappadocia, though destitute of money, was rich in slaves.

Mancipiis locuples eget æris Cappadocum Rex.

M. Dacier observes, that whilst Lucullus was in Cappadocia, an ox sold but for sixpence, and a man for twenty-four pence. Learned prelates will sometimes libel their own religion, by stating that its spirit is not inconsistent with slavery. How comes it then that, wherever embraced, it has gradually superseded the systematic slavery of the ancient world? In fact, in its essence, to say nothing of its practice, being a religion of the purest equality, how can it be otherwise?—Ed. ⁷⁶

CARDAN.
(His Character and Extravagances.)

Jerome Cardan, a physician of great but

eccentric genius, was born at Pavia, on the 24th September, 1501. His mother, not being married, sought to procure abortion; but the medicines she took had not their desired effect. He was born with a head full of black curled hair, and at four years of age was carried to Milan, where his father was an advocate; and he was eight years of age when, in a dangerous fit of sickness, they devoted him to St Jerome. It was his father who made this vow, choosing rather to have recourse to the assistance of this saint, than to that of a familiar spirit whose attendance he greatly boasted. At twenty years of age he went to study in the university of Pavia, where two years after, he explained Euclid. In 1524 he went to Padua, where he took the degree of master of arts the same year, and towards the end of the year 1525, that of doctor of physic. He married about the latter end of the year 1531: he had been impotent for the space of ten years before, which very much afflicted him. He attributes this to the malignant influences of the constellation under which he was born. The two unlucky planets, and the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, were in the human signs; “ for which reason,” says he, “ I could not but be endued with a human form; and because Jupiter was in the ascendant, and Venus presided over the whole figure, I could be prejudiced no other way. ‘Cum Sol, et maleficæ ambæ, et Venus et Mercurius, essent in signis humanis, ideo non declinavi à forma humanâ: sed cum Jupiter esset in ascendente, et Venus totius figuræ domina, non fui oblæsus nisi in genitalibus, ut à xxi. anno ad xxxi. non potuerim concumbere cum mulicribus; et sæpius deflerem sortem meam, cuique alteri propriam invidens.' ” Upon a review of the heaviest misfortunes that befel him in his life, he reckons up four, whereof the first, according to his account, was his impotence; the second was the tragical end of his eldest son; the third, his imprisonment; and the fourth, the irregular life of his younger son. “ Toti-dem maxima detrimenta et impedimenta, primum concubitus, secundum mortis sævæ filii, tertium carceris, quartum improbitatis filii matu minoris.” He had completed his thirty-third year, when he was made mathematical professor at Milan. Two years after, he was offered a physic-professorship in Pavia, which he refused, from the uncertainty of the payment of his salary. In 1539, he was admitted into the college of physicians at Milan; and in 1543, taught physic publicly in that city. The year following he did the same at Pavia, but left off at the end of the year, because they did not pay him his stipend, and returned to Milan. In 1547, a very advantageous offer was made him by the king of Denmark, which he refused, on account of the air and religion of the country. He made a voyage to Scotland in 1552, and returned to Milan about ten months after, where he continued until the beginning of October 1559, and then went to Pavia, whence he was called to Bologna in 1562. He continued professor in this last place until the year 1570; at which time he was put into prison, but was carried home again some months after. However, this was not absolutely giving him his liberty, for he was kept prisoner in his own house; but this continued not long. He left Bologna in September 1571, and went to Rome, where he lived without any public employment. He was admitted into the college of physicians, and had a pension from the pope. He died at Rome, the twenty-first of September 1575. The account is sufficient to satisfy the reader, that Cardan was of a very inconstant temper; but his fantastical humour will better appear from the relation he has given us himself of his own good and bad qualites: this very ingenuousness is a plain proof that his mind was of a very particular cast. He tells us, that if nature did not give him some painful sensation, he procured it himself by biting his lips and distorting his fingers, until he shed tears; that sometimes he had a mind to kill himself; that he took a delight to ramble all night long in the streets; that he never was immoderate in his amours; that nothing pleased him better than to hold such arguments as were disagreeable to the company; that whatever he knew came out, whether it was proper or improper; that he also was so besotted to gaming as to spend whole days at it, to the no small prejudice of his family and reputation, for he played away his very household goods, and his wife’s jewels. These, and several other things, he relates with the greatest simplicity; however, I make no question that if his life were faithfully written by another hand, we should find a great many more dishonourable particulars than he has given us in that he wrote himself, which yet contains several other more remarkable instances of the singularity of his temper, than those I have mentioned. He speaks of abundance of prodigies, which foretold him, sleeping or waking, what was to befal him; this made him believe that, like Socrates and some other great men, he was under the care of a particular genius. What shall we say of those four extraordinary gifts nature had endowed him with? which were, 1. That he could fall into an ecstasy whenever he pleased.2. That he could see whatever he pleased. 3. That he foresaw in his sleep whatever was to befal him. And 4. That he could also foretell events by certain marks which appeared in his nails. “ Nature,” he observes “ has favoured me with four endowments which I would never reveal; all of them, in my judgment, very extraordinary. Whereof the first is, that whenever I please, I can transport myself out of my senses into an ecstasy; in the doing which I feel near my heart a sort of separation, as if my soul departed; and this affair is communicated to my whole body as it were by the opening of a door. The beginning of it is from my head, principally from the cerebellum, and so diffuses itself all along the spine of my back, and is not stopped without great resistance; all I perceive is, that I am beside myself; and I can just contain myself a little with a certain considerable force. The second is, that I can at any time see whatever I please, with my eyes, not by force of imagination, as those images I have mentioned my seeing when I was a child. I can therefore see groves, animals, worlds, and whatever I please. I take the cause to be the strength of my perceptive faculty, and the quickness of my sight. The third is, that I see in my sleep the representation of all that is to happen to me. And I dare almost say, I am sure I might very truly say, that I never remember any thing happening to me, either good, bad, or indifferent, of which I had not been forewarned in a dream. The fourth is, that whatever is to happen to me is signified by appearances on my nails. Black and livid specks on those of my middle finger signify misfortune; white, the contrary; on my thumb, honours; on my fore-finger, riches; on my ring-finger, study and discoveries of importance; on my little finger, inventions of the lowest class; if the speck is close and even, it betokens lasting good fortune; but if spread, and something like a star, it is a sign of such as will not be very much to be depended on, but rather of more public nature, and consisting of promises/’ We must take notice that, during these voluntary ecstasies, he felt not the most acute fits of the gout; and if any one spoke near him, he could hear a little the sound of the words, but understood not their signification. For the rest, he would never boast of these four singularities: but at last this grand secret was too hard for him, and so he revealed it to the public in one of his works.

Cardan was unfortunate in his family. His eldest

son, who fell in love with a woman without fortune, married her, and repenting when it was too late, poisoned his wife. He was punished according to his deserts; sentence being passed upon him to lose his head, which was executed at midnight in the prison. Cardan’s other son was a rogue and a villain. ' His own father was forced to throw him into gaol more than once, to cut off one of his ears, and at last to turn him out of doors, and disinherit him. His daughter gave only two occasions of uneasiness; the first, when he was obliged to pay her fortune; the second, when he saw she had no children. He was so affected with the unfortunate end of his eldest son, that he almost died with grief. The most extraordinary thing is, that Cardan, who did not deny but that his son had poisoned his wife, which his son confessed at his trial, imagined the divine justice pursued his judges for their unjust sentence, and that many of them came to an unfortunate end. He pretended that his son, being drawn in to marry a wife who, having neither fortune nor honour, made no scruple to dishonour him, was not to blame in murdering her.

Among other extraordinary doings, Cardan calculated the nativity of Jesus Christ; in respect to which fact Naudæus reproves Scaliger for believing that he was the first who attempted any thing of this nature. He observes, “ that such was his vanity that, when prosecuted, he chose rather to pass for the inventor, than to justify himself by the example of others. Naudæus quotes four authors, who loug before Cardan had calculated Christ’s nativity. The most modern was Tiberius Russilianus Sextus of Calabria, who lived under the pontificate of Leo the Tenth. He undertook publicly to maintain 400 pro-positious at Bologna, Florence, and Padua. The monks condemned twelve of them as favouring of heresy, of which this was one of the principal: Christum quoad corporis compagi-nem elementariam astris suppositum, ejusque genituram, & prophetam magnum, et ea quæ circa corpus evenerunt, præsertim violentum ejus mortis genus, nuntiasse non inconvenit. That Christ, as to the elementary composition of his body, was subject to the stars; and that there is no inconvenience in calculating his nativity, and shewing the necessity of his being a great prophet, and of all those things which happened to his body, particularly his violent death. Before this time, Peter d’Ailli, cardinal, and bishop of Cambray, was not content to maintain that judgment was to be made of Christ’s birth by astrological observation, but proposed the very scheme of his nativity. Albertus Magnus, more ancient than Peter d’Ailli, had before him maintained, that the rules of astrology took place even in the nativity of our Saviour. Albumasar, before Albertus, made an observation upon several things relating to Jesus Christ, according to the principles of astrology. These four authors are produced by Naudæus, some of which were quoted before him by Roger Bacon, Picus Mirandulanus, and Holkot; whence he concludes that Mr de Thou and Scaliger were in the wrong for imagining Cardan the original author of this foolish attempt. ⁷⁷

In other respects, his astrological predictions are said to have been frequently confirmed by the event, and Thuanus remarks, that he brought astrology into credit by his horoscopes; but Naudæus quotes Authors to prove that they were quite contrary to the event. Some say, that Cardan having foretold he should die at a certain time, he abstained from nourishment, that his death might verify his prediction, and his life not disgrace the art. He was therefore afraid of surviving the falsity of his prognostics, and so tender of his honour, that he could not endure the reproach of having proved a false prophet, and wronged his profession. Few people in the like case stand up with so much courage and affection for the honour of their art; they take comfort, and are neither ashamed nor discomposed. He wrote a great many books; for the edition of his works at Lyons, in 1663, contains ten volumes in folio. His poverty contributed to this multitude of writings, which frequently puzzle his readers by their

digressions and obscurity. Nor did he write so many volumes without being indebted to others. Cardan’s life of himself supplies a curious account of a gifted, and half enthusiastic, half knavish quack of the period in which he flourished. What might Rousseau have proved in the days of Cardan? The “Confessions” of the one, and the “Life” of the other, are not altogether dissimilar.—Ed. ⁷⁸—Art.Cardan.

CARDINAL.
(Origin of One.)

John Everard Nidhard, confessor to the archduchess Mary Anne of Austria, wife of Philip IV, king of Spain, was an Austrian Jesuit, who followed the above princess into Spain. On the death of Philip, his relict as queen-mother became regent, and in that capacity advanced Nidhard to the highest employments. We are told a pleasant reason of the friendship of the queen for this Jesuit, which I give from one of the letters of Boursault, without variation:—“ Cardinal Nedhard rose by a method which who never before taken, and perhaps never will be again, and passed from the society of Jesuits to that of the cardinals, which he liked better. The late queen of Spain, mother to the present king, and sister to the emperor, carried him along with her when she went to be married to Philip IV. This princess, who in Germany enjoyed a great liberty, and was gratified with every thing she desired, did not find the same satisfaction in Spain. Every thing there is so exactly determined, that their queens can neither cat nor drink but what is appointed by the general officer, to whom that care is committed; and if they are thirsty between meals, they are treated with a glass of water. It was difficult for her to conform to a manner of life so different from what she had led: and father Nidhard, who was a Jesuit, ergo a man of address, having observed it, brought her majesty every morning, when he went to

mass, a bottle of the best wine he could meet with, which he committed to a trusty person, and which the queen had the pleasure to drink of as often as she had occasion. This father’s assiduity, in doing her this little service, so strongly affected her, that she resolved to recompense so great a zeal, if ever it lay in her power: and in effect, being declared regent after the king’s death, she raised him to so high a pitch, that Don John of Austria, growing jealous of him, and the grandees of Spain demanding his removal, he could not be dismissed but by making him ambassador extraordinary at Rome; where he was subsequently made cardinal.” What has been said, that a great fortune is a great slavery, “ magna servitas est magna fortuna,” is most remarkably verified in a queen of Spain, who has been educated in France or Germany, or in any other country which allows the sex liberty.—Art.Nidhard.

CARNEADES.

Carneades, one of the most famous of the Greek philosophers, was a native of Cyrene. He founded the Third Academy, which, properly speaking, differed in nothing from the Second; for with the exception of a few qualifications, which served merely to disguise the doctrine, he was as earnest an advocate for uncertainty as Arcesilas; and even in respect to the dogma ofincomprehensibility, carried matters to as great an extreme. He admitted only of probabilities for the conduct of life, and beyond probability admitted neither of certainty or evidence.

He discovered uncertainty in respect to the most intuitive convictions, and even disputed the axiom on which the syllogism is founded, “ Quæ sunt idem uni tertio, sunt idem inter se.” Things that are the same with a third, they are the same to each other. We learn from Galenus, that Carneades objected to this generally received notion, and attacked it with

various sophisms. In fact, he laboured might and main to break the custom of assenting to what is not evident;—and what was there done more than this in the Middle Academy? For the rest, they had reason to say, that he undertook as great a task as Hercules himself; and they might have added, that the hero could with more ease overcome two thousand monsters, each as terrible as the Lernæn hydra, or the Nemæan lion, than Arcesilas or Carneades bring men to assent to nothing that had not been made evident by discussion.

In one sense therefore it must be admitted that our academician pushed his opinions as far as Arcesilas. His innovation simply amounted to this, that he did not, like the latter, deny the existence of truths, but maintained that we could not certainly discern them. He allowed, contrary to Arcesilas, that there were probabilities sufficient to determine us to act, provided we pronounced not absolutely upon any thing. He went yet farther, for he allowed a wise man on some occasions to conclude. This indulgence, it has been observed, makes a breach in his system, and has given occasion to say, that Arcesilas maintained his hypothesis better than Carneades. It is certain, however, that in the opinion of Cicero he always returned to the spirit of the direct opinion, as appears by the exposition of his sentiments at the end of that great orator’s questions. It is very probable therefore, that he retained at the bottom Arcesilas’s doctrine; but, out of policy, and that he might deprive his adversaries of the most specious pretences of disclaiming against and ridiculing him, he granted some degrees of probability, capable of determining a wise man to choose a side in his civil capacity. He saw very well, that without this he should never be able to answer their most odious objections, or prove that his principle was not the readiest way to reduce a man to inaction, and to the most scandalous quietism.

If it be well considered, it is the same thing to say, “ There are no truths,” and that, “ there are truths, but we have no rule to distinguish them from falsehoods.” If Arcesilas had maintained the first of these propositions, he might have been compared to a fiery courser that follows his impetuosity to the very bottom of a precipice. But I can scarcely be brought to believe, that he absolutely denied the existence of truths. He thought it enough, in my opinion, to maintain, that they were impenetrable to human understanding. The heat of the dispute perhaps hindered him from expressing himself so cautiously. “ Carneades was the first who laid aside the shameless way of calumniating, which he knew Arcesilas to have been very guilty of, that he might not be thought fond of disputing against every thing, for the sake of ostentation.” These words of St Augustin are more favourable to Carneades than Arcesilas; but Numenius had another opinion of these two academics; he was more angry with Carneades than with Arcesilas. He pretended that Arcesilas was in earnest, and deceived himself whilst he was deceiving others: but that Carneades believed nothing of what he said, and entertained his confidents with discourses quite different from his lectures, being pleased in nothing more than puzzling his scholars, and diverted himself with arguing pro and con. He built and demolished; having no sooner established a probability, but he was the first himself that took care to destroy it. In confessing there were truths and falsehoods in nature, but so concealed, that they were not really to be distinguished one from the other, he was even more dangerous than Arcesilas. “ Fur ergo præstigiatorque fuit solertior.”

His arguments against the oracles of Apollo were of weight. He maintained that Apollo could not foretell things to come, unless they had a dependence upon a necessary cause. He denied him the

knowledge of all contingent events, the parricide of Oedipus, for example; for there being no cause necessitating him to kill his father, it was not to be foreseen that he would kill him: a future action is not to be foreseen, but from a knowledge of the efficient causes of it. Nay, he held that the gods presiding over oracles could not so much as know what was past, where no footsteps were remaining to carry them up to the time of the event. He pretended, without doubt, that no other footstep was sufficient for this, but a chain of natural causes, acting without any use of free-will, and that the acts of the free-will of man, breaking this chain, hindered the gods from casting their eyes backward upon past ages, where no visible mark of the events remained. Chrysippus had eluded the instance drawn, “ that a man predestinated to die, shall die, let him make use of physic or not,”—by supposing a complication of predestined events, as that such a man shall make use of a physician, and be cured: for then the remedy is annexed to the fatality of the cure. This answer did not satisfy Carneades: but in order to confute it well, lie shewed the great inconvenience attending it, I mean the loss of free-will. “ If,” said he “ you join thus, in the decrees of fate, the causes with their effects, all things must be done by necessity, and nothing will be left in our power; every thing will depend upon an antecedent cause, and a chain of causes arise, linked together by a natural invincible tie.”

The disputes of the Augustinians and Calvinists with the Jesuits and the Arminians, about the consequences of predestination, it will be perceived, had a being among the ancient philosophers. Carneades has taught the Predestinarians to puzzle their adversaries with this objection,—that God can foresee nothing that depends upon an indifferent cause. None but the Socinians have been so ingenuous as to acknowledge the evident force of this objection; but

it has cost them the prescience of God; and what a monstrous absurdity is it to suppose a God ignorant of what men will do, until their actions are in progress !

The Athenians, having been fined five hundred talents for having pillaged the city of Oropus, sent their ambassadors to Rome, who prevailed so far as to have the fine reduced to one hundred talents. Carneades the Academic, Diogenes the Stoic, and Criolaus the Peripatetic, three famous philosophers, were charged with this embassy. Before they had their audience of the senate, each of them made an oration in the presence of a great assembly, and in each of them was admired a particular excellence; strength and rapidity of thought was that of Carneades. Cato the censor advised the senate to send the ambassadors back again immediately, because it was difficult to discover the truth in the intricacy of Carneades’ arguments. Plutarch tells us, the Roman youth were so charmed with them, that they renounced their pleasures and exercises, to indulge without interruption the passion he had inspired into them for philosophy, and with which they were seized as with an enthusiasm. This by no means pleased Cato; he was afraid lest for the future young people would chuse to follow their studies rather than the wars and taxed therefore, in the senate, the conduct shewn to these philosophical ambassadors. “ Let us give them their answer out of hand,” said he, “ and send them home; they are men able to make us believe whatever they please.” He spoke this not out of any particular prejudice to Carneades, as some have imagined, but because he disliked philosophy in general, and all the Greek learning. We ought not, however, to infer from these words of Plutarch, that Cato did not particularly fear the subtlety of wit and the strength of reason wherewith Carneades disputed.

While at Rome, he argued one day in favour of justice as a positive notion, and the next day against it. He was then in his element; he loved to ruin his own works, because at the bottom it served to support his grand principle, which was, that the mind of man was capable of nothing but probabilities; so that of two contrary things a man might indifferently adhere to the one or the other, in a negative or affirmative discourse. To make good our text, we shall quote Lactantius. “ Carneades, being sent ambassador by the Athenians to Rome, disputed copiously concerning justice in the presence of Galba and Cato the censor, both at that time great orators. The next day he overthrew his own disputation by a contrary one, and destroyed justice, which the day before he had extolled; not indeed with the gravity of a philosopher who ought to stick to his opinion, but as it were to exercise his rhetoric in disputingpro andcon. This he did that he might be able to oppose others, whatever they asserted.” Lactantius adds, that it was easy for this philosopher to refute whatever they could say in behalf of justice, for the Heathens could have no notion of it, being strangers to religion, the fountain and foundation of justice. After this Lactantius gives us the substance of the dispute, and tells us Carneades argued thus: “ If there be such a thing as justice,” said he, “ it must be founded either upon positive right or upon natural right. Now it is not founded upon positive right, for that varies with times and places, every people applying it to their own profit and interest; nor is it founded upon natural right, which is no other than a bias nature has imprinted in all animals, which leads them to search after what is useful to them; and it cannot be regulated according to this bias, without committing a thousand frauds and violences; from whence it follows, that it cannot be the foundation of justice;” wherefore, &c. he proved by a great many

examples the condition of men to be such, that if they have a mind to be just, they must act imprudently and foolishly; and if they have a mind to act prudently, they are unjust: whence he concluded that there is no such thing as justice, for a virtue inseparable from folly cannot be just. Lactantius owns the Heathens were incapable of answering this argument, and that Cicero dared not undertake it.

The subtleties with which Carneades opposed justice, appeared terrible to Cicero; one of the best pieces of this illustrious Roman is that De Legibus. There he lays down as a foundation, that there is a natural right; that is, some actions are just in their own nature, and which we are obliged to do, not because we live in a society where the positive laws punish those that pay no regard to them, but for the sake of that justice and equity which accompanies them, independent of human institution. This, he says, he must suppose, if he intends to build upon principles well chosen and rightly concerted, and yet he does not expect every body will approve of them: he promises himself only the approbation of the ancient Platonists, and of the Peripatetics and Stoics. Epicurus’s school he regards not; they professed a retreat from politics: he therefore suffered them to philosophize as they thought fit in their retirement; but he demands quarter from Arcesilas and Carneades. He is afraid, if they once came to attack him, they would make too great a breach in the structure he had been raising. He finds himself too weak to oppose them; he wishes he may not be exposed to their anger; he desires to appease and live in peace with them. These are his words: “ Perturbatricem autem harum omnium rerum academiam hanc ab Arcesila et Carneade recentem exoremus, ut sileat. Nam si invaserit in has, quæ satis scite nobis instructæ et compositæ videntur rationes, nimias edet ruinas, quam quidem ego placare cupio, submovere

non audeo.” According to this idea, Carneades might pass for a destroying angel. It will be seen that there is little new under the sun; for in addition to the subject of free-will discussed by Carneades, the scepticism of Hume, and his doctrine of causation, have produced very little more than a repetition of the ancient objection, in regard to morals and religion, to the doctrines of the first two academies. Cicero however, more moderate than the assailants of the modern sceptic, speaks strongly of the difficulties to be overcome; while every one knows that Hume has been overthrown a thousand times, by writers who have, or ought to have, a thousand times less pretension than the Roman orator.—Ed. ⁷⁹

Let us not however, forget a good observation made by Quintilius. He remarks, that Carneades always lived up to the rules of justice, although he argued against them, which was not unusual with the academics, and indeed with other people; few men act consistently with their principles.

