Page images
PDF
EPUB

followed the manners of the Jews or not. St. Paul at that very time facrificed in the temple of Jerufalem; and we know that the fifteen firft bishops of Jerufalem were circumcised Jews; and that they obferved the Sabbath, and abftained from the meats forbidden by the Jewish law. Should a bishop of Spain or Portugal at this time be circumcifed, or obferve the Sabbath, he would infallibly burn at an auto-da-fé: and yet this fundamental point did not occafion the leaft animofity between the Apostles, or between the primitive Chriftians.

If the Evangelifts had refembled our modern writers, what an immenfe field was there for difputation between them. St. Matthew reckons only eight and twenty generations from David to Jefus. St. Luke reckons forty-one ; and thefe generations are abfolutely different. Yet no diffention appears to have arifen between the disciples on account of these apparent contradictions, which have been fo admirably well reconciled by the fathers of the church; but they ftill continued in brotherly love, peace, and charity with each other. What more noble lefion can we have of indulgence in our difputes, and of humility in regard to those things which we do not understand ?

St.

St. Paul, in his Epiftle to certain Jews of Rome who had been converted to Christianity, employs all the latter part of his third chapter, in telling them, that by faith alone they will be glorified, and that no man is juftified by good works only. St. James, on the contrary, in the fecond chapter of his Epistle to the twelve tribes difperfed over the earth, is continually preaching up to them, that without good works no man can be faved. This has occafioned the feparation of two great communions among us; but it caufed no divifion among the Apoftles.

If the perfecuting of those who differ from us in opinion, is an holy action, it must be confeffed, that he who had murdered the greatest number of hereticks would be the most glorious faint in heaven. If fo, what a pitiful figure would a man who had only ftripped his brethren of all they had, and thrown them to rot in a dungeon, make, in comparison of the zealot who had butchered his hundreds on the famous day of St. Bartholomew? This may be proved as follows:

The fucceffor of St. Peter and his confiftory cannot err; they approved, they celebrated, they confecrated the action of St. Bartholomew; G 3

con

confequently that action was holy and meritorious; and, by a like deduction, he who of two murderers, equal in piety, had ripped up the bellies of eighty Hugonot women big with child, would be entitled to double the portion of glory of another who had butchered but twelve: in this manner, by the fame argument alfo, the enthufiafts of the Cevennes have reason to believe that they will be exalted in glory, in proportion to the number of catholic women, priefts and monks, whom they may have knocked on the head: but furely thefe are ftrange claims to eternal happiness.

[ocr errors][merged small]

CHAP XII.

If NON-TOLERATION was part of the Divine Law among the JEWS, and whether it was always put in practice.

B

Y the divine law, I take to be understood

thofe rules and precepts which have been given to us by God himfelf. For example, he ordained, that the Jews fhould eat a lamb dreffed with bitter herbs, and ftanding with a ftaff in their hand, in remembrance of the paffover; that the confecration of the highpriest should be performed by touching the tip of his right ear, his right hand, and his right foot with blood; that the fcape-goat should be charged with the fins of the people: he also forbid the eating of all fhell-fifh, fwine, hares, hedge-hogs, owls, the heron, and the lapwing t.

He also instituted their several feafts and ceremonies; and all thofe things which appeared

[blocks in formation]

arbitrary to other nations, and fubjected to pofitive law and cuftom, when commanded by God himself, became a divine law to the Jews, in like manner, as whatever Jesus Christ the son of Mary and the fon of God has commanded us, is to us a divine law.

But here let us not prefume to enquire wherefore it hath pleased God to substitute a new law in the room of that he had given to Mofes, and wherefore he commanded Mofes more things than he did the patriarch Abraham, and Abraham more than Noah †. In this he appears

+ Agreeable to my intention of making fome useful notes upon this treatife, I shall here observe, that although God is faid to have made a covenant with Noah, and with all the beafts of the field; yet he permits him to eat of every thing that hath the breath of life, excepting only the eating of blood, which he pofitively prohibits; and moreover adds, that "the Lord will take vengeance of every beaft by whom man's blood fhall be fhed."

From thefe paffages and several others of the like tenor, we may infer, with all the fages of antient

and

« PreviousContinue »