tained. Can you feriously think, that, because the hypothefis of your countryman Defcartes, which was nothing but an ingenious, well imagined romance, has been lately exploded, the fyftem of Newton, which is built on experiments and geometry, the two most certain methods of discovering truth, will ever fail; or that, because the whims of fanatics and the divinity of the fchoolmen, cannot now be supported, the doctrines of that religion, which I, the declared enemy of all enthusiasm and false reasoning, firmly believed and maintained, will ever be fhaken ?

Bay. If you had afked Defcartes, while he was in the height of his vogue, whether his fyftem would ever be confuted by any other philofophers, as that of Ariftotle had been by his, what anfwer do you fuppofe he would have returned?"

Locke Come, come, you yourfelf know the difference between the foundations on which the credit of thole fyftems,. and that of Newton is placed. Your fcepticism is more affected than real. You found it a shorter way to a great reputation, (the only with of your heart,) to object, than to defend; to pull down, than to fet up. And your talents were admirable for that kind of work. Then your huddling together in a Critical Dictionary, a pleafant tale, or obfcene jeft, and a grave argument against the Chriftian religion, a witty confutation of fome abfurd author, and an artful foph-if to impeach fome refpectable truth, was particularly commodious to all our young fmarts and fmatterers in free thinking. But what mifchief have you not done to human fociety? You have endeavoured, and with fome degree of fuccefs, to shake thofe foundations, on which the whole moral world, and the great fabric of focial happiness, entirely reft. How could you, as a philofopher, in the fober hours of reflection, answer for this to your confcience, even fuppofing you had doubts of the truth of a fyftem, which gives to virtue its fweeteft hopes, to impenitent vice its greatest fears, and to true penitence its beft confolations; which reftrains even the lealt approaches to guilt, and yet makes those allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which the ftoic: pride denied to it, but which its real imperfection, and the goodnefs of its infinitely benevolent Creator, so evi, dently require?

Bay. The mind is free; and it loves to exert its freedom. Any restraint upon it is a violence done to its nature, and a tyranny, against which it has a right to rebel.

Locke. The mind, though free, has a governor within itself, which may and ought to limit the exercife of its freedom. That governor is reafon.

Bay. Yes but reafon like other governors, has a policy more dependent upon uncertain caprice, than upon any fixed laws. And if that reafon, which rules my mind, or yours, has happened to fet up a favourite notion, it not only fubmits implicitly to it, but defires that the fame refpect fhould be paid to it by all the reft of mankind. Now I hold that any man may lawfully oppofe this defire in another; and that if he is wife, he will do his utmost endeavours to check it in himself. Locke. Is there not alfo a weakness of a contrary nature to this you are now ridiculing? Do we not often take a pleasure to fhow our own power, and gratify our own pride, by degrading the notions fet up by other men, and generally refpected?

Bay. I believe we do; and by this means it often happens that, if one man build and confecrate a temple to folly, another pulls it down.

Locke. Do you think it beneficial to human fociety, to have all temples pulled down?

Bay. I cannot fay that I do.

Locke. Yet I find not in your writings any mark of diftinction, to show us which you mean to fave.

Bay. A true philofopher, like an impartial hiftorian, must be of no fect.

Locke. Is there no medium between the blind zeal of a fectary, and a total indifference to all religion?

Bay. With regard to morality, I was not indifferent.

Locke. How could you then be indifferent with regard to the fanctions religion gives to morality? how could you publith what tends fo directly and apparently to weaken in mankind the belief of thofe fanctions? was not this facrificing the great interefts of virtue to the little motives of vanity?

Bay. A man may act indiscreetly, but he cannot do wrong, by declaring that, which on a full difcuffion of the question, he fincerely thinks to be true.

Locke. An enthufiaft, who advances doctrines prejudicial to fociety, or opposes any that are useful to it, has the ftrength of opinion, and the heat of a disturbed imagination, to plead in an alleviation of his fault. But your cool head, and found judgment, can have no fuch excufe. I know very well there are paffages in all your works, and those not few, where you talk like a rigid moralist. I have allo heard that your character was irreproachably good. But when in the moft laboured parts of your writings, you fap the fureft foundations of all moral duties; what avails it that in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared to refpect them? How many, who have ftronger paffions than you had, and are defirous to get rid of the curb that reftrains them, will lay hold of your fcepticifm, to fet themfelves loofe from all obligations of virtue! What a misfortune it is to have made fuch a ufe of fuch talents! It would have been better for you and for mankind, if you had been one of the dulleft of Dutch theologians, or the moft credulous monk in a Portuguese convent. The riches of the mind, like thofe of fortune, may be employed so perverfely, as to become a nuisance and pest, inftead of an ornament and fupport to fociety.

But do you count

Bay. You are very fevere upon me. it no merit, no fervice to mankind, to deliver them from the frauds and fetters of prieftcraft, from the deliriums of fanaticifm, and from the terrors and follies of fuperftition? Confider how much mifchief these have done to the world! Even in the last age, what maffacres, what civil wars, what convulfions of government, what confufion in fociety, aid they produce! Nay, in that we both lived in, though much more enlightened than the former, did I not fee them oc cafion a violent perfecution in my own country? and can you blame me for ftriking at the root of thefe evils?

Locke. The root of thefe evils, you well know, was false religion but you ftruck at the true. Heaven and hell are not more different, than the fyftem of faith I defended, and that which produced the horrors of which you speak. Why would you fo fallaciously confound them together in fome of your writings, that it requires much more judgment, and a more diligent attention, than ordinary readers have, to fep

arate them again, and to make the proper diftinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of the moft celebrated free thinkers. They recommend themselves to warm and ingenuous minds, by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against fuperftitution, enthufiafm, and prieftcraft. But, at the fame time, they infidioufly throw the colours of thefe upon the fair face of true religion; and drefs her out in their garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or def picable, to those who have not penetration enough to dif cern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus deceived themfelves, as well as others. Yet it is certain, no book, that ever was written by the most acute of these gentlemen, is fo repugnant to prieftcraft, to spiritual tyranny, to all abfurd fuperftitions, to all that can tend to disturb or injure fociety, as that gofpel they fo much affect to defpife.

Bay. Mankind are fo made, that, when they have been over heated, they cannot be brought to a proper temper again, till they have been over cooled. My fcepticism might be neceffary, to abate the fever and phrenzy of falle religion.

Locke. A wife prefcription, indeed, to bring on a paraly tical ftate of the mind, (for fuch a feepticifm as yours is a palfy, which deprives the mind of all vigour, and deadens its natural and vital powers,) in order to take off a fever, which temperance, and the milk of the evangelical doctrines, would probably cure!

Bay. I acknowledge that thofe medicines have a great power. But few doctors apply them untainted with the mixture of fome harfher drugs, or fome unfafe and ridiculous noftrunis of their own.

Lake. What you now fay is too true. God has given us a moft excellent phyfick for the foul, in all its difeafes; but bad and interested phyficians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, adminifter it fo ill to the reft of mankind, that much of the benefit of it is unhappily lost.

LORD LITTLETON..

THE

CHAP. VIII.

PUBLIC SPEECHES.

SECTION I.

Cicero against Verres.

HE time is come, fathers, when that which has long been wished for, towards allaying the envy your order has been fubject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put in your power. An opinion has long prevailed, not only here at home, but likewise in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the state, that, in profecutions, men of wealth are always fafe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confufion, I hope, of the propagators of this flanderous imputation, one whofe life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial perfons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treasury, the oppreffor of Afia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and curfe of Sicily. If that fentence is paffed upon him which his crimes deferve, your authority, Fathers, will be venerable and facred in the eyes of the public; but if his great riches fhould bias you in his favour, I fhall still gain one point, to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this cafe, was not a criminal nor a profecutor, but justice and adequate punishment.

To pafs over the fhameful irregularities of his youth, what does his quæftorfhip, the firft public employment he held, what does it exhibit, but one continued fcene of villanies? Cneius Carbo plundered of the public money by his own treasurer, a conful ftripped and betrayed, an army deferted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people violated. The employment he held in Afia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce but the ruin of thofe countries? in which, houfes, cities, and temples were robbed by him. What was his conduct in his prætorship here at home? Let the plundered temples, and