Let. 2. Lord HERBERT of Cherbury. 135

the people had little regard to the purer doctrine of the philo- ſophers a. And indeed I do not ſec how it could be— that they fhould place any dependence upon their dictates, which were for the moſt part regarded only as the tenets of their ſeveral ſchools, in which the people had little concern. They were not the miniſters of religion, nor could pretend to any authority that ſhould make them he regarded as the guides and inſtructors of mankind, or cauſe their opinions to paſs for laws. The moſt eminent among them were contradicted by others of great name: many of them laboured to make all things s appear doubtful and uncertain; and thoſe of them that had the Pr lelt notions frequently affected to conceal them, os were afraid to divulge them. What Alcinous hath obſerved concerning Plato, with reſpect to the inquiry concerning the chief good, might be applied to ſome other matters of great im- portance. That which is worthy of all honour, ſuch as the *„ſupreme Good, he conceived not eaſy to be found, and if

found, not ſafe to be declared b.“ His Lordſhip afiurei us, that the philoſophers werealways aſkeat Iwith th 27/3 ſacherſtitious 200 ſluß of the Beople. But if thi s was the caſe, they ſeem to have been very improper perſons to reclaim them from it, ſince 5 was— univerſal maxim among them, and particulary re- commended by one of the beſt of them, Sbictetus, that every man ought to worſhip according to the las or cuſtoms of his country c. And it is well known that their eſtabliſhed worſhip was polytheiſm and idolatry. Varro, in a paſſag age quoted by his Lordſhip, divides the heathen theology into Sthree kinds the fabꝛtlous, which belonged to the poets; the Shyfical, w hich was that of the philoſophers; and the civil. He ſpeaks with diſregard of the two former, and repreſenis the laſt as that in which the people were concerned, and which alone could be of real uſe to them. And this he explaineth to be that whieh was eſtabliſhed by the laws, and adminiſtered by the prieſts, and which ſfhewed what gods they were publicly to wo iuun what rites they were to obſerve, and what ſacrifices it was proper for any man to offer ¹.

If a reformation of the world by the philoſophers was not to be expected, for the reaſons now given, his Lordſhip will own it was not to be hoped for from ch e prieſts, againſt whom he bitterly inveighs as the authors of all ſuperſtition, and of the

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a De RKelig. Gentil. p. 310 Plato, cap. 27. in Stanley's lives o Enchirid. cap. 38. 4 D