302 AN TIE NT METAPHYSICS. Book TV. 



who will inform them, that, the lefs religion they have, the happier 

 they are. 



thought that the chief fecurity the King has for his crown, ami the fubJecEls for 

 their lives and properties, is the religion of an oath. And, as to the antient na- 

 tions, the grcateft among them was the Romans; and they were the mod religious 

 of men; and though they were excelled, as Cicero tells us, by other nations in o- 

 ther things, in religion they excelled all men. And while they continued reli- 

 gious, et nondum ilk, qui nunc tenet fecutum, contemptus Deum venerat, (to ufe an 

 exprefiion of Livy's), they were the mod flourlihing and powerful nation that ever 

 exifted. The Greeks, too, were a noble and fine people, excelling in arts and armsj 

 but they were fo no longer than they continued to be religious ; for, after fuch a 

 philofophy as Mr Hume's was introduced among them, I mean the Epicurean, 

 which taught that all religion was vain and unneccffary, they became, as Polybius 

 informs us, the moft worthlefs and faithlefs of men ; and, particularly, he fays that 

 they were not to be bound by a thoufand oaths. And, in general, I defy any man 

 to give me an example of any one nation, fince we have any record of human af- 

 fairs, that has been happy and flourifhing, renowned for the wifdom of their go* 

 vernment, and great in arts and arms, that was not religious. 



As to what I have faid of Vanity being the fource of irreligion, I think it is evi- 

 dent, both from the nature of the thing, and from the charadcrs of the men who, in 

 different ages and nations of the world, have been the great apoftles of Infidelity. 

 See what I have faid upon this fubjeft, p. 247. 



CHAP. 



