CHAPTER XX. I81 dorf calls the law of nature and nations, as will appear if you consult sect. 3. chap. III. of that most valuablefolio he has written on the subject ; which is well Worthy the study of every man of learning, particularly lawyers and divines, together with other treatises on the same theme. If any question proposed relate to right and property, and justice between man and man, in any polite and civilizedcountry, though it must be adjudged chiefly according to the particular statutes and laws of that country, yet the knowledge of the law of nature will very considerably assist the lawyer and the civil judge in the determination thereof. And this knowledge will be of great use to divines, not only in deciding of cases of consci- ence among men, and answering any difficult enquiries which may be proposed to them on this subject, but it will greatly assist them also in their studies relating to the law of God, and the performance or violation thereof, the nature of duty and sin, re- ward and punishment. XXVI. I have spoken something of the languages before, but let me here resume the subject, and put in a few thoughts about those,studies which are wont to be called philological ; such as history, languages, grammar, rhetoric, poesy, and cri- ticism. An acquaintance with some of the learned languages at least, is necessary for all the three learned professions. XXVII. The lawyers, who have the least need of foreign tongues, ought to understand Latin. During many ages past, very important matters in the law were always written and ma- naged in that language by the lawyers, as prescriptions in medi- cine by the physicians, and citations of the scriptures in divinity were always made in Latin by the divines. Prayers also were ordained to be said publicly and privately in the Ronan tongue : Pater-nosters and Ave - marias were half the devotion of those ages. These cruel impositions upon the people, would not suffer them to read in their own mother tongue what was done, either to or for, their own souls, their bodies, or their estates. I am ready to suspect this was all owing to the craft and policy of the priesthood and church of Rome, which endeavoured to aggran- dize themselves, and exalt their own profession into a sovereign tyranny, and to make mere slaves of the laity among mankind, by keeping them in utter ignorance, darknessand dependence. And they were willing to compound the matter with the physici- ans and the lawyers, and allow them a small share in this tyranny over the populace, to maintain their own supreme dominion over all. But we thank God, the world is grown something wiser ; and of late years, the British Parliament has been pleased to give relief from that bondage in matters relating to the law also, as in the age of the reformation we were delivered from saying VOL. init. L
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