Carneades lived until his eighty-fifth year: other accounts say his ninetieth; his death is said to have taken place in the fourth year of the 162d Olympiad. Plutarch has recorded a shrewd observation by Carneades:—“ The only thing in which young princes learn well is, how to ride the great horse: other masters flatter; but the horse, without making any distinction between the rich and the poor, the sovereign and the subject, throws to the ground all the unskilful riders who endeavour to mount him.”—Carneades.

CERINTHUS.

Cerinthus was an arch-heretic, contemporary with the apostles. He taught that Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph, and that the use of circumcision ought to be retained under the gospel. He is looked upon as the chief of the converted Jews who raised the tumult in the church of Antioch, related by St Luke in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

They raised that disturbance by declaring to the faithful, that without circumcision they could not fail to be damned. It is said also, that he was one of those who some years before had censured St Peter for having preached the gospel to the Gentiles. Epiphanius, who says all this, nevertheless pretends that Cerinthus came after Carpocrates: which is to pervert chronology.

Cerinthus passes for one of the chief heads of the Millenarians. He is accused by Caius, a writer quoted by Eusebius, of having taught that, after the resurrection, the church should continue a thousand years upon earth, and that it would be a terrestrial reign of Jesus Christ, a time of temporal prosperity and voluptuousness. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria in the time of Eusebius, represents the thing still more grossly: “Cerinthus,” says he, “ believed, that the reign of Jesus Christ should be terrestrial; and, as he was much addicted to bodily pleasures, he feigned, that the voluptuousness which he desired should make up an essential part of it. He makes it to consist in satisfying the belly and the senses; that is to say, in eating, drinking, marrying, celebrating of feasts, and offering of sacrifices; for under these last terms, which are more modest, he covered his real meaning.” My conjecture is, that Cerinthus did not expressly teach, that the happiness and glory of the reign of Jesus Christ should consist in indulging gluttony and luxury, but that he made use of another turn of expression: that he had recourse to the rejoicings which are proper for days of festivals, particular days designed for sacrifices, and for feasting on them. The Greek words cited insinuate plainly, that he covered his meaning under modest phrases; but it was thought lawful to withdraw the curtain, and to paraphrase them in such a manner, that all the deformities of his opinions might easily be discovered. If my conjecture was certain,

there would be some little trick in the proceedings of Cerinthus’s enemies; for what right has any body to impute particulars to an author, which he does not mention? Why may he not enjoy the benefit he ought to expect from the generality of his expressions?

The visions of Cerinthus in relation to the temporal reign of Jesus Christ, have induced some writers to regard him as the true author of the revelations to which he put the name of St John, in order to obtain credit under the authority of that venerable apostle: in consequence of this supposition, many persons have wholly rejected the apocalypse, as a work neither of St John nor of any other inspired writer, but the impertinent and obscure reveries of an early heretic.

Cerinthus attributed the creation of the world to angels, and not to God. Some have applied to him what Theodoret said concerning certain defenders of the mosaical law, who would have the angels to be adored, and who gave this reason—that God not being able to be seen, touched, or comprehended, the divine good-will ought to be procured by the ministry of angels. It is also pretended, that St Paul aimed at this heretic, when he warned the faithful to reject those who, by humility of spirit, and by the service of angels, meddled with things which they had not seen. Every body knows what is said of the aversion of St John for Cerinthus; and that it is reported, he would not go into the same bath where he was. The ancients have varied on that subject, and the moderns have added some circumstances to it that might pass for a pious fraud.

The variation of the ancients consists in the fact, that some pretend that this story concerns Cerinthus, and others, that it concerns Ebion. You will find in Eusebius, that St John, having entered into the bath, and understanding that Cerinthus was there, went

away immediately, and bid his companions do so too. “ Let us fly from hence,” said he to them, “ for fear that a bath, wherein the enemy of truth is, should fall upon us.” Eusebius quotes St Irenaeus, who says, that St Polycarp had been heard to say so, and that the thing was done in Ephesus. If you consult Epi-phanius, you will find that St John, who never went into the bath, was prompted one day by the Holy Ghost to go thither. On his arrival, hearing that the heretic Ebion was there, he apprehended the cause of the inspiration he had received; and knew that the Holy Ghost had only inclined him to go thither, to give him an occasion to show how much truth is to be esteemed, and with what distinction the friends of God, and the instruments of the devil, ought to be treated. He groaned then, and spoke these words, loud enough to be heard by all those who were present—“Haste away, my brethren; let us go from hence, for fear the baths should fall and crush us to pieces with Ebion, because of his impiety.” Baronius says, to reconcile St Irenæus and St Epiphanius, that it might happen that Cerinthus and Ebion were together in the bath; but Mr de Tillemont observes, that it is not necessary to have recourse to that conjecture, it being no rare thing for St Epiphanius to be mistaken in history. Attend to the additions of the moderns. The anonymous writer who has given notes to the margin of St Epiphanius, Strigelius, Bernard of Luxemburgh, and others, have gratuitously added, that the heretic with whom St John refused to battle was buried under the ruins of the house. Prateolus has asserted this story with an assurance which it is impossible to sufficiently admire. He pretends, that in the third chapter of the third book against heresies, Irenæus says, “ that St John found Cerinthus sitting in the bath with his followers, violently disputing, and impudently and blasphemously denying that Jesus Christ was God; that St John rose up, and warned his friends to retire with him, because God was going to punish such impudent blasphemies: that as soon as he was gone out, the house fell, and destroyed Cerinthus and all his company.” Not a word of all this is to be found in Irenæus, although it is made to supply many edifying remarks by Prateolus upon the judgments of heaven against heretics. Attend here to the progress of relations: it is likely that St Irenæus was the first that published the action of St John, and he was contented to relate what he had heard of it; but those that succeeded him, finding his narrative too naked, added some ornaments to it. They did not think it honourable to that apostle’s memory, that it should be thought that he bathed himself in a public place; for which reason they affirmed that he never did so, except on a particular day, by order from above. Afterwards a cause of the inspiration must be sought for, and it was found requisite for the faithful to know, that they ought to abhor the enemies of truth, and believe, that the divine justice is always ready to shew great examples of severity against heresiarchs. So much for what the following ages have added to the flourishing of St Epiphanius.

It is affirmed that Cerinthus, having had some correspondence with the Jews, Pagans, and magicians in Alexandria, invented an hypothesis composed of Judaism, Paganism, and magic, and spread it chiefly in Phrygia and Pisidia; and even that he performed prodigies by the invocation of angels. He rejected the Acts of the Apostles, and the epistles of St Paul, and admitted only the gospel of St Matthew. Neither did he admit of that altogether, if we may believe Epiphanius.—Art.Cerinthus.

CHALLENGE.
(Extraordinary one»)

The following is the challenge sent by the duke of Orleans in 1411, to the duke of Burgundy, after

the murder of his father by the latter, in consequence of the feuds between the two houses:—

“ Charles, duke of Orleans and Valois, earl of Blois and Beaumont, lord of Conchy; Philip, earl of Vertus; and John, earl of Angouleme, brothers: to thee, John, who callest thyself duke of Burgundy, for the most horrible murder, by thee treacherously, maliciously, by professed murderers, committed on the person of our dear and dread lord and father, Louis duke of Orleans, only brother of monseigneur the king, our sovereign lord and thine, notwithstanding the several oaths, alliances, and engagements between you subsisting, and for the great treasons, acts of disloyalty, infamy, and wickedness, by thee against our said sovereign lord the king, and against us, in divers manners perpetrated: we give thee to understand, that from this day forward we will annoy thee with all our power, and by all ways we can; and against thee, of thy treason and disloyalty, we call God, and all good men in the world, to judge and assist us: in witness of the truth whereof we have caused these present letters to be sealed with the seal of me, Charles abovenamed. Given at Jarjeau, the eighteenth day of July, in the year of grace 1411.”

The reply of the duke of Burgundy is equally explicit and unequivocal. “ John, duke of Burgundy, earl of Artois, Flanders, and Burgundy, palatin, lord of Salines and Malines: to thee, Charles, who callest thyself duke of Orleans; and to thee, Philip, who callest thyself earl of Vertus; and to thee John, who callest thyself earl of Angouleme, who have lately sent us your letters of defiance, we give to understand, and be it known to all men, that in order to defeat the most horrible treasons, manifold wickedness, and most malicious plots, conspired, contrived, and acted feloniously against the king, our most dread and sovereign lord, and yours, and against his most noble generation, by the late Lewis, your father, a

false and disloyal traitor, to attain to the final detestable execution of his purposes, which he had contrived against our said most dread lord and “his, and also against his said generation, and notoriously, that no good man ought to suffer him to live: and especially we, who are cousin-german of our said lord, dean of the peers, and twice peer, and more closely allied to him and to his said generation than any other person of the said generation; could not have suffered such a false, disloyal, cruel, and felonious traitor on the face of the earth any longer, without a great crime on our part; we have, in order to acquit ourselves loyally, and do our duty towards our high and sovereign lord, and his said generation, killed, as he deserved, the said false and disloyal traitor, and in so doing have pleased God, and rightly performed loyal service to our said most dread and sovereign lord. And forasmuch as thou and thy brothers follow the false, disloyal, and felonious steps of your said father, and do contrive to accomplish those damnable and disloyal facts attempted by him, we are not at all concerned at your said defiance; but as to the contents thereof, thou and thy brothers have lied, and do maliciously, falsely, and disloyally lie, like traitors as you are; for which, by the help of our Lord, who knows and is a witness of the most entire and perfect loyalty, love, and good will, which we always have, and always so long as we live shall have, towards our said Lord, and his said generation, to the good of his people and of all his kingdom, we will bring you to such an end and punishment, as such false and disloyal traitors, rebels, and disobedient felons, as thou and thy brothers are, deserve to come to: in witness whereof we have caused these letters to be sealed with our seal. Given in our city of Douay, the fourteenth day of August, in the year of grace 1411.”

The murder of the duke of Orleans, whose death produced the above bravadoes, was caused by an

offence still more galling than that of political rivalry. It is thus quaintly related by Brantome:— Brantome, Dames Galantes, tom. 2, p. m. 352. ⁸⁰

“ The duke of Orleans having publicly boasted on a time at a public dinner, where his cousin, duke John of Burgundy, also was, ‘ That he had the pictures of the fairest ladies he had lain with in his closet:’ it happened that duke John coming one day accidentally into his closet, the first lady whose picture was presented to his eyes, was his own noble lady and spouse, who was thought very handsome at that time; her name was Margaret, daughter of Albert of Bavaria, count of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand. The good husband was astonished. You may imagine that he said in good earnest, ‘ Ha ! I have it !’; and taking no farther notice of the flea that bit him, he dissembled the matter, and concealing the true cause of his resentment, quarrelled with him about the regency and administration of the kingdom; and making this, not the affair of his wife, his pretence, he caused him to be assassinated at the gate Baudet at Paris, his wife being already dead, as was supposed of poison. Being thus rid of one wife, he took for his second the daughter of Lewis III, duke of Bourbon; it is doubted whether he mended his market; for to such people as are subject to horns, let them change beds and haunts as oft as they will, horns will come. The duke did very wisely in that; he revenged himself on the adulterer, without scandalizing himself or his wife; which was very wise dissimulation on his part. For these reasons, duke John was very wise in dissembling and hiding his horns, and revenging himself besides on his cousin who had dishonoured him: he even laughed at him, and let him know it; which derision and scandal, without doubt, went as much to his heart as his ambition, and made him do this action like a worldly-wise and able politician.” Do not imagine that this is one of those tales that are only learned by tradition; it has been inserted in

historians, and you will find it in the memoirs of Lewis Gollut. It is true, this author supposes, that duke John of Burgundy did not believe that his wife had been unfaithful, but that the duke of Orleans had boasted of favours from her wrongfully. Let us use his own words, which will shew that this delicate affair was debated in the council of Burgundy, and that it was there resolved to use some other pretence to be revenged on the duke of Orleans. The duchess had previously complained to the duke her husband, that the duke of Orleans had watched to find her alone, and had solicited her, and attempted force upon her honour, of which she prayed him to take notice, which the duke had received in such manner as matters of that kind usually are taken and interpreted by husbands who have any spirit, or any regard for their reputation. Nevertheless, he would not immediately proceed to vengeance, but only resolved on the execution in time, and to punish the offence by the murder of the duke of Orleans, whatever came of it. He adds, that the duke had called his council, and demanded of the great men to whom he communicated this affair, under an oath, how he should proceed to be revenged for so great an injury, whether he should chastise or murder him: letting them understand that he asked not whether he should do it, but only how and in what manner he might execute it with safety. Whereupon the counsellors, after divers excuses, and three days’ deliberation, answered, “ That it was necessary to take measures that the duke of Orleans’s actions might be censured as they deserved, and to gain the opinion of the vulgar, and even of the Parisians; and that it would therefore be good to set some people at work every where, to rail against the conduct of the duke of Orleans, and stir up the people against him.” These last words of Gollut are very remarkable.—Art.Burgundy.

CHRISTIANITY AND MAHOMETANISM.
(Diffusion of each, compared.)

Without doubt the principal cause of the great progress made by Mahomet was the method he took to force those by arms to submit to his religion, who would not embrace it readily. We need not search elsewhere for the cause of his progress; for this was the sole and entire one. I do not deny, but the divisions of the Greek church, whose sects were unhappily multiplied, the bad state of the oriental empire, and the corruption of manners, found a favourable conjuncture for the designs of this impostor;—but after all, what resistance can be made to conquering arms, and forcing subscriptions? Ask the dragoons of France, who made use of this method in 1685; they will tell you, that they will undertake to make the world sign the whole Alcoran, provided they have time to enforce that maxim, “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in. It is very probable, that if Mahomet had foreseen he should have had such good troops at his command, he would not have taken so much pains to forge new revelations, and to put on an air of devotion in his writings, and to tack together so many pieces of Judaism and Christianity. Without engaging in this troublesome business, he might have been sure of planting his religion wherever his arms were victorious; and if any thing were capable of persuading me, that there was a good deal of fanaticism in the case, I should incline to believe it, from the infinite number of things in the Coran, which appear no wise necessary, but to serve when he had no mind to use force. Now there are many things in that book, which are posterior to the first success of Mahomet’s arms.

This truth preserves to the Christian religion one of the exclusive proofs of its divinity. The gospel, preached by obscure persons, destitute of learning and

eloquence, and of all human supports, and cruelly persecuted, yet in a little time prevailed over the whole world. This matter of fact, which no one can deny, would however be of no force, if it could be made appear, that a false church spread as far by the like means. This argument would certainly be spoiled, if it could be proved, that the Mahometan religion owed not the suddenness of its great progress to the violence of its arms. Since therefore there are two things equally clear in the monuments of history; one of which is, that the Christian religion was established without the use of the secular arm; the other, that the Mahometan religion was established by the way of conquest; no reasonable objection can be made against the Christian proof, because this infamous impostor suddenly overspread an infinite number of provinces with his false doctrines. It is well, however, that we have the three first centuries of Christianity secure from this parallel; otherwise it would be folly in us to object to the Mahometans the violence they used for the propagation of the Coran; they would quickly put us to silence, for they need only cite to us these words of Mr Jurieu: “ Can any one deny, that Paganism was destroyed by the authority of the Roman emperors? We may venture to affirm, that Paganism would be still in being, and that three-fourths of Europe would still be Pagan, if Constantine and his successors had not employed their authority to abolish that religion. The Christian emperors have extirpated Paganism, by pulling down its temples, destroying its images, forbidding the worship of its false gods; by appointing preachers of the gospel, in the place of false prophets and teachers, by suppressing their books, and spreading sound doctrine.” Jurieu’s Rights of Two Sovereigns, page 280. ⁸¹ See also the 8th letter of the Picture of Socinianism, at page 501, where the same author affirms, “ That doubtless, had it not been for the authority of the emperors, the temples of Jupiter and Mars would still be kept up, and the false gods of the Heathens would have a great number of adorers?’

We must freely declare the truth: the kings of France have planted Christianity in the country of the Frisons and Saxons by Mahometan ways; and the same force was made use of to plant it in the north. The same ways were also made use of against the sects that durst condemn the pope, and will be used in the Indies, whenever it can be done. And from all this conduct it plainly appears, that we can no longer reproach Mahomet for having propagated his religion by force—I mean, by denying toleration to any other. He might argue thus ad hominem:—If force be wrong in its own nature, it can never be lawfully made use of; but you have made use of it from the fourth century unto this present time; and yet you pretend, you have done nothing in all this but what is very commendable. You must therefore confess that this way is not wrong in its own nature, and consequently, I might lawfully make use of it in the first years of my vocation.—It would be absurd to pretend, that a thing which was very criminal in the first century, should become just in the fourth; or that a thing which was just in the fourth, should not be so in the first. This might have been pretended, if God had made new laws in the fourth century; but do you not found the justice of your conduct, since Constantine till this present time, upon these words of the gospel, “ compel them to come in,” and upon the duty of sovereigns? You should therefore have used force, if you could have done it, from the very day after the ascension.—Bellarmine, and many other writers of the Romish party, would grant him this; for they say, “ That if the Christians did not depose Nero and Dioclesian, it was because they had not sufficient temporal force to do it; but that of right they might have done it, being in no way

obliged to endure a king over them, who is not a Christian, if he endeavour to pervert them from the faith.” They were therefore obliged to set up a sovereign over them who should establish the gospel, and extirpate Paganism, by the means of authority. Mr Jurieu does not differ much from the opinion of Bellarmine; for he tells us that the greatest part of the Christians were patient only through their weakness and want of power; and though he does not blame their conduct in not taking arms against their princes, yet he thinks they had a right to do it; and if they had done it, they could not have been blamed. The three examples he gives of the way in which authority may be lawfully employed, are that of the kings of Israel, that of the Christian emperors, and that of the reformed princes. “ These last,” says he, “ have abolished popery in their states, by removing its professors, by appointing teachers of sound doctrine and pure morals, by burning the images, by burying the relics in the earth, by forbidding all idolatrous worship. In this they were so far from doing any thing against the law of God, that they exactly observed his commands: for it is his will, that the kings of the earth should strip the beast, and break her image. Never did any Protestant, to this day, blame this conduct, and never will any judicious man apprehend the thing otherwise. Things have always been thus, and, if it please God, will always be so, in spite of our libertines and inconsiderate men.” Consult the 284th page of his book, and you will find there these memorable words: “ For the little profit which you might draw from thence now, the church would suffer great loss; and perhaps you would be obliged to retract in a few years, and doubtless you would do it. For if the kings of France and Spain should use their authority to drive popery out of their dominions, as the kings of England and Sweden have done, you would be so far from blaming them, that you would think it very well done. But you may be assured that this is to come to pass; for the Holy Spirit says, ‘ That the kings of the earth, who have given their power to the beast, shall take it from her; and that they shall make her desolate, and eat her flesh/ The same authority of the western kings, who erected the empire of popery, shall destroy it: and this will be perfectly agreeable to the design of God, and to his will; wherefore we shall find nothing in it to gainsay. And therefore, that you may be uniform in your judgment, follow the truth, which never changes; and do not govern your opinions according to interests, which are changing every day.” You see, therefore, that both Catholic and Protestant writers lay it down as an immutable principle, which will hold in all times, that it is lawful to make use of authority for the propagation of the faith. If therefore they enter into dispute with the Mahometans, they must renounce those arguments which have been always used against them from the manner of propagating their religion.

In a contemplation of Mahometanism, however, we lose the proof which is taken from the large extent of Christianity, which furnished the fathers with an argument against the Jews, and the sects which were bred in the bosom of Christianity, and which continued in full force till the time of Mahomet. Since that time we must forsake it; for, considering only the extent, the religion of this false prophet might claim to itself the ancient prophecies as well as the Christian. We cannot therefore sufficiently wonder, when we find the Bellarmines, and such famous writers of controversy, affirm in general, that extent is a mark of the true church: and pretend by this method to gain their cause against the Protestants. Nay, they are even so imprudent as to put prosperity among the marks of the true church. “ Elmacin’s Saracen History,” says Hothinger, “very clearly describes the speedy progress of Mahometanism, and its success against the

Christians; so that I cannot but wonder how Bellarmine stumbled upon so trifling and inconclusive an argument. It was easy to foresee that, as to these two marks, they would be answered, that the Mahometan may more justly pass for the true church than the Christian. The religion of Mahomet is unquestionably of much larger extent than the Christian; its victories, its conquests, its triumphs, are incomparably more illustrious than any thing the Christians can boast of in this kind of prosperity. The exploits of the Mahometans are without doubt the most glorious things that history affords. What can we find more wonderful than the empire of the Saracens, which extended from the Straits of Gibraltar as far as the Indies? Has it fallen? See the Turks on one side, and the Tartars on the other, who preserve the grandeur and renown of Mahomet. Find, if you can, among the conquering Christian princes, any that can be put in the balance with the Saladins, the Gengis-Chans, the Tamerlanes, the Amuraths, the Bajazets, the Mahomets II, the Solimans. Did not the Saracens confine Christianity within the bounds of the Pyrenean mountains? Did they not commit an hundred outrages in Italy, and proceed as far as the heart of France? Did not the Turks extend their conquests to the confines of Germany and the gulf of Venice? The leagues, the crusades, of Christian princes, those grand expeditions which drained the Latin church of men and money, may they not be compared to a sea, whose waves flow from the west to the east, to be broken when they encounter the Mahometan forces, like one that splits against a steep rock? Finally the Christians have been forced to yield to Mahomet’s star; and instead of following him into Asia, they have reckoned it a great happiness to be able to maintain a running fight in the centre of Europe. The Mahometans, being more addicted to war than study, have not written histories equal to their actions; but the Christians, having many great wits, have written histories which excel all that they have done. But notwithstanding this want of historians, these Infidels can tell us, that Heaven has at all times given testimony to the holiness of their religion, by the victories they have obtained. The Christians ought not to use that sophism, and imitate them improperly, as a father of the oratory did. His book is scandalous and of pernicious consequence; for it is founded upon this false supposition, that the true church is that, which God has most enriched with temporal blessings. If we were to determine religious disputes by this rule, Christianity would quickly lose the cause. But prudence will not permit that they should be decided in that manner; they must be fortified by confessions of faith, and no regard must be had, either to extent, or the greater number of victories. I know not whether we may venture to be tried by our morals; but if the infidels should allow the preference to wit, learning, and military virtue, we must take them at their word; for they would infallibly lose the cause at this time; since they are much inferior to the Christians in these three things. A fine advantage, indeed, that we know better than they the art of killing, of bombarding, and destroying mankind! Observe, I pray you, that the Mahometan religion had formerly a large share in that temporal glory which consists in cultivating sciences; for they flourished under the empire of the Saracens with great lustre; who then had fine wits, good poets, great philosophers, famous astronomers, and renowned physicians; to say nothing of several caliphs who acquired a very great reputation by their moral qualities, and those peaceable virtues which are no less valuable than the military virtues. There is, therefore, no kind of temporal prosperity, wherewith that sect has not been favoured in a very distinguished manner.

