for it must necessarily be one of these two; either the dead man is nothing, and has not a sense of any thing; or it is only a change or migration of the soul hence to another place, according to what we are told. If there is no sense left, and death is like a profound sleep, and quiet rest without dreams, it is WONDERFUL TO THINK WHAT GAIN IT IS TO DIE; but if the things which are told us are true, that death is a migration to another place, this is still a much greater good." And soon after, having said, " that those who live there are both in other respects happier than we, and also in this, that for the rest of their existence they are immortal;" he again reiterates, "If the things which are told us are true." You cannot fail to notice, that in all this the awful idea of accountability does not enter; and, farther, that, instead of the philosopher's adopting the language of sublime or steady confidence on this momentous occasion, he deals only in puerility and uncertainty. Let but his hesitating language be contrasted with the Christian assurance of an Apostle in analogous circumstances, and you cannot help drawing the most cogent inferences. The language of the dying philosopher is, "If the things which are told us are true." But listen to the language of the Apostolic conqueror, and rejoice that his confidence in the face of death may be yours. "I am now ready to be offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness: which the Lord, the righte ous Judge, SHALL give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." "I KNOW in whom I have believed; and am PER SUADED that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day."

You will not be surprised, after all this, to learn that Socrates recommended divination: was, as Tertullian remarks, condemned at Athens, amongst other things, for sodomy and the corrupting of youth; and was

addicted to incontinence and fornication". But it is time for us to direct our attention to his great disciple, PLATO. I have already adverted to the encouragement this philosopher gave to the habit of lying. He farther prescribes a community of wives in his commonwealth, and lays down laws for the express purpose of destroying all parental and filial affection; he gives great liberties to incontinency, affirming," that all things respecting women, marriage, and the propagation of the species, should be entirely common among friends;" allows, and in some cases prescribes, the exposing and destroying children, namely, the children of mothers older than forty years, or of fathers older than fifty-five2; allows of drunkenness at the feast of Bacchus, though not at other times; and prescribes the worship of the stars, which, indeed, are the divinities he principally recommends to the people. He seems sometimes to have believed in one Supreme God, but never thought it safe or proper to proclaim him to the vulgar; on the contrary, he directs them to follow the Delphian oracle, as the best guide in matters of religion. He held two principles of things, God and matter; but, according to him, the first and highest God was not concerned in the creation, nor in the government of the world. Like his master, Socrates, he often asserts the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Sometimes he argues for the immortality of the soul, on the ground of its pre-existence. Sometimes he recommends the doctrine of future punishments as a most ancient and sacred tradition; yet at other times he expresses himself in a manner that seems not to admit of punishments in a future state; and finds fault with such representations as tend to alarm the people, and make them afraid of death. "All those direful and terrible names (says he) respecting the ghosts of

11 Tertul. Apol. c. 46.

12 Plato, De Republica, lib. v. The mere English reader may see proofs of all these positions in Taylor's Plato, vol. i. pp. 265, 298, 299, 300, &c.

the dead are to be regretted, which cause such as hear them to shudder and tremble." And in his Cratylus he introduces Socrates as blaming those who represent Hades as a dark and gloomy abode, and derive the word from Tò déidès, as if it were void of light; but is rather for deriving it ἀπὸ τὸ πάντα τὰ καλα ειδέναι, from knowing all things good and beautiful. Here he manifestly excludes every thing from the notion of a future state that might be apt to create terror, and thus leaves no room for future misery.

ARISTOTLE, that great master of reasoning and of criticism, whose power was such as to establish a mental despotism which prevailed universally for thousands of years, was childish enough in matters of religion to affirm most positively, that though there was one eternal first mover, yet the stars are also true eternal deities 13. He likewise denies that providence extends its care to things below the moon; approves, nay prescribes, the exposing and destroying sickly children; encourages revenge, and speaks of meekness as seeming to err by defect," because the meek man is not apt to revenge himself, but rather to forgive." He varies in his doctrine with regard to future existence, and sometimes absolutely denies it, as in chapter 9, book iii. of the Nichomachian Ethics, where he asserts that, “death is the most dreadful of all dreadful things, for that it is the end of our existence: to him that is dead there seems nothing farther to remain, whether good or evil14❞

