SECT. VIII.
XXIII. I never observed, that the dogmatic writers, who in various manners, have conclusively proved the evident credibility of our holy faith, have introduced as one of their arguments, the consent of many nations in their belief of those mysteries; but have laid great stress, upon the consent of men, eminent for their sanctity and wisdom. The first argument would be favourable to idolatry, and the Mahomedan Sect; the second cannot be answered, nor can it be used to militate on the other side; and in case they should oppose to us the authority of the antient philosophers, who have been the partizans of idolatry, the objection would be grounded on a false supposition, it being established by irrefragable testimony, that those philosophers in matters of religion did not think with the people. Marcus Varus, one of the wisest of the Romans, distinguished among the Antients three kinds of Theology; the Natural, the Civil, and the Poetical. The first existed in the minds of wise men; the second was used to govern the religion of the people at large; the third was the invention of the poets; and of all the three, the philosophers held only the first to be true. The distinction of the two first, had been pointed out by Aristotle, in the twelfth book of his Metaphysics, cap. 8, where he says, that from the opinions of preceding ages which have been communicated to us respecting the Gods, may be inferred, they held some things to be true, and others false, and that the last were invented for the use and civil government of the populace: Cætera vero fabulosè ad multitudinis persuasionem. It is true, that although those philosophers were not of the same sentiment with the people, they generally talked their language, as an opposite conduct would have been very hazardous; for whoever denied the plurality of Gods, was looked upon as impious; as it happened to Socrates. The sum of the whole of this is, that in the voice of the people was contained all the error; and that the little or much which existed of truth, was shut up and imprisoned in the minds of a few wise men.
XXIV. After all that has been said, I shall conclude, by pointing out two senses, in which only, and in no other whatever, is contained the truth of the maxim, “that the voice of the people is the voice of God.” The first is, taking for the voice of the people, the unanimous consent of all God’s people; that is, of the universal church, which it is certain cannot err in matters of faith; nor through any antecedent impossibility which may be inferred from the nature of things, but by means of the interposition of the holy spirit, with which, according to the promise made by Christ, it will be constantly assisted. I said all God’s people, because a large portion of the church may err, and in fact did err, in the great Western Schism; for the kings of France, Castile, Arragon, and Scotland, acknowledged Clement the VIIth for legitimate Pope; the rest of the Christian world, adhered to Urban the VIth. But it is manifest, that one of the two parties must be wrong, which may be considered as a conclusive proof; that even within the pale of the Christian church, not only one, but several nations collectively, may err in essentials.
XXV. The second sense in which the maxim ought to be held true, is, by taking for the voice of the people, the universal concurrence of all mankind; it appearing morally impossible, that all the nations of the world should agree in adopting any one error. Thus the consent of the whole earth, in believing the existence of a God, is held by the learned, as a conclusive proof of this article.