I have said that it would not be safe to leave it to

be tried by our morals, whether the Christian be the true religion. This requires some explanation, as I do not pretend, that Christans are more irregular, as to their morals than the Infidels; but I dare not affirm that they are less so. It may probably be true, as a general assertion, that Christians and Infidels cannot justly reproach each other; and, if there be any difference between them as to morals, it is attributable more to climate than to religion.—Art,Mahomet.

CHRISTIANITY AND MAHOMETANISM.
(Compared as to Toleration.)

The Mahometans, according to the principles of their faith, are obliged to employ violence to destroy other religions, and yet they tolerate them now, and have done so for many ages. The Christians have no order, but to preach and instruct; and yet, time out mind, they destroy with fire and sword those who are not of their religion. “When you meet with Infidels,” says Mahomet, “kill them, cut off their heads, or take them prisoners, and put them in chains till they have paid their ransom, or you find it convenient to set them at liberty. Be not afraid to persecute them, till they have laid down their arms, and submitted to you.” Nevertheless, it is true that the Saracens quickly left off the ways of violence; and that the Greek churches, as well the orthodox as the schismatical, have continued to this day under the yoke of Mahomet. They have their patriarchs, their metropolitans, their synods, their discipline, their monks. I know very well that they suffer much under such a master; but after all, they have more reason to complain of the covetousness and extortion of the Turks than of their sword. The Saracens were still more gentle than the Turks. See the proofs of it given by Mr Jurieu; which are taken out of Elmacin and Eutychius. It may be affirmed, for a certain truth, that if the western princes had been lords of Asia,

instead of the Saracens and Turks, there would be now no remnant of the Greek church, and they would not have tolerated Mahometanism, as these Infidels have tolerated Christianity. Let us hear Mr Jurieu himself. “ It may be truly said, that there is no comparison between the cruelty of the Saracens against the Christians, and that of Popery against the true believers. In the wars against the Vaudois, or in the massacres alone on St Batholomew’s day, there was more blood spilt upon account of religion, than was spilt by the Saracens in all their persecutions of the Christians. It is expedient to cure men of this prejudice; that Mahometanism is a cruel sect, which was propagated by putting men to their choice of death, or the abjuration of Christianity. This is in no wise true; and the conduct of the Saracens was an evangelical meekness in comparison to that of Popery, which exceeded the cruelty of the Cannibals. It is not therefore the cruelty of the Mahometans which has destroyed Christianity in the east and south, but their avarice. They made the Christians pay dear for their liberty of conscience; they imposed upon them heavy taxes; they made them often redeem their churches, which they sometimes sold to the Jews, and then the Christians must redeem them again: poverty destroys wit and debases courage. But, above all, Mahometanism has destroyed Christianity by ignorance.” He repeats the same thing, in fewer words, in one of his Pastoral Letters, supposing always, that Christianity was destroyed under the empire of the Mahometans; but he is mistaken, and would have said otherwise, had he better consulted the historians. But that is not the point; let us proceed and observe, that he tells us plainly, that the Saracens and Turks treated the Christian church with more moderation, than the Christians showed either to the Pagans, or to one another. He observes, that the Christian emperors ruined Paganism, by demolishing its temples, destroying its images, and forbidding all religious worship of its false gods; and that the reformed princes abolished Popery by burning the images, burying the relics in the ground, and forbidding all adulterous worship. It is plain that princes, who prohibit on a sudden a religion, use more violence than princes who permit the public exercise of it, and only keep it under, as the Turks do that of the Christians.

The conclusion which I would draw from all this is, that men are little governed by their principles. The Turks, we see, tolerate all religions, though the Koran enjoins them to persecute the Infidels; and the Christians, we see, do nothing but persecute, though the Gospel forbids them to do it. They would make fine work in the Indies, and in China, if ever the secular power there should favour them; assure yourself they would apply the maxims of Mr Jurieu. They have already done it in some places. Read what follows, and you will find, that arguments not being sufficient to convert the Infidels, the viceroy of Goa was desired to assist the Gospel, by decress of confiscation, &c. “ It being necessary,” says a priest writing from thence, “ that, besides the authority of the church, the power of the great should concur in producing this plentiful fruit, our Lord God has in many things made use of the viceroy as his instrument. Therefore where the Brachmans found they wanted arguments, they thought it sufficient for their defence any how to escape the nets, professing to live after the manner of their ancestors. But when, through their innate obstinacy of mind, they would neither acknowledge themselves vanquished, nor submit to arguments however strong; the viceroy, to cut the matter short, published a law that those Brachmans, with their whole families, who should refuse to turn Christians within forty days after the publication of the decree, should forfeit their goods and estates, and

go into banishment, and threatening the disobedient with being sent to the gallies.” The barbarities which the Spaniards exercised in America were also horrible.

The toleration given to it by the Mahometan princes proves that they have always had more humanity for other religions than the Christians, and I have added, that the different communions in the Greek church, which have preserved themselves under their empire, would have soon been extirpated, if they had lived under Christian kings, who had not been of the same belief A father of the Oratory, who is of the same opinion, thus observes, “ It will therefore be also concluded from the same evidence, how necessary the imperial laws were for the preservation of the church, since Egypt and the neighbouring provinces have been so. over-run and subjugated by the Eutychians, that they have never since been well reconciled or reunited to the Catholic church. Thomassin,Of the Unity of the Church, tom. i, part ii, chap. ix, page 374. ⁸² If the emperors had not supported the faith against the Eutychians, the whole world would have been overrun by them. They spread themselves very much over the provinces of Africa and Æthiopia, and the countries most remote, from the west to the east, for no other reason but because the emperors of Constantinople were no longer masters of them, or had never been so. I might say the same thing of the Nestorians: as soon as they had been fulminated by the first council of Ephesus, the emperor Theodosius the younger made very nearly the same edicts against them; they were exiled with Nestorius into frightful solitudes; yet they multiplied prodigiously towards the east and the north, the emperors not being able to pursue them beyond the limits of their empire. The Saracens or Mahometans a little after over-ran Africa and all Asia, seizing upon I know not how many provinces of

the Roman empire; and, through the favour of the Mahommetan princes, all these heretics gave an incredible extent to their sects. God preserved the Catholic faith only in the Roman empire; which was owing merely to the care and edicts of the Christian and Catholic emperors. Without this assistance from heaven, the Eutychians, Nestorians, and Arians, not to mention so many more ancient sects, would doubtless have established themselves in the greatest part of the provinces of the Roman empire, as they did in those which were out of its jurisdiction; and the followers of all the new sects, which have sprung up only within these hundred years, would not have been able to find a church, which they might first be born in, and afterwards separate from. They must have come into the world among the Arians, Nestorians, or Eutychians, and would have been infected with the same errors from their birth. They would have taken the word for a mere creature, with the Arians; Jesus Christ for a mere man, with the Nestorians; and for them as well as for the Eutychians, Jesus Christ would be God, but he would not be truly man. Why therefore do they quarrel with the Christian emperors, or kings, and their severe laws for the ancient religion, since it is by their assistance only that the divine providence has delivered them from all these errors? They ought rather to give thanks to him who has not permitted that they should be so far separated from us, as the ancient deserters of the Catholic church are, who departed from it above a thousand years ago, and are not yet altogether returned from their errors. We must not omit mentioning the cause of the long delay of the eastern sects from returning to the Catholic church. It is as we have already said, their dispersion into provinces and kingdoms, which now no longer belong to the Christian empire, but to Arabian princes, to the kings of Persia, the Moguls and the Tartars. The Catholic bishops whether Greeks or Syrians, but chiefly the missionaries from the holy see, have all along made some converts and some progresses among them; but all these efforts not having been supported, by the power and favour of temporal princes, they could never obtain either much extent or duration.

When I said the Mahometans have been less rigorous to the Christians than these to the heretics, I was supported by the testimony of a minister. Jurieu. ⁸³ I now build upon that of a priest; and by this means my opinion will appear the more reasonable, since it is confirmed by the testimonies of two witnesses of so opposite a character. These two evidences agree in another thing, which is a little scandalous; for they both confess, that if the Christian princes had not employed the rigour of the laws against the enemies of the orthodox faith, false religions would have over-run the whole world. By this rule, when our Saviour promised he would maintain his church against the gates of hell, he only promised that he would raise up princes who should subdue the enemies of the truth, by depriving them of their estates, thrusting them into prisons, banishing them, sending them to the gallies, hanging them, &c. There is no doctrine, how absurd soever, but by these means might brave all the infernal powers that would oppose it. This brings into my mind what has been said of Mahomet the impostor: it is reported, that when he was upon his death-bed, he left his disciples a prediction, which savours not. at all of a false prophet, “ My religion shall last as long as your victories.”

I cannot part with Thomassin before I ask him upon what grounds he goes, when he says the Euty-chian heresy would have overrun all the world, had not the emperors supported the faith. What had this heresy so charming? Did it favour the passions of

the heart? Did it enervate the morality of the gospel? Not at all: it was not upon the doctrine of morality that this heretic combated the orthodox: he contended with them about a mystery which reason cannot well comprehend; but he explained it after a manner less to be comprehended than the orthodox, and manifestly absurd. Perhaps it would be no mistake to say, that the Eutychian heresies found so many followers, only because the proceedings of councils shocked an infinite number of persons, and gave a very disadvantageous prepossession against the orthodox party. We may pass the like judgment on the sect of Nestorius. A vast number of people embraced it from the abhorrence they had of the injustice which they believed was done Nestorius, by sacrificing him to the credit of St Cyril. They could not persuade themselves that a cause, which triumphed by such irregular ways, and through so unjust a partiality of the emperor, could have any right on its side. We should see more clearly into this affair, if we had the relations of the Nestorians, and those of the other sects; but we scarce know any thing of those matters otherwise than from the report of a victorious party, and yet we know enough to judge, that the imperial power has always had an undue share in the decision.—Arts,Mahomet and Nestorius.

CHAOS.

We find no where a more just epitome of the doctrines of the ancients, concerning Chaos, and of the manner in which the universe was formed out of it, than in the exordium to the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Nothing can be clearer and more intelligible than that noble description, if we confine ourselves to the poet’s phrases; but if we examine his doctrines we shall find them more incoherent and contradictory than the Chaos which he describes. I shall enquire whether the ideas of the ancients, who spoke of the Chaos.

were just, and whether they could properly say that this state of confusion had terminated. I will make it appear, that the combat of the elements ceased not at the time of the production of the world, and in particular that the human race is to he excepted from the general pacification, since it has ever been subject to confusion and contradictions the most horrible.

To proceed methodically, I must in the first place supply the poet’s description of Chaos.

“ Ante mare et terras, et quod tegit omnia cælum,
Unus erat toto nature vultus in orbe,
Quem dixêre Chaos; rudis indigestaque moles:
Nec quicquam, nisi pondus iners, congestaque eôdem
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. N
ullus adhuc mundo præbebat lumina Titan,
Nec nova crescendo reparabat cornua Phoebe,
Nec circumfuso pendebat in aëre tellus,
Ponderibus librata suis: nec brachia longo
Margine terrarum porrexerat Amphitrite.
Quâque erat et tellus, il lie et pontus, et aër.
Sic erat instabilis tellus, inabilis unda,
Lucis egens aër: nulli sua forma manebat.
Obstabatque aliis aliud: quia corpore in uno
Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis,
Mollia cum duris, sine pondéré habentia pondus.” Lib. i. ver. 5. ⁸⁴

“ Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heaven’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass;
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky;
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas around the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water’s dark abyss unnavigable,

No certain form on any was impress'd;
All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fix’d;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mix’d.”
Dryden.

You see, that by the Chaos they understood a mass of matter without form, in which the seeds of all particular bodies were jumbled together in the greatest confusion. The air, the water, and the earth, were every where confounded; the whole was at war; each part opposed each part; the cold and the heat, moisture and dryness, levity and gravity struggled one with another, in one and the same body all over the vast extent of matter. Now let us see how Ovid supposes that this state of confusion was disentangled.

“Hanc Deus, et melior litem natura diremit.
Nam cœlo terras, et terris abscidit undas,
Et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aëre cœlum.
Quæ postquam evolvit, cæcoque exemit acervo,
Dissociata locis concordi pace ligavit. Ignea convex vis et sine pondere cœli
Emicuit, summâque locum sibi legit in arce,
Proximus est aër illi levitate, locoque. Densior his tellus, elementaque grandia traxit,
Et pressa est gravitate sui. Circumfluus humor,
Ultima possedit, solidumque coërcuit orbem.
Sic ubi dispositam, quisquis fuit ills Deorum;
Congeriem secuit, sectamque in membra redegit:
Principio terram. lb. ver. 21. ⁸⁵

“ But God, or nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end;
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv’n,
And grosser air sunk from ætherial heav's.
Thus dissembroil’d, they take their proper place;
The next of kin contiguously embrace;
Aud foes are sunder'd, by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took it’s dwelling in the vaulted sky:

Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.
Earth sinks beneath, and draws a numerous throng
Of pond’rous, thick, unweildy seeds along.
About her coasts, unruly waters roar;
And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round, &c.”
Dryden.

You see he says this war of the confused and intangled elements, was determined by the authority of a God who parted them, and assigned to each their proper place; ranking fire in the uppermost region, the earth in the lowermost, the air immediately below the fire, and the water immediately below the air; and then forming a bond of friendship and concord between the four elements thus settled in separate stations. By consequence the analysis of our poet’s discourse may be reduced to these six propositions.

I. Before there was a heaven, an earth, and a sea, nature was one homogeneous whole.

II. This whole was only a lumpish mass, in which the principles of things were heaped up together in confusion and without symmetry, and after a discordant manner.

III. Heat struggled with cold in the same body; moisture and dryness had the same quarrel, and levity and gravity had no less.

IV. God put an end to this war by parting the combatants.

V. He assigned them distinct habitations, according to the gravity and levity peculiar to them.

VI. He formed a strict alliance between them.

I shall give a general view of the faults to be met . with in this doctrine of Ovid. I do not know

whether it was ever criticized upon, or whether the commentators have ever examined this part of the metamorphosis philosophically; but methinks they might easily have perceived,

In the 1 st place, that the first proposition is little consistent with the second; for if the parts of a whole are composed of contrary seeds or principles, that whole cannot pass for homogeneous.

In the 2d place, that the second proposition does not agree with the third; for we cannot call that whole a mere heavy mass, in which there is as much levity as gravity.

In the 3d place, that this heavy mass cannot be looked upon as inactive,pondus iners, since contrary principles are blended in it without symmetry; whence it follows, that their actual struggle must terminate in the victory of one or the other.

In the 4th place, that the first three propositions being once true, the fourth and fifth are superfluous; for the elementary qualities are a principle of sufficient force to disentangle the chaos without the intervention of another cause, and to place the parts at a greater or lesser distance from the centre, proportionably to their gravity or levity.

In the 5th place, that the fourth proposition is false upon another account; for, since the production of the heavens, of air, water, and earth, the struggle of cold and heat, moisture and dryness, gravity and levity, is as great in the same body as ever it could be before.

In the 5th place, that for the reason last mentioned, the sixth proposition is false.

Whence it is manifest, that the description of the Chaos, and of it’s extrication, is composed of propositions more opposite to one another, than the elements were opposite to one another during the Chaos.

It is needless to enlarge upon each of these false

doctrines of Ovid; but there are some of them which require a pretty long illustration.

I say then, that nothing can be more absurd than to suppose a Chaos, which has been homogeneous during all eternity, notwithstanding it had the elementary qualities, both those called alteratrices, which are heat, cold, moisture, and drought; and those called motrices, which are levity and gravity; the former causing motion upwards, and the other downwards. A mass of this nature cannot be homogeneous, but must necessarily contain all sorts of heterogeneity. Heat and cold, moisture and drought cannot be together, but that their action and re-action must temper them and convert them into other qualities which make the form cf mixed bodies: and forasmuch as this temperament may arise, according to the innumerable diversities of combinations, the chaos must have contained an incredible number of species of compounds. The only way to conceive an homogeneous chaos, would be to say, that thealteratrices qualities of the elements would modify themselves to the same degree in all themolecules, or small particles of matter, insomuch that there would be all over precisely the same luke-warmness, the same softness, the same smell, the same taste, &c. But this would be pulling down with one hand what is built up with the other; would be, by acontradicto in terminis, calling a chaos the most regular work, the most marvellous in it’s symmetry, and the most admirably well proportioned, that can be conceived. I own, that a diversified work suits better with the fancy and relish of mankind, than what is uniform; but at the same time our ideas teach us, that the harmony of contrary qualities preserved uniformly all over the universe, would be a perfection as wonderful as the unequal partition that succeeded to the chaos. What knowledge, what power, would not that uniform harmony, spread all over nature,

require? To put into every mixed body the same quantity of each of the four ingredients, would not suffice; some would require more, some less, according as the force of some is greater or lesser for acting than for resisting; for it is well known, that the philosophers distribute action and re-action to the elementary qualities in a different degree. Upon the whole, every thing considered, it would be found that the cause which metamorphosed the chaos, would have taken it not out of a state of war and confusion, as is here supposed, but out of a state of regularity which was the most accomplished thing in the world, and by which, by reducing the contrary forces to anæquilibrium, kept them in a repose equivalent to peace. It is manifest therefore, if the poets would save the homogeneity of the chaos, they must strike out all they have added concerning that fantastical confusion of contrary seeds, and that indigested mixture, and perpetual war of jarring principles.

But to wave this contradiction, we shall find matter enough to attack them in other points, and shall next encounter them on that of eternity. Nothing can be more absurd than to admit the mixture of the insensible parts of the four elements for an infinite time; for since you suppose in those parts the activity of heat, the action and re-action of the four first qualities, and besides that, the motion of the particles of earth and water towards the centre, and the motion of those of fire and air towards the circumference, you, at the same time, establish a principle, which will necessarily separate those four species of bodies, one from another, which will require for this purpose no more than a certain limited time. Do but reflect a little upon what is called the phial of the four elements. In that phial we put up little metallic particles, and then three liquors much lighter one than another. Shake all these together, and you

will discern none of the four ingredients, the parts of each being blended one with the other; but then let the phial stand still, and you will find each of them resume their proper stations. All the metallic particles will meet at the bottom, those of the lightest liquor in the uppermost station; those of the liquor which is heavier than the last, and lighter than the first, will post themselves in the third; those of the liquor which is heavier than the two last, but lighter than the metallic particles, in the second: and thus you recover the distinct situations which had been confounded by shaking the glass. In making this experiment, you do not need much patience; a short space of time will serve for recovering the representation of the situation which nature has given to the four elements in the world. Now, comparing the universe to this phial, we may conclude, that if the earth, reduced to powder, had been mixed with the matter of the stars, with that of the air, and of water, so that the very insensible parts of each of those elements had been blended together, all of them would presently have strove to be disentangled, and at the end of a certain prefixed time, the parts of the earth would have formed a mass, those of fire another, and so on in proportion to the gravity and levity of each species of bodies.

We may yet make use of another comparison, and suppose the chaos like new wine fermenting. This is a state of confusion: the spirituous and terrestrial particles are jumbled together, insomuch that neither sight nor taste can distinguish what is properly wine, and what is tartar or lees. This confusion excites a furious struggle between these different parts of matter. The shock is so violent, that sometimes the vessel is not able to stand it; but in two or three days, more or less, this intestine war ceases. The gross parts disengage themselves, and sink by virtue of their gravity. The more subtile parts get

likewise loose, and evaporate by their levities; and thus the wine comes to it’s natural state. This is the very thing which would have happened to the poetical chaos. The contrariety of the principles confusedly jumbled together, would have produced a violent fermentation, which, however, at the end of a certain space of time would have caused the precipitation of the terrestrial bodies, and the exaltation of the spirituous part; and in a word, the proper arrangement of each body according to its gravity and levity. So that there is nothing more inconsistent with reason and experience than to admit a chaos of eternal duration, though it had comprehended all the force which has appeared in nature since the formation of the world. It ought to be well observed, that, what we call the general laws of nature, the laws of motion, the mechanical principles, is the very same thing with what Ovid and the Peripatetics call heat, cold, moisture, drought, gravity, and levity. They pretended that all the force, and all the activity of nature, all the principles of the generation and alteration of bodies, were comprehended in the sphere of these six qualities. Since, therefore, they admitted them in the chaos, they necessarily acknowledged in it all the same virtue which produces in the world generation and corruption, winds, rains, &c.

