CONTENTS OF THE FIRST HIL BOOKS OF THE DIVINE LEGATION. DEDICATION to a new Edition of Books I. II. III, in 1754-to the Earl of Hardwicke p. 137 Dedication to the First Edition of Books I. H..III. in 1738-to the Freethinkers PREFACE to the First Edition, in 1738 pp. 141-190 pp. 191, 192 BOOK I. PROVES THE NECESSITY OF THE DOCTRINES OF A FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS TO CIVIL SOCIETY, FROM THE NATURE OF THE THING, p. 193 SECT. I. The Introduction, the nature of internal evidence; the occasion of this discourse, and the proposition pp. 193-203 SECT II. Of the original of civil society; the causes of its defective plan: that this defect can be only supplied by religion that religion, under the present dispensation of Providence, cannot subsist without the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments; therefore that doctrine necessary to civil society • pp. 203-220 SECT. IIL SECT. III. The arguments of those who deny the necessity of religion to society considered: Pomponatius falsely SECT. IV. & V. Mr. Bayle, the great defender of this paradox in his apology for atheism, examined. His arguments collected, methodized, and confuted. In the course of this disputation, the true foundation of morality enquired into, and shewn to be neither the essential differ- ence of things, nor the moral sense, but the will of God. The causes of the contrary errors shewn: and the objec- SECT. VI. The Author of the Fable of the Bees, who con- POLICY p. 297 SECT. I. The magistrate's care in cultivating religion, shewn, 1. From the universality of it, amongst all civil policied nations. 2. From the genius of pagan religion, both with regard to the nature of their gods, the attributes the opinion of the superintendency of the gods over SECT. III. The next art the legislator used was to preface his laws with the doctrine of a providence in its full extent. The prefaces to the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, the only remains of this kind, proved genuine against the arguments of a learned critic, pp. 323-348 NOTES to the First and Third Sections. [What follows, is contained in the II and IIIa Volumes.] SECT. IV. The next art was the legislator's invention of the mysteries, solely instituted for the propagation and support of the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. Their original and progress deduced: their nature and end explained: their secrets revealed : and the causes of the degeneracy accounted for. To give a complete idea of this important institution, the sixth book of Virgil is examined, and the descent ** of Æneas into hell, shewn to be only an initiation into, and representation of the shows of the mysteries:-With an APPENDIX. SECT. V. The next instance of the magistrate's care of --- religion, in establishing a national worship. That an established religion is the universal voice of nature. The right of establishing a religion justified, in an explanation of the true theory of the union between Church and State. This theory applied as a rule to judge of the actual establishments in the pagan world. The causes that facilitated the establishment of religion amongst them; as likewise those causes that hindered their establishments from receiving their due form. |