Cicero is justly considered as among the most eminent of those philosophers who argued for the immortality of the soul; yet he la boured under the same uncertainty that distressed their minds Though he has treated the subject at considerable length, and ha brought forward a variety of cogent arguments in behalf of thi doctrine; yet, after he has spoken of the several opinions concernin the nature and duration of the soul, he says, "Which of these is true God alone knows; and which is most probable, a very great ques tion." And he introduces one complaining, that, while he was read ing the arguments for the immortality of the soul, he thought himsel convinced: but, as soon as he laid aside the book and began to rea son with himself, his conviction was gone. All which gave Senec just occasion to say, that "Immortality, however desirable, was rathe promised than proved by those great men.' While the followers o these great philosophers were thus perplexed with doubts, others o the heathen entertained the most gloomy notions, imagining eithe that they should be removed from one body to another and be perpe tual wanderers, or contemplating the grave as their eternal habitation and sadly complaining that the sun and stars could set again, but th man, when his day was set, must lie down in darkness, and sleep perpetual sleep.1 8. If the philosophers were thus uncertain concerning the immort lity of the soul, they were equally ignorant of the certainty of the etern rewards and punishments of a future state, and of the resurrection of t body. For, though the poets had prettily fancied, and have pourtrayed beautifuld glowing verse, the joys of elysium, or a place and sta of bliss, and the miseries of tartarus, or hell; and though the antie philosophers and legislators were sensible of the importance to socie and also of the necessity of the doctrine of future punishments, y 1 Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. 2 Seneca, ep. 102. 3 It is called Domes Aeterna in many inscriptions. Gruter, p. declx. 5. dec 5. dcccciii. 6. dccccxiii. 6. &c. 4 Soles occidere et redire possunt : Λι αι, ται μαλαχαι μεν επαν κατα κάπον ολώνται, Catullus, V. Alas! the tender herbs, and flow'ry tribes, Moschus, Epitaph. Bio they generally rejected and discarded them as vain and superstitious terrors; and in progress of time they were disregarded and ridiculed even among the vulgar: consequently, they had no notion whatever concerning the resurrection of the body. Their poets, it is true, made frequent mention of the ghosts of departed men appearing in a visible form, and retaining their former shapes in the shades below; yet by these representations (if they mean any thing) they mean no more, than that the soul, after this life, passes into another state, and is then invested with a body composed of light aërial particles, altogether different from those of which it had previously been composed; but that the gross matter, which they saw laid in the grave and turn to corruption, or which had been reduced to ashes on the funeral pile, and had been scattered in the air, should ever be again collected together, raised from the dead and revivified;-of this the most speculative philosophers never entertained the slightest conception. This uncertainty concerning those great and fundamental truths was attended with fatal effects, both in principle and practice. In principle, it naturally led mankind to call in question the providence, justice, and goodness of God, when they observed the prosperity of the wicked, and the calamities of the righteous, without being sure that either of them should suffer or be rewarded in another state; or else to doubt whether there really was any essential difference between Virtue and Vice, and whether it did not wholly depend upon the institution of men. In practice, hope and fear are the two things which chiefly govern mankind, and influence them in their actions; and they must, of course, govern and influence more or less, in proportion to the certainty there is, that the things feared and hoped for are real, and the rewards and punishments assuredly to be expected. And as the corrupt inclinations of human nature will overcome any fear, the foundation of which is but doubtful; so these, being let loose and freed from the apprehension of a future account, will of course carry men into all manner of wickedness. Nor is it sufficient to say, that they are under the restraint of human laws; since it is certain, that very great degrees of wickedness may be both harboured in the heart, and carried into execution, notwithstanding the utmost that human authority can do to prevent it.1 From the ignorance and uncertainty, which (we have seen) prevailed among some of the greatest teachers of antiquity, concerning those fundamental truths, which are the great barriers of virtue and religion, it is evident that the heathens had no perfect scheme of moral rules for piety and good manners. Thus, (with the exception of two or three philosophers) they never inculcated the duty of loving our enemies and of forgiving injuries; but, on the contrary, they accounted revenge to be not only lawful, but commendable. Pride and the love of popular applause (the subduing of which is the first principle of true virtue) were esteemed the best and most noble incentives to vir 1 Bp. Gibson's Pastoral Letters, Letter ii. (vol. iv. p. 105. of