Hence arises another objection of almost as much weight as the preceding ones. Ovid, and those whose opinions he has paraphrased, had recourse, without any necessity, to the ministry of God for disentangling the chaos; for they acknowledged, that it included all the internal force, which was capable of separating the parts, and of allotting each element its proper situation; what occasion therefore had they, after this, for calling in an external cause? Was not this imitating the bad poets, who in their dramatical pieces introduced a god upon the stage, to remove a very inconsiderable perplexity? To reason right upon the

production of the world, we ought to consider God as the author of matter, and as the first and sole principle of motion. If we cannot raise our thoughts to the idea of a creation, properly so called, we shall never get clear of all the difficulties that surround that subject; and to which soever side we turn, we must affirm things to which our reason cannot reconcile itself. If matter be self-existent, we cannot well conceive, that God either could, or should give it motion; it would be independent of any other thing, as to the reality of its existence; why, therefore, should it not have the power to exist always in the same place with respect to each of its parts? Why should it be constrained to change its situation at the pleasure of another substance? Add to this, that if matter had been moved by an external principle, it would be a sign that its necessary and independent existence are separate and distinct from motion; the result of which is, that its natural state is that of rest, and consequently God could not move it without disordering the nature of things, there being nothing more suitable to order than to follow the eternal and necessary institution of nature. Of this I speak more at large in other places. But of all the errors which are consequent from that of rejecting the creation, there is none, in my opinion, so small, as the supposing, that if God is not the cause of the existence of matter, he is at least the first mover of bodies, and in that quality the author of elementary properties, the author of the order and form we see in nature. The supposition of his being the first mover of matter, is a principle whence this consequence naturally flows, that he formed the heavens and the earth, the air and the sea. and is the architect of this great and marvellous edifice which we call the world. But if you strip him of that quality of first mover; if you affirm that matter moved itself independently of him, and had the diversity of forms of itself; that, with respect to some of its parts, its motion tended to the centre, and with respect to others, towards the circumference; that it contained particles of fire, particles of water, particles of air, and particles of earth:—if, with Ovid, I say, you affirm all these things, you employ God needlessly and to no purpose in the construction of the world. Nature might have done very well without the assistance of God; it had sufficient power to separate the particles of the elements, and to assemble those of the same class. Aristotle apprehended this truth very well, and had a much juster notion of it than Plato, who admitted a disorderly motion in the elementary matter, before the production of the world. Aristotle makes it appear that this supposition destroyed itself, since, unless we have recourse to a progress in infinitum, motion in the elements must have been natural. If it was natural, some tended to the centre, and others to the circumference; and consequently ranged themselves in such a manner as was necessary for forming the world such as it now appears: so that, during the time of that disorderly motion, there was a world antecedent to the world, which is a contradiction. He observes in consequence of this, and with a great deal of reason, that Anaxagoras, who admitted no motion antecedent to the first formation of the world, had a clearer idea of this matter than the rest.

The modern Peripatetics, the most zealous for evangelical orthodoxy, could find no fault in this discourse of Aristotle: for they own, that the alterative and motive qualities of the four elements are sufficient for the production of all the effects of nature. They only introduce God as the preserver of these elementary qualities, of which he is the first cause, or else make him only interpose his general concurrence; and they agree that, excepting this, they perform the whole, and, in the quality of a second cause, are the complete principle of all

generation. So that a scholastic divine would readily own, that if the four elements had existed independently of God, with all the faculties which they now enjoy, they would have formed of themselves this machine of the world, and kept it up in the state wherein it now appears. He must therefore acknowledge two great faults in the doctrine of the chaos. One, and indeed the principal, is, that it takes from God the creation of matter, and the production of the qualities peculiar to the fire, to the air, to the earth, and to the sea. The other, after taking this away from him, introduces him without necessity upon the stage of the world to adjust the places of the four elements. Our new philosophers, who have rejected the qualities and faculties of the Peripatetic Philosophy, would find the same faults in Ovid’s description of the chaos; for what they call general laws of motion, principles of mechanism, modifications of the matter, figure, situation and order of the particles, import nothing else but that active and passive virtue of nature, which the Peripatetics understand, under the terms of alterative and motive qualities of the four elements. Since, therefore, according to the doctrines of the Peripatetics, those four bodies, placed according to their natural levity and gravity, are a principle sufficient for all generations; the Cartesians, the Gassendists, and other modern philosophers, must maintain, that the motion, situation, and figure, of the parts of matter, are sufficient for the production of all natural effects, without excepting even the general disposition which has placed the earth, the air, water, and stars, where we now see them. Thus, the true cause of the world, and of the effects produced in it, is not different from the cause which gave motion to the parts of matter, whether it assigned at the same time to each atom a determinate figure, as the Gassendists will have it, or that it only gave those parts, being all cubical, an impulse, which, by the duration of motion, reduced to certain laws, would afterwards make them assume all sorts of figures, pursuant to the hypothesis of the Cartesians, Both the one and the other must consequently agree, that if matter had been such before the generation of the world, as Ovid pretends, it would have been capable of disengaging itself from the chaos by its own proper power, and to assume the form of the world, without the assistance of God. They must, therefore, charge Ovid with having committed two blunders; one, in supposing that matter, without the assistance of the Deity, contained the seeds of all the mixed bodies, heat, motion, &c., and the other, in saying that, without the divine interposition, it could not have brought itself out of its state of confusion. This is giving too much, and too little, on these two respective occasions: it is neglecting help when it is most wanted, and seeking it when it is not necessary.

I know some do not approve of Des Cartes’ fiction concerning the manner how the world might have been formed. Some ridicule it, and think it injurious to God; others charge it either with falsities or with impossibilities. To the former it may be answered, that they do not understand the subject, and that if they did, they would own, that nothing is more proper to give a lofty idea of the infinite wisdom of God, than to affirm that, out of a matter that had no manner of form, he could make this world in a certain time, by the bare preservation of the motion once given, and reduced to a few simple and general laws. As to what concerns those who reject the particulars of Des Cartes’ system, as containing some things contrary to the laws of mechanics, and the real state of the celestial vortices as they have been discovered by astronomers, I shall only reply to them, that this does not hinder the main of his hypothesis from being just and

reasonable; and I am fully persuaded, that Mr Newton, Sir Isaac Newton. ⁸⁶ the most formidable of all the animadverters, does not doubt but that the actual system of the world might be the production of a few mechanical laws, established by the Author of all things; for if you suppose bodies determined to move in straight lines, and to tend either towards the centre, or towards the circumference, as often as the resistance of other bodies obliges them to a circular motion, you establish a principle which will necessarily produce great varieties in matter; and if it do not form this system, it will form another.

The very Epicurean hypothesis, though so foolish and extravagant, affords wherewith to form a certain world. Do but once allow them the different figures of atoms, with the inalienable power of moving themselves according to the laws of gravity, and mutually repelling one another, and reflecting in such or such a manner, according as they strike one another in a perpendicular or oblique direction—grant them but this, and you cannot deny that the fortuitous concourse of these corpuscles may form masses, containing hard and fluid bodies, cold and heat, opacity and transparency, vortices, &c.; all that can be denied them is, the possibility of chances producing such a system of bodies as our world; in which there are so many things which persevere so long in their regularity, so many animal machines a thousand times more ingenious than those of human art, which necessarily require an intelligent direction.

The last observation which remains to be illustrated, relates to what Ovid says, that the war of the four elements having been continual in the chaos, was terminated by the authority of God who formed the world. Does not this imply that, ever since that time, the elements have been at peace with one another? And is not this a pretension very ill founded and

contradicted by experience? Has war ever ceased between heat and cold, moisture and dryness, levity and gravity, fire and water, &c.? Since Ovid complied with the hypothesis of the four elements, he ought to have known that the antipathy of their qualities never dies, and that they never agree either by peace or truce, not even when they compose a temperament of mixed bodies. They never enter into such compositions but after a struggle, where they have reciprocally disabled one another; and, if their quarrel happen to be interrupted for some moments, it is because the resistance of the one is precisely equal to the activity of the others. When they can do no more, they take breath again; but are always ready to harrass and destroy one another as soon as their strength permits. The equilibrium cannot last long; for every minute there comes some assistance to the one or to the other; and, of necessity, the one must lose what the other gains. So that Ovid must have seen that, still, as well as at the time of the chaos, their war extended throughout, and in the smallest recesses of the same mixed bodies:

- - - - Corpore in uno
Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis,
Mollia cum duris, sine pondéré habentia pondus.
Ovid. Metam. lib. 1, ver. 18.

Internal war through every mass exists.
The cold and hot, the dry and humid fight,
The soft and hard, the heavy and the light.
Sewell

The laws of this engagement are, that the weakest may be entirely ruined, according to the full extent cf the power of the strongest. Neither clemency nor pity have there any place; there is no hearkening to any proposals of accommodation. This intestine w ar makes way for the dissolution of the compound, and sooner or later compasses that end. Living bodies

are more exposed to it than others, and would quickly sink under it, if nature did not furnish them with recruits; but at last the conflict of natural heat and radical moisture proves mortal to them. The power of time, which consumes every thing, and which Ovid describes so well in the fifteenth book of his Metamorphosis, has no other foundation, than the conflict of bodies

Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vetustas,
Omnia destruitis, vitiataque dentibus ævi
Paulatim lenta consumitis omnia morte.
Ovid. Metam. lib. xv. ver. 234.

All things at last shall sink beneath the rage,
Of slow devouring time, and envious age.

Our poet in making this description, had forgotten what he had advanced in the chapter of the chaos. We need only compare the beginning of his work with the end of it, to prove him guilty of contradiction. In the first book he affirms, that a stop was put to the discord of the elements; and in the fifteenth he tells us they destroy one another by turns, and that Nothing perseveres in the same state.

Nay, though he had not contradicted himself, we might censure him with a great deal of reason; for the world being a stage of vicissitudes, nothing could be more improper than to give peace to the four elements; and the cessation of the chaos should be so far from putting an end to their quarrels, that, on the contrary, it should have set them one against another, if they had been in mutual peace during the chaos. It is by their conflict that nature becomes fruitful; their concord would keep her barren, and without the implacable war which they make against one another wherever they meet, we should have no generations. The production of one thing is always the destruction of another.

Nam quodcunque suis mutatum finibus exit,
Continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante. Lucret. 1. 1. v. 671.

For when things change, and keep their form no more,
This is the death of what they were before.

“Generatio unius est corruptio alterius.” This is a philosophical axiom. So that Ovid should have presupposed that the god who allotted distinct stations to the four elements, enjoined them to fight without quarter, and to act the part of ambitious conquerors, who leave no stone unturned to invade the possessions of their neighbours. The orders given them should have been like Dido’s wish.

Nunc, olim, quocunque dabunt se tempore vires,
Littora littoribus contraria, fluctibus undas
Imprecor, arma armis, pugnent ipsique nepotes.
Virgil. Æneid. lib iv. ver. 627.

Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos’d to theirs,
And the same hate descend on all our heirs.
Dryden.

And in effect, they act just as if they had received such orders; as if they were inspired with the warmest passion to put them in full execution. Cold enlarges its sphere as much as ever it can, and there destroys its enemy. Heat does the like; and these two qualities are by turns master of the field, the one in winter and the other in summer. They imitate those victorious armies, which after gaining a decisive battle, constrain their enemy to fly to his citadels, and pursuing him thither, lay siege to him, and reduce him to extremity. In the summer, cold flies to caverns and subterraneous cavities; and to prevent being entirely destroyed, redoubles the efforts of its resistance, and fortifies itself in the best manner it can, by the virtue called antiperistasis: and in winter heat takes the same course. The elementary philosophers, who thus

explain the effects of nature, tell us, that each quality strives in such a manner to vanquish the subjects it attacks, that, not satisfied with making them its vassals, and ordering them to wear its livery, it endeavours to transmute them into its own state; “ omne agens,” say they, “ intendit sibi assimilare passum - - -every agent endeavours to assimilate to itself that which it works upon.” Can one meet with a more hostile, and more ambitious animosity than this? Empedocles was mistaken in annexing to the four elements amity and enmity, the one for union, and the other for disunion. We agree with him, that the union and disunion of parts are highly necessary for the productions of nature; but it is certain, that amity has no hand in them; the sole discord, the sole antipathy of the elements assembles bodies in one place, and disperses them in another. These two qualities of Empedocles can be attributed at most but to living bodies; but air and fire, water and earth, have no other attendant, except enmity.

Living bodies act very conformably to the order which Ovid should have supposed to be given, by the author of the disentangling of the chaos,viz. that of mutual destruction; for it is literally true, that they subsist only by destruction; every thing which serves for the support of their life, loses its form, and changes its state and species. Vegetables destroy the constitution and qualities of all the juices they can attract: and animals commit the same ravage upon every thing which serves them for food. They eat up one another, and there are several kinds of beasts which make war upon one another, for no other end but to devour such of their enemies as they shall happen to kill. In some countries men follow the same course, and every where they are great destroyers. I take no notice here of the slaughter arising from ambition, avarice, or cruelty, or from such other passions as are the causes of war; I speak only

of the effects of the care taken to feed the body. In this regard, man is such a ruining, destroying, principle, that in case all other animals destroyed as much in proportion, the earth would not be able to furnish them with provisions. When we see in the streets and markets of great cities, such a prodigious multitude of herbs and fruits, and of an infinite number of other things allotted for the food of the inhabitants, would not one be ready to say, here is provision for a week? would one imagine, that this shew is to be renewed every day? Would one believe, that so small an opening as the human mouth, were a gulf, an abyss, large enough to swallow up all that in a little time? Nothing but experience could make us believe it. In the Saint-Evremoniana, I met with these words: “ it is said, that at Paris there are four thousand people who sell oysters, and that fifteen hundred large oxen, and above sixteen thousand sheep, calves, or hogs, besides a prodigious quantity of poultry, and wild fowls, are consumed every day.” Judge what may be the case in those countries, where they feed more upon flesh, and are greater eaters.

Such being therefore the condition of nature, that beings are produced and preserved by the destruction of one another, our poet should not have affirmed, that the war of the elements was pacified when the world began, and the Chaos ended. It was enough to have said, that the situation and power of the combatants were regulated and balanced in such a manner, that their continual hostilities should not produce the destruction of the work: but only the vicissitudes that are its ornaments; per questo variar natura è bella, - - - - - - nature is beautiful by this variety, as the Italians say. Some perhaps will imagine, that the war, not ceasing upon the regulation of these principles, it was not so much a cessation of the Chaos, as a rough draught of the disentanglement; and that after this rough draught, that

is, the world we live in, shall have continued a certain number of ages, it will be succeeded by a much finer world; from which discord will be banished. And they will pretend, perhaps, that St Paul confirms this opinion, in saying, that all creatures groan for their deliverance from the state of vanity and corruption in which they find themselves. But let them say what they please, I shall not amuse myself with the examination of their notions.

It is to be observed, that from the mechanical principles, by which the new philosophers explain the effects of nature, it is easier to comprehend the perpetual war of bodies, than from the philosophy of the four elements. For all the action of the six elementary qualities, being nothing else, according to the new philosophy, but local motion, it is manifest that each body attacks every thing it meets, and that the parts of matter tend only to shock, break, and compress one another, according to all the rigour of the laws of superior powers.

But if we set aside the arguments produced in the foregoing remark, and grant that Ovid might affirm, generally speaking, that the creatures were released from the Chaos, yet we might still be allowed to say, that he could not in particular include man within that favour? I here only consider the views we may have when destitute of the light of revelation. In this state, who can forbear thinking that the horrors of the Chaos still subsist with regard to man? For, not to mention the perpetual conflict of the elementary qualities, which reigns something more in his machine than in most other material beings, what war is there not between his soul and his body, between his reason and his senses, between his sensitive and his reasonable souli reason ought to calm this disorder, and pacify these intestine jars; but it is both judge and party, and its decrees are not executed; but only increase the mischief.

Note, too, that I have considered the Chaos in man, only with respect to the intestine war which every one feels within himself. If I had taken into consideration the differences between nations and nations, and even between neighbour and neighbour, with all the hypocrisies, frauds, and violences, &c. that attend them, I should have found a much larger and more fertile field, in confirmation of what I proposed to prove. Voltaire in the article Ovid in his Philosophical Dictionary, makes the poet thus reply:—“ You are wrong in supposing that my elements originally possessed all the qualities which they do at present. They had no qualities; matter existed naked, unformed and powerless, and when I say that in my Chaos, heat was mingled with cold, and dryness with humidity, I only employ these expressions to signify that there was neither cold nor heat, nor wet nor dry, which are qualities that God has placed in our sensations, and not in matter. I have not made that mistake of which you accuse me. Your Cartesians and your Gassendists commit oversights, with their atoms and their cubic particles, and their imaginations deal as little in truth as my metamorphoses. I prefer Daphne changed into a laurel, and Narcissus into a flower, to subtle matter changed into suns, and dense matter transformed into earth and water. I have given you fables for fables, and your philosophers have given you fables for truth.” ⁸⁷

CHARRON.

The candour with which this learned man represented the objections of libertines to Christianity, contributed greatly to make people doubt the tendency of his own opinions. He certainly never weakened the difficulties they proposed, by misstatement; of which truth, the following passage on the divisions of Christianity is an instance:

“ In truth it is a strange thing, that the Christian religion, which, being the only true one, as coming from God, ought to be indivisible, since there is but one God, and one Truth, should nevertheless be torn

into so many parts, and divided into so many contrary opinions and sects; insomuch that there is not any one article of faith, or point of doctrine, but what has been differently debated and contradicted by sects and heresies. And that, which makes it to appear more strange, is, that such divisions or partialities are not to be found in the false religions of the Heathens, Jews, and Mahometans. Their divisions are either few and inconsiderable, as in the Jewish and Mahometan religions; or, if they have been many, as in the Pagan religion, and among the philosophers, they have not produced very great disturbances in the world; whereas there have been great and pernicious divisions from the beginning of Christianity; and they have continued ever since. It is a terrible thing to consider the effects which the divisions of Christians have produced. In the first place, as to the political state of the world, many alterations and subversions of republics, kingdoms, and kingly races, and divisions of empires, have happened, so far as to disturb the whole world with cruel, furious, and more than bloody exploits, to the great scandal, shame, and reproach of Christendom; in which, under the name of zeal and affection to religion, each party hates the other mortally, and thinks it lawful to commit all manner of hostilities,— a thing, which is not to be seen in other religions. The Christians alone are permitted to be murderers, perfidious, and traitors, and to exercise all sorts of cruelties against one another, against the living, and the dead, against the honour, life, memory, and minds, graves, and ashes of men, with fire and sword, with sharp libels, cursings, banishments, both from heaven and earth, taking dead bodies out of their graves, burning of bones, and removing of altars, without any composition, with such a rage, that all consideration of kindred, friendship, merit, and obligation, is thrown off. He that was yesterday extolled to the skies, and called a great, learned,virtuous and wise man, if he happens to change sides this day, is preached and written against, and proclaimed an ignorant and a wretched man. In this they show their zeal for religion; but, in all other things relating to the practice of religious duties, they appear very indifferent. Moderate and discreet men are noted and suspected as being lukewarm, and wanting zeal. It is an abominable fault, to be kind and civil to those of the contrary party. Some are scandalized at these things, as if the Christian religion taught men to hate and persecute others, and was designed to indulge our passions of ambition, avarice, revenge, hatred, spite, cruelty, rebellion, and sedition, which are elsewhere more quiet, and less violent when they are not set on by religion.”

This great scandal might at this day be represented in more elegant terms; but I defy our best writers to express it with greater force, and to paint the shamefulness of it in more lively colours. Charron employs all his skill to remove this scandal; and whoever should call him a prevaricator in this respect, would be as unjust as Garasse was, who called him so upon another account. Let us set down the words of this Jesuit; they are most unjust. “ He (Charron) openly declares, though, according to his usual way, with a treacherous and smooth train of words,— that religion is a wise invention of men, to keep people to their duty: and, although he seems to expose this as an atheistical tenet, yet, like Lucilio Vanini, he betrays his cause; for he mentions their arguments, explains and comments upon them, and then leaves them unanswered: a prevarication common to these two writers.” It is false that Charron does this: for, after having faithfully proposed the objections of the Atheists, he refutes them with great application and solidity; but this displeases vulgar authors, and even great authors, who have more wit and learning than

sincerity. They would always have the enemies of the good cause represented in a languishing and ridiculous equipage, or at least their strong objections confuted by stronger answers. Sincerity does not allow of the first, and sometimes the nature of the subject makes the other impossible. I have been a long time surprised to see that those are looked upon as prevaricators, who propose great difficulties to themselves, and refute them weakly. What! would you have the answers of a divine about mysteries, which are above reason, to be as clear as the objections of a philosopher? When a doctrine is mysterious and incomprehensible to the weakness of human mind, it results necessarily that our reason will oppose it with very strong arguments, and that it can find no other good solution than God’s authority. However it be, Charron did not Hatter his party. He had a penetrating wit; he discovered at a great distance all that could be said by two disputants. He took his measures accordingly, explained himself ingenuously, and made use of no cunning to obtain the victory. But he found himself the worse for it; for the world dislikes so much candour.—Art.Charron.

CHASTEL.

John Chastel, son of a woollen draper, in Paris, made a wicked attempt at the life of Henry IV. on the 27th December, 1594. That prince having taken a journey towards the frontiers of Artois, and being in the apartment of his mistress, at the Hotel de Boucage, as he was coming forward to embrace Montigny, he received a blow with a knife in his under lip, which broke one of his teeth. John Chastel, who gave the blow, and who aimed at the king’s throat, was but eighteen or nineteen years of age. Having missed his aim, he let fall his knife and retired amidst the crowd, and in the astonishment he had nearly escaped, until his wild looks betrayed him to some of

the company, who seized him at a venture. The king commanded the captain of the guards, who had secured him, to let him go, and afterwards, understanding that he was a disciple of the Jesuits, exclaimed, “ Must then the Jesuits be convicted by my mouth?” This parricide, being carried to the prison of Fort l’Evêque, confessed there that he had a long time determined on this blow, and although he here failed in the attempt, he would repeat it if within his power, as he deemed it to be for the service of religion. Being examined as to his quality, and where he had studied, he said that it was principally among the Jesuits, with whom he had been three years, and the last time under father John Gueret, the Jesuit, whom he had seen the Friday or Saturday before, having been carried to him by his father, Peter Chastel on a case of conscience; that the case in question originated in his despair of the mercy of God, on account of the great sins he had committed; that he had been inclined to commit many enormous sins against nature, of which he had several times made confession; that, to expiate these sins, he was persuaded that he ought to perform some signal action; that he had often had an inclination to kill the king, and had discovered his disposition to his father; on which his said father had declared, that it would be a wrong action.

