rus, a military tribune, to the illuftrious shade of Julia Sorana; who was an ornament of humanity; virtuous and pious. What is laudable and honeft, the ever preferred, and made her whole life one juft, decent, and natural performance. She lived 24 years, and died in the year of Rome 838, when the emperor Domitian and Cornelius Dolabella were confuls. The urn containing the ashes of this Roman lady was found under the stone, and are both in the octogon fummerhouse. Her character is glorious. She lived up to nature, that is, according to reason, which is the superior nature of man * Happy were it for chriftians, if they did fo Areflexion. too. Then would they reft their all upon a rectitude of conduct, and fuperior to the world in its best and worst events, acquiefce in the consciousness of their own integrity. But few there are, who arrive at this pagan state of virtue. The principal queftion with our divines is, are you a believer? If the people are well fetled in a perfuafion of the mysterys, and confefs that, three distinct * Tho Mrs. Benlow hath conftrued confenfit naturæ into five lines in English; yet it is most certain that the two Latin words do not only juftly fignify fo much; but might exprefs many more. The words are used by Tully, (de finibus), and in him fignify the most perfect virtue and piety. Cicero took the fentiment from the ftoics, who fay, a confiftent difpofition, and mean thereby, an exact rectitude of conduct. N 2 felfs, ; felfs, or intelligent agents, are one in a common nature or effence; then they fecure the benefit and reputation of orthodoxy, and they are to mount to Abraham's great hall; tho' their religion, in reality, is little more than impious abfurdity, and infignificant found and their virtue fo far from being such sterling Roman worth as Julia Sorana's, that it does not come up to the veracity and sobriety of a Turk. But they believe, and of confequence, are the elect. Unhappy doctrine! Surely, one fupreme being, of abfolute, infinite perfection, who is the first cause of all things, and worshiped under a thousand names; and a virtue that commits a man wholly to justice and the univerfal nature *, is a religion preferable far, heathenish as it may be, to the invented piety of fome chriftian priests: that piety they dare, with a gigantic boldness, to call the religion of the fon of God. Unhappy teachers! The fon of God did not *Mrs. Benlow takes this fentiment from the wife and good emperor Marcus. The perfect man commits himfelf to justice, as to thofe things which are done by himfelf; and in all other events to the nature of the whole. Let what will happen, he is even contented, and fully fatisfyed with these two things; to do justly what is at this and every inftant doing; and to approve and love what is at this and every inftant allotted him. A glorious fentiment, fewks. Here is, thy will be doneand, the integrity recommended by the gofpel. M. Ant. 1. 10. and fee 1. 7. and l. 12. come come down from heaven to teach the world to worship three infinite, independent, fupreme beings, under the names of father, fon, and holy ghoft; and to order us, in refpect of moral and pofitive dutys, to give the preference to what is pofitive, and confider them of far greater valuablenefs; as our theologers preach these matters *: but the favior of the world was born of a pure virgin, and took our nature upon him, to fhew us how to worship the most glorious of immortal beings, that felf-exiftent, all-perfect fpirit, whom the fcriptures call the blessed God; and to fubject us intirely to the original, primary law of reafon. He came to excite and lead us to the practice of moral duties, and to direct us by what steps we may approach towards the perfection of our nature. The god-like mediator appeared, that we might view ourselves * As to moral and positive dutys, it is a most amazing thing, Jewks, that learned men fhould think of making chriftian excellence confift in paying a greater regard to pofitive precepts than to moral dutys; when it is to common fenfe fo extemely plane, that pofitive dutys can no farther render us valuable, or pleafing to God, than as they are means to bring us to moral perfection. It is, to be fure, the fubjecting our affections and actions to the law of reafon, that can render us the proper objects of God's approbation, and therefore, the means to the end, that is pofitive things, cannot poffibly be preferable to moral duties. In truth, the things pofitive are of fmall importance in refpect of things moral. The main point is obedience to the original and primary law of nature, or reafon. 1741. in the glass of the gofpel, and fill our minds with found knowledge, and useful notions. In fuch a view of christianity, we fee the excellency and fuitableness of Christ, in all his offices. He is a heavenly light that produces a real inward holiness. Another 'Roman monument I faw at OferJuly 5, 6. vaul, was an altar of fpeckled marble that had this infcription Fortunæ Conservatrici Imp. Caraufii P. F. Aug. that is, To Fortune the Protector for the Confervation of the Emperor Caraufius, pious, happy, auguft and of Oriuna, auguft. Caraufus is not named in the Roman history as one of the emperors: but it is extremely evident from feveral medals in my poffeffion, and in the poffeffion of many others, that he shared the empire with Dioclefian and Maximian. In the legend of those medals, there is Auggg. which fignifys three in the supreme administration. By his victorys he compelled the two emperors to consent to his putting on the purple. After his great naval victory, in which he destroyed the vast fleet of of the two fovereigns, in the year 289, that mighty naval force defcribed by Mamertin the orator *, Dioclefian and Maximian came to Mamertinus, the orator, lived to a great age. His famous panegyric on the emperor Maximian he pronounced, A. D. 288. and A. D. 362. the fecond year of Julian, he was conful with Nevitus, and one of the Chalcedon judges, who condemned to death the wicked minifters of Conftantius; who died Novem. 3. 361. Conftantius was the fecond fon of Conftantine the great; who dyed A. D. 337, in his 64th year: having reigned 30. -The eldest fon Conftantine, declared war against the youngest fon, Conftans, and was flain in the battle of Aquileia, A. D. 340.-Conftans, the youngest fon, was murdered by the tyrant Magnentius, A. D. 350. Such was the end of the great Conftantine's fons: and, as his nephew, Julian, who fucceeded Conftantius, perished in the Fersian war, A. D. 363. of Rome 1161. in the 32d. year of his age; there was a total end of the family of Conftantine the great ; after they had ruled the world 57 years; from July 25. 306, when Conftantius, the father of Conftantine the great, died at York, to the 26th of June 363, when the great and excellent Julian fell; and the empire paffed away to a Mafian man, Flavius Claudius Jovianus. No means were fpared by Conftantine the great to aggrandize himself, and fecure the empire of the world to his great houfe: and in half a century, the whole family is extinct. Beautiful is the reflexion of the poet upon fuch occafions From God all human actions take their fprings, But that remembrance fays, -The things have been. |