Bp. Randolph's Enchiridion Theologicum, Oxford, 1792.) : tue and noble actions; suicide was regarded as the strongest mark of heroism and the perpetrators of it, instead of being branded with infamy, were commended and celebrated as men of noble minds. But the interior acts of the soul, the adultery of the eye and the murder of the heart, were little regarded. On the contrary, the philosophers countenanced, both by arguments and example, the most flagitious practices. Thus theft, as is well known, was permitted in ' Egypt and in Sparta : Plato2 taught the expedience and lawfulness of exposing children in particular cases, and Aristotle, also, of abortion. The exposure of infants, and the putting to death of children who were weak or imperfect in form, was allowed at Sparta by Lycurgus; and at Athens, the great seat and nursery of philosophers, it was enacted that "infants, which appeared to be maimed, should either be killed or exposed ;" and that "the Athenians might lawfully invade and enslave any people, who, in their opinion, were fit to be made slaves." The infamous traffic in human blood was permitted to its utmost extent; and, on certain occasions, the owners of slaves had full permission to kill them. Among the Romans, masters had an absolute power over their slaves, whom they might scourge or put to death at pleasure and this right was exercised with such cruelty, especially in the corrupt ages of the republic, that laws were made, at different times, in order to restrain it. The last was the common punishment; but, for certain crimes, they used to be branded in the forehead, and sometimes were compelled to carry a piece of wood (called furca) round their necks wherever they went. When punished capitally they were commonly crucified. By the Roman laws, a slave could not bear testimony without undergoing the rack: and if the master of a family were slain in his own house, all his domestic slaves were liable to be put to death, though their innocence was ever so manifest. For the relief of the poor and destitute, especially of 1 Diod. Sic. lib. i. Plutarch. in Lycurgo. 2 Plato de Republica, lib. v. At Rome, infanticide was regulated by the laws of Romulus; and this horrid practice was approved both by Plutarch and Seneca. See Jenkin's Reasonableness of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 521. At Rome, a new-born infant was not held legitimate, unless the father, or in his absence some person for him, lifted it up from the ground (terrâ lerasset) and placed it on his bosom. Hence the phrase tollere filium, to educate, non tollere, to expose. But even when his children were grown up, their father might imprison, scourge, send them bound to work in the country, and also put them to death by any punishment he pleased, if they deserved it. Adam's Roman Antiquities, p. 47. 5th edit. 3 Aristot. Polit. lib. vii. c. 16. 5 Aristot. Polit. lib. vii. c. 17. 4 Terent. Hecyra. 6 Aristot. Polit. lib. ii. c. 14. 7 The celebrated censor, Cato, was a bad master to his unfortunate slaves, whom he never failed to correct with leathern thongs, if they were remiss in their at tendance at any entertainments which he gave to his friends, or had suffered any thing to be spoiled. He contrived means to raise quarrels among them, and to keep them at variance, ever suspecting and fearing some bad consequence from their unanimity; and when any of them were guilty of a capital crime, he gave them a formal trial, and in the presence of their fellow-slaves put them to death. Plutarch. in Catone. (Vitæ, tom. ii. pp. 355, 356. Ed. Briani.) 8 Juvenal. Sat. vi. 219, 220. 9 Digest. lib. xxix. Tit. v. lib. xxxv. Tit. xi. (cited in Jortin's Discourses concerning the Christian Religion, p. 147.) Tacitus informs us, that when Pedanius Secundus, prefect of the city of Rome, was assassinated by a slave, all the slaves in his family slaves, no provision whatever was made. By the Romans, who kept them in great numbers, they were most inhumanly neglected, their masters turned them out of doors when sick, and sent them to an island in the river Tiber, where they left them to be cured by the fabled god Esculapius, who had a temple there. Some masters indeed were so cruel that they killed them when they were sick; but this barbarity was checked by the Emperor Claudius, who decreed that those who put their slaves to death, should be punished as murderers; and also that such sick slaves as were turned out by their masters, should have their liberty if they recovered. Customary swearing was commended, if not by the precepts, yet by the example of the best moralists among the Ireathen philosophers, particularly Socrates, Plato, Seneca, and the emperor Julian, in whose works numerous oaths by Jupiter, Hercules, the Sun, and other deities, are very frequent. The gratification of the sensual appetites, and of the most unnatural lusts, was openly taught and allowed. Aristippus maintained, that it was lawful for a wise man to steal, commit adultery, and sacrilege, when opportunity offered for that none of these actions were naturally evil, setting aside the vulgar opinion, which was introduced by silly and illiterate people; and that a wise man might publicly gratify his libidinous propensities.2 : Corresponding with such principles was the moral conduct of the antients, the most distinguished philosophers and heroes not excepted, whose lives are