54 LIBERTY OP REASONING 



poffiblc extravagances and fchemes of fanaticifm and 

 fuperftition with greater authority than ever. 



When the Romans became the predominant nation 

 of the world, all things were in this Hate, not only in 

 the eaftern parts of the vail roman empire, but the 

 Romans, with whom illumination by means of the fci- 

 cnces did not begin till very late, and had extended 

 itfelf only amongft very few of the great, found^an un- 

 common tafte for the oriental fuperftition. Already in 

 the time of Auguftus we find Rome and Italy overrun 

 with fyrian and aegyptian vagabonds ; who, under the 

 names of aegyptian pnefts, magi, chaldeans, &c. found 

 their account in flattering the luperftition of the Ro- 

 mans, efpecially the ladies, by all poffible means. Such 

 was the face of things throughout what the Romans 

 termed the globe ; every part of it was more or lefs 

 filled with idolatry and forcery, idle tales of gods and 

 fairies, belief in fupernatural conceits and chimseras, 

 magical operations, amulets, and talifmans, metamor- 

 phofes of men into beafts, apparitions of fpirits, evo- 

 cations of the dead, belief in interpretations of dreams, 

 foothfayers, oracular refponfes, prognoftications, and 

 a thoufand fenfelefs ways of rendering good and evil 

 fpirits propitious, of reconciling them, of conquering 

 or calling them out ; in fliort, the whole mafs of man- 

 kind was infecled with magical-religious fuperftition 

 and frenzy^ — when the divine founder of chriftianity 

 made his appearance in Palaeftine, for preaching the 

 belief in a univerfal Father in heaven by his doctrine, 

 and ftill mqre by his example ; and to reftore the ge- 

 nuine worihip of God, purged from all magical and 



tiheurgical. 



