upright, and hearty Friend, than to have great Employs, and be in the highest Dignitys? What Creature but Man knows that 'tis better to be Juft, than to be Rich; or rather, that there are none Rich (g), as Cicero well obferves, but they who have Virtue? In fhort, what but Man has any Notion of Order, and Decency? and who is there that knows it not? For this Knowledge is one of the great Advantages of the Human Nature and Reason, it being what, as Cicero fays again (b), makes a Man take care that in all his Words and Actions, there be a Decency, a Measure, • Connection and Order; it being that which warns him to do nothing that is unbecoming, mean, or effeminate, and that, neither in his Sentiments, nor any part of his Behaviour, there be any thing irregular, or that favours of Paffion or Caprice. And from all this, fays the Pagan, refults what is call'd Wisdom and Honefty; which, fays he, to use Plato's Words, wou'd be the most admir'd of all Beautys, if they were as visible to the Eyes of the Body, as they are to thofe of the Mind: I fay to thofe of the Mind, becaufe, as Seneca has excellently remark'd, the greateft Bleffing of Nature, is that Virtue which is nothing elje but Wisdom and Honefty, diffufes its Light into the Minds of all

(g) Quâ præditi qui funt, foli funt Divites. Cic. 6. Parad (b) Nec vero illa parva vis naturæ eft, rationifque, quod unum hoc Animal fentit, qui fit ordo, quid fit quod deceat in factis dictifque, qui fit modus, cavetque ne quid indecore effeminativè faciat, tum in omnibus & opinionibus & factis, ne quid libidinofè aut faciat aut cogitet. Quibus ex rebus conflatur & efficitur id, quod quærimus, honeftum-(quod) fi oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores, ut ait Plato, excitaret fapientiæ. Cic. de Offic. L. I. c. 4, §.

• Mankind

Mankind (i), and that even they who don't follow it, do nevertheless fee it.'

After Teftimonies fo authentick, and certain, because they flow from the very Hearts of Pagans, who fo publickly depofe in favour of human Nature, fo happily extol its Advantages, and prove fo far beyond all difpute, that to know what is Order and Decency, Wifdom and Honesty, what to do, and what to avoid, is fufficient to conftitute Man; who can without Indignation hear what we are going to be told, not by a Pagan, but by a Jefuit, call'd Father Merat? That fome (k) univerfal Princi'ples of the Law of Nature, fuch as thefe, That one muft not steal, nor kill, nor commit Adul< tery; that Parents must be honour'd, and the like (as if these were not enough for him, or as if they were but Trifles) a Man may be invincibly ignorant of, even a long time, tho not during 'the whole Courfe of his Life.

Is it really poffible to degrade human Nature to fuch a pitch, and can more be faid to make a Mani a Beaft? What, can a Man be invincibly ignorant, for any confiderable time, that he ought to worship? God, and honour his Parents? Can he be ignorant that Robberies, Murders, Adulteries, and other Abominations of that kind, are prohibited? Oh ! what a Monster is this, wou'd Seneca fay, if he were here, who teaches that Man is capable of futh

(i) Maximum hoc habemus naturæ Meritum, quod virtus in omnium animos lumen fuum permittit: Etiam qui non fequu tur illam, vident. Senec. de Benef. L. iv. p. 717. tom. I.

(k) Principia aliqua univerfalia Legis Natura, ut funt hæ non effe furandum, occidendum, adulterandum, parentes hon orandos & fimilia; etfi non poffunt ignorari invincibiliter to to humanæ vitæ tempore, poffunt tamen aliquo brevi, imò etia ma fatis longo. Merat, in his Difputes upon the Theological Sur mary of St. Thomas, Tom. i. Treatife of sins, Difp. ix. §;t.. P. 577. col. 2.

ftrange

ftrange Ignorance! an Ignorance which we don't hear of even among Pirates and Corfairs: for, as that Philofopher well obferves, the Laws of Nature are facred among them (1).

But what would this Pagan have said, if he had heard what is ftill more fhocking; that this Ignorance, far from being a Sin, cancels all the Sins committed while it prevail'd? Cancels, did I fay, it does much more than that, for it exempts from all Sin, (as we shall find in the next Chapter :) which is more than the Sacrament of Baptifm does; because a Man may have been a Sinner before he receives this Sacrament, whereas, if he is lock'd up in the Ignorance defended by the Jefuits, it was impoffible he could ever have finn'd, and it keeps him in Innocence, do what he will.