Such was his answer, when he was examined before the prevost de l'hostel: what he replied the next day to the officers of parliament is as follows. Being asked what the signal action was, which he said he had thought himself obliged to perform, to expiate the great crimes with which he felt his conscience burthened, he said,— that, believing himself forgotten of God, and being convinced he should be damned as much as Antichrist, he was willing of two evils to avoid the worst, and, being damned, he had rather it should be “ut quatuor,” than “ut octo.” Being asked

whether, falling into this despair, he expected to be damned, or to save his soul by this wicked act, he said,—that he believed the performance of this act would serve to lessen his punishment, being convinced that he should be more punished if he died without having attempted to kill the king, and less so, if he should make an effort to take away his life: insomuch, that he thought the least degree of punishment was a kind of salvation, in comparison of the most grievous. Being asked where he had learned this new divinity, he said that he had acquired it through philosophy. Being interrogated whether he had studied philosophy in the Jesuit’s College, he said yes, and that under Father Gueret, with whom he had been two years and a half. Being asked whether he had not been in the Chamber of Meditations, into which the Jesuits carry the greatest sinners, who there see the figures of several devils, in divers frightful shapes, under pretence of bringing them back to a better life, to deter them, and to excite them by such admonitions to the performance of some great action, he said, that he had been often in that Chamber of Meditations. Being asked, by whom he had been persuaded to kill the king, he said, he had heard in several places, that it ought to be held as a true maxim that it was lawful to kill the king, and that they who said so called him a tyrant. Being asked, whether the discourse about killing the king was not common among the Jesuits, he said, he had heard them say that it was lawful to kill the king, and that he was out of the church, and that he was not to be obeyed or held as king, till he should be approved of by the pope. Being again examined in the great chamber, the presidents, and counsellers thereof, and of the Tournelle, being assembled, he gave the same answers, and laid down and maintained this maxim; That it was lawful to kill kings, even the reigning king, who was not within the church, because, as he said, he was not approved of by the pope.

He was condemned to death by an arrêt of parliament, the twenty-ninth of December, 1594, and suffered by torch light on the 29th December, 1594. To know the particulars of the punishment to which he was condemned, you must read what follows. “ The court has condemned, and does condemn the said John Chastel, to make the amende honorable before the principal gate of the church of Paris, naked, in his shirt, holding a lighted wax candle of two pounds weight, and there, on his knees, to say and declare that, wickedly and traitorously, he had attempted the said most inhuman and abominable parricide, and wounded the king in the face with a knife; and that, through false and damnable instructions, he had said, during the said process, that it was lawful to kill kings, and that King Henry IV., now reigning, is not within the church, till he procures the approbation of the pope: of which he repents, and asks pardon of God, of the king, and of justice. This done, to be led and conducted in a sledge to the Grève: there the flesh of his arms and thighs to be torn off with pincers, and his right hand, holding the knife with which he attempted to perpetrate the said parricide, to be cut off; afterwards his body to be torn and dismembered by four horses, his body and limbs thrown into the fire and burned to ashes, and the ashes to be cast into the air. It has declared and does declare all his goods forfeited to the king. Before which execution, the said John Chastel shall be put to the torture, both ordinary and extraordinary, to discover the truth of his accomplices, and of any circumstances resulting from the said process.”

The same arrêt banished all the Jesuits from France, and the father of John Chastel and the Jesuit, Gueret, under whom the assassin had performed his

course ofphilosophy, were tried on the 10 th January ensuing. The sentence passed upon them was as follows:

“The court has banished and does banish the said Gueret and Peter Chastel from the kingdom of France; to wit, the said Gueret for ever, and the said Chastel for the term and space of nine years, and for ever from the city and suburbs of Paris; has enjoined them to observe their exile on pain of being hanged and strangled without other form or manner of process. It has declared and does declare all and every the goods of the said Gueret confiscated to the king, and has condemned and does condemn the said Peter Chastel to a fine of two thousand crowns to the king, to be applied to purchase bread for the prisoners of the Conciergerie, to be imprisoned till the full payment of the said sum, and the time of banishment not to commence till the day when the said sum shall be paid. The said court orders, that the house in which the said Peter Chastel lived shall be pulled down, demolished, and razed, and the place applied to the public, never to be again built on: in which place, to perpetuate the memory of the wicked and detestable parricide, attempted on the person of the king, shall be erected a high pillar of free stone, with an inscription containing the causes of the said demolition and erection of the said pillar, which shall be raised with the money arising from the demolition of the said house.” The historian, whom I copy, immediately adds,—“ This arrêt was accordingly executed, and the house pulled down; in the room of which was set up a pillar, on the four faces of which were engraved on tables of black marble, in letters of gold, viz. on one the sentence of John Chastel and the Jesuits, and on the three other faces, verses and other inscriptions. This pillar has been since pulled down, and, to the place where it stood, they have brought a spring, as I shall

observe in the continuation of my History of the peace.” Cayet. Chron. Noven. ad ann. 1594. ⁸⁸

This writer has forgotten one circumstance, which ought not to have been omitted; to wit, that Gueret was put to the torture, and confessed nothing.

The first arrêt of the parliament of Paris was put at Rome in the index of prohibited books, not, as an apologist remarks, that it was censured absolutely, for answer was sent from Rome to the late king, that the censure related only to the matter of right, not the matter of fact; assuring him that they detested the attempt of Chastel, as much as France itself, but that there was in the arrêt a clause, definitive of heresy, which they looked upon as belonging to the cognizance and determination of the church: and this was the subject of the censure.

We shall give a short analysis of a work intitled “ An Apology for John Chastel, of Paris, put to death, and for the Fathers and Scholars of the Society of Jesus, banished the kingdom of France, against the arrêt of parliament, given against them at Paris, the twenty-ninth of December, anno 1594. Divided into’ five parts. By Francis de Verone Constantine.”

The first part contains seven chapters, which tend to undeceive those, who judge of things only by the exterior conformity which one often sees between good and bad. If you consider the bare action of John Chastel, and the appearance of the persons, you will find him to have committed a most abominable parricide; for you will believe, that a private person attempted to cut the throat of his lawful prince: “ But whoever shall see likewise (adds the author) Apology for John Chastel. Part 1, chap. vii. page 21. ⁸⁹ not what is said, but what actually is, and with the judgment, not of prejudiced judges but of thechurchand the estates, and of all laws,divine as well as

human, and the fundamental ones of the kingdom, received, published, revered, practised, and held, time out of mind, in France, to wit, an excommunicated, heretical, and relapsed prince, a profaner of things sacred, a declared public enemy, an oppressor of religion, and as such excluded from all right of coming to the crown; and therefore a tyrant instead of a king, a usurper instead of a natural lord, a criminal instead of a lawful prince; will take care (if he have not lost all sense and apprehension of humanity, and love towards God, thechurch, and his country) to affirm no otherwise, than that an attempt to rid the world of him is agenerous, virtuous, and heroic act, comparable to the greatest and most praise-worthy to be met with in ancient history, both sacred and profane: there being but one thing to be said against it, that it was not accomplished, to send the wicked to his own place like Judas, whose followers, which are the Calvinists, he supports. And whereas the blow failed, the former will say, that it was a manifest favour of heaven, and that whoever doubts it is an atheist (as some prating fellow has written): the latter will likewise say, and with too much judgment, that it is a demonstration, not of favour, but of wrath; not of compassion, but of the indignation of God against his people, over whom he would not yet cause the rod of Assur to cease, (whom he hath otherwise cursed) nor break the yoke of his burthen, nor the staff’ of his shoulder, nor the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. And, as for the tyrant himself, it is not so much preservation, as deferring to a proper season and hour, which God has chosen, to punish him more severely in another world, when the measure of his guilt shall be full, and the people chastised.” At ch. xii. part 5, p. 249, he gives hopes, that another assassin will succeed better: “ if, what lately happened, (says he), the first blow, given to the prince of the beggars, (he speaks of William prince of Orange) aimed only at the jaw, the second has not failed afterwards. Of which the first was the presage, as the same will happen to the person that has been smitten on the same place.” My reader will hereby perceive, that this writer builds his apology only on the supposition, that Henry IV. was not a king, but a tyrant and usurper.

He endeavours to prove in the second part, that the action of Chastel is a just one. He grants that the persons of kings are sacred; but he maintains, that “ the intention of Chastel was not to offend or kill a king, though in his own account such, and in whom is the semblance of a king no farther than the gravity and merit of the person, at least his being reputed as sprung from the blood of the kings of France, and being served as king; although otherwise he is by no means one, as being an inheritor neither of the faith nor the virtue, nor the merit of the kings of France. And that, being on that account, that is to say on account of his impiety and heresy, most justly excluded by the church and the states, he cannot be so at all, except in fact and not in right; which is called tyranny, and tyranny in the highest sense.” He says, that the pretended conversion of Henry IV cannot confer on him the title of king, in prejudice of the excommunication as well of right as fact, which holds him ever bound, and which always works its effect, in order to deprive him of the royalty. He even affirms, that the absolution of the Pope would not be sufficient to reinstate a person, who has been condemned not only by the church, but likewise by the states; for the Pope can remit ecclesiastical condemnation, but not civil. He goes farther, he disputes his right of succession: he cites various examples, which prove, that even in France, the immediate heirs of the crown have been excluded, to make way for the election of the most distant. “ And as to the special regulation of the succession, (adds he,)

when we consider, that, by the confession of doctors, all right of consanguinity ceases at the tenth degree, we may judge how weak, yea, how null is his right, who claims but from the twenty-second degree.” He reckons differently from Mr de Perefixe, who places but ten or eleven degrees of distance between Henry III and Henry IV, as I have said elsewhere. He says in chap. 11, that superior commands set aside inferior, and that according to this rule, if it be forbidden in general to kill, yet that it is lawful to do it, as to certain persons, and particularly heretics and tyrants. He cites hereupon some passages of scripture and canon-law: and he maintains in chap. 12, that heretics ought to be executed by private persons, if it cannot be otherwise done. He alleges an arrêt of parliament of the year 1560, pronounced by the late president le Maître against the Huguenots, by which any one is permitted to kill them. And this not without thoroughly considering that there is no beast more dangerous than that which devours souls; no thief more pernicious than he who robs men of their faith and religion; no aspic more venomous than that, which in fawning, goes directly to the heart; nor a more dangerous prisoner than he who corrupts the waters of Jacob’s well, (which is the word of God or the Scripture), as did formerly the Philistines. In the thirteenth chapter he collects together what has been said by various authors on the lawfulness of killing tyrants.“The heretics themselves,” continues he, “though they change their discourse according to the success of their affairs, and according as they have a prince, contrary or favourable to them, have filled their books with it. Witness the author of the questions under the name of Junius Brutus: George Buchanan, in his book de Jure Regni, &c. where he ranks tyrants among savage beasts, and who ought to be treated as such: Bodin likewise in his republic, who condemns a tyrant using violence, to undergo the law Valeria, which orders such persons to be executed without form or manner of process; and in consequence, the executions, which, on that account, they have done on great part of the nobles in France, Scotland, England, and Germany, by the advice of ministers, on pretence of their being tyrants, because they were Catholics; and even on the persons of kings, as Charles IX, and particularly the eulogium of Beza, which canonizes Poltrot, and makes a saint of him, for the murder committed by him on the person of the great Francis of Lorrain, duke of Guise, whom above all they style tyrant: there being, in this respect, no difference between them and us, except as to the particular determination of a tyrant, to know who is and who is not one.” He ends this second part with a long detail of the particular advantages of this enterprize of John Chastel; and thereupon he throws out the most satirical and extravagant reflections on Henry IV.

He maintains in the third part, that the action of Chastel is heroic. He raises him above Ehud, and Phineas, and Matathias; and he forgets not to compare his courage with that of the two assassins of the prince of Orange, and that of James Clement. Nor does he forget the pious poet, Cornelius Musius, martyred in Holland, whose executioner, adds he, de Lumay, was afterwards paid as he deserved, being torn to pieces and eaten by his own dogs. Our apologist describes particularly the constancy of Chastel in his confession, his examination, the torture, the amende honorable, and his death. He was pressed to declare at the time of the amende honorable, that he repented, and asked pardon of God; but all maimed as he was by the torture he had endured, he said, that “he cried to God for mercy for all the sins he had committed in the whole course of his life, and particularly that he had not accomplished his design of delivering the world from the worst

enemy the church has at present upon earth.” A deplorable thing! that assassins of this sort should discover as much constancy, as the most illustrious martyrs of the primitive church.

In the fourth part, he criticises the arrêt of the parliament of Paris against John Chastel, and he pretends to discover in it some notorious falsehoods, and a manifest heresy, and impertinences in the censure of the fact, and the condemnation to the amende honorable and the prohibition to speak of the designs of John Chastel. He insists that they are neither scandalous nor seditious, nor contrary to the word of God.

The fifth part is taken up in shewing the vices and impertinences which he pretends to find in the arrêt against the Jesuits. He maintains that there are calumnies and impostures in this arrêt, launches out in praise of the Jesuits, and replies to the plea of Antony Arnauld. He takes pains to vindicate the two Jesuits, one of whom was put to the torture, and the other hanged, making a martyr of the latter. He concludes his book with a forcible exhortation to exterminate the enemy of God and his church.

This apology of John Chastel was printed in the year 1595. Somebody reprinted it in the year 1610, after the tragical death of Henry the Great. This second edition has not prevented it from becoming very scarce, for which reason I believe my readers would be pleased with the foregoing analysis.

The publisher in 1610, asserts, that what principally induced him thereto, was, among other things, that the world might clearly see, that it is from the school of the Jesuits, that assassins, such as Ravaillac, proceed. He says, that this parricide was confirmed in the design of assassinating his king, following, among others, the damnable doctrine of this apology of John Chastel, in which it is impudently denied, that Henry IV, even though he were absolved, could be

king; and besides it is taught in express terms, that heretics and their abettors, doomed to death by divine and human laws, and principally relapsed heretics, may be executed by private persons, if it can no otherwise be done, as may be seen in chap. viii. and following of the second part. He observes, that “ the Jesuits had found out an expedient to cover and suppress the said apology, not through shame or repentance, which they might have on account of such abominable crimes and parricides, but only lest the horror, which kings and princes might thence conceive against them, should hinder them from entering into their courts and councils, to execute there the will of the pope.” The author of the Anti-Coton affirms, that the apology of John Chastel came from the Jesuits’ forge; but the latter maintain that it was an imposture, and that no Jesuit had a hand in it.“Every one knows such are the words of Richeome), that the Jesuits are by no means the authors of a book, ‘De Justa Henrici Tertii Abdication,’ nor of ‘Verone Constantine’s Apology for John Chastel and the late king, being fully satisfied as to our innocence, would not listen to any of the calumniators who accused us before his majesty.”

It is highly probable, that those two books were composed by John Boucher, who, as has been seen in his article, was the most seditious and furious preacher that ever breathed a spirit of revolt against the lawful powers. The manner in which the first reigning Bourbon fell a victim to this detestable fanaticism, and the still more detestable priestcraft which directed it, makes the anxiety of the last of them to restore that “ wise order,” as the present laureat calls the Jesuits, still more remarkable.—Ed. ⁹⁰—Art.Chastel.

CLERICAL TYRANNY.

The oppression of the people by the clergy, during the reign of St Louis, was lamentable. A vigorous action was done by his mother, Queen Blanche, to

cure it in some measure. The Chapter of Paris had imprisoned all the inhabitants of Chatenai, and of some other places, for divers things which were imputed to them, and which were forbidden to bondmen; for such was then the people’s condition, and especially the inhabitants of the country. They were sold with the lands, as a dependance which belonged to it; so that a crowd of those miserable people languished in the prisons of the chapter, where, wanting necessaries for life, they were in danger of being starved to death. Blanche, moved to compassion by the complaints which she received from them, sent to desire that, in consideration of her, they might be released upon bail, assuring, that she would inform herself of the matters, and would do all manner of justice. But the chapter, after having answered, that nobody had anything to do with their subjects, and that they might put them to death if they pleased, sent again to seize the women and the children, whom they had spared at first. Then, in hatred to see them honoured with such a protection, they were used in such a manner that many of them died, either through famine, or the inconveniences they suffered by heat, in a place hardly able to contain them. Blanche, full of indignation at an action no less insolent than inhuman, went with main force to the prison of the chapter, and ordered the gates of it to be broken open: and, because some difficuly might have been made about it, for fear of the censures so common in those times, she gave the first stroke with a stick she had in her hand. That stroke was so well seconded that the gate was broken down in an instant, and a crowd of men, women, and children, came out with disfigured faces, who, casting themselves at her feet, prayed her to take them under her protection, without which the favour that she had done them would cost them very dear. She did it, and so effectually, that, after having seized on the revenues of the chapter, till they had submitted to the authority wherewith she was entrusted, she even obliged them to affranchise those inhabitants for a certain yearly sum. It was almost at that time that those kind of affranchisings began, or at least, that they became very common.—Art.Castile.

CONSCIENCE.
{Singular Case of.)

Agnes, says La Mothe le Vayer, widow to Henry III, asked, through a bishop, this pretty question of Peter Damianus, one of the most understanding churchmen of his age, “ Utrum liceret homini inter ipsum debiti naturalis egerium aliquid ruminare psalmorum?—Whether it was lawful for a man, during the performance of matrimonial duty, to repeat to himself any part of the psalms. It was decided in the affirmative, as Baronius informs us, upon the authority of the text of St Paul, in the first epistle to Timothy, which says, that God may be prayed to every where.” Is it possible that there has been an empress so weak as to propose such questions? and if the curiosity of a woman extended so far, ought any grave casuits to have examined them? One of the most celebrated of Aristotle’s commentators would have answered the empress’s question quite otherwise than Peter Damianus did. He maintained, that the public welfare requires that, in this action, as much as in any other, “ hoc age,” and nothing else, should be remembered; for he pretends, that the reason why the children of ingenious and learned men are commonly dull and stupid, is, because their fathers let their thoughts wander when they should be thinking on what they are doing. Such is also the sorrowfully declared opinion of the renowned Tristram Shandy.—Ed. ⁹¹

CONTROVERSY.
(Singular One.)

In the sixteenth century Cardinal Vigerius wrote several books, one of which was to prove that Jesus Christ’s tunic ought to give place to Longinus’s spear. The occasion of this work is singular. Bajazet, emperor of the Turks, having two very precious reliques, viz, the seamless coat of our Saviour, and the spear which pierced his heart, presented the latter to the pope, and kept the former for himself. On this occasion a great dispute arose in Italy, whether the present made to the pope was better than that which the grand seignior reserved for himself. They carefully examined whether a Turkish prince had a good taste in point of reliques. Our Vigerius was ordered to make it appear, that the sultan was no nice judge in things of this kind, since the seamless tunic ought to give the precedence to the lance. In effect, the spear penetrated to the heart, and was tinctured with the very vital blood; but the tunic only touched the external parts. Bartholinus mentions this dispute.—Art.Vigerius.

CRITICS AND WRITERS.

No sort of readers are more prone to criticise, or more rash and unjust in their censures, than they who write nothing. An author has more reason to promise himself some support and equity amongst authors, than amongst such as know not by experience, the difficulties of writing. Provided only there be no emulation in the case, as sometimes there is not; for authors do not always take the same road; the reputation of one, not being of the same kind with that of another; and, in this case, it is better to be judged by a laborious author, than by lazy readers. A man who has been employed many years upon one kind of work, knows better

than another what are the properties of it. He has not, if you will, so good a taste and judgment as another, generally speaking; but since he has studied certain subjects, and applied himself to them for a long time, we ought to believe, that he judges better of their nature, and the ornaments which belong to them, than they who have not made them their particular study. And therefore we ought not to imagine, that certain authors act imprudently, when on several occasions, they prefer their own judgment, before that of their friends, or their enemies, though otherwise more knowing than themselves. A writer less intelligent, generally speaking, than his readers, will yet have more views than they upon the subject he treats of; and whilst they know not whether he had reason to say such or such things, he will know that he was induced to it by many reasonable motives, grounded upon the character of his work. Hence arise infinitely ill-grounded censures, and hence we also see how requisite it is to study well the rules, before we pronounce whether a work be good or bad. For example, to judge well of this history, with a commentary annexed, which I call an historical and critical dictionary, a man must have studied the rights and privileges of an historical commentator; and hereupon I might say, with Du Haillan, I know better what I write, than such a one knows how to judge of my writings. I have studied the nature and properties of compilations; if they every where please one kind of people, they would not be good. They who know not the character of them want to find in them only what pleases their own palate.—Art,Haillan.

CYMBALUM MUNDI.

