What mutual Correspondence could such have, whose Interests are for the most part different, and their designs contrary to one another? How could they who were divided by such vast Seas have this mutual Converse? How could those who were different in their Customs and Manners, agree so unanimously together in one thing to gull the People? If there had been such a Correspondence between the Governors of all Nations, what is the reason some Nations should be unknown to the world till of late times? How could the business be so secretly managed, as not to take Vent, and Issue in a discovery to the World? Can reason suppose so many in a joint Conspiracy, and no mans Conscience in his life under sharp Afflictions, or on his death bed, when Conscience is most awakened, constrain him to reveal openly the Cheat that beguiled the World? How came they to be so uanimous in this Notion, and to differ in their Rites almost in every Country? why could they not agree in one Mode of Worship throughout all the World, as well as in this universal Notion? If there were not a mutual intelligence, it can not be conceived how in every Nation such a state-Engineer should rise up with the same trick to keep people in awe. What is the reason we cannot find any Law in any one Nation to constrain men to the belief of the Existence of a God, since politic Stratagems have been often fortified by Laws? Besides, such men make use of Principles received to effect their Contrivances, and are not so impolitic as to build designs upon Principles that have no Foundation in nature: Some Heathen Law-givers have pretended a converse with their Gods to make their Laws be received by the people with a greater veneration, and fix with stronger obligation the observance and perpetuity of them; but this was not the introducing of a new Principle, but the supposition of an old received Notion, that there was a God, and an application of that Principle to their present design. The pretence had been vain had not the notion of a God been ingrafted: Politicians are so little possessed with a Reverence of God, that the first Mighty one in the Scripture, (which may reasonably gain with the Atheist the credit of the Ancientest History in the World) is represented without any fear of God.*
What mutual Correspondence could such have, whose Interests are for the most part different, and their designs contrary to one another? How could they who were divided by such vast Seas have this mutual Converse? How could those who were different in their Customs and Manners, agree so unanimously together in one thing to gull the People? If there had been such a Correspondence between the Governours of all Nations, what is the reason some Nations should be unknown to the world till of late times? How could the business be so secretly managed, as not to take Vent, and Issue in a discovery to the World? Can reason suppose so many in a joynt Conspiracy, and no mans Conscience in his life under sharp Afflictions, or on his death bed, when Conscience is most awakened, constrain him to reveal openly the Cheat that beguil'd the World? How came they to be so uanimous in this Notion, and to differ in their Rites almost in every Country? why could they not agree in one Mode of Worship throughout all the World, as well as in this universal Notion? If there were not a mutual intelligence, it can not be conceived how in every Nation such a state-Engineer should rise up with the same trick to keep people in aw. What is the reason we cannot find any Law in any one Nation to constrain men to the beleif of the Existence of a God, since politick Stratagems have been often fortified by Laws? Besides, such men make use of Principles received to effect their Contrivances, and are not so impolitick as to build designes upon Principles that have no Foundation in nature: Some Heathen Law-givers have pretended a converse with their Gods to make their Laws be received by the people with a greater veneration, and fix with stronger obligation the observance and perpetuity of them; but this was not the introducing of a new Principle, but the supposition of an old received Notion, that there was a God, and an application of that Principle to their present designe. The pretence had been vain had not the notion of a God been ingrafted: Politicians are so little possessed with a Reverence of God, that the first Mighty one in the Scripture, (which may reasonably gain with the Atheist the credit of the Ancientest History in the World) is represented without any fear of God.*
- *Gen. 10.9. Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord.
