for themselves, and another for the

pulace) yet they were guilty of what in effect was equally bad, in holding an opinion which neceffarily fupported thefe very mistakes, namely, that as different nations had different gods, it was every man's duty (I fuppofe more for quietness than principle's fake) to worship the gods of his country; which, by the way, confidering their numbers, was not fo eafy a task,

-for what with celestial gods, and gods aërial, terreftrial and infernal, with the goddeffes, their wives and miftreffes, upon the loweft computation, the heathen world acknowledged no less than thirty thousand deities, all which claimed the rites and ceremo nies of religious worship.

But, 'twill be faid, allowing the bulk of mankind were under fuch de

lufions, lative.

What was, that to their

practice? however defective in their theology and more abstracted points, their morality was no way con nected with it.There is no need, that the everlasting laws of juftice and mercy fhould be fetched down from

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above,fince they can be proved from more obvious mediums;

they were as neceffary for the fame good purposes of fociety then as now; and we may prefume they faw their intereft and pursued it.

That the neceffities of fociety, and the impoffibilities of its fubfifting otherwife, would point out the con

venience, or if you will,--the duty of focial virtues, is unquestionable: but I firmly deny, that therefore religion and morality are independent of each other: they appear fo far from it, that I cannot conceive how the one, in the true and meritorious fenfe of the duty, can act without the influence of the other: furely the most exalted motive which can only be depended upon for the uniform practice of virtue, muft come down from above,from the love and imitation of the goodness of that Being in whole fight we wish to render ourselves acceptable: this will operate at all times and all places,--in the darkeft clofet as much as on the greatest and most public theatres of the world.

But with different conceptions of the Deity, or fuch impure ones as they entertained, is it to be doubted whether in the many fecret trials of our virtue, we fhould not determine our cafes of confcience with much the fame kind of cafuistry as that of the Libertine in Terence, who being engaged in a very unjuftifiable purfuit, and happening to fee a picture which reprefented a known ftory of Jupiter in a like tranfaction,--argued the matter thus within himself.-If the great Jupiter could not reftrain his appetites, and deny himself an indulgence of this kind--ego Homuncio boc non facerem? fhall I a mortal,an inconfiderable mortal too, cloath'd with infirmities of flesh and blood,

pretend to a virtue, which the Father of gods and men could not? What infolence!

The conclufion was natural enough; and as fo great a master of nature puts it into the mouth of one of his principal characters, no doubt the language was then understood; it was copied from common life, and was not the first application which had been made of the story.

It will fcarce admit of a queftion, Whether vice would not naturally grow bold upon the credit of fuch an example; or whether fuch impreffions did not influence the lives and morals of many in the heathen world; and had there been no other proof of it, but the natural tendency of fuch no

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