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then runs through the Stoical paradoxes, and concludes-Hæc homo ingeniosissimus M. C. arripuit, &c. But had it been his intention to confine the observation to the Stoics, on account of their great name in Logic, he must have said hanc, not hæc: it being their Logic, not their Paradoxes, which was of use in disputation.

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P. 461. X. Lucullus had been declaiming very tragically against the Academy, when Tully entered on its defence; in which he thought it proper to premise something concerning himself. "Aggrediar igitur," (says he) "si pauca ante, quasi de FAMA MEA, dixero." He then declares, that, had he embraced the Academy out of vanity, or love of contradiction, it had not only reflected on his sense, but on his honour : Itaque nisi ineptum putarem in tali disputatione id facere, quod cum de republica disceptatur fieri interdum solet: jurarem per Jovem," &c. From hence, I gather that though the question here be of the Academic philosophy, and of Cicero as an Academic; yet, as he tells us, he is now to vindicate himself in a point in which his honour was concerned; the protestation is general, and concerns his constant turn of mind; which always inclined him, he says, to speak his sentiments.

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P. 465. Y. The learned Author of the exact and elegant History of Cicero, hath since turned this circumstance to the support of the contrary opinion, with regard to his Hero's sentiments :-" "But some (says he) "have been apt to consider them [i. e. the passages in Tully's philosophic writings in favour of a future state] as the flourishes rather of his eloquence than the conclusions of his reason. Since in other parts of his works he seems to intimate, not only a diffidence, but a disbelief of the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and especially in his letters, where he is supposed to declare his mind with the greatest frankness. But-in a melancholy hour, when the spirits are depressed, the same argument would not appear to him with the same force, but doubts and difficulties get the ascendant, and what humoured his present chagrin find the readiest admission. The passages alleged [i. e. in this place of the Divine Legation] were all of this kind, written in the season of his dejection, when all things were going wrong with him, and in the height of Cæsar's power," &c. Vol. ii. p. 561. ed. 4. Thus, every thing hath two Academical handles. But still, my candid friend will allow me to say, they cannot both be right. It is confessed, that a desponding temper, like that of Cicero, will, in a melancholy hour, be always inclined to fear the worst. But to what are its fears confined? Without doubt to the issue of that

very affair, for which we are distressed. A melancholy hour would have just the contrary influence on our other cogitations. And this by the wise and gracious disposition of Nature; that the mind may endeavour to make up by an abundance of hope in one quarter, what through the persuasion of its fears, it hath suffered itself to part from, in another. So that unless Cicero were made differently from all other men, one might venture to say, his hopes of future good (had Philosophy permitted him to entertain any hopes at all) would have risen in proportion to his fears of the present. And this is seen every day in fact. For it is nothing but this natural disposition that makes men of the world so generally fly even to Superstition for the solace of their misfortunes. But the excellent author of the Critical Inquiry into the Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers goes further. "Cicero" (says he) "very frankly declares in his Tusculans themselves that this [the mortality or the no separate existence of the soul] was the most real and effectual, the most solid and substantial comfort that could be administered against the fear of death. In his first Tusculan, he undertakes to prove, that death

was not an evil; and this, 1st, Because it was not attended with any actual punishment, or positive and real misery. 2dly, He rises higher, and labours to prove, that men ought to look upon death as a blessing rather than an evil, as the soul, after its departure from the body, might be happy in another life. In the first part he supposes the mortality and extinction of the soul at death; in the second he plainly supposes, that it will survive the body. Now the question is, on which doctrine does he lay most stress ; or, which of these two notions, in the opinion of Cicero, would serve best to fortify and prepare men against the fear of death? And luckily Cicero himself has long since determined this point for us; having in the first Tusculan brought several reasons to prove the immortality of the soul, he after all very frankly declares, that they had no great validity and force; that the most solid and substantial argument, which could be urged against the fear of death, was the very consideration advanced in his letters, or the doctrine which makes it the utter period of our being: And in the remaining part of the book he proceeds to argue chiefly on this supposition, as being the best calculated to support men against the fear and terror of death. The arguments which he urged to prove the immortality of the soul, seem sometimes to have had great weight with the person to whom they were immediately addressed; he declares himself fond of the opinion, and resolves not to part with it. "Nemo me de immortalitate depellet.' To this Cicero replies, laudo id quidem; etsi nihil nimis oportet confidere: movemur enim sæpe aliquo acutè concluso; labamus mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in rebus; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas. Id igitur si acciderit, simus armati,' c. 32. He does not seem to lay any great stress on the notion of a future state; nihil oportet nimis confidere.' He owns that the arguments, alleged in support of it, were rather specious than solid: " movemur enim sæpe aliquo acutè concluso. That they were not plain and clear enough to make any strong and lasting impression: Labamus mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in his rebus; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas.-That therefore the best remedy at all events, would be the notion that the soul dies with the body; id igitur si acciderit, simus armati. Having then explained what he had to say on the immortality of the soul, he proceeds to shew, that death could not be considered as an evil, on the supposition that the soul was to perish with the body.

