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Is it not therefore probable that a low diet, with bleeding, purging, or fome other fuitable evacuations, might be excellent remedies for this intemperate and preternatural heat? Undoubtedly many peccant bumours, which break out in a kind of morbid zeal, might, as well as enthufiafm and fanaticifm, be carried off by phyfical applications and a proper regimen.

About the middle of the last century, when the difeafe of enthufiafm was very epidemic, and the rage of zeal ran to distraction, a quaker went to Rome to convert the pope, and was admitted to audience: immediately after which the pope ordered his chief phyfician to take the utmost care of the poor man, and when cured that he should be fent to his own country, and no injury whatever offered to him. In this action the pope certainly fhewed as much humanity as knowledge of human

nature.

Happy would it have been, if all popes, and all others in authority, had behaved in the same mild and charitable manner, and that no violence or cruelties had ever been exercifed upon innocent and well-meaning enthufiafts. But as to hotbeaded zealots, who are naturally inclined to mifchief, befide the falutary methods above-mentioned, it is abfolutely necessary for the peace and safety of fociety, as well as for their own particular benefit, that they should be kept under proper restraint, and never be trusted with power; for power would greatly

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greatly increase their most desperate symptoms, and in fuch bands be attended with extreme ill confe✓quence to the public. If Becket and Laud, inftead

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of being thus armed, had been put under a proper regimen, and fent to fuch a place as Bedlam, it might have been of fingular fervice to themselves, and would have prevented infinite evils which this nation fuffered by their mad and outrageous behaviour.

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This preface being lengthened beyond what was at firft intended, very little more will be added.

If the Author of these Essays, because he has called in queftion some opinions commonly received as orthodox, fhould be afperfed with being a profligate perfon, and writing with a view of encouraging licentioufness, he hopes his manner of life will difprove the former, and that what he now offers to the public will demonftrate the latter to be falfe. He hath on this occafion examined his own heart with all possible strictness and impartiality, and is well affured that the principal, if not the only motive of what he has here written, is a fincere defire to diffuade men from the practice of cruelty of all kinds; to prevail with them to form rational, and, as much as in them lies, worthy opinions concerning the Deity and the methods of worshipping him; and confequently the writer's real intention is to promote humanity, virtue, piety, and true religion.

THE

THE

CONTENT S.

A Letter to Mr. J. M.

A fecond Letter to the fame,

Effay the First.

Of Cruelty and of War,

Of cruelty proceeding from natural temper,
And exercifed for diverfion or sport,

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Of cruelty proceeding from covetousness or rapacioufnefs,

32

·from exceffive anger and revenge, 36

from ambition; and producing wars, 43

The miferies, calamities, and deftruction occafioned by war, confidered and defcribed, ibid. and 52 to 59 King Lewis XIV of France, the author of great defolation and deftruction, by his ambition, inhumanity, and the wars be occafioned,

44

Afketch of that prince's true character, - 48 to 52

Effay the Second.

Some Prefervatives against Cruelty, and the detestable Practice of making War unneceffarily, proposed, 64 to 76 Characters of two good princes who were lovers of

peace,

76 to 82

Effay

Effay the Third.

Of Religious Cruelty,

Introduction,

Page 84

84 to 87

Of mens generally afcribing to the gods they worship, the fame tempers, difpofitions, and paffions they experience in themselves; and many times their bodily likeneffes alfo,

Of Pagans believing their gods to be cruel,

89

92

Of the Hebrews or Jews believing the One God to be cruel,

Of many Christians who believe the fame,
That Mohammedans believe the fame,
Expoftulation with those who thus think,

94 96

97

100

That men should be exceedingly careful what opinions they entertain or teach concerning the Deity,

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103

To believe or teach that God commands men to commit acts of cruelty, is great impiety, and productive of infinite mischiefs,

107

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The cruelty of mens facrificing mere animals, 118 to 122 The much greater cruelty of facrificing their own fpecies,

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The origin and ill confequence of all bloody facrifices,

Some accounts of human facrifices,

117 to 121

123 to 130

Of

Of mens inhuman treatment of one another on account of their different fentiments in religion, and different forms of worship, Page 130 A fhort account what fome of the religious differences among Chriftians confift in, and how well they have been understood by the generality of those who difputed about them, 135 to 152 Inftances of the outrageous treatment, and shocking cruelties, which too many of thofe called Chriftians have been guilty of one towards another, on account of their religious differences, 155 Eminent and orthodox faints and fathers of the church great perfecutors,

Arians fo likewife,

-

152

161

That the church did not fully attain her triumphant ftate, nor the clergy arrive at a plenitude of power, 'till the principal part of the Roman empire was converted to christianity, and the pope acknowledged as univerfal bishop, 164 The wicked and tyrannical ufe that the popes and popish clergy made of the power they obtained, particularly over fovereign princes who refused or fcrupled to obey them,

Some inftances of this,

165

166 to 171

That most Roman Catholic princes have very readily complied with the pope's commands to perfecute their fubjects,

Divers inftances of their fo doing,

Of massacres on account of religion,

Of the inquifition, when fet up, and by whom,
A fhort account of that infernal judicatory,

171

171 to 177

178 to 184

184 to 187 187 to 196 Relations

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