Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects / By William Stukeley.
- William Stukeley
- Date:
- 1763
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects / By William Stukeley. Source: Wellcome Collection.
117/158 page 101
![[ XOI ] The fabbath, or religion, is not only the command of G O D, but the natural inftrument of making a na- tion potent, and flourifliing. what fays that great genius Cicero, when contemplating the amazing gran¬ deur of the Roman empire; to which it was arriv’d at his time. u We are not, fays he, larger men, and ftronger, “than the Germans; wifer than the Greeks; more “ cunning than the Gauls or Carthaginians, why “ then, has providence favor’d us, to fo high a degree, cc as in a manner to make us mailers of mankind ? I “ profefs, I know no reafon, but that we are the molt “ religious people of mankind.” Thus reafons that moil excellent and judicious per-* fon, than whom none had penetrated deeper into the thoughts of mankind, into the nature, and reafon of things, and it muft be allow’d, that the Romans for the firft feven hundred years of their Hate, were the jufteft people upon earth ; befide, their incomparable valor, they excelled all nations for public faith and virtue. As to what Tully calls religion, it was not our Sab¬ bath, ftridly fpeakiiig. but it was what they call’d religion, and pradifed as fuch. it was equivalent; it preferved the reafon of the thing, the imprefjion on the mind, and we muft acknowledge, it had a proper ef~ fed upon them, they had not our religion, no more than our labbath ; but if that confederation could prove any thing, it proves that we ought to be much more religious than they, it ftrongly proves our main point* that religion is the foundation of government. ' I. wifln](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30408374_0117.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