"When therefore he would teach men to contemn the terrors of death, he grounds his main argument on the mortality of the soul. As to the notion of a future state, it was maintained by arguments too subtile to work a real and lasting conviction; it was not thought clear enough to make any deep and strong impression. He has therefore recourse to the extinction of the soul, as the most comfortable consideration that could be employed against the fear of death. This was not then a topic that was peculiar to the season of dejection and distress; it was not thrown out only accidentally, when he was not considering the subject, but was used in the works that were deliberately and professedly written on this very point. It could not therefore be occasional only, and suited to the present circumstances, as Dr. Middleton in his reasoning all along supposes."

P. 475. Z. Dion Cassius tells us, that in the year of Rome 689 the Government consulted, what the Historian calls, the Augury of safety; a sort of divination to learn, if the Gods received in good part the Prayers for the Safety of the People. This ceremony was only to be performed in that year, during the course of which, no Allies of Rome had defected from her, no Armies had appeared in the field, and no Battle had been fought. A ceremony which plainly arose from the ancient notion of an

envious Demon, then most to be dreaded when the felicity of States or of private men was at its height.

P. 480. AA. Tusc. Disp. 1. v. c. 13. The words, si hoc fas est dictu, had been omitted by accident, in my quotation.-But Answerers saw a mystery in this omission, which could be nothing but my consciousness that the omitted words made against me. They are now inserted to show that they make entirely for me; and that Cicero used the word decerptus in the literal sense; for, if only in a figurative, he had no occasion to soften it with a salva reverentia.

P. 480. BB. It properly signifies what hath neither beginning nor end; though frequently used in the improper sense of having no end. And indeed, we may observe in most of the Latin writers, an unphilosophic licence in the use of mixed modes by substituting one for another: The providing against the ill effects of this abuse, to which these sort of words are chiefly liable, gave the ancient Roman lawyers great trouble; as appears from what one of them observes, "Jurisconsultorum summus circa verborum PROPRIETATEM labor est." Hence the Composers of the Justinian Digest found a necessity of having one whole book of their Pandects employed de verborum significatione. The abuse arose, in a good measure, from their not being early broken and inured to abstract reasoning: It is certain at least, that the Greeks, who were eminent for speculation, are infinitely more exact in their use of mixed modes; not but something must be allowed for the superior abundance of the Greek language.

P. 482. CC. It hath been objected to me, that this doctrine of the refusion of the soul was very consistent with the belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, in the intermediate space between death and the resolution of the soul into the Tò ev. But these Objectors forgot that it had been shown, that those Philosophers who held the refusion not to be immediate, believed the soul to be confined to a successive course of transmigrations entirely physical. So that there was no more room for a moral state of reward and punishment hereafter, than if the resolution had been immediate.

Pp. 489, 500. DD. Λύεται ἑκάστη δύναμις ΑΛΟΓΟΣ εἰς τὴν ὅλην ζωὴν τοῦ warrós. But the elder Platonists talked another language: if Virgil may be allowed to know what they said:

"Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus

Etherios dixere. Deum namque ire per omnes."

