But then let those who admire and applaud this constancy in the Spartans remember, that their continuance in point of duration bears no comparison to that of ours. Let them also remember, that, though the Spartans maintained exact obedience to their laws while they enjoyed their liberty, yet, when fortune abandoned them, they fell off and abandoned their laws.

But it cannot be said of us, that, under all the vicissitudes of fortune which happened to us in Asia, where we were driven to the last extremity, we ever departed from the laws and customs of our forefathers. Nor can it be objected to us, that we ever consulted either our ease or our pleasure when called upon to maintain them. Whoever compares the conditions of both parties, will find the labour and difficulty of the Jews far exceed those of the Spartans; for they were exposed to no servile offices, but lived in their city at ease, in the enjoyment of repose and plenty. Notwithstanding these advantages, they went over to their enemies in frequent desertions, and, contrary to law, duty, and the common obligations of citizens and soldiers, tamely delivered themselves up with their arms. I cannot recollect more than one or two of our people that ever betrayed their cause through fear of death. I mean not the death of a soldier sword in hand, and in the field of battle, but a death of exquisite cruelty and torment, a calamity to which many of our nation have been exposed; not, I apprehend, through hatred, but to try the experiment of so heroic a constancy; and to try if there were such men in the world, as would endure the acutest pains, rather than be guilty of any one word or action derogatory to the dignity of their laws.

Nor is this resolution in the Jews above all other nations matter of surprise; for our ordinary mode of living would be a kind of severity to any other sort of people; I mean with respect to the fatigue of labour, hard fare, days of abstinence, coarse clothing, hard lodging, and the like. These people, in the successes of a military life, would not brook the forbearance of meats prohibited, and many others of the severest restrictions. Whereas it is our glory to resign ourselves, with unchangeable constancy, to the obedience of the laws of our country. Let the partizans of Lysimachus and Molon, and other frivolous censors and perverters of youthful minds, persist in their reproach and detraction, while

we are conscious of discharging our duty to God, our country, and ourselves.

It is our custom to keep firm in the observance of our own laws, but not to traduce those of others. Nay, our legislator hath expressly forbidden us to offer the least indignity or contempt to the reputed gods of other nations, and this he did from a reverence to the very name of a Deity. But we cannot remain altogether silent, where it is both so easy and necessary to confute the assertions of our opponents, and where, in truth, the work is done by other authorities ready to our hands. The most admired among the Greeks for wisdom have heartily exclaimed against the most celebrated of their poets, and especially their lawgivers, for poisoning the minds of the common people with the impious doctrine of a plurality of gods, advancing the account to what number they thought fit, and deriving their origin from what age and country they please. Nay, they allot them their proper stations and places like other creatures; for they have their subterraneous gods, and their maritime gods; and the eldest of the race, or family, they keep up in chains in the infernal regions. With respect to their celestial gods, they give Jupiter the name of Father, but represent him, in action, as a tyrant; insomuch that his wife, his brother, and the daughter of his own brain, entered into a conspiracy, according to the fiction, to destroy him, as he himself had served his father.

This was the light in which all wise men held those fabulous deities; the idea being so ludicrous, that they could not entertain it without scorn and derision. Some of their gods they represented as striplings, others in the prime of their youth and strength, and others as seniors, with long beards. They have their gods, or patrons, of mechanical arts or trades, as smiths, weavers, harpers, archers, and so on. They have their feuds and factions among themselves, and take part with mortals against one another. They receive wounds in the contest, grieve and pine away under the anguish of them. Nay, these pretended gods and goddesses go farther still, even to the horrid license of amours and embraces, indifferently with men and women. What was the case of their Jupiter himself, the father and prince of the whole train of gods? After seducing many goddesses, he suffers them to be kept in prison, or drowned in the sea. He is himself

so bound by fate, that he cannot save his own offspring, nor can he bear their deaths without shedding tears.

What a train of lewd practices, and worse consequences, in all probability yet remained! Open violation of the laws of decency not only committed but applauded by the gods! If their sovereign, Jupiter himself, could not resist the wiles of a harlot, what are we to expect from the passions and weaknesses of inferior deities? What shall we say, again, of gods assuming the forms of shepherds and masons, and being made close prisoners in the infernal regions? Can any man, endowed with common reason, but reprobate the inventors, the encouragers, and believers of these blasphemous stories? In some cases they make gods of their passions, as fear, madness, and the like, and then worship them in the worst of forms; so that there can be nothing so scandalous amongst men, but it may be introduced in the character of one of their gods; nor is it sufficient to deter the people from sacrificing to the better sort of these monsters. They look upon their gods as the authors of good and evil, and consequently as their friends or their enemies, in proportion to the one or the other. Upon this consideration they deal with their deities as with the vilest of men, they worship and make them presents, for fear they should do them injury.

