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.