The Jefuit Azor ftifles the Light of Nature in fome Men to the fame degree, with refpect to Fornication. 'If we mean the Fornication, fays he, ⚫ which is committed with a common Prostitute, (m) whom the Republick has thought fit to tolerate, a Man may fometime chance to ftumble upon her, who perhaps is fo dull and uninform'd, as to be invincibly ignorant that fuch Fornication ' is a Sin.'

Filliucius, another Jefuit, fays likewife, That there are many of the common People, who feeing that fimple Fornication is not punish'd, or that common Whores are tolerated, imagine that

(1) Naturæ jura facra funt etiam apud Piratas. Senec. Controv. L. iii. p. 233.

(m) Si autem loquamur de Fornicatione, quæ eft concubitus vagus cum meretrice, omnibus expofitâ & in Republica permiffâ, hinc aliquando in hominem rudem & rufticum poteft cadere ignorantia invincibilis. In his Moral Inftitutions, Part iii. Lib. iii. ch. 4. p. 163. col. 1.

'tis (n) no Sin to have to do with them; which is the very Cafe in Cities' (mark how far he carries the Ignorance of this Sin) where care is taken to inftruct the People in Matters of Faith and Re•ligion.'

In a word, to let no Uncleanness escape, Father Bonucio, a very modern Jefuit, afferts, That a Man may also be invincibly ignorant that fecret Incontinence (0), is intrinfically evil: and fo he adds of many other fuch Pollutions, to the end that it may not be thought he looks upon any one of them as a Crime.

We will stop here, and fhew farther, that the Pagans, without the Light of Faith and Religion, did not believe, as the Jefuits do, that 'tis poffible for a Perfon to be invincibly ignorant that Adultery, Fornication, and all other Scandals, are things wicked in themselves; and then we will fhew what they would have faid of fuch Ignorance, fuppofing it had been poffible.

Let us hear Cicero. He begins with Adultery; and nothing furely can be finer than what he says upon it.

(p) Tho, in the Reign of Tarquin, there had been no written Law against Adultery, it would

(2) Putant non effe Peccatum, ad eas accedere. Quod etiam in civitatibus alioquin bene inftitutis in fide & religione fæpe locum habet. Quaft. Mor. Tom. i. tr. 30. c. 2. p. 389. col. 1. n. 50.

(0) Poteft quis invincibilitèr ignorare-pollutionem effe intrinfecè malam, & alia hujufmodi. In his Book of the Defence of the Decree of Alexander VIII. against the thirty one Propofitions, printed at Rome in 1704. § 2. p. 10. n. 14.

(p) Nec fi regnante Tarquinio, nulla erat Romæ fcripta lex de ftupris: idcirco non contra illam Legem fempiternam.. Tarquinius vim Lucretia attulit. Erat enim ratio profecta à rerum naturâ, & ad recte faciendum impellens, & à delicto avocans, quæ non tum denique incipit lex effe, cum fcripta eft, fed tum cum orta eft; orta autem fimul eft cum mente divina. Quamobrem lex vera atque princeps apta ad jubendum & ad vetandum, ratio eft recta fummi Jovis. Cic. de Leg. Lib. ii.

C

• foll

follow nevertheless, that the Violence done by his Son to Lucretia the Wife of Collatinus, was a • Violation of the Decrees of the Law Eternal: For there was always a Reafon founded in Nature, (viz. not to do to the Wife of another, what we would not have done to our own) which inclin'd to Good, and deter'd from Evil. And this Reafon has the Force of a Law; not only from the Day that 'tis committed to writing, but from the very Moment that it begins to shed its Rays. "Now 'tis undoubted that it began with the Spirit ' of God himself. From whence he infers, that the Law, properly call'd the First and Principal Law, fuch as has really the Power of commanding and forbidding, is that Right Reafon of God, where' of Man's Reafon (as Seneca fays) is a Part (q); ⚫ and which fhews him what this firft or principal Law forbids or approves.

How muft the Men be confounded, who pretend to be the Mafters and Teachers of Mankind, to fee a Pagan better inform'd than they, and to hear him telling them, that Adultery, as well as all other Crimes which are repugnant to Nature, is a Thing intrinfically Evil, and prohibited by the Eternal Law; and that this Law is a Light which enlightneth every Man that comes into the World.

In the next Place, let us hear the Proofs which this very Pagan brings against thofe Doctors, that Fornication and other Acts of Uncleannefs are forbidden by this fame Law, and that they are repugnant to Reafon. And his Argument is the ftronger, because the Perfons he is going to mention, are they whom the Jefuits lay down for an Example; that is to fay, the most stupid and uninform❜d.

(9) Ratio autem nihil aliud eft quàm in corpus humanum pars Divini Spiritûs merfa. Senec, Epift. 66. p. 234.