It has been often said, and many passages of the ancients are produced to that purpose, that there has been a general consent or agreement among all nations, the most barbarous not excepted, in the acknowledgment of a Deity. And it is true that they have generally agreed in the notion of a superior, invisible, divine power or powers; but not so generally as some have represented it, in the belief of one supreme God: though many of them had some notion of this, and there was an ancient tradition concerning it, which had spread far and wide, and never was entirely extinguished. But when we proceed to examine more distinctly into the ideas they had of the Divinity, or of superior invisible powers, and the worship that was to be rendered to them, here we shall find a great difference. Plutarch observes that "poets, philoso"phers, and lawgivers, were all along the first that instructed "and confirmed us in our opinion of the gods. For all 66 agree that there are gods; but concerning their number, "their order, their essence, and power, they vastly differ "from one another. The philosophers differ from the poets "and lawgivers, and these from them." See his Amator. Oper. tom. II. p. 763. C. