opinion, is easily accounted for. No book was ever, perhaps, more generally opposed at its first appearance, or more pertinaciously answered during the period when it filled the public eye. None but scholars of some standing were well qualified to judge of the merits of the proofs which our Author brought from antiquity; and none but the clergy of the Established church were, at the time, competent to give his views of the Connexion of church and state the password to public favour. These views, however, like the arguments by which he maintained his principal proposition, were in some degree the views of the adversaries of the Establishment; and the clergy, of course, regarded him in the light, either of a rash and wilful adventurer, or of a traitor to their cause; while those Dissenters who professed to follow a purer model of Christian worship, were both disgusted at his cavalier treatment of them, and alarmed by observing with what a hasty hand he disposed of some of the main points of their faith. CONTENTS OF VOLUME FIRST. Dedication to a new edition of books i. ii. iii., in 1754-to the Earl of Hardwicke, Dedication to the first edition of books i. ii. iii., in 1738—to the Freethinkers, 73 76 79 : 111 PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINES OF A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND 113 113 SECT. II. Of the origin of civil society; the causes of its defective plan: that this SECT. III.-The arguments of those who deny the necessity of religion to society SECT. IV. and V.-Mr Bayle, the great defender of this paradox in his apology for SECT. VI. The Author of the Fable of the Bees, who contends that it is Vice, and not Virtue, that is useful to society, examined, exposed, and confuted, PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE TO SOCIETY, FROM THE religion, shown, 1. From the univer- . establish the opinion of the superintendency of the gods over human affairs: not to secure the reception of their laws; nor to render those laws perpetual and immuta- SECT. III.-The next art the legislator used was to preface his laws with the doc- trine of a providence in its full extent. The prefaces to the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, the only remains of this kind, proved genuine against the arguments of SECT. IV. The next art was the legislator's invention of the mysteries, solely insti- tuted for the propagation and support of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. Their original and progress deduced: their nature and end ex- plained: their secrets revealed: and the causes of the degeneracy accounted for. To give a complete idea of this important institution, the sixth book of Virgil is ex- amined, and the descent of Æneas into hell, shown to be only an initiation into, and SECT. V. The next instance of the magistrate's care of religion, in establishing a national worship. That an established religion is the universal voice of nature. The right of establishing a religion justified, in an explanation of the true theory of the union between Church and State. This theory applied as a rule to judge of the actual establishments in the pagan world. The causes that facilitated the estab- lishment of religion amongst them; as likewise those causes that hindered their SECT. VI. The last instance of the magistrate's care for the support of religion; in the allowance of a general toleration: the measure and causes of it: the nature of the ancient tolerated religions: how, under the supervision and direction of the magistrate: and how first violated and destroyed by civil tyranny, PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE TO SOCIETY, FROM THE OPINION AND CONDUCT OF THE ANCIENT SAGES AND PHILOSOPHERS. SECT. I.-Testimonies of ancient sages and philosophers, concerning the necessity of the doctrine of a future state to civil society, SECT. II. That none of the ancient philosophers believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, though, on account of its confessed necessity to the support of religion, and consequently of civil society, all the theistical philoso- phers sedulously taught it to the people. The several senses in which the ancients conceived the permanency of the human soul explained. Several general reasons premised, to show that the ancient philosophers did not always believe what they taught, and that they taught the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punish- ments without believing it: Where the principles that induced the ancient sages to make it lawful to deceive for public good, in matters of religion, are explained, whereby they are seen to be such as had no place in the propagation or genius of the Jewish and Christian religions. In the course of this inquiry, the rise, progress, perfection, decline, and genius of the ancient Greek philosophy, under its several divisions, are considered and explained, SECT. III.-Enters on a particular inquiry into the sentiments of each sect of philo- sophy on this point. The division and succession of their schools. The character of Socrates; and of the new and old academy. The character and genius of each sect of the grand quaternion of theistic philosophy, the Pythagoric, the Platonic, the peripatetic, and the stoic: showing that not one of these believed the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. The character of Tully, and his senti- ments on this point. The original of the ancient fables, and of the doctrines of the metempsychosis and metamorphosis, occasionally inquired into and explained, SECT. IV. Shows, in order to a fuller conviction, that the ancient philosophers not SECT. V. This account of the ancient philosophy, so far from being prejudicial to SECT. VI. The atheistical pretence of religion's being an invention of statesmen, APPENDIX and NOTES to the Third Book, Dedication of Books iv. v. vi., in 1765, to Lord Mansfield, Dedication to the First Edition of Books iv. v. vi., in 1740-to the Jews, Preface to the First Edition, in 1740, Preface to the Edition of 1758, PAGE 494 535 538 . . 587 . 629 . 637 647 BOOK IV. PROVES THE HIGH ANTIQUITY OF THE ARTS AND EMPIRE OF EGYPT; AND THAT SUCH 676 682 |