In a religious book published by a fellow of the Society of Jesus,
entitled, "The Faith of a Catholic," the author examines what concerns
the incredulous Jews and other infidels. He would show that Jesus
Christ, author of the religion which bears his name, did not impose on
or deceive the Apostles whom he taught; that the Apostles who preached
it did not deceive those who were converted; and that those who were
converted did not deceive us. In proving these three not difficult
propositions, he says, he confounds "the _Atheist_, who does not believe
in God; the _Pagan_, who adores several; the _Deist_, who believes in
one God, but who rejects a particular Providence; the _Freethinker_, who
presumes to serve God according to his fancy, without being attached to
any religion; the _Philosopher_, who takes reason and not revelation for
the rule of his belief; the _Gentile_, who, never having regarded the
Jewish people as a chosen nation, does not believe God promised them a
Messiah; and finally, the _Jew_, who refuses to adore the Messiah in the
person of Christ."
I have given this sketch, as it serves for a singular Catalogue of
_Heretics_.
It is rather singular that so late as in the year 1765, a work should
have appeared in Paris, which bears the title I translate, "The
Christian Religion _proved_ by a _single fact_; or a dissertation in
which is shown that those _Catholics_ of whom Huneric, King of the
Vandals, cut the tongues, _spoke miraculously_ all the remainder of
their days; from whence is deduced the _consequences of this miracle_
against the Arians, the Socinians, and the Deists, and particularly
against the author of Emilius, by solving their difficulties." It bears
this Epigraph, "_Ecce Ego admirationem faciam populo huic, miraculo
grandi et stupendo_." There needs no further account of this book than
the title.