the debate concerning the punishment of the Associates of Cataline, was that which was maintained by the senators in general, and all persons of rank and education at Rome; as it was not delivered by Cæsar as his own in particular, but evidently as what he apprehended would be that from which his hearers would not dissent. Cato, who spake after him, did not express any disapprobation of what he had said. Indeed as a stoic, he could not. Cicero himself was present, and did not contradict him. "In sorrow and distress," Cæsar said, "Death is a state of rest from all trouble, and not "of torment. It puts an end to all the evils to "which men are subject, and beyond it there is no "room for care or joy." The result of the whole of this work, even to the most superficial observer, must be a sense of the infinite superiority of the doctrines of Revelation, and especially of those of christianity, to those of any heathen system whatever; and with this great advantage, that the principles of revelation are perfectly intelligible to the bulk of mankind, and the same with those which actually influence men in the common conduct of life; giving them a knowledge of what they have to hope from the practice of virtue, and what they have to fear in conse. consequence of vice. Moreover, these rules of life, coming immediately from the author of their being, have a great advantage in point of weight, and authority, far more than any mere reasoning, though ever so clear and satisfactory, could have given them. Accordingly, the precepts of Moses were not, like the teachings of the Greek philosophers, confined to a few, but calculated for the use of the whole nation, the lowest as much as the highest among them. The doctrines and precepts of christianity are also equally intelligible to all mankind; and they are represented as of equal importance and concern to all, the slave as much as his master. Such a plan of general instruction was never practiced, nor, as far as appears, did the very idea of it ever occur to any of the Greek moralists. The lectures of the philosophers were given to select disciples, who generally paid for their instruction. With the common people they had nothing to do, while at the same time they encouraged them in their absurd and abominable religious rites, founded on that polytheism and idolatry which they themselves held in contempt; and this was founded on as groundless an opinion as any that was ever entertained by the lowest of the peo ple, ple, viz. that the welfare of the state depended upon the observance of them. The attention I have given to this subject has increased the sense I had before of the great value of revelation to the virtue and happiness of mankind, and my gratitude to the universal parent, that I was born in a christian country, and in an age so much enlightened as the present. I rejoice also that I have been led, in the course of his providence, to do so much as I have done towards illustrating and defending the evidences of revelation, and towards purging it from those doctrines and practices which were discordant with it, and prevented its reception with many. I am willing to think that my comparison of the institutions of the Hindoos, and other antient nations, with those of Moses, and this work, which extends the comparison to all the sects of the Grecian philosophers, will eminently contribute to this end. Lastly, I am thankful to the author of my being that my life has been prolonged so far as to have been able to compleat my design. I could not have closed my life with more satisfaction than after a work of this kind. May the great Lord of the harvest send more, more zealous, and more able, labourers into his harvest. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY. [PART I.] ON THE STATE OF RELIGIOUS AND MORAL PRIN- INTRODUCTION. IN comparing the moral maxims of the heathen world with those of revelation, which is the object of this work, it is desirable to go as far back as we can, with any sufficient evidence, of what men really thought and did; and though with respect to Greece we cannot go so far back as we can with respect to Hindostan, and other oriental nations, we have two early writers on whom we may depend, viz. the poets HESIOD and HOMER; and they flourished, according to Newton, about eight hundred years before the christian æra: We have also a poem of considerable length, containing precepts for the conduct of life, by THEOGNIS, which does not appear to have suffered by interpolation; and he flourished more than four hundred years before Christ; and also a shorter poem of PHOCYLIDES of the same age, thought by some to contain christian sentiments, and therefore to have been interpolated; we have also a collection of sayings of those who are generally called the seven wise men of Greece, who lived about six hundred years before Christ, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. Though all these are not of equal authority, I shall quote nothing from any of them but what will appear, by a comparison with others the antiquity of which is unquestionable, to be sufficiently to my purpose. It is something remarkable that, near as Greecè is to Palestine and Egypt, not only all science, properly so called, but a knowledge of the common and most useful arts, seems to have been unknown for ages in that country, till they were brought to them by the Phenicians or Egyptians, who came among them to find settlements, after flying from their own countries, and who found them in a state of the greatest barbarism, and divided into a great number |