Bonavanture des Periers, born at Bar upon the river Aube in Burgundy, was valet-de-chambre to

Margaret de Valois, queen of Navarre, and sister of Francis I. He wrote several pieces of French poetry, which were printed after his death at Lyons, by John de Tournes, in the year 1544, in 8vo.; translated the Andria of Terence, and composed several tales in prose, intitled “ New Recreations.” I never saw his Cymbalum Mundi, which is said to be a most impious book; he wrote it first in Latin, and then he translated it into French under the name of Thomas du Clevier, printed at Paris in the year 1537. La Croix du Maine says that it is a detestable book, and full of impieties; and Stephen Pasquier had the same opinion of it. I have found a kind of analysis of the Cymbalum Mundi in the French Bibliothèque of Du Verdier Vauprivas, and because most of my readers cannot conveniently have recourse to that Bibliothèque, I thought they would be glad to find an abstract of it here. “Thomas du Clevier translated out of Latin into French a treatise, intituled, Cymbalum Mundi, containing four poetical dialogues, very antique, merry, and pleasant, printed at Lyons, in 16mo, by Benoit Bonnyn, 1538. I have found nothing in that book that deserves a greater censure than Ovid’s Metamorphosis, the Dialogues of Lucian, and the books of wanton subjects and fabulous fictions. In the first dialogue the author introduces Mercury, Bryphanes, and Curtalius, who being at an inn at Athens, at the sign of the White Coal, whither Mercury happened to come, being descended from heaven by Jupiter’s order, who sent him to get a book bound. These two rogues, whilst he went to divert himself, took this book out of a packet he had left upon the bed, stole it, and put another in the room of it, containing all the amorous tricks and follies of Jupiter, as when he turned himself into a bull to ravish Europa; when he put on the shape of a swan to go to Leda; when he took the form of Amphytrion, &c. In the second dialogue he brings in some philosophers, looking for pieces of the philosopher’s stone in the sand of the theatre, where, as they were formally disputing about it, Mercury showed it to them, and those fools importuned him so much with their entreaties, that not knowing to whom he should give it entire, he reduced it to powder, and threw it into the sand, that every one might have something of it, bidding them look well for it, and that if they could find a little piece of it, they would do wonders, transmute metals, break the bars of doors that are open, cure people that are not sick, and obtain any thing from the gods that was lawful, and would necessarily happen, as rain after fair weather, flowers in the spring, dust and heat in the summer, fruits in autumn, cold and dirt in winter: whereby the author laughs at the vain labours of alchymists..........In the third dialogue he resumes the discourse of the first dialogue, about the book stolen from the author of all thefts, intitled, “ Quæ in hoc libro continentur: Chronica rerum memorabilium quas Jupiter gessit antequam esset ipse. Fatorum præscriptum; sive, eorum quæ futura sunt, certæ dispositiones. Catalogus Heroum immortalium, qui cum Jove vitam victuri sunt sempiternam... .The contents of this book are; Chronicles of the memorable things which Jupiter performed before he existed. The Decree of Fate, or certain Dispositions of those things that are to happen, A catalogue of immortal Heroes, who are to live eternally with Jupiter.” Wherein the author ridicules first the idolatrous heathens, and their false god, Jupiter, meaning that he never existed; or that if he did ever exist, he was a man, and never did any wonderful actions, nor such as have been fabulously written of him. By the second head of the title of the book, he laughs at destiny and fatalism, and tacitly at judicial astrology. And by the third, he derides those who look upon themselves as gods, by reason of their grandeur. Afterwards he brings in Mercury, discoursing of the several commissions which the gods and goddesses have intrusted him with; and the same Mercury, by virtue of some words which he mutters, makes a horse, called Phlegon, speak and reason with his groom. In the fourth and last dialogue, two dogs discourse together of several pleasant things.” It does not appear that Du Verdier Vau-Privas found any thing dangerous in that book, but only the ridiculousness of the Pagan religion, &c. Most other readers are of opinion, that Bonaventure des Periers wrote against the true religion, under pretence of ridiculing Paganism. It was the opinion of father Mersenne. “ That man, (says he) brings in the fables of Jupiter and Mercury, &c. and designs by such means to open the way to ridicule the Catholic faith,and reject the greatest truths that we teach and believe concerning God. Per quas (fabulas) fidem Catholicam irridere, et ea quæ de Deo verissima esse dicimus et credimus, rejicere velle videtur.” He says that Bonaventure des Periers was only the translator of the Cymbalum Mundi, and that he was a most impious knave, impissimum nebulonem, and looked upon as an Atheist by a great many people. Voëtius, who had not seen that book, does not say that the author was an Atheist, nay, he acquits him of Atheism, supposing the Cymbalum Mundi to be only a satire against purgatory, and many other inventions of Christians. He adds, that a man may insinuate Atheism, or Epicurism, in a trifling and fabulous book, and make use of that artifice to come off, if he be prosecuted for it. He adds also, that in a stage play, intituled Iphigenia, we may laugh at Hecate, who had three several shapes, and ridicule the gods who will have human victims, and run down the priests who advise such sacrifices. A man may thereby not only design to ridicule the trinity, and the passion of the Son of God, and to open a door to Deism and Turkish Socinianism; but to maintain it, if attacked.

The reflexions of Voëtius on this subject are very judicious: there are two ways of ridiculing superstition, the one very good, the other very bad. The fathers of the church, who have exposed the ridiculousness of false deities, are very much to be praised, for they proposed thereby to open the eyes of the Pagans, and to confirm the faithful. They knew that by inspiring the Christians with contempt and aversion for Paganism, they strengthened their faith, and gave them some arms to resist persecution. But Lucian, who did so much ridicule the false gods of the heathens, and made a most lively and agreeable description of the follies and impostures of the religion of the Grecians, deserves notwithstanding to be condemned, since, instead of doing it out of a good motive, he had no other design than to satisfy his scoffing satirical humour, and was no less indifferent or averse to truth than to lies. Those two models, that of the fathers of the church, and that of Lucian, may serve to make one judge rightly of several satires, which have been made in these latter times, against abuses in matters of religion. Rabelais ought to be looked upon as a copyer of Lucian, and I think the same ought to be said of Bonaventure des Periers; for I find that the Protestants are not less angry with the Cymbalum Mundi than the Catholics. Only we must observe that a great many abuses have crept into Christianity, which are so like those of the Heathens, that one cannot write against the Pagans, without affording many devout men a pretence to say that the Christian religion is wounded through the sides of the Pagan religion. It is the duty of those, who give occasion for such reproaches, to examine seriously what was their intention, and whether they did actually design that their descriptions of the faults of the Heathens should be looked upon as a picture of modern abuses. Some dissenting Protestants in England are accused of having made a lively description of the corruption of the

ancient Romish clergy, only to draw a picture which might cast an odium upon the present state of the episcopalians. We find, in Milton’s life, that his History of England, as far as William the Conqueror, was printed in the year 1670, but not such as he wrote it, for the licenser struck out several passages, which contained a description of the superstition, luxury, and craft of the ecclesiastics, who lived under the Saxon kings. The revisors of the manuscript fancied that it was a reflection upon the clergy under the reign of Charles II. The author of that life adds, that sir Robert Howard, having heard that he was accused of having whipped, in a certain book, the clergy of England, upon the back of the Pagan and Popish priests, answered ironically and subtilly, “ what had they to do there?”—Art,Periers.

DAVID.

David, king of the Jews, was one of the greatest men in the world, even though we should not consider him as a royal prophet, who was after God’s own heart. The first time that the scripture makes him appear on the stage of the world is to inform us that Samuel appointed him king, and performed the ceremony of anointing him. David was then but a mere shepherd; being the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite, descended in a direct line from Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and who dwelt at Bethlehem, a small city of the tribe of Judah. Some modern rabbins say that, when David was conceived, his father Jesse did not think that he lay with his wife, but with his servant maid, and thereby explain the seventh verse of the fifty-first psalm, wherein David affirms, that “ he was shapen in iniquity, and that his mother conceived him in sin.’’ “ This,” say they, “ signifies that his father Jesse committed an adultery

in begetting him, because though he begot him by his wife, he believed that he begot him by his servant maid, upon whose chastity he had made an attempt.”

I have just now read an Italian book, wherein this story of the rabbin’s is related in this manner. “David’s father loved his servant maid, and after having cajoled her several times, he told her at last, that she should prepare herself to lye with him that night. She being no less virtuous than beautiful, complained to her mistress, that Jesse would not let her be quiet. ‘ Che non poteva haver riposo, rispetto che il patrone continuamente la tentava per farla giacere una nocte con lui ' ‘ Promise to satisfy him this night,’ answered her mistress, ‘ and I will put myself in your place? This was done two or three nights, one after another. When Jesse perceived that his wife, with whom he had not lain a long time, was nevertheless with child, he accused her of adultery, and would not believe what she told him of the agreement she made with her maid. Neither he nor his sons would see the child she brought into the world, but looked upon him as a bastard; he treated her with the utmost scorn, and caused the child to be brought up among the shepherds in the country. He did not reveal this mystery to his neighbours, but concealed his shame, for his children’s sake. Things remained in that state, till the prophet Samuel went to look for a king in the family of Jesse. His choice not falling on any of the sons that were showed him, David was sent for; it was done with reluctancy, because they feared that a shameful secret would be discovered; but when they found that this pretended bastard was the person that the prophet looked for, their thoughts were altered, and nothing was heard but fine songs. David began with aTe Deum, he praised God that he had heard his prayers, and delivered him from the scandal of bastardy. Jesse went on, and said, ' the stone that the builders have refused, is become the corner stone that

shall support all the house.' His other sons, Samuel, &c. spoke also some sentences.” The Rabbi adds, “ hat Jesse’s design was good; his wife was old, his maid was young, and he desired to get more children. “ Il pensiero d’lsai era buono perche essendo la patrona vecchia, e la massera giovane, havea desiderio di haver altri figliuoli.” What a fine apology! If such excuses would do, what a multitude of lewd women would be secured from censure! Was there ever any doctrine about the direction of the intention more convenient than this?

Those who would adopt the impertinence of the rabbins concerning David’s conception, might easily admit another impertinent thing, which would be to place David in the number of illustrious bastards. The physical reason which is alleged why bastards are so often born with great natural talents, might take place here on the father’s part.

The scripture tells us, that he was sent to king Saul to cure him of his fits of frenzy, by the sound of his musical instruments; a service that made him so much beloved by Saul, that he kept him in his house and made him his armour bearer. The scripture says afterwards that David used togo home from time to time, to take care of his father’s flocks, and that his father sent him one day to Saul’s camp, with some provisions for three of his sons that were in the army. David, performing that order, heard the challenge, that a Philistine called Goliah, proud of his strength and gigantic stature, made daily to the Israelites, which none among them durst to accept, and expressed his great desire to fight that giant; whereupon he was brought to the king, and assured him that he should triumph over that Philistine. Saul gave him his armour; but David, finding it troublesome, put it off, and resolved to make use only of his sling; which he did so happily, that he brought down that swaggerer with a stone, and killed him afterwards with his

own sword, and cut off his head, which he presented to Saul. That prince asked his general, when he saw David go against Goliah, “whose son is this youth?” The general answered, that he did not know, and received orders to enquire about it: but Saul heard it himself from that young man; for, being brought to him after the victory, he asked him, “ whose son art thou?” and David answered him that he was the son of Jesse. It is somewhat strange that Saul did not know David that day, since the young man had played several times on his musical instruments before him, to disperse the black vapours that molested him. If such a narrative as this should be found in Thucydides, or in Livy, all the critics would unanimously conclude that the transcribers had transposed the pages, forgot something in one place, repeated something in another, or inserted some preposterous additions in the author’s work; but no such suspicions ought to be entertained of the Bible. Nevertheless, some have been so bold as to pretend, that all the chapters, or all the verses of the first book of Samuel, are not placed as they were at first. It seems to me that the Abbot de Choisi removes the difficulty much better. “ David was brought before Saul,” says he, “ who did not know him at first, though he had seen him several times, when he sent for him to play on the harp: but as this was many years before, and David was very-young, and came to court in the quality of a musician, and was then dressed like a shepherd, it can be no wonder that a king, full of business, and whose mind was distempered, should forget the features of a young man’s face, who had nothing considerable in him.” I only wish that he had not said:—That Saul had not seen David for many years; and that David was very young when he came to Saul’s court in the quality of a musician. There is no likelihood that he was much younger when he killed Goliah, than when he came the first time to Saul’s court; for when he made his first journey, he was a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters. He was but thirty years of age when he was elected king after the death of Saul; and there must be necessarily an interval of many years between the death of Goliah and that of Saul.

Saul kept David in his service, without suffering him to return to his father. But, because the songs that were sung in all the cities on the defeat of the Philistines, ascribed ten times more glory to David than to Saul, the king conceived a violent jealousy, which increased daily; the employments that he gave to David, to keep him from court, served only to make him more illustrious, and to procure him the affection and admiration of the Jews. By a false policy, he would make him his son-in-law; he was in hopes that the condition on which he was to give him his second daughter, would deliver him from that object of aversion; but he was deceived in his cunning. He asked an hundred foreskins of the Philistines for his daughter’s dowry; David brought him two hundred in full tale; so that, instead of perishing in the enterprise, as Saul hoped, he returned with a new addition of glory. He married Saul’s daughter, whereby he became still more formidable to the king; all his expeditions against the Philistines were very prosperous; his name grew famous; he was in very great esteem; insomuch that Saul, who knew his son-in-law’s virtue much less than the humour of the people, imagined that the death of David was the only thing that could secure him from being dethroned. He resolved then to be rid of him, and trusted his eldest son with that design, who, far from siding with his father’s jealousy, gave David notice of that black conspiracy. David fled, and was pursued from place to place, till he had given undeniable proofs of his probity and fidelity to his father-in-law; to whom he did no manner of harm, on two favourable

opportunities, wherein he might easily have killed him; upon which Saul resolved to let him alone: but, as David feared this prince might resume his wicked designs, he still kept upon his guard. Nay, he provided himself a safer place of refuge than before, in the land of the Philistines, He dwelt some time in the chief city of king Achish, with his little band of six hundred bold adventurers, but being afraid of putting this prince to charges, he begged he would assign him some other place of abode. Achish gave him the town of Ziklag. David removed thither with his adventurers, and suffered not their swords to rust in their scabbards; he often led them out in parties, and killed, without mercy, both men and women. He left nothing alive but the cattle, which was the only booty he returned with. He was afraid, lest the prisoners should discover the whole mystery to Achish, and therefore he carried none of them away, but put all to the sword, both male and female. The secret he would not have revealed was, that the ravages were committed not upon the country of the Israelites, as he made the king of Gath believe, but upon the lands of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine. To speak plainly, this conduct was very unjustifiable: in order to conceal one fault, he committed a greater. He imposed upon a king to whom he had obligations, and exercised great cruelty to cover that imposition. If any one had asked David, by what authority dost thou these things? what could he have answered? Can a private person, as he was, a fugitive, who finds shelter in the dominions of a neighbouring prince, have a right to commit hostilities for his own advantage, and without a commission from the sovereign of the country? Had David any such commission? on the contrary, did he not act in opposition to the intentions and interest of the king of Gath? If a private man, how great soever by birth, should he have himself now-a-days, as David did on this occasion, he would, undoubtedly, be called by names of little honour. I know the most renowned heroes, the most famous prophets of the Old Testament, have sometimes approved the putting to the sword every thing that had life; and therefore, I should be very far from calling that cruelty, which David did, had he been warranted by the order of any prophet, or if God, by inspiration, had commanded him to do so: but it evidently appears, from the silence of the scripture, that he did all this of his own accord.

I shall add one word in relation to what he had determined to do to Nabal. Whilst Nabal, who had vast riches, was shearing his sheep, David sent to beg of him some gratuity in a very obliging manner. The messengers did not fail to tell him that his shepherds had never been injured by David’s people. Nabal, being very churlish, asked rudely who David was, and upbraided him with having shaken off his masters yoke; in a word, he declared he was not so imprudent as to give to strangers and vagabonds, what he had provided for his own servants. David enraged at this answer, ordered four hundred of his men to arm, and put himself at their head, being firmly resolved not to save a soul alive, but to slay them all with the sword. He even bound himself to it by an oath; and if he did not execute this bloody resolution it was owing to Abigail, who came to pacify him with presents and fair words. Abigail was Nabal’s wife, a woman of great merit, handsome, witty, and so agreeable to David, that he married her after her husband’s death. Now let us deal plainly; is it not manifest beyond contradiction, that David was about to do a very criminal action? He had no right to the goods of Nabal, nor any authority to punish him for his incivility; he was roving up and down the world with a gang of trusty friends. He might, indeed, have asked some gratuity of those who could afford it; but if they refused, he ought to

have taken it patiently, and he could not compel them to it by military execution, without plunging the world again into the dreadful confusion which they call the state of nature, where no law obtained but that of the stronger. What would one say now of a prince of the blood of France, who being out of favour at court, should make his escape with such friends as would be willing to share his fortune? what opinion I say, could we entertain of him, if he went about raising contributions in the countries where he cantoned, and put to the sword in those districts, all that refused to pay his taxes? What should we say if this prince should fit out some vessels to infest the seas, in order to seize all the merchant ships he could lay hold of? In truth, had David any right to exact contributions of Nabal, to massacre all the men and women in the country of the Amalekites, &c., and to carry away all the cattle he found there? If one should answer that the law of nations, the jus belli et pacis, about which so many fine systems have been made, are now better known than formerly; and, therefore, such a conduct was more excusable in those days than now, I grant it; but, at the same time, the profound respect we ought to have for this great prince, this great prophet, should not hinder us from disapproving the blemishes that occur in his life; otherwise we shall give occasion to libertines to reproach us, and say that, to determine an action just, it is sufficient that it should be done by certain persons we reverence. Nothing can be more prejudicial to Christian morality. It is of great importance to the true religion, that the lives of the orthodox be judged by the general notions of justice and order. David would have even fought under the banner of the king of Gath, against the Israelites, in that unhappy war in which Saul perished. Moreover, whilst David with his little flying camp was employed in ravaging the countries of the infidels, wherever he could penetrate, the Philistines were preparing for war against the Israelites. They gathered all their forces together. David and his bold adventurers joined the army of Achish, and would have fought like lions against their brethren, if the jealous Philistines had not obliged Achish to dismiss them. They were afraid that David and his men, in the heat of battle would fall upon them, in order to make their peace with Saul. When David understood that he must quit the army, because of these suspicions, he was extremely concerned. He had a mind then to contribute, with all his might, to the victory of the uncircumcised Philistines over his own brethren, the people of God, the professors of the true religion. I leave it to nice casuists to determine whether or not these sentiments became a true Israelite.

After the death of Saul, David returned into Judea, and was there proclaimed king by the tribe of Judah. Nevertheless, the other tribes submitted to Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, which was effected by Abner’s fidelity. Abner, who had been general of the army under King Saul, placed Ishbosheth upon the throne, and supported him on it against the attempts of David; but being full of resentment, because Ishbosheth reproved him for having taken one of Saul’s concubines, he entered into a treaty with David to procure him the kingdom of Ishbosheth. The negociation would have been soon concluded, to the satisfaction of David, if Joab, to revenge a private quarrel, had not killed Abner. The death of Abner only hastened the ruin of the unfortunate Ishbosheth. Two of his chief captains slew him, and brought his head to David, who, far from rewarding them for it, as they expected, ordered them both to be put to death. The subjects of Ishbosheth quickly submitted themselves to David. This prince had reigned seven years and a half over the tribe of Judah, and afterwards he

reigned about thirty years over all Israel. This long reign was remarkable for great success, and glorious conquests. It was not much disturbed except by the wicked attempts of this prince’s own children, who are commonly the enemies which sovereigns have most reason to fear. The most remarkable of their wicked attempts was the revolt of Absalom, who forced this great prince to fly from Jerusalem in a mournful condition. He went with his head covered, bare footed, melting in tears, and his ears filled with the lamentations of his faithful subjects. Absalom entered Jerusalem as in triumph; and, that his party might not abate of their zeal, from a notion that this difference between father and son would be made up, he did one thing sufficient to make them believe he should never be reconciled to David. He lay with the ten concubines of this prince, in the sight of every body. It is very likely this crime would have been forgiven; the extreme affliction, into which his death threw David, is a proof of it. David was the best father that ever lived; his indulgence to his children was excessive, and he himself was the first that suffered for it. For, had he punished the infamous action of his son Amnon as it deserved, he would not have bad the shame and sorrow to see another revenge the injury done to Tamar: and had he chastized, as he ought, the person who revenged this injury, he would not have run the hazard of being entirely dethroned. David had the fate of the most part of great princes; he was unfortunate in his own family. His eldest son ravished his own sister, and was killed by one of his brothers for that incest: the author of this fratricide lay with the concubines of David. What scandal is here given to pious souls, to see so much infamy in the family of this king !

Thus David was very near being reduced to the low condition in which Samuel found him. Humanly speaking, this reverse of fortune would have been

unavoidable, if he had not found some persons about his son Absalom, who acted the part of traitors. David's piety is so conspicuous in his psalms, and in many of his actions, that we cannot sufficiently admire it. But there is another thing no less wonderful in his conduct, viz. that he knew so happily how to reconcile so much piety with the loose maxims of the art of governing. It is generally believed that his adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, and the numbering of the people, are the only faults he can be charged with; but it is a great mistake, as there are many other things in his life that deserve censure. I have already taken notice of some of them, which happened while he was a private person: here are others, which relate to the time of his reign.

His polygamy cannot well be excused: for, though God permitted it in those days, we must not think one might stretch it very far, without indulging too much to sensuality. Michal, the second daughter of Saul, was David’s first wife: she was taken from him during his disgrace; he married successively several others, and still continued to demand back the first. Before she could be restored to him, she must be forced from a husband that loved her exceedingly, and who followed her as far as he could, crying like a child. David did not scruple to match with a daughter of an uncircumcised prince; and though he had children by several wives, yet he took concubines at Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, he chose the handsomest he could find; so we cannot say, with regard to the pleasures of love, that he took much pains to mortify nature.

When he heard of Saul’s death too, he bethought himself, without loss of time, how to secure the succession. He went to Hebron, and, as soon as he arrived there, the whole tribe of Judah, whereof he had gained the chief men by presents, owned him for king. Abner had not preserved the rest of the succession

for the son of Saul, doubtless, by the same method, I mean the gaining the chief men by presents, David would have been king of all Israel. But what happened after Abner, by his fidelity, had kept eleven entire tribes for Ishbosheth? the Very same thing that would happen between two infidel and most ambitious kings. David and Ishbosheth made continual war upon each other, to see which of the two should get the other’s portion, in order to enjoy the whole kingdom without division. What I am going to say is much worse; Abner, displeased with the king his master, contrives to strip him of his dominions, and to deliver them up to David; he communicates his design to David; he goes to him himself to concert with him the means of bringing it about. David lends an ear to this treacherous villain, and is well pleased to get a kingdom by intrigues of this nature. Can it be said these are the actions of a saint? I own there is nothing in them but what is agreeable to the maxims of policy, and the ways of human prudence; but it can never be proved that the strict laws of equity, and rigid morals of a faithful servant of God, can allow of this conduct. It is to be observed, David did not pretend that the son of Saul reigned by usurpation; he granted he was a righteous man, and consequently a lawful king.