recorded by Plutarch in a manner the most favourable to their reputation. Many of them, it is true, entertained a high sense of honour, and possessed a large portion of patriotism. But these were not morality, if by that term we are to understand such dispositions of the mind as are right, fit, and amiable. Their sense of honour was not of that kind which made them scorn to do evil; but, like the false honour of modern duellists, consisted merely in a dread of disgrace. Hence many of them not only pleaded for self-murder (as Cicero, Seneca,3 and others), but carried about with them the means of destruction, of which they made use rather than fall into the hands of their adversaries, as Demosthenes, Cato, Brutus, Cassius, and others did. And their patriotism, generally speaking, operated not merely in the preservation of their country, but in endeavours to extend and aggrandise it at the expense of other nations: it was a patriotism inconsistent with justice and good will to mankind. Truth was but of small account among many, even of the best heathens; for they taught that, on many occasions, a LIE was to be pre 2 Diogenes Laërt. lib. ii. c. 8. § 4. (four hundred in number) were put to death. Annal. lib. xiv. c. 42-44. vol. ii. pp. 140-142. edit. Bipont. See also Pliny, Epist. lib. viii. ep. 14. 1 Suetonius in Claudio, c. 25. 3 Seneca pleads for suicide in the following terms: -"If thy mind be melancholy, and in misery, thou mayest put a period to this wretched condition. Wherever thou lookest, there is an end to it. See that precipice; there thou mayest have liberty. Seest thou that sea, that river, that well? Liberty is at the bottom of it. That little tree? Freedom hangs upon it. Thy own neck, thy own throat, may be a refuge to thee from such servitude; yea, every vein of thy body." De Irá, lib. iii. c. 15. ferred to the truth itself! To which we may add, that the unlimited gratification of their sensual appetites, and the commission of unnatural crimes, was common, even among the most distinguished teachers of philosophy, and was practised even by Socrates himself, "whose morals" (a living opposer of revelation has the affrontery to assert) "exceed any thing in the Bible, for they were free from vice!" — "The most notorious vices," says Quinctilian, speaking of the philosophers of his time," are screened under that name; and they do not labour to maintain the character of philosophers by virtue and study, but conceal the most vicious lives under an austere look and singularity of dress." There were indeed some few philosophers, who cherished better principles, and inculcated, comparatively, purer tenets; but their instructions were very defective, and they were never able to reform the world, or to keep any number of men in the practice of virtue. Their precepts were delivered to their own immediate pupils, and not to the lower orders of people, who constitute the great mass of society. Concerning these, indeed, the Stoics gave themselves no trouble, but seem to have considered them as little better than beasts. Further, the ethical systems of the philosophers were too refined for the common people; their discourses on subjects of morality being rather nice and subtle disputations than useful instructions; and even those things, of which the philosophers were not only certain themselves, but which they were also able to prove and explain to others with sufficient clearness and plainness, (such as are the most obvious and necessary duties of life), they had not sufficient authority to enforce in practice. The truths, which they proved by speculative reason, wanted some still more sensible authority to support them, and render them of more force and efficacy in practice; and the precepts which they delivered, however reasonable and fit to be obeyed, were destitute of weight, and were only the precepts of men. They could 1 Dr. Whitby has collected many maxims of the most eminent heathen sages, in corroboration of the fact above stated. The following examples are taken from his note on Eph. iv. 25. Κρειττον δε ελεσθαι ψευδος, ή αληθες κακον. — - A lie is better than a hurtful truth. Menander. Το γαρ αγαθον κρείττον εςι της αληθειας. - Good is better than truth. Proclus. Ενθα γαρ τι δει και ψευδος λεγεσθαι, λεγεσθω. - When telling a lie will be profitable, let it be told. Darius, in Herodotus, lib. iii. c. 62. - He may lie, who knows how to do it, ev dcovrɩ kaιpw, in a suitable time. Plato apud Stobæum, Serm. 12. There is nothing decorous in truth but when it is profitable: Yea, sometimes kat ψευδος ωνεσεν ανθρώπους, και τ' αληθες έβλαψεν, - Truth is hurtful, and lying is profitable to men. Maximus Tyrius, Diss. 3. p. 29. To countenance this practice, Dr. Whitby remarks that both Plato (de Rep. lib. ii. lib. p. 607, and lib. iii. p. 611.) and the Stoics (Stobus de Stoicis, tom. i. lib. ii. tit. iv. § 4. and Ecloga, p. 183.), seem to have framed a jesuitical distinction between lying in words, and with an assent to an untruth, which they called lying in the soul. The first they allowed to an enemy in prospect of advantage, and for many other dispensations in this life. That is, their wise men may tell a lie, craftily and for gain but he must not embrace a falsehood through ignorance, or assent to an untruth! 2 Quinctilian, Inst. Orat. Proom. 3 Quid ergo? nihilne illi [philosophi] simile præcipiunt? Imo permulta et ad |