S'il y a des lecteurs qui se soucient peu de cela, on les prie de se souvenir qu'un auteur n'est pas obligé à ne rien dire que ce qui est de leur goût.
BAYLE.
Had my ever-by-me-to-be-lamented friend, and from this time forth, I trust, ever-by-the-public-to-be-honoured-philosopher, been a Welshman; or had he lived to become acquainted with the treasures of Welsh lore which Edward Williams, William Owen, and Edward Davies, the Curate of Olveston, have brought to light; he would have believed in the Bardic system as heartily as the Glamorganshire and Merionethshire Bards themselves, and have fitted it, without any apprehension of heresy, to his own religious creed. And although he would have perceived with the Curate of Olveston (worthy of the best Welsh Bishoprick for his labours; O George the Third, why did no one tell thee that he was so, when he dedicated to thee his Celtic Researches?)—although (I say) he would have perceived that certain of the Druidical rites were derived from an accursed origin,—a fact authenticated by their abominations, and rendered certain by the historical proof that the Celtic language affords in both those dialects wherein any genuine remains have been preserved,—that knowledge would still have left him at liberty to adopt such other parts of the system as harmonized with his own speculations, and were not incompatible with the Christian faith. How he would have reconciled them shall be explained when I have taken this opportunity of relating something of the late Right Reverend Father in God, Richard Watson, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, which is more to his honour than anything that he has related of himself. He gave the Curate of Olveston, upon George Hardinge's recommendation, a Welsh Rectory, which though no splendid preferment, placed that patient, and learned, and able and meritorious poor man, in a respectable station, and conferred upon him (as he gratefully acknowledged) the comfort of independence.
My friend had been led by Cudworth to this reasonable conclusion that there was a theology of divine tradition, or revelation, or a divine cabala, amongst the Hebrews first, and from them afterward communicated to the Egyptians and other nations. He had learnt also from that greater theologian Jackson of Corpus (whom the Laureate Southey (himself to be commended for so doing,) loses no opportunity of commending)1 that divine communion was not confined to the Israelites before their distinction from other nations and that “idolatry and superstition could not have increased so much in the old world, unless there had been evident documents of a divine power in ages precedent;” for “strange fables and lying wonders receive being from notable and admirable decayed truths, as baser creatures do life from the dissolution of more noble bodies.” These were the deliberate opinions of men not more distinguished among their contemporaries and eminent above their successors, for the extent of their erudition than remarkable for capacity of mind and sobriety of judgment. And with these the history of the Druidical system entirely accords. It arose “from the gradual or accidental corruption of the patriarchal religion, by the abuse of certain commemorative honours which were paid to the ancestors of the human race, and by the admixture of Sabæan idolatry;” and on the religion thus corrupted some Canaanite abominations were engrafted by the Phœnicians. But as in other apostacies, a portion of original truth was retained in it.
1 Since Southey's death, Jackson's Works, to the much satisfaction of all sound theologians, have been reprinted at the Clarendon Press. I once heard Mr. Parker the Bookseller—the Uncle of the present Mr. Parker—say, that he recollected the sheets of the Folio Edition being used as wrappers in the shops! Alexander's dust as a bung to a beer-barrel, quotha!
Indeed just as remains of the antediluvian world are found everywhere in the bowels of the earth, so are traces not of scriptural history alone, but of primæval truths to be discovered in the tradition of savages, their wild fables, and their bewildered belief; as well as in the elaborate systems of heathen mythology and the principles of what may deserve to be called divine philosophy. The farther our researches are extended the more of these collateral proofs are collected, and consequently the stronger their collective force becomes. Research and reflection lead also to conclusions as congenial to the truly christian heart as they may seem startling to that which is christian in every thing except in charity. Impostors acting only for their own purposes have enunciated holy truths, which in many of their followers have brought forth fruits of holiness. True miracles have been worked in false religions. Nor ought it to be doubted that prayers which have been directed to false Gods in erring, but innocent, because unavoidable misbelief, have been heard and accepted by that most merciful Father, whose eye is over all his creatures, and who hateth nothing that he hath made.—Here be it remarked that Baxter has protested against this fine expression in that paper of exceptions against the Common Prayer which he prepared for the Savoy Meeting, and which his colleagues were prudent enough to set aside, lest it should give offence, they said, but probably because the more moderate of them were ashamed of its frivolous and captious cavillings; the Collect in which it occurs, he said, hath no reason for appropriation to the first day of Lent, and this part of it is unhandsomely said, being true only in a formal sense quâ talis, for “he hateth all the works of iniquity.” Thus did he make iniquity the work of God, a blasphemy from which he would have revolted with just abhorrence if it had been advanced by another person: but dissent had become in him a cachexy of the intellect.