abstruse Truths do often seem to be less probable than well dress'd
Fables, when they are skilfully accommodated to our Understanding, and
agreeable to our own Way of thinking. That there is but one God, the
Creator of Heaven and Earth, that is an all-wise and perfectly good
Being, without any Mixture of Evil, would have been a most rational
Opinion, tho' it had not been reveal'd. But Reasoning and Metaphysicks
must have been carried on to a great Height of Perfection, before this
Truth could be penetrated into by the Light of Nature. _Plutarch_, who
was a Man of great Learning, and has in many Things display'd good
Sense and Capacity, thought it impossible, that one Being should have
been the Cause of the Whole, and was therefore of Opinion, that there
must have been Two Principles; the one to produce all the Good; and
the other all the Evil that is in the World. And Some of the greatest
men have been of this Opinion, both before and since the Promulgation
of the Gospel. But whatever Philosophers and men of Letters may have
advanced, there never was an Age or a Country where the Vulgar would
ever come into an Opinion that contradicted that Fear, which all men
are born with, of an invisible Cause, that meddles and interferes in
Human Affairs; and there is a greater Possibility, that the most
Senseless Enthusiast should make a knowing and polite Nation believe
the most incredible Falsities, or that the most odious Tyrant should
persuade them to the grossest Idolatry, than that the most artful
Politician, or the most popular Prince, should make Atheism to be
universally received among the Vulgar of any considerable State or
Kingdom, tho' there were no Temples or Priests to be seen. From all
which I would shew, that, on the one Hand, you can make no Multitudes
believe contrary to what they feel, or what contradicts a Passion
inherent in their Nature, and that, on the other, if you humour that
Passion, and allow it to be just, you may regulate it as you please.
How unanimous soever, therefore, all Rulers and Magistrates have