help me those Gods who are the avengers of perjury * »

Here we see, that after each man had sworn, to fend and protect the religion of his country, in conquence of the obligation the State lies under to protect established worship, he concludes, I will conform to the directest and strongest of all tests.

But a test of conformity to the established worship, s not only required of those who bore a share in civil administration, but of those too who were sen to preside in their religious rites. Demosthenes recorded the oath which the priestesses of Bacchus, ed Γεραιρα, took on entering into their Office. observe a religious chastity, and am clean and pure om all other defilements, and from conversation ith man: AND I CELEBRATE THE THEOINEIA ND 10BACCHIA TO BACCHUS, ACCORDING TO HE ESTABLISHED RITES, AND AT THE PROPER

EASONS†."

or were the ROMANS less watchful for the supof the established religion, as may be seen by a ch of the consul Posthumius in Livy, occasioned

ο καταισχυνῶ ὅπλα τὰ ἱερὰ, ἐδ ̓ ἐγκαταλείψω τὸν παραςάτην ὅτω χήσω" ΑΜΥΝΩ ΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΥΠΕΡ ΙΕΡΩΝ, καὶ ὑπὲρ ὁσίων καὶ καὶ μετὰ πολλῶν. τὴν πατρίδα δὲ ἐκ ἐλάσσω παραδώσω, πλείω ἀρείω, ὥσην ἂν παραδέξομαι· καὶ εὐηκοήσῳ τῶν ἀεὶ κρινόντων ως, καὶ τοῖς θεσμοῖς τοῖς ἱδρυμένοις πείσωμαν, καὶ ἔς τινας ἀν τὸ πλῆθα ιδρύσηται ὁμοφρόνως· καὶ ἄν τις ἀναιρῆ τὸς θεσμὲς πείθηται, ἐκ ὑπιτρέψω, ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ μόνος, και μετά πάντων καὶ ΤΑ ΠΑΤΡΙΑ ΤΙΜΗΣΩ ἵσορες Θεοὶ τέτων. Joan. Stobæi de erm. xli. p. 243, Lugd. Ed. 1608,

γιςεύω, καὶ εἰμὶ καθαρὰ, καὶ ἁγνὴ ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ἐ καθαρευόντων, ἀνδρὸς συνεσίας, καὶ τὰ Θεοίνια, καὶ Ιοβακχεία γεραίρω τον ΚΑΤΑ ΤΑ ΠΑΤΡΙΑ, καὶ ἐν τοῖς καθήκεσε χεόνοις. Orat

earam.

υ 3

by

by some horrid abuses committed, through the clandestine exercise of foreign worship. "How often, says he, "in the times of our fathers and forefathers, hath this "affair been recommended to the Magistrates'; to

prohibit all foreign worship; to drive the priests and "sacrifices from the cirque, the forum, and the city;

to search up, and burn books of prophecies; and to "abolish all modes of sacrificing, differing from the "Roman discipline? For those sage and prudent men, "instructed in all kind of divine and human laws, " rightly judged that nothing tended so much to "overthrow religion, as when men celebrated the "sacred rites, not after their own, but foreign 66 customs *

But when I say all regular policied states had an established religion, I mean no more than he would do, who, deducing Society from its true original, should, in order to persuade men of the benefits it produceth, affirm that all nations had a civil policy. For, as this writer could not be supposed to mean that every one constituted a free State, on the principles of public liberty (which yet was the only Society he proposed to prove was founded on truth, and productive of public good) because it is notorious, that the far greater part of civil policies are founded on different principles, and abused to different ends; so neither would I be understood to mean, when I say all nations

* Quoties hoc patrum avorumque ætate negotiuni est magis, tratibus datum, ut sacra externa sieri vetarent; sacrificulos, vatesque foro, circo, urbe prohiberent; vaticinos libros conquirerent, comburerentque; omnem disciplinam sacrificandi, præterquam more Romano, abolerent? Judicabant enim prudentissimi viri omnis divini humanique juris, nihil æque dissolvendæ religionis esse, quam ubi non patrio, sed externo ritu sacrificaretur. Hist. lib. xxxix.

