us a new sort of levelling Theology, unknown to the wisdom of former ages. When the Jewish nation was called out by the prophet Elijah to be spectators of the grandest dispute the world ever saw, that is, to determine whether Jehovah or Baal was the proper object of religious adoration, Mr. Pope could have settled it all in a word or two, only by instructing the parties that the true God is worshipped in every climate by those who worship any God at all: that the Saint, the Savage, and the Sage, the Hebrew, the Hottentot, and the Greek philosopher, were the votaries of one and the same Divinity. How mistaken were the poor Christians under all the Roman persecutions, in throwing away their lives upon a distinction which had no existence! They were brought before the altar of Jupiter, and the usual alternative was proposed, either to suffer death or signify their adoration. Had either party been aware of the new levelling principle, they might have been reconciled without proceeding to these extremities, and have joined amicably in the same sacrifices. Thus much however we may conclude for certain, that if the poet had been in the like circumstances, he could not possibly have been

been a martyr, if he believed his own doctrine.

The pious and excellent author of the Night Thoughts, who writes as a Christian. moralist, hath been tempted by the force of custom to transgress that rule of sound criticism, which obliges us to make every composition uniform and of a piece. What occasion had he thus to adopt the Heathen style "that more than miracle the Gods indulge." Why gods in the plural? Why must they have the honour of working miracles? And why are the Holy Angels of God, and the red-faced Bacchus of Paganism, brought together into the same poem? Which, to say nothing of the impiety of it, can never be reconciled to the rules of propriety and good writing. If we write as Christians, let us keep up to the style of our profession: if our scene is laid upon Heathen ground, then let us take the language of the Heathen writers-Sit quod vis simplex duntaxat & unum. The Levitical law forbad the people to plough with an ox and an ass together; and the New Testament taking up the same principle, commands us not to be unequally yoked together with un

believers. All I contend for here is consistency and propriety; and I am sure the judgment of the best critics will bear me out. in what I have said.

The case of the primitive martyrs, who chose rather to die than do honour to the Heathen Deities, brings to my remembrance a circumstance which lessens my admiration of those antique statues, which, as the productions of genius, are otherwise very much to be admired for elegance of design and truth of proportion. In times of persecution it was the custom with the bigots of Heathenism to drag the Christians up to the images of their idol-gods, either to offer sacrifice or be put to death: whence it is by no means improbable, that the blood of many innocent Christians may have been barbarously shed to the honour of some statues now in high esteem with modern virtuosi of the same Christian profession; who, for a little excellence of workmanship, admire and respect what their purer predecessors had reason to regard with horror and detestation".

Where

a We have heard it observed, that the Statues of Heathen Deities have been generally found under the earth with their faces downward: which renders it probable,

that

Where at last will this taste, which hath been prevailing and increasing for so many years, from the days of Lord Herbert to the late erection of the Pantheon, where, I say, will it lead us? Where can it lead us, but tó indifference and atheism? A Christian corrupted with Heathen affections, degenerates into something worse than the original Hea} thens of antiquity. They had great faith in such gods as they knew; depended upon them devoutly; and applied to them on every public occasion, either of deprecation or thanksgiving. If we except the Epicureans, they insisted almost universally on a special provi dence, directing things pro re nata; and were assured that the gods were the avengers of perjury and impiety. But faith in the divine protection, and fear of divine vengeance, are but coldly regarded, and rarely to be met with in many of their modern disciples. Sacrifice was practised by them, as the essential part of religion, for the expiation of private

that after the conversion of the empire, such Statues had been purposely buried out of the way by the zeal and piety of the primitive Christians. How surprisingly are times altered! We now hear Mr. Gibbon blaming Christians, for not intermixing the elegant and innocent rites of Paganism with their own worship!

VOL. III.

G Q

ΟΙ

or national guilt: but when the Christian sacrifice is neglected, and the Heathen sacrifices are exploded, nothing remains but a religion without expiation; a thing which never existed since the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, till it was begotten of late time in Socinus, and his followers; when Christian lukewarmness engendered with the pride and ignorance of gentile philosophy.

While we have been considering the case of poets, orators, and artists, how they all stand affected to Heathenism; I had almost forgotten the philosophers, I mean the natural philosophers, whose science for an hundred years past, hath been claiming kindred with the Heathen divinity. About the year 1680, it was observed by an eminent scholar of that time, that the exact and scrutinizing spirit of the school-divinity was become necessary, in order to detect the pretensions of some "who were ready by the study of nature to immerse God in matter, and with those impieties of Democritus and Epicurus, to confound him with nature." In the year 1685, Mr. Boyle, in a treatise intitled, "A free Inquiry into the vulgarly received notion of Nature," expressed an apprehension that the same doctrine was likely to gain ground amongst us;

and