P. 489. EE. But they were not content to speak a language different from their Master. They would, sometimes, make him speak theirs. So Hierocles tells us, Plato said, that "When God made the visible world, he had no occasion for pre-existent matter to work upon. His will was sufficient to bring all creatures into being.” Αρχεῖν γὰρ αὐτῷ εἰς ὑπόστασιν τῶν ὄντων τὸ οἰκεῖον βούλημα. De fato et prov. ap. PHOT. But where Plato said this we are yet to learn.

"Terrasque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum,
Hinc pecudes, armenta, VIROs, genus omne ferarum,
Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas.
Scilicet huc reddi deinde, ac RESOLUTA referri

Omnia :"

Georg. iv. 222.

But now what temptation could the later Platonists have to make this alteration in favour of Paganism, if their master and his first followers called the human soul a part of God only in a loose metaphorical sense? for such a sense could have reflected no disgrace upon their systems.

A passage of Plutarch will shew us the whole change and alteration of

this system in one view; where, speaking of the opinions of the philosophers, he says, "PYTHAGORAS and PLATO held the Soul to be immortal; for that launching out into the Soul of the universe, it returns to its Parent and original. The Stoics say, that on its leaving the body, the more infirm (that is, the Soul of the ignorant) suffers the lot of the body: But the more vigorous (that is, the Soul of the wise) endures to the conflagration. Democritus and Epicurus say, the Soul is mortal, and perishes with the body: PYTHAGORAS and PLATO, that the reasonable Soul is immortal (for that the Soul is not God, but the workmanship of the eternal God) and that the irrational is mortal." Πυθαγόρας, Πλάτων, ἄφθαρτον εἶναι τὴν ψυχήν· ἐξιοῦσαν γὰρ εἰς τὸ τοῦ παντὸς ψυχὴν ἀναχωρεῖν πρὸς τὸ ὁμογενές. Οἱ Στωϊκοὶ ἐξιοῦσαν τῶν σωμάτων ὑποφέρεσθαι τὴν μὲν ἀσθενεστέραν ἅμα τοῖς συγκρίμασι γενέσθαι (ταύτην δὲ εἶναι τῶν ἀπαιδεύτων) τὴν δὲ ἰσχυροτέραν, οἷα ἐστὶ περὶ τοὺς σοφούς, καὶ μέχρι τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως. Δημόκριτος, Επίκουρος φθαρτὴν, τῷ σώματι συνδιαφθειρομένην. Πυθαγόρας καὶ Πλάτων τὸ μὲν λογικὸν, ἄφθαρτον (καὶ γὰρ τὴν ψυχὴν, οὐ θεὸν, ἀλλ ̓ ἔργον τοῦ ἀϊδίου Θεοῦ ὑπάρχειν) τὸ δὲ ἄλογον, φθαρτόν.—Περὶ τῶν ̓Αρεσ. τοῖς Φιλ. βιβλ. δ'. κ. ζ'.

There is something very observable in this passage. He gives the opinions of the several Philosophers concerning the Soul. He begins with Pythagoras and Plato; goes on to the Stoics, Democritus and Epicurus; and then returns back to Pythagoras and Plato again. This seems to be irregular enough; but this is not the worst. His account of the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrine concerning the Soul, with which he sets out, contradicts that with which he concludes. For, the launching out into the soul of the universe, which is his first account, implies, and is, the language of those who say, that the Soul was part of the substance of God; whereas his second account expressly declares that the Soul was not God, that is, part of God, but only his workmanship. Let me observe too, that what he says further, in this second account, of the rational Soul's being immortal, and the irrational, mortal, contradicts what he in another place of the same tract, quoted above, tells us, was the doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato concerning the soul; namely, that the human and brutal, the rational and irrational, were of the same nature, Πυθαγόρας, Πλάτων λογικὰς μὲν εἶναι καὶ τῶν ἀλόγων ζώων καλουμένων τὰς ψυχὰς, οὐ μὴν λογικῶς ἐνεργούσας παρὰ τὴν δυσκρασίαν τῶν σωμάτων. How is all this to be accounted for? Very easily. This tract of the placits of the Philosophers was an extract from the author's common-place: in which, doubtless, were large collections from the Pythagoreans and Platonists, both before and after Christ. It is plain then, that in the passage in question he begins with those who went before; and ends with those who came after. And it was the language of those after, to call the human soul, not (like their predecessors) a part of God, but his workmanship: so Plotinus, who came still later, tells us, that the soul is from God, and yet has a different existence: It was in their language, to call the brutal soul, mortal: and so afterwards Porphyry, we find, says, every irrational power is resolved into the life of the whole: for, this resolution or λύσις was qualified with the title of ἀφθαρσία, or φθάρμα indifferently, as they were disposed to hide or to reveal its real nature. While they held all souls subject to this resolution, they would, of course, keep it amongst their SECRETS, and call it immortality. When they began to make a distinction, and only subjected the irrational soul to this resolution, as in the passage of Porphyry, then they would call it mortality, as in the passage of Plutarch; a passage though hitherto esteemed an indigested heap of absurdity and contradiction, is now, we presume, reasonably well explained and reconciled to itself.