concurred

concurred in making this UNION, that they all exactly discriminated the natures, and fairly adjusted the rights of BOTH SOCIETIES, on the principles here laid down; though an ESTABLISHMENT resulting from this discrimination and adjustment, be the only one I would be supposed to recommend. On the contrary, I know this union hath been generally made on mistaken principles; or, if not so, hath degenerated by length of time. And, as it was sufficient for that writer's purpose, that those Societies, good or bad, proved the sense, all men had of the benefits resulting from civil policy in general, though they were oft mistaken in the application; so it is sufficient for ours, that this universal concurrence in the Two SOCIETIES TO UNITE, shews the sense of mankind concerning the utility of such union. And lastly, as that writer's principles are not the less true on account of the general deviation from them in forming civil Societies; so may not ours, though so few states have suffered themselves to be directed by them in practice, nor any man, before, delivered them in speculation.

Such then is the Theory here offered to the world; of which, whoever would see a full account, and the several parts cleared from objections, may consult the treatise mentioned before, intitled, The Alliance between Church and State: in which we pretend to have discovered a plain and simple truth, of the highest concernment to civil Society, long lost and hid under the learned obscurity arising from the collision of contrary false principles.

BUT it is now time to proceed with our main subject. We have here given a short account of the true nature of the Alliance between Church and State; both to

1

justify the conduct of the ancient Lawgivers in establishing religion; and to shew the infinite service of this institution to civil Society. Another use of it may be the gaining an exacter knowledge of the nature of the established religions in the pagan world: for, having the true theory of an Establishment, it serves as a straight line to discover all the obliquities to which it is applied.

I shall therefore consider the causes, which facilitated the establishment of religion in the ancient world: and likewise those causes which prevented the establishment from receiving its due form.

I. Ancient pagan religion consisted in the worship of local tutelary Deities; which, generally speaking, were supposed to be the author's of their civil Institutes. The consequence of this was, that the State, as well as particulars, was the SUBJECT of religion. So that this religion could not but be national and established; that is, protected and encouraged by the civil Power. For how could that religion, which had the national God for its object; and the State, as an artificial man, for its subject, be other than national and established?

II. But then these very things, which so much promoted an established religion, prevented the union's being made upon a just and equitable footing. 1. By giving a wrong idea of civil Society. 2. By not giving a right form to the religious.

1. It is nothing strange, that the ancients should have a wrong idea of civil Society; and should suppose it ordained for the cognizance of religious, as well as of civil matters, while they believed in a local tutelary Deity, by whose direction they were formed into Community;

Community; and while they held, that Society, as such, was the subject of religion, contrary to what has been shewn above, that the civil Society's offer of a voluntary alliance with the religious, proceeded from its having no power in itself to inforce the influence of religion to the service of the State.

2. If their religion constituted a proper Society, it was yet a Society dependent on the State, and therefore not sovereign. Now it appears that no voluntary alliance can be made, but between two independent sovereign Societies. But, in reality, Pagan religion did not constitute any Society at all. For it is to be observed, that the unity of the object of faith, and conformity to a formula of dogmatic theology, as the terms of communion, are the great foundation and bond of a religious Society*. Now these things were wanting in the several national religions of Paganism: in which there was only a conformity in public Ceremonies. The national Pagan religion therefore did not properly compose a Society; nor do we find by Antiquity, that it was ever considered under that idea; but only as part of the State; and in that view, indeed, had its particular Societies and Companies, such as the colleges of Priests and Prophets.

These were such errors and defects as destroyed much of the utility, which results from religious Establishments, placed upon a right bottom. But yet religious Establishments they were; and, notwithstanding all their imperfections, served for many good purposes such as preserving the being of Religion; -bestowing additional veneration on the person of the Magistrate, and on the laws of the State:-giving

See The Alliance between Church and State, Book I. Ch. 5.

the