*]% LIBERTY OF REASONING- 



of that aforefaid dungeon, for giving an eternal liberty 

 to imprifoned Reafon — to her who alone can make us 

 capable of a true religion, — and fo prepare the way, 

 for the only poffible, the only deferable means of uni- 

 ting all chriitian communities in one, and of producing 

 a thoufand other beneficial effecls. 



I intreat but a little more patience, and I have — 

 dreamed out my dream. 



There are things which in their very nature are fo 

 dependent on our wills, that they are or are not, ac-r 

 cording as we chufe that they fhould or fhould not be. 



Allow me to exemplify this by a well-known inftance. 

 St. Paul, on coming to Ephefus ^, found there, with 

 feveral others, a temple that was reckoned among the 

 wonders of the world ; and in this temple, a fmall image 

 of ebony, or of wicker-work ~f~, well befmoaked with 

 incenfe, which was called the great' Diana of the Ephe- 

 fians, to which divine honours were paid throughout 

 all Alia far and wide, as a miraculous image. Saint 

 Paul, — who, as every one knows, made ufe of his 

 reafon with great freedom again fc the fuperftitions of 

 the heathens, without minding that the poor people 

 held their idle nonfenfe for the true belief, — St. Paul 

 then took the liberty to fay to fome Epheiians, that 

 images, made with hands, could not be gods ; and 

 there were not wanting among them perfons, to whom 



* A£b of the ApolHes, chap. xix. 



+ So fays Pliny, lib. xvi. c. 40, and the objection brought by 

 the Count of Caylus againft it, in his treatife on the temple at 

 EphefuSj is (to mention it by the way) of, no confequence what- 

 ever. 



this 