P. 492. FF. It is remarkable that Democritus the Master of Epicurus gave but two qualities to MATTER, figure and bulk, i. e. extension. His disciple gave three, by adding GRAVITY. This quality was as sensible as the other two. What shall we say? That Democritus penetrated so far into MATTER, as to see that GRAVITY did not essentially belong unto it, but was a quality superinduced upon it. Certain it is, what Dr. Clarke conjectures, in his dispute with Leibnitz, that Epicurus's Philosophy was a corrupt and atheistical perversion of some more ancient, and perhaps better Philosophy.

P. 499. GG. But this has been the humour of the zealous Partizans of a favourite Cause, in all Ages. Honest ANTHONY WOOD, recommending a MS. of a brother Antiquary, one Henry Lyte, intitled, Conjectural Notes touching the Original of the University of Oxon and also of Britain, observes with great complacency-"In this are many pretty fancies, which may be of SOME USE, as occasion shall serve, by way of reply for Oxon, against the far-fetched antiquities of Cambridge."-A dispute had arisen between these two famous Universities, not concerning the superior Excellence of the one or other Institution; but of the superior Antiquity only. In a contention of the first kind, the disputants would have had some need of Truth; all that was wanted in the latter, was well-invented Fable. Wisely therefore did our reverend Antiquary recommend to the Managers of this important question, the PRETTY FANCIES of this Oxford Champion; to oppose to the pretty fancies of the far-fetched Antiquities of the Cambridge Athlet.

P. 509. HH. As what is here said relates entirely to the revolutions in the state of Religion here at home, strangers will not be able to see the force of it, without some further account of this matter.-JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE, built upon the doctrine of the Redemption of Mankind by the death and sacrifice of Christ, was the great Gospel-Principle on which PROTESTANTISM was founded, when the Churches of the North-West of Europe first shook off the Yoke of ROME: By some perhaps pushed too far, in their abhorrence of the Popish doctrine of MERIT; the Puritan schism amongst us being made on the panic fancy that the Church of England had not receded far enough from Rome. However, Justification by Faith alone being a Gospel-Doctrine, it was received as the badge of true Protestantism, by all; when the PURITANS (first driven by persecution from religious into civil Faction, and thoroughly heated into Enthusiasm by each Faction, in its turn) carried the Doctrine to a dangerous and impure Antinomianism. This fanatic notion soon after produced the practical virtues of these modern Saints. The mischiefs which ensued are well known. And no small share of them has been ascribed, to this impious abuse of the doctrine of Justification by faith alone; first by depreciating MORALITY, and then by dispensing with it.

When the Constitution was restored, and had brought into credit those few learned Divines whom the madness of the preceding times had driven into obscurity, the Church of England, still smarting with the wounds it had received from the abuse of the great Gospel-principle of FAITH, very wisely laboured to restore MORALITY, the other essential part of the Christian System, to its Rights, in the joint direction of the Faithful. Hence, the encouragement the Church gave to those noble discourses which did such credit to Religion, in the licentious times of Charles the Second, composed by these learned and pious men, abused by the Zealots with the nickname LATITUDINARIAN Divines. The reputation they acquired by so thoroughly weeding out these rank remains of Fanaticism, made their Successors fond of sharing with them in the same labours. A laudable

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