He seems to speak of them as rejoicing in being burned, and bound in chains, and slain *. It is remarkable that Seneca observes, that "if one were to rise from the dead, and to "inform us upon his own experience, that "there is no evil in death, he would obtain more credit, and have greater weight with 66 us than an ordinary teacher +!" This remark, however, only leads us to reflect, how erroneous often are the convictions of men, and how just the observation of our Saviour," that if men believe not Moses " and the Prophets, neither would they be "persuaded though one rose from the dead." Seneca himself, who must have heard of the resurrection of Christ, does not appear to have examined its evidence, or to have been duly impressed by it. • Epist. 71. and Heb. xi. 35. + Epist. 30. p. 114. Edit. Amstel. See Morell's trans. vol. i. p. 112. and Luke xvi. 31. CHAP. LIV. Caius Cornelius Tacitus. TACITUS, who was the son of Cornelius Tacitus, a procurator and governor of one of the provinces of Belgic Gaul, was born in the reign of Nero, A. D. 62; and enjoyed high offices in the successive reigns of Vespasian, Titus, Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. The History of Tacitus was published in the reign of Trajan, when the unrestrained feelings of the mind were expressed without fear. It exhibited a succession of twentyseven years, from the commencement of the reign of Galba, A. D. 69, to the death of Domitian, a period rendered awful by frequent revolutions of empire, effected chiefly by the Prætorian bands, who raised up the objects of their choice to a short-lived and precarious power. The work consisted ori ginally of thirty books, of which only four, and a part of the fifth, remain, recording but little after the accession of Vespasian. The Annals, composed afterwards, included a period of fifty-four years, from A. D. 14, to the death of Nero in A. D. 68. Three years of Tiberius; the four years of Caligula ; the six first of Claudius; and the two last of Nero, have perished. The works here mentioned, the Dialogue on Oratory, and the Treatise de Moribus Germanorum, produced A. D. 99, in the reign of Trajan; together with the Life of Agricola, published also in the same reign, contain all that remains of this historian; who, for depth of philosophical remark, for striking description of cha racter, for animated and dramatic representations of events, is the most distinguished of any that antiquity can boast. He shews an intimate knowledge of the heart; but having occasion to treat of times, and characters, of peculiar corruption, he seems to delight in aggravating the shades of human depravity. The impressions in favour of morality, which he excites, are produced by a contemplation of the misery, and dreadful effects, of an unrestrained indulgence of the passions. He introduces few reflections on Providence, and has been sometimes accused of atheism: but there are passages which sufficiently demonstrate his belief in the government of a Supreme Being, administering retributive judgments on earth; and he exhibits the influence of conscience producing superstitious fears and gloomy apprehensions*. Tacitus, however, though he speaks with reverence of Jupiter, "greatest and best," and represents the gods as propitious to virtue, yet seems to have entertained very erroneous notions of the Divine nature as if acting from revenge+. Considering the respect with which the works of Tacitus were regarded by the Ancients, and that the Emperor Tacitus in particular directed them, as the valuable productions of his ancestor, to be placed in all the libraries of Rome, and to be transcribed ten times every year into the Archives of the Consuls, it is somewhat surprizing that they should not have been more completely preserved; especially if we reflect on the importance of the evidence which they afford in confirmation of the sacred accounts. * Annal. 15. § 36. + Histor. lib. iii. § 72. Histor. lib. i. § 3. See also Lucan. Pharsal. lib. iv. 1. 107. and even Cicero De Nat. Deor. lib. iii. § 32, et seq. F f VOL. II. Availing ourselves of what remains, and adverting first to relations which substantiate particulars mentioned in the Old Testament, we may observe, that when the historian speaks of the plains in which Sodom and Gomorrah stood, he states, after other writers*, that they were "reported to have "been formerly fruitful, and inhabited by "the population of great citics, which were "burnt up by fire darted from heaven; that "traces of this destruction were to be dis"covered in his time, since the earth itself 66 appeared scorched, and to have lost its "fruitfulness; so that all things, whether of 66 spontaneous growth, or sown by the hand, "either in the blade or flower, or matured "to their accustomed form, became black "and empty, and mouldered, as it were, "into ashes." He confesses himself disposed to admit, "that as distinguished cities "had formerly been burnt (in that spot) by "celestial flames, so also the earth had be 66 66 come infected by the vapours of the lake, and the whole surrounding atmosphere been corrupted; insomuch, Gen. xiv. 1-3; and Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 764. |