Having dwelt thus long upon the Greek philosophers, I cannot dilate much upon the sentiments of those who wrote in the Latin language. I shall, however, select CICERO as a very fair specimen of those who flourished before the Christian era. Now this great man, it is well known, would not allow that God created the matter out of which the universe was made;

13 Arist. Metaphys. lib. xiv. cap. 8.

Η Παντων των φοβερων φοβερώτατον δὲ ὁ θάνατος. Ethic. ad Nicomach. lib. iii, cap. 9, and lib. iv. cap. 11.

and besides this, he commonly expressed himself after the manner of the polytheists. In arguing for the existence of God, he leads the people to a plurality of deities; and he asserts expressly that the Dii majorum gentium, those that were accounted gods of the higher order, were taken from among men. Indeed, he very much approves the custom of paying divine honours to famous men, and regarding them as gods 15. He argues excellently for the immortality of the soul in several parts of his works; yet sometimes, in his letters to his friends, represents death as putting an end to all sense of good or evil. Thus, in an epistle to L. Mescinius, he says, "Death ought to be despised or even wished for, because it will be void of all sense.' "Propterea quod nullum sensum esset habitura." And again, in an epistle to Torquatus, he comforts himself with this thought: "Whilst I shall exist, I shall not be troubled at any thing, since I have no fault with which to charge myself; and if I shall not exist, I shall be deprived of all sense." "Nec enim dum ero, angar ulla re, cum omni caream culpâ; et si non ero, sensu omni carebo." He makes no use, at any time, of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul for moral purposes, either for supporting men under their troubles, or for stimulating them to the practice of virtue; and the notion of future punishments is absolutely rejected and derided by him. In his notorious oration for Aulus Cluentius, he speaks of the punishments of the wicked as silly fables, and adds, "if these things are false, as all men understand them to be, what has death taken from him" (that, is from Oppianicus, a man whom Cicero himself represents as a monster of wickedness, guilty of the most atrocious murders, &c.) but a sense of pain." After perusing this you will not be surprised at being told, that Cicero often commends and justifies suicide; and warmly pleads for fornication, as having nothing blameable in it, and as a thing universally allowed and practised. 15 De Natura Deorum, lib. ii. cap. 24.

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I might next proceed to speak of PLINY, who openly argues against a future state 16; of PLUTARCH, who treats the fear of future punishment as vain and childish, and wrote his book of Isis and Osiris as an apology for the pagan polytheism; of CATO of Utica, who has been held up as a perfect model of virtue," but who lent his wife to Hortensius, was an habitual drunkard ", and taught and practised self-murder; and of SENECA, who pleads for suicide, justifies Cato's drunkenness, asserts that no man in his reason fears the gods, and contemns future punishments as vain terrors invented by the poets; but a detailed account of their sentiments and opinions would, in all the main points, be so strictly similar to what I have related of the other wise men of antiquity, that I omit it rather than render this letter tautologous and tiresome 18.

Before I terminate the present discussion, however, I cannot avoid remarking that several of the heathen philosophers, instead of being puffed up with vain ideas of the powers of their own understanding, when directed to religious and moral inquiries (as most modern Deists are), frequently acknowledged their own impotency and blindness. Thus Tully exclaims, " Utinam tam facilè vera invenire possim, quàm falsa convin16 Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. 55.

17 Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, cap. ult.

18 For a very masterly view of the opinions of the Greek and Roman heathens, for the first four centuries after the Christian era; a most able sketch of their mythological and moral notions, their cruelty and profligacy, as opposed to the everlasting promises of the Gospel, and the meekness and purity of its primitive followers, the reader may consult Dr. Ireland's Lectures, or, "Paganism and Christianity compared."

Tertullian, in his Apol. cap. 46, terminates a fine contrast between the sentiments and conduct of the philosophers and of the early Christians by asking-" Where now is the similitude between a philosopher and a Christian?-between a disciple of Greece, and of heaven??-a trader in fame, and a saver of souls ?-between a man of words, and a man of deeds ?—a builder of virtue, and a destroyer of it?-a dresser up of lies, and a restorer of truth?-between a plunderer, and a guardian of this sacred deposit?" See also Lactantius, lib. 2, de Origine Erroris, § 3, on the character of Cicero.