But it deserves our inquiry how mankind came to lay under so many desperate and dangerous mistakes concerning the Deity. I suppose it to have been derived from the imperfect knowledge the heathen legislators had, from the beginning, of the Divine nature; or else from the want of communicating to the world the notions they had of things, as matters of little moment, perhaps, in their opinion, and so suffered the poets and orators to introduce their own gods, and by this means confounded their system of politics with idle tales of uncouth deities, and strange worship.

The statuaries and painters of Greece contributed in a great measure to this abuse, by the liberty they took of representing their gods in what shape and figure the artist thought meet. They had their variety in point of matter as well as form; some working in plaister, others in gold and ivory; some in sculpture, and others in colours; and the last piece, for the sake of novelty, was reputed the best. As the old gods fell off, and went out of fashion, they were insensibly succeeded by new; and, upon the

failure of one religion, another started up. It was so with temples, as one was laid in rubbish, another was raised out of the ruins of it, according to the fancy of the age; whereas the true worship of the Almighty ought to be as unchangeable as his own

nature.

Apollonius Molon was puerile, weak, and superficial in his understanding; but those among the Greeks, who deserve the name of philosophers, are no strangers to the truth of what I have delivered, and entertain the same exalted ideas of the Deity that we do, and with as hearty a contempt of the absurd fables of their countrymen. Whence it was that Plato would suffer no poets in his commonwealth; nay, he dismissed even Homer himself, though with all the honours of a poet laureat, lest fables should destroy right notions of the Deity.

This great man of all others comes nearest to the example of Moses, in the model of his commonwealth, where he charged all his subjects to study their laws, get them by heart, and not intermix with strangers; but preserve their government in its original purity, and pay strict obedience to their ordinances and decrees. Apollonius Molon did not consider this, when he preferred his accusation against the Jews, for not joining and communicating with men of different persuasions; as if, in that instance, we were singular; whereas all people (generally speaking,) do the same thing; the Greeks themselves, and the most discreet men amongst them too.

The Lacedæmonians would admit no strangers among them; nor so much as suffer their citizens to travel abroad, lest they should contract such habits as might teud to a dissolution of their laws. Perhaps there may be cause to censure this rigid severity, in debarring strangers the common privileges of society and comBut so far are we from this uncharitable restriction, that, though we do not interfere with the concerns of others, we are ready to entertain proselytes, and receive those who are disposed to join with us, which must be acknowledged a certain indication of humanity.

merce.

The Athenians, on the other hand, contrary to the custom of the Lacedæmonians, make it their glory to give admittance to all strangers; but of this I suppose Apollonius was ignorant. They are so zealous for the honour of their gods, that it was made capi

tal to let fall so much as one irreverent word upon the subject. On what account was Socrates put to death? Not for betraying the commonwealth, or burning their temples; not for treason or sacrilege; but for framing new oaths, by the direction, as he suggested, of a certain demon. Whether he was in jest or earnest is not known to this day; but for this he was tried, condemned, and put to death by poison. He was also charged with propagating false doctrines, and endeavouring to supplant the religion aud laws of his country. This was the case of Socrates, a citizen of Athens.

As another instance of their rigour, Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, was put to death, for affirming that the sun, which the Atheniaus thought to be a god, was a ball of fire. A talent reward was offered by proclamation to any man that would bring in the head of Diagoras, of Melos, for ridiculing the mysteries of their religion. They would have proceeded in like manner with Protagoras, if he had not made his escape in due time. His pretended crime was the writing of a tract, wherein he delivered himself ambiguously of the gods of the Athenians. But why should we wonder at their treating men with this severity, when the women themselves were not spared? For instance, they put a priestess to death, upon an accusation of worshipping strange gods. It was made death also for any man to introduce a foreign religion. What therefore can be more evident, than that, so far as these laws were in force, the people could have no faith in other gods. Besides, if they had, they would never have deprived themselves of the comfort and benefit of their favour.

The Scythians themselves, though the most barbarous and brutal people upon the face of the earth, were so scrupulous of preserving the mysteries of their profession, that they slew Anacharsis, a man of eminent parts, only for speaking too reverently of the gods of the Greeks. We read likewise, that many amongst the Persians suffered death upon the same account. Apollonius Molon was attached to the laws and customs of the Persians, and one that held them in admiration, as well as the Greeks, for their firmness and agreement in the matter of worship, as exemplified in the burning of their temples. Molon had not only a good opinion of their customs, but, in some degree, imitated them in the extravagant liberties he took with other men's wives, and the