dedicated to Castor and Pollux by A. Posthumius, and a decree of the senate concerning Vatienus? and as to Sagra, the Greeks have a common proverb among them, who when they would assert a thing, say it is more certain than any thing in Sagra. Are not these authorities therefore sufficient to convince you? To which Cotta rejoined: O Balbus, you fight me with popular stories; but I expect you will give me reasons." M. de Launoi might have made use of the same answer, and of several others; but as I have already said, there were too many people interested in opposing the innovation, and maintaining the common tradition. It looks as if they had well weighed the consequences of the principle which Cicero has put into the mouth of one of his speakers: I mean that they seem to have learned how to prove the truth of a tradition from its standing the test of time, and maintaining its ground for so many ages. It is laid down in Cicero, that an opinion ill-grounded can never grow old. And observe, by the bye, that the argument drawn from antiquity is made use of in Cicero to prove a falsity, for it is there alleged to maintain the reality and existence of the false gods of Paganism. It is, therefore, a principle which may lead into error, and yet the maxim, " Opinionum commenta delet dies," might have been long since urged against the false worship of the ancient Greeks and Romans, since there has been no country for many ages wherein their religion, their Jupiter and their Juno, their Venus and their Neptune, &c. are acknowledged and adored. And thus their cause is lost, when once it is supposed that, sooner or later, time will destroy false doctrines. You may please to observe that this principle can never be admitted as a certain proof, without first determining the duration sufficient to distinguish truth from error. If a thousand years suffice, every opinion which is a thousand years old is true; but if no time be fixed, it is in vain to conclude

that a doctrine which has lasted four thousand years must be taken for certain: nobody knows what is to come, or whether the fifth millenary may not put a period to what has resisted the four preceding ones.

I have one thing farther to observe. There is no likelihood that those who follow the steps of John de Launoi can do any service, whilst things are only carried on by way of a literary dispute. The patrons of false devotion will never recede; they find their account too much not to abate an ace, and they are powerful enough to secure themselves from any violence. The court of Rome will second and support them. The Romish church seems to have adopted the religion of the god Terminus, of the Roman republic. This god never yielded a tittle; no, not to Jupiter himself; which was a sign, said they, that the Roman people should never recede, nor yield an inch of ground to their enemies. If any pope should be willing to sacrifice something to the re-union of the Schismatics, some insignificant devotions, some superannuated traditions, he might apprehend as great a murmur against him as the Heathens made against the scandalous peace of the emperor Jovian. The Jesuits, with all their power, have not been able to hinder the inquisition of Toledo from condemning several volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum;" and it is certain that storm was raised only by the solicitations of the Carmelites and other monks, who were angry with father Papebroch and his assistants, for having rejected several acts and old traditions as apocryphal. They are to be condemned for having merited this thunder-stroke, and will do well to deserve others. The character of a Capaneus in this respect would be a very good one. But by these sorts of encounters with the inquisitors, they will render themselves unserviceable with respect to the reformation of public abuses; their criticisms, were they much more severe,

could be of no farther use than for the instruction of private persons. The disease is past cure. You see father Mabillon has laid down some very good rules concerning the worship of some saints, and the judgment to be made of relics. What did he get by it? he was answered, "physician, heal thyself." Reform first the worship paid, in some houses of your order of St Benedict, to saints as dubious as any. He was told of the injury he did to the church, and the advantage he gave the Protestants. Is not this shutting the door against all his good designs? M. Thiers sets up against false relics, he examines where the bodies of the mar

tyrs lie, he publishes some dissertations upon the holy tear of Vendôme, and upon St Firmin. All this is lost labour. The king's council suppressed his book about St Firmin, as the bishop of Amiens had condemned a letter, which he had published upon the same question: see the "Nouvelles de la République des Lettres," and the third part of the " Bibliotheca volante." The fruits of a discreet zeal are destroyed in the bud. They build upon this principle, that it is dangerous to abrogate old customs, that boundaries ought not to be removed, and that, according to the old proverb, 66 we should leave the minster where we find it." The prosperity of the Christian Rome, just like that of the Pagan Rome, is founded upon the preservation of ancient rites. Consecrations must be complied with, religion will allow no alteration in them. "Sed illa mutari vetat religio, et consecratis utendum est. In our days," said a sub-prior of St Antony," let us beware of innovations."*

Art. LAUNOI.

*This reasoning in favour of Catholic saints and relics is precisely similar to that which an English prelate opposed to the repeal of some grossly absurd ecclesiastical statutes, when a motion was some years ago made by earl Stanhope, to get rid of them.-ED.

RELIGION,

(Of learned and of prudent men.)

A DIVINE of Wirtemberg affirms that Reinesius, who went to the Lutheran churches, and communicated with the Lutherans, spoke so ill of their divines, and of their doctrine, and liturgies, that he was worse than a professed adversary. Hence he concludes, either that he was of the religion of prudent men, or that he favoured it; for he openly declared that he followed a certain religion in certain points, and another religion in other points. That divine had explained in another place what he meant by the religion of prudent men. Here is the substance of his discourse.

"A Dutchman said one day, that the religion of Grotius was that of learned men. Being asked what religion it was, he answered, they believe what they please.' Kromaier, a divine of Leipsic, held it for a certain thing that Grotius had followed the religion of prudent men, which is a mixture of many religions, and is made up of several doctrines suited to our taste and interest. It is called the religion of prudent men, because the wise men of this world pitch upon it with great prudence, as they think, and keep it as long as they please; it is also called the political and philosophical religion. It goes by the first of these two names, because the politicians make choice of it; for they are men who will be free in that point, and who turn themselves all manner of ways. It is styled philosophical, because it frees a man from the obligation of believing; and it is well known that a philosopher submits to no human authority, and will not swear to the words of any master; "liber homo philosophus nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri." The author mentions two other epithets; he says that this religion of prudent men is called "eclectic," or "eclogistic." I wonder he said nothing of the sect of the

eclectic philosophers, founded by Potamon of Alexandria, who lived in the time of Augustus, who were neither Platonists, nor Stoics, nor Peripatetics, nor of any other particular sect; but they took out of every one of them what they liked best, and left the rest. Such is the notion of the religion ascribed to Reinse ius. It was a religion of choice, a mosaic work, a work made up of in-laid pieces. There are more people than is commonly believed, who form such a religion to themselves, and do not boast of it. They might be called in Latin miscelliones.-Art. REINESIUS.

RELIGION,

(Of a Sovereign.)

In regard to the spirit, the heart, and the religion of a sovereign, Plutarch testifies, that those who governed in Lacedemon, acknowledged no other justice than that which tended to the advantage and aggrandizing of the state. It was among them the rule and the measure of law and honesty, if a thing were useful to the public, it immediately passed for lawful. I believe Plutarch says the truth; but he ought not to have confined his observations to the city of Sparta alone. Those of Athens and Thebes had no better principles; and generally speaking, they are the maxims of all states: the only difference is in the degrees; some save appearances better than others. However, Agesilaus was quite abandoned to this iniquitous morality. Being suspected to have induced Phebidas to surprise the citadel of Thebes in full peace, and by a fraud, which made all Greece exclaim, he represented, "that they ought first to examine whether the action was of advantage to the state; and that every person ought, in his private capacity, to do what tended to the advantage of the state. He obtained that Phebidas should be acquitted, and that a garrison should be sent into the Citadel. In his Egyptian expedition,