I am of the same mind also, as to the cunning David made use of, during Absalom’s revolt. He would not suffer Hushai, one of his best friends, to accompany him; he ordered him to go over to the party of Absalom, that he might give bad counsels to this rebellious son, and be able to inform David of all the designs of the new king. This cunning, without doubt, is very commendable, if we judge of things according to human prudence, and the policy of princes; it saved David, and from that age, even to our own inclusively, has produced a multitude of adventures, beneficial to some and destructive to others; but a rigid

casuist will never take this cunning for an action worthy of a prophet, a saint, a righteous man. A good man, as such, will rather lose a crown, than be the cause of his friend’s damnation; and it is to damn our friend, as much as in us lies, to push him on to commit a crime; which it is, to pretend with zeal to espouse the party of a man, with a view to ruin that man, by giving him bad counsels, and discovering all the secrets of his cabinet. Is it possible for one to act a more treacherous part than Hushai did? As soon as he perceives Absalom, he cries out, “ God save the king and when he was asked how he came to be so ungrateful as not to accompany his intimate friend, he gives himself devout airs, and alleges reasons of conscience: “ His will I be,” says he, “whom the Lord hath chosen.”

Again, when David, by reason of old age, could not be warmed by all the clothes they covered him with, it was thought proper to seek for a young virgin, who might take care of and lie with him. He suffered them to bring to him for this purpose, the most beautiful girl they could find. Now, can this be said to be the action of a very chaste man? Will a man who is filled with the ideas of purity, and entirely resolved to do what order and good morals require of him, ever consent to these remedies? Is it possible to consent to them without preferring the instincts of nature, and the interests of the flesh to those of the spirit of God?

David has been blamed long since, for having committed a flagrant piece of injustice against Mehibosheth, the son of his dear friend Jonathan. The fact is, David no longer fearing the faction of king Saul, was pleased to shew himself liberal to all those who might still remain of that family. He heard, that a poor lame man called Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, was yet alive; he sent for him, and gave him all the land that had belonged to king

Saul, and commanded Ziba, an old servant of that family, to improve it for him, and for the maintenance of Mephibosheth’s son: as to Mephibosheth himself, he was to eat as long as he lived at king David’s table. When this prince made his escape from Jerusalem, that he might not fall into the hands of Absalom, he met Ziba, who brought him some provisions, and told him in one word, that Mephibosheth staid at Jerusalem, in hopes of recovering the kingdom amidst these revolutions; upon which, David gave him all that belonged to Mephibosheth. After the death of Absalom, he found Ziba had been a false accuser, and yet took from him but half of what he had given him, and restored to Mephibosheth only the half of his estate. Some authors pretend that this injustice, which was so much the greater as David had been infinitely obliged to Jonathan, was the reason God permitted Jeroboam to rend in two the kingdom of Israel. But it is certain, the sins of Solomon were the cause that God permitted this division. All the interpreters have not left David without apology. Some pretend, that Ziba’s accusation was not unjust, or at least it was grounded upon so much probability, that one might give credit to it without being guilty of a rash judgment. But there are not many of this opinion. Most of the fathers and moderns believe, that Ziba was a slanderer, and that David suffered himself to be imposed on. The opinion of Pope Gregory is to be taken particular notice of: he owns Mephibosheth was falsely accused, and yet pretends that the sentence which deprived him of all his estate was just. This he maintains for two reasons; first, because David pronounced it; secondly, because a secret judgment of God interposed in it. ‘ Non me latet, præter interpretes in contrarium supra adductos, S Gregorium contra Davidem stare lib 1, Dialo c 4. Quamvis enim ait, latam a Davide contra innocentum Jonathæ filium sententiam, quia per Davidem lata est, et occulto Dei judicio pronunciata, justam credi, tamen disertè agnoscit Mephibosethum fuisse innocentem. Ex quo aperte sequitur sententiam Davidis non fuisse justam. In quo cogimur S Gregorio non adærere; cum compertissima sit Davidis sanctitas; nec cum postea sarcisse hujusmodi dispendium aliunde constet. Besides the interpreters above quoted for the contrary opinion, I know St Gregory is against David, 1. 1. dialog. cap. 4. For though he says, the sentence of David against the innocent son of Jonathan is believed to be just, because it was passed by David, and pronounced by the secret judgment of God, yet he expressly acknowledges that Mephibosheth was innocent. Whence it evidently follows, that the sentence of David was not just. In which I am forced to differ from St Gregory; since the holiness of David is very well known, and it does not appear that he afterwards repaired this injury.” Theoph. Raynaud. page 232. ⁹² The author I quote goes another way to work; “ since the holiness of David,” says he, “ is very well known, and since he never ordered that satisfaction should be made for the wrong done to Mephibosheth, we must conclude the sentence was just.” This is to establish a very dangerous principle: we should be no longer at liberty to examine by the notions of morality the actions of the ancient prophets, in order to condemn those which are not conformable thereto; and so, libertines might accuse our casuists of approving certain actions, which are manifestly unjust, in favour of some men, and through respect of persons. Let us say rather, and apply to the saints what has been said of great wits, nullum sine venia placuit ingenium. The greatest saints have sometimes need of a pardon.

I shall say nothing of what Michal, one of

David’s wives, reproached him with, in regard to the figure he made when he danced in public. If he had uncovered his nakedness, the action might pass for an ill one, morally speaking; but if he only made himself contemptible by his postures, and by not supporting the dignity of his character, it was at most but an imprudence, and not a crime. We must consider well upon what occasion he danced; it was when the ark was brought up to Jerusalem; and consequently the excess of his joy, and of his capers, testified his attachment and sensibility for holy things. A modern author has endeavoured to justify the nakedness of Francis of Assisi by that of David: “ Michal, David’s wife,” says he, “ having seen from a window her husband, who, being transported with a holy fervour, leaped and danced before the ark of the Lord, despised him in her heart,” and, rallying him, said, “ How glorious was the King of Israel to day, who uncovered himself in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!” These last words of the holy text seem to intimate that David stripped himself stark naked; however, as the same text, speaking of David’s dance before the ark, says he was girded with a linen ephod, I do not think he was quite naked. But he uncovered himself so much, that he seemed to be naked, and that it was thought unbecoming the gravity and majesty of a king; especially as it was done publicly and before a great multitude. The action of David, attended with all these circumstances, is not more justifiable than that of St Francis, who had very few spectators: St. Francis of Assisi being brought by his father to the bishop to renounce his patrimony, and give up every thing he had, he delivered to him his very clothes, and stripped himself stark naked before the company. The bishop rose from his seat, and covered him with his cloak. Bonaventure’s Life of St Francis. ⁹³ so that if the action of the one deserves censure, that of the other cannot be exempted from it; and indeed we read that Michal derided him for it. But let us see whether the Holy Spirit did so; and we shall judge by that whether we ought to ridicule the action of St Francis. Afterwards he relates the answer David made to Michal, and what the scripture observes concerning her barrenness. A great many ladies would deserve to be barren, if having Michal’s taste were a sufficient reason, for it. It would be thought very strange all over Europe, if, upon a day of procession of the holy sacrament, kings should dance in the streets without any thing but a little sash round the waist.

The conquests of David shall be the subject of my last observation. There are some rigid casuists, who do not think a Christian prince can lawfully engage in a war, through a desire only of aggrandizing himself. These casuists approve of no wars but those that are defensive, or in general such as tend only to restore to every one his own. At this rate, David had frequently undertaken unjust wars: for, besides that the holy scripture represents him pretty often as the aggressor, we find he extended the bounds of his empire from Egypt to the Euphrates. That we may not then condemn David, it is better to say that conquests may sometimes be permitted; and therefore we ought to take care, lest, in exclaiming against modern princes, we should inadvertently asperse this great prophet.

But if, generally speaking, the conquests of this holy monarch were glorious to him, without prejudice to his justice, we can hardly agree they were so when we come to particulars. Let us not by conjectures rake into secrets, which history has not revealed. Let us not conclude, that because David was pleased to make an advantage of Abner’s and Hushai’s treachery, therefore he practised all manner of cunning against the infidel princes, whom he

subdued. Let us confine ourselves intirely to what the sacred history tells us of the way in which he treated the conquered. “ And he brought forth the people that were in Rabbah; and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus he did unto all the cities of the children of Ammon.” 2 Sam. ch. xii, ver. 31. ⁹⁴ The Geneva bible observes in the margin of this verse, that these were kinds of capital . punishments used in former times. Let us see how he treated the Moabites: “he measured them with a line casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he, to put to death: and with one full line to keep alive. 2 Sam. chap. viii, ver. 2. ⁹⁵ That is, he had a mind to put to death exactly two thirds, neither more nor less. Idumea met with rougher usage; for there he ordered all the males to be slain: “six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off’ every male in Edom. 1 Kings, chap. xi, ver. 15. ⁹⁶” Can one say, this way of making war is not to be condemned? Have not even the Turks and Tartars a little more humanity? And if an infinite number of pamphlets exclaim every day against the military executions of our own time, which are indeed harsh, and much to be blamed, but gentle when compared with those of David, what would the authors of these pamphlets say, if they had the saws, the harrows, the brick-kilns of David to complain of, and the general massacre of all males, old and young? Even in his dying words we find the obliquities of politics. Understand me rightly: I do not mean that David in this condition did not speak according to his mind; but that the plain and free manner, in which he opened his heart, shews he had formerly, upon two remarkable occasions, sacrificed justice to interest. He knew very well that Joab deserved death, and to let the murders, whereof he had been guilty, go unpunished, was a manifest injustice against law and reason. Nevertheless, Joab had kept his posts, his credit, and authority. He was a brave man; he served the king his master faithfully, and to good purpose; and there was reason to fear some mutiny, if they attempted to punish him. These were political reasons, which made the laws give place to advantage. But, when David had no farther occasion for this general, he ordered him to be put to death: this was one of the articles of his last will. 1 Kings, chap. ii, ver. 6. ⁹⁷ Solomon his successor was charged with the like order against Shimei. This man, knowing David had made his escape from Jerusalem in great disorder, upon the account of Absalom’s revolt, came to insult him by the way, and used reproaches yet harder than the stones he threw at him. David bore this injury very patiently; he acknowledged and adored the hand of God in it, with marks of singular piety; and when his affairs were re-established, he pardoned Shimei, who was one of the first that came to submit themselves, and implore his mercy. David swore to him he would not put him to death, and kept his word to his death-bed; but finding himself in this condition, the gave a charge to his son to kill him; a plain proof that he suffered him to live only to get himself at first the name of a merciful prince, and afterwards' to avoid being reproached to his face for having broken his promise. I should be glad to know whether, in strictness of speech, a man, who promises life to his enemy, performs his promise, when by his last will he orders him to be put to death.

From what I have said, in this and the foregoing remarks, it may be easily inferred, that if the Syrians had been such libel-makers, as the Europeans

are now-a-days, they would have strangely disfigured the glory of David. With what epithets, with what infamous names would they have branded that troop of banditti, that came to join him, after he retired from the court of Saul? The scripture inform us, “ that all those who were persecuted by their creditors, all malecontents, and all those who were in distress, gathered themselves unto him, and he became their captain.” 1 Sam. chap, xxii, ver. 2. ⁹⁸ Nothing can be liable to a worse construction than this. The historians of Cataline and Cæsar would furnish colours enough for a satirical picture. History has preserved a small specimen of the reproaches, to which David was exposed among Saul’s friends. This specimen shews they accused him of being a man of blood, and that they considered the revolt of Absalom, as just punishment for the mischief, which they said he had done to Saul, and to all in his house. I put the words of scripture in the margin; The words of Shimei, according to the scripture, arc these: come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial: the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned, and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the the hands of Absalom thy son, and behold thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man. 2 Sam. chap. xvi, ver. 7, 8. ⁹⁹ and here follow those of Josephus: Antiq. lib. 7, chap. 8, page 230. ¹⁰⁰ But a kinsman of Saul, whose name was Shimei, came out upon David near Bahurim,.... falling upon him at once with stones and curses; and as his friends protected him, the more he reviled him, calling him a bloody man, and the author of much mischief, and thanked God for taking the kingdom from him, and for making his own son the instrument of his punishment, because of those things he had done against his master.” But they exaggerated matters: it is true, that according to the testimony of God David himself was a man of blood; and therefore the Lord would not permit him to build the temple. It is true likewise, that to pacify the Gibeonites, he delivered to them two sons, and five grandsons of Saul, who were all seven hanged; but it is false, that he ever made an attempt, either upon the life or the crown of Saul.

Those, who shall think it strange that I speak my mind about some actions of David, compared with natural morality, are desired to consider three things: 1st. They themselves are obliged to own, that the conduct of this prince towards Uriah, is one of the greatest crimes which can be committed. There is then only a difference of more or less between them and me; for, I agree with them, that the other faults of this prophet did not hinder his being filled with piety, and a great zeal for the glory of God. He was subject alternately to passions and grace. This is a misfortune attending our nature since the fall of Adam. The grace of God very often directed him; but on several occasions passion got the better; policy silenced religion. 2d. It is very allowable for private persons, like me, to judge of facts contained in scripture, when they are not expressly characterised by the holy Spirit. If the scripture in relating an action condemn or praise it, none can appeal from this judgment; every one ought to regulate his approbation or censure upon the model of scripture. I have not acted contrary to this rule: the facts, upon which I have advanced my humble opinion, are related in the holy scripture, without any mark of approbation affixed by the Spirit of God. I have observed, the scripture informs us, that David consulted and followed the orders of God, when he was to repel the aggressors, 1 Sam. chap, xxiii and xxx; but that he did not consult God, when he intended to destroy Nabal, nor when he was going to destroy the neighbours of king Achish, and made

him believe he ravaged the dominions of Saul: this is a sign God did not approve such kind of actions. 3d. It would be doing an injury to the eternal laws, and consequently to the true religion, to give libertines occasion to object, that when a man has been once inspired by God, we look upon his conduct as the rule of manners; so that we should not dare to condemn the actions of people, though most opposite to the notions of equity, when such a one has done them. There is no medium in this case; either these actions are not good, or actions like them are not evil; now, since we must chuse either the one or the other, is it not better to take care of the interests of morality, than the glory of a private person? Otherwise, will it not be evident, that one chuses rather to expose the honour of God than that of a mortal man?

David is doubtless a sun of holiness in the church; he there diffuses by his writings a fruitful source of consolation; but that sun had its spots, and the scripture relating them historically, every one is at liberty to pass a judgment upon them: let us conclude with saying, that the history of David may comfort many crowned heads against the alarms, which rigid casuists may give them, in maintaining, that it is hardly possible for a king to be saved.

The article of David, which I have just read in the Dictionary of the Bible, will supply me with matter enough for a remark; and first, it is not true that David was born one hundred and ten years before the birth of Jesus Christ: there is above one thousand years between the birth of the one and the birth of the other. Neither ought the author to have suppressed the incursions made by David on the allies of his patron, nor the lie he made use of in persuading King Achish that he made them on the lands of the Israelites. The unjust war he made on that people, in which he put to the sword both men and women,

should also have been recorded. It is not allowable in a dictionary to imitate the panegyrists, who take only the fair side of a character; the author should act the historian; he should relate both the good and the bad; it is what the scripture has done. We cannot therefore approve the affectation, which appears here, of saying nothing of David’s artifices, both against Ishbosheth and against Absalom, and of mentioning only the wars in which David was first attacked. Should not some notice have been taken of those in which the scripture represents him as the aggressor, and of the astonishing severity with which he treated the vanquished? The author does worse than suppress; he supposes, without the authority of the scripture, that the Syrians, the Ammonites, and the other neighbouring people, attacked the Israelites; the sacred history plainly intimates that they only endeavoured to defend themselves, in which they failed of success. See 2 Sam. chap. viii. ¹⁰¹ He supposes, likewise, with as little foundation in the scripture, that this prince married the young girl who was brought to him to endeavour to revivify him. I could excuse him this, without injuring what I have said concerning this fine method of reviving the natural heat. The least rigid of our modern casuists, I believe, would not judge it fit that an old man, utterly incapable of consummating the marriage, should wed a young girl with the sole view of warming his feet and hands by her side. Without doubt, they would think him guilty of a sin, and that he would cause his consort to sin likewise. Lastly, the author strives, in vain, to remove the difficulty that is obvious to all readers, when they consider that Saul did not know David on the day that Goliah was killed. I forgot to observe that David ought not to be blamed for excluding his eldest son from the succession. He no doubt left his kingdom to Solomon, in prejudice of the right of primogeniture; a right which, in hereditary crowns, ought to be inviolably preserved, unless we would open a door to a thousand civil wars. But he had very good reasons to set aside this right, since Adonijah, his eldest son, had been so impatient to reign, that he mounted the throne before David’s breath was out of his body. This good father durst not show his resentment against an impatience, which in reality differed nothing from usurpation; he had always been very indulgent to his children, and his almost decrepid age was not very proper to correct the easiness which accompanies tender hearts. Solomon’s mother, however, incited and directed by a prophet, whom Adonijah had not invited to a royal festival, frustrated the design: she and the prophet obliged David to declare himself in favour of Solomon, and to give all necessary orders for the inauguration of this young prince. Adonijah thought he was undone, and fled for refuge to the horns of the altar; but Solomon assured him he would do him no hurt, provided he behaved himself well. However, he caused him to be put to death, for a reason that seems frivolous enough; I mean because Adonijah had asked in marriage the Shunamite, who had served to cherish David. This confirms what I said before, that this royal prophet was unfortunate in his children: they had no natural affection, either to him or to one another. Here the wisest of them all sheds the blood of his elder brother for a trifle: for, we must not imagine he would have put him to death because of the irregularity of his love. All the sons of David should have looked on the Shunamite as forbidden fruit. Her virginity had belonged to their father; and he would actually have taken possession of it, had he been able. Adonijah was therefore to blame to cast his eyes on this girl; but it was not for this reason his brother killed him: it was because his demand raised the jealousy of Solomon, and made him fear that, by the frequent practice of asking favours, he would soon bethink himself to make the best of his birthright. A policy, in some respects, like that of the Ottomans, lost him his life.—Art.David.

DEMONIAC.

Martha Brossier, a woman who pretended to be possessed by the devil, had nearly occasioned great disorders in France, towards the latter end of the sixteenth century. Her father, who was a weaver at Remorantin, found it more convenient to ramble about with his three daughters, one of which had the art of making a thousand distortions, than to stay at home and mind his trade. He therefore went up and down through the neighbouring towns, showing his daughter Martha as a woman possessed by the devil, who stood in great need of the exorcism of the church. A prodigious multitude of people resorted to that spectacle. The cheat was found out at Orleans, . and for that reason, in the year 1598, all the priests of the diocese were forbidden to proceed to exorcisms ‘ on pain of excommunication. Nor was the bishop of Angers more easy to be imposed upon; he quickly detected the cheat, for having invited Martha to dinner, he caused some holy water to be brought her instead of common water, and common water instead of holy water. Martha was caught; she was not at all affected when she drank the holy water, but she made a thousand contortions when the common water was presented to her. Thereupon the prelate called for the book of exorcisms, and read the beginning of the Æneid. Martha was entrapped a second time; for thinking those Latin verses of Virgil were the beginning of the exorcism, she put herself into violent postures as if she had been tormented by the devil. This was sufficient to convince the bishop of Angers that she was an impostor; however he only reproved her father in private.

The knave however, did not care to go back to Remorantin with his daughter, as the prelate had advised him; but, on the contrary, he carried her to the great stage of the kingdom, I mean to Paris, where he hoped to be supported by credulous and ill-affected people, and by those whom the edict of Nantes had lately exasperated against the king. He pitched upon St Genevieve’s church to act his farce. The Capuchins, who immediately took up the business, lost no time, and quickly exorcised the wicked spirit of Martha, without a previous enquiry, as it is ordered by the church. The postures she made, whilst the exorcists performed their function, easily made the common people believe that she was a demoniac, and the thing was quickly noised about all over the town. The bishop being willing to proceed orderly in the matter, appointed five of the most famous physicians in Paris to examine the thing: they unanimously reported, that since it did not appear that Martha had any skill in Greek or Latin, the devil had no hand in the matter, but that there was a great deal of imposture, and some distemper in it. Two days after, two of those physicians seemed to waver, and, before they answered the bishop, desired the three others might be sent for, and time granted them till the next day. Thus on the first of April, 1599, a critical day for the cause, father Seraphin, on the one side, renewed his exorcisms, and Martha reiterated her convulsions on the other. She rolled her eyes, lolled out her tongue, quaked all over her body; and when the father came to these words, “ & homo factus est,” she fell down, and skipped and capered from the altar to the door of the chapel. Whereupon the exorcist cried out, that if any one persisted still in his incredulity, he needed only fight that devil, and try to conquer him, if he durst venture his life. Marescot, one of the five physicians, answered, that he accepted the challenge, and

immediately took Martha by the throat, and bid her stop. She obeyed, and alleged for her excuse, that the evil spirit had left her, which was confirmed by father Seraphin. Whence Marescot inferred, that it was he who had frighted the devil away. The bishop ordered, that the exorcisms should be carried on; at first Martha was not moved with them; only when she saw that Marescot was ready to struggle with her, she said, that he, Riolan and Hautin, would do better to mind their physic; but when she knew they were gone, she threw herself upon the ground, and began again her mad tricks. They returned, and quickly made her quiet, and maintained to father Seraphin that there was nothing supernatural in the case, exhorted the maid to deceive the people no longer, and threatened her with the rack. They consulted again about it, and laying great stress on Martha’s confessing, when asked several questions in Greek and Latin, that she was ignorant of those two languages, they all concluded, except one, that she was not possessed by the devil. It is true, there was another, who notwithstanding the signs of imposture, which he acknowledged, gave his opinion, that she should be observed three months longer. Two days after, some other physicians were sent for, the first being dismissed. Father Seraphin attended by one of his fraternity, who was an Englishman, repeated his exorcisms; and then Martha, besides her usual postures, answered some questions that were asked her in Greek and English. Whereupon, the physicians asserted, that she was truly possessed by the devil, but Marescot confuted all the arguments they alleged for it. People being divided in their opinions about it, and there being reason to fear that some answers might be suggested to that maid, which might raise a sedition, under pretence of the edict granted to the protestants; Henry IV was advised not to neglect the matter. He was sensible of the importance of it, and enjoined the parliament of Paris to use their authority in the affair. The parliament ordered Martha to be put into the hands of the lieutenant-criminal, and the king’s attorney in the chatelet. They kept her forty days, during which time they shewed her to the best physicians, who asserted, that they observed nothing in her that was beyond nature. In the mean time the preachers gave themselves a prodigious liberty: they cried out, that the privileges of the church were incroached upon, and that such proceedings were suggested by the heretics. Andrew du Val, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and archangel Du-Puy, a capuchin, were the most furious among those seditious declaimers. The parliament had much ado to silence the latter; but at last they made him sensible of their power, and on the twenty-fourth of May, 1599, the provost was ordered to carry James Brossier and his three daughters to Remorantin, and the father forbidden to let his daughter Martha go abroad without leave from the judge, on pain of corporal punishment. Thus the devil was condemned by an arrêt.

When I think that the wretched daughter of a weaver, carried from town to town like a bear, and at last engrossed by two or three monks, who pretended that she was a demoniac, made Henry IV, the parliament of Paris, and all honest Frenchmen, very uneasy; when I think that such a creature gave occasion to fear that a large kingdom would fall again into a combustion, which was but just quenched; when I think that, upon the news of her going to Rome, the agents of the French court were ordered to omit nothing with the Pope in order to ward off that blow: I say, when I consider all these things, I cannot but pity the fate of sovereigns, and their unavoidable dependence upon the clergy. Whether they be devout or not, they will be always obliged to have a regard for them, and to fear them; they are a true

imperium in imperio. It is true, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world; he says so himself; but those, who pretend to represent him, are frequently masters of the kings of the earth, and will give, or take away crowns. And those, who talk so much of the church militant, are more in the right than they think. This title cannot rightly be called into question; she is too much concerned in wars, her arms are too formidable, to contend with her about it. It is true, she pretends to be unarmed; but what does this signify to those who are afraid of her, since she has a thousand ways of arming the world, and shewing the falsity of the maxim, “ Nemo dat quod non habet. - - - - - No body gives what he has not.” How many men has she, of each of whom one may say what the poet says of Misenus?

- - - - - - - - - - - quo non præstantior alter
Ære ciere viros, martemque accendere cantu.
Art.Brossier.

DIGRESSION.

It is a fault to delight in rambling from the subject in hand; the historian Theopompus was justly blamed for it; but it does not follow that it is never a virtue to leave the main subject; a little variety is necessary in all ingenious works; and it is observed, that the most regular writers are not read with the greatest pleasure. I could mention some histories, which make the reader gape, and even sleep, though they are written with an exact observation of all the rules of art; a grave style, concise, correct, and sententious; a narrative free from incidents and trifling niceties; no particulars, no excursions; and always upon the strait line, because it is the shortest. Other writers, who sometimes lay aside their gravity, either with respect to the language, or to the subject, and make no scruple to go out of the way to take in an

episode, write a history that continually draws the attention of the reader. He goes through it before he is weary of it. . I shall not examine whether it be a proof of the one of these things, rather than of the other, either that the rules, or the judgment of the reader, are false. I insist upon the fact, and refer myself to the observation of a man of a very good taste. “ What a prodigious distance,” says he, “ there is between a fine work, and a perfect or regular work ! I do not know whether there has been any yet of die latter sort. It is, perhaps, less difficult for a rare genius to attain to greatness and sublimity, than to avoid all manner of faults. The Cid had but one voice at its birth, viz. that of admiration; it prevailed over authority and policy, which endeavoured in vain to destroy it; it re-united in its favour those that are always divided in their opinions and sentiments, great men, and the common people; they all agree in learning it by heart, and in preventing the actors upon the stage when they recite it. In short, the Cid is one of the finest poems that can be made; and one of the finest criticisms that ever was made of any subject, is that of the Cid.” La Bruyère. ¹⁰² This is the finest example that can be alleged of the insufficiency of the rides; the author of the Cid observed almost none of them. The French academy declared him an infringer of them; yet he charmed, and still charms the public. He lost his cause before the masters, but he carried it every where else: he appealed to the people, as that Horatius who killed his sister, and causes the sentence of the judges to be revoked by that tribunal. Montaigne’s essays are another example of a happy irregularity. Whoever should undertake to make that book very methodical, would deprive it of its chief beauties.

For the rest, I am not so much concerned in

vindicating digressions, as one might think: it is a miscellaneous compilation.. Variety is essential to that sort of compositions, and it ought chiefly to be allowed to those who cannot hope to prevent any other way the weariness of the reader. A digression cannot be said to be too long, only because it fills up several pages, but when every part of it takes up too much room; for though you be never so short upon every one of them, the conjunction of many will make you prolix. “ Solet enim esse quædam partium brevitas quæ longam tamen efficit summam.” I make use of» that thought of Quintilian in another sense than he.—Art.Philistus.

DIVINITY,
(Pagan Notions of).

What Montaigne observes of the ancient Pagans is very true; the idea they annexed to the word God did no ways resemble the divine nature, but was infinitely remote from it; so that the Athenians were not the only people to whom St Paul might have said, that they erected altars to the unknown God. All their altars deserved the same inscription, and I cannot think of the distinction they made at Athens between the known and unknown Gods; I cannot, I say, think of it, without remembering the distinction that was made, in the schools of Aristotle, between occult and manifest qualities. Among the peripatetics there is no other difference between manifest and occult qualities than this, that they have a word to denote manifest qualities,calor, frigus, humiditas, siccitas, &c. and they have none to denote the qualities of the load-stone. Just so among the Athenians there was no other difference between Gods, known, and unknown, than that they had a name for some of them, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, &c. and they knew not what to call the others. If the divine

nature which they adored was not, like the quintessence of Aristotle, as void of a name, as of an idea, it was at least as little known. The inhabitants of Marseilles openly professed to worship the unknown Gods, and they found that even this inspired them with a greater fear for their Deities. Apply here what Tacitus says, “ Arcebantur aspectu quo venerationis plus inesset. They were removed from the sight to enhance their devotion.” Hist. lib. 4, cap. 45. ¹⁰³ They worshipped them afar off, not approaching to the place where their statues were. The priest did not approach them without trembling, and dreaded their appearing to him, that is to say, he dreaded knowing them. Lucan imagines, that because in other places the gods were adored under figures exposed to the eyes of the public, there was a great difference between the Marsilians, and other people; for, says he, the Marsilians, not knowing their gods, had the greater fear of them. Therefore he imagined that in Greece and Italy the Deity was better known than at Marseilles: but he was much deceived; he ought only to have said, that in those countries they knew better under what figure the statuaries and painters represented it.

- - - simulacraque mœsta Deorum
Arte carent, cæsisque extant informia truncis.
Ipse situs, putrique facit jam robore pallor
Attonitos: non vulgatis sacrata figuris
Numina sic metuunt: tantum terroribus addit
Quos timeant non nosse Deos.
⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕ ⁕
Non ilium cultu populi propiore fréquentant
Sed cessere Deis. Medio cum Phoebus in axe est,
Aut cœlum nox atra tenet, Pavel ipse sacerdos
Accessus, dominumque timet deprendere luci. Lucan. Pharsal. lib. 3, ver. 412. ¹⁰⁴

Old images of forms mishapen stand,
Rude and unknowing ot the artist's hand.

With hoary filth begrim’d, each ghastly head
Strikes the astonish’d gazer’s soul with dread.
No Gods who long in common shapes appear’d,
Were e’er with such religious awe rever’d.
But zealous crowds in ignorance adore
And still the less they know, they fear the more.
* * * * * * * *
The pious worshippers approach not near,
But shun their Gods, and kneel with distant fear:
The priest himself, when or the day or night
Rolling have reach’d their full meridian height,
Refrains the gloomy path with weary feet,
Dreading the daemon of the grove to meet.

The Pagans could not retort this observation on Christianity, under pretence that its professors are required to captivate their understandings to the obedience of faith; and that faith is by some said to be better defined by ignorance, than by knowledge; and that people are to be determined, not by the way of examination, but by the way of authority, and are to adore the mysteries without comprehending them. This retortion, I say, would be unjust upon Christianity in general, since the Protestant Communions reject not the way of examination, and are not afraid, like the priest of Marseilles, that the object of their faith should be manifested.

According to La Bruyere, the doctrines of the New Mystics or Quietists, is not very distinct from those of the old. “ The perfection of contemplation according to these enthusiasts, does not consist in knowing God more intimately than others, but innot knowing him. The freely contemplative person, they assert, forms no idea of God to himself, nor pretends to any distinct knowledge of his attributes. He knows him not by ideas, reflection or reasoning, but by an obscure, general, and confused faith, without distinction of perfections, attributes, or persons. True and perfect contemplation has the essence of God for its sole object, considered under the most

possible abstract idea. The soul ought to be persuaded, that the creatures are too gross to serve for a master and guide in the knowledge of God. Therefore love is to go before and leave the understanding behind. The soul loves God as he is in himself, and not as the imagination represents him. If the soul cannot know him, such as he is, it must love him without knowing him, under the obscure veil of faith, almost as a child who never saw its father, and who, trusting to those that speak of him, loves him as much as if he had seen him. All that the holy scriptures say of God must pass only for figure, and to stop there, would be to stop at the superficies, because as God cannot be comprehended by the mind, so neither can he be explained by words, and when we would thereby raise ourselves to him, we fall still lower. God has caused those books to be writ only to give us a high opinion of his greatness, that if we love him in what is said of him, we may love him yet much more in himself. But if the soul should love God as he is represented in the scriptures, it would love a phantom, or the mask of God, and not God as he really is. God is nothing of what reason conceives, because all that we know can be comprehended, but God is incomprehensible. When we pretend to know God, we idolatrously change the creature into God, and abase God to the creature. While the soul knows any thing by images or similitudes of what nature soever, even though infused and supernatural, it does not know God. The idea St Paul gave of God to the Athenians adoring an unknown God is false, in that it does not represent God as he is, for he cannot be either comprehended or known. We are obliged to make use of terms proportioned to our weakness in speaking of him: but those expressions have nothing worthy of him, and the ideas they form in us are not the true idea of God. It may be said of God, that he is just, gracious, a re warder, an avenger, &c. but none of that is God; faith beholds him not in this manner, having no other object than an unknown omnipresent God.”

We see in the preceding quotation the maxims of the new Mystics; but we must observe here, that they pretend they are as ancient as Mystical divinity; for they cite the words of St Dionysius. “ As for you, my dear Timothy, set yourself seriously to Mystical contemplations, forsake your senses, the operations of your mind, all sensible and intelligible objects, and generally all things that are, and that are not; in order to raise yourself as much as man can do, and that you may be united in an unknown and inexpressible manner to him, who is above all being, and all knowledge.” There are some philosophers who think, that what the Quietists say of the falsity of the notions, under which the Deity is commonly represented, is very reasonable, and that the images, made use of by the sacred writers to exhibit him to us, want rectification.—Art.Dioscorides.

DOGMATISM.

The philosopher Chrysippus would have those who teach a truth, to take but little notice of the reasons of the contrary party, and to imitate the advocates. It was the general spirit of the Dogmatists: there were but few, besides the Academics, who proposed the arguments of both parties with the same force. Now I maintain that, that method of the Dogmatists was a bad one, and that it differed very little from the deceitful art of the rhetorician Sophisters, which made them so odious, and which consisted in transforming the worst causes into the best. One of the chief artifices of the latter was, to conceal all the advantages of the causes which they opposed, and all the weak sides of those which they maintained; only they proposed some objections to themselves for form-sake, which

were chosen among the easiest to be refuted. This is, at the bottom, what Chrysippus would have philosophers do: he would have them to touch slightly upon the reasons of the contrary party, which were able to shake the persuasion of the hearers or readers, and to imitate those who plead at the bar. Why did he not say plainly, that they must do like shop-keepers, who cry up their own wares, and cunningly decry those of their neighbours? Why did he not say also, that they must do like those who, having quarrelled, carry their complaints before the judges? Every one tells his story so much to his advantage, that, if you believe him, he is not at all in the wrong, because he suppresses all that is against him, and all that is favourable to his enemy. Chrysippus was not only to blame for the dishonest and unfair way by which he would have the victory obtained, but also for his indiscretion in revealing that practice. It was not a thing to be communicated to the public; he ought to have kept it in secret, as the politicians do their designs or maxims of state,Arcana Imperii: he ought, at most, to have whispered it in the ear of some wise and learned disciple.

Antiquity had two sorts of philosophers; some were like the advocates, and others like those who report a cause. The former, in proving their opinions, hid the weak side of their cause, and the strong side of their adversaries, as much as they could. The latter, to wit, the Sceptics or Academics, represented the strong and the weak arguments of the two opposite parties faithfully, and without any partiality. This distinction has been very seldom seen among Christians, in the schools of philosophy, and less still in the schools of divinity. Religion does not admit of the character of an Academic; it requires either a negative or an affirmative. No religious judges are found, but what are parties at the same time, and there are a great many pious authors, who plead a cause according to Chrysippus’s maxim. I mean who keep to the

function of an advocate; but there is scarcely any reporter to be seen, for, if any one represent the whole strength of the contrary party faithfully, and without any disguise, he becomes odious and suspected, and runs the hazard of being treated as an infamous prevaricator. Human prudence, policy, the interest of the party, are not always the reason why a man acts merely like an advocate. A charitable zeal likewise inspires this conduct; and, upon this, I shall allege what was said to me the other day by a learned divine, and a very honest man. I maintained to him that an author who, without dogmatising, keeps within the bounds of history, may and ought, faithfully, to represent the most specious things that the worst sects can allege in their own vindication, or against Orthodoxy. He denied it. I suppose, said I, that you are a professor of divinity, and that you make choice of the mystery of the Trinity for the subject-matter of your lectures for a whole winter. You examine to the bottom what the Orthodox have said, and what the Heretics have objected; and you find, by your meditation and by the strength of your parts, that the solutions of the Orthodox may be much better answered than they have been by the sectaries. In a word, you discover new objections, more difficult to be resolved than all that has hitherto been objected; and I suppose you propose them to your auditors. “ No,” replied he, “I would by no means do it; it would be a dangerous thing for them: neither charity, nor zeal for truth, allow of such a thing.” Such was his answer. It may very well be then, that certain authors boast, in a preface, to have overthrown all the bulwarks of Heresy, and yet that they remember to have omitted the discussion of the most captious arguments, for charity-sake. There is reason to believe this chiefly of the Romish controversialists, since the complaints that have been made against Bellarmin, that his sincerity in representing the reasons of the Heretics, has been prejudicial to the Romish church.

Here I must examine a thing which I promised in the article of that cardinal. Is it to argue consequentially, is it to preserve a uniform and regular conduct, to cause the writings of a Heretic to be burnt, and yet to permit the reading of the authors who have refuted him? No, you will say; for the reason why the reading and the sale of heretical books are prohibited is, because it is feared they will infect the readers. They are afraid, in Italy, that those who should see in what manner a protestant writer proves his tenets, and attacks the catholic doctrine, would be filled with doubts, and even would suffer themselves to be wholly persuaded by that author’s reasons. But is there no reason to fear the same misfortune, if they read Bellarmin’s writings? Will they not see there the proofs and objections of the heretics? And, supposing that Bellarmin has been a fair writer, will they not find them as strong there, as in the very books of the most learned Protestant? Yes, will it be said to me; but they will find them confuted; whereas, if they should read the book of a Heretic,, they would find the poison, without having a preservative at the same time. This answer is not satisfactory; for it supposes an extraordinary imprudence and laziness in the readers: it is to suppose, that they had rather run the hazard of their salvation, than go from one book to another; and that, knowing they might find Bellarmin’s works in a shop where they bought the book of a Calvinist, they would decide in favour of the latter, before they had informed themselves of that Cardinal’s reasons; though at the same time they might lay on their table both the book which contains the poison, and that which has the antidote. You will grant that the difference between the arguments of a Heretic, bound up together with the arguments of an Orthodox, and those same arguments bound up by themselves, those of the Heretic in one volume, and those of the Orthodox in another; I say, you will grant me, that such a difference is not a sufficient reason either to hope or

to fear. Thia hope or this fear must therefore proceed from something else. It must be said, that what is thought to be a sufficient antidote, when the reader compares together what an orthodox writer quotes out of an heretical book, and what he answers to it, is not looked upon as a good remedy, when he compares together the whole book of the Heretic and the whole book of the Orthodox. It is therefore supposed that, independently of the answer, the reasons of the Heretic are weaker in the work of the orthodox writer, than in the work of the Heretic; and consequently, it is supposed that the author of the answer had the prudence to misrepresent and curtail them, and to turn them in such a manner, that they shall not be able to surprise those who shall see nothing but that, and shall compare it with the refutation. At this rate, the inquisitors who prohibit a book, and permit the reading of those who have refuted it, do not contradict themselves: their conduct is not made up of inconsistent proceedings; they are sure that the prohibition will be useful, and that the permission will do no harm. Nevertheless, let us infer, that the same policy, prudence, charity, or zeal (make use of what term you please) which requires that certain books should be burnt, or that the reading or selling of them should be prohibited, requires by a necessary consequence, that all the reasons of an author should not be inserted in the books wherein they are confuted; for if, contrary to Chrysippus’s maxim, all the strength of those reasons should be displayed with the utmost sincerity, it would be to no purpose to suppress those ill books, unless they should prohibit, at the same time, all the writings that confute them. This is so plain, that it is very probable that all the authors, who are zealous to maintain the discipline, comply with the spirit of the tribunals that condemn certain books; it is very probable that, if those authors undertake to refute any of those books, they order it so that their refutation does not discover what might shake the faith of the readers. They reduce an objection to three or four lines which takes up several pages; they produce it without any support, and without its preliminaries; they leave out what they cannot answer. After all, a book, which seems never so strong to those who read it through, will hardly appear so in the fragments which an adversary alleges out of it. and which he scatters in several parts of his answer, here four lines, there five or six, &c.; they are branches lopped from their trunk; they are a dismounted machine, a dismembered body, which cannot be known again. All controversialists mutually complain of the artifices of those who write against them. I knew a Roman catholic who said, that all the works published against Bellarmin deserved the title ofBellarminus enervatus, which Amesius made use of;enervatus,added he, not by the force of the answer, but by the manner of representing his objections. The Protestants complain yet more of the tricks of their adversaries. If you observe the quarrels that arise sometimes between persons of the same party, and if you read the books of the two disputants, you will find some force in them; but, if you should judge of Mævius’s book by the scraps which his antagonist Titius cites out of them, and by the censure that he passes upon them, you would think that Mævius can neither write nor argue, and that he has not common sense.—Art.Chrysippus.

DOGS.
(A Sermon on.)

The books written against father Maimbourg’s “ History of Calvinism,” contain so full an account of his genius and conduct, it is not necessary to dwell upon his character here; but as those who have refuted him have said nothing of a certain sermon, which furnished a writer of Port Royal with a merry tale, I will briefly allude to it. It is in a preface before

the defence of the Mons translation of the New Testament, of the Cologne edition, 1668, which was not reprinted in the Geneva edition, of all the pieces which concern this translation. Hence it comes to pass that this story is but little known. It will not therefore be impertinent to insert it here, as the author of the preface tells it.

“It is now above twenty years since I went by chance into the chapel of the college of Clermont, and there I saw one mount up into the pulpit, of an extraordinary mien, and who was none of those of whom the scripture speaks, ' whose wisdom shines in their countenance? On the contrary, there was nothing to be seen but fierceness in his eyes, in his gestures, and in all his air; and he might have struck terror into the people, if this fierceness had not been mingled with a thousand theatrical gestures which made them laugh. His discourse was yet more astonishing than his appearance, and the tenor of it was so strange, that I can never forget it. It was the Sunday after Easter, when the gospel about the good Shepherds was read: hence he took occasion to magnify the condition of shepherds, by observing that it was not formerly the profession of the meanest people, as it is at present; but that kings and princes did not then think it unworthy of them. After this, he reckoned up a great number of princes that were shepherds. He forgot not the Patriarchs, but carried down the catalogues as far as David, upon whom he dwelt a long time; for he gave us a comical description of his beauty, the colour of his hair, his clothes, and lastly of his dog. It was/ says he, ‘a brave dog, and had so much courage, that we may believe while his master fought against Goliah, this dog, to avoid the disgrace of doing nothing in the mean time, hunted after the wolves and fought them.' After this good father was once entered upon the subject of dogs, as if he had been linked to it by some secret sympathy, he could not tell how to

leave it, and therefore he divided his sermon into four parts, according to the four several sorts of dogs. The first sort were English dogs: the second were mastiff dogs: the third were the lap dogs: and the fourth the good dogs; whereof he made [an application to different sorts of preachers. The English dogs were the Jansenists, or, as they were then called. the Arnaudists, whom he represented as an indiscreet people, who tore in pieces all men indifferently, and made no distinction between the innocent and the guilty, but oppressed every body with hard penances. He described the mastiff dogs as being cowardly, and having no courage but upon their own dunghill, and who being off that, are always fearful, which be applied to preachers of that humour. The lap dogs, were according to him, the abbots of the court: “they are,” says he, ‘shaped like lions, and make a great noise, but when they are viewed narrowly, their noise is laughed at;’—and upon this occasion he described their ruffles, their bands, their surplices, and gestures. Lastly, the good dogs were the Jesuits, and such preachers as he was. It is impossible to imagine after what manner he treated this ridiculous subject, and to what an excessive pitch he carried the buffoonry of his descriptions. I can assure you, that being then present, I saw all the reverend fathers that were in the galleries above, holding their sides with laughter, from the beginning of the sermon to the end of it, and the rest of the auditory could not well keep their countenances, and look grave: indeed there was nothing but a loud noise, which could not be stopt. All this diverted the good father, and inspired him with a new ardour to increase the laughter of his auditors, with new grimaces. After I had been a spectator of this strange profanation, and was informed of the name of the Jesuit who had preached, who was said to be F. Maimbourg, 1 went out more scandalized at the society, than at their preacher.”—Art,Maimbourg.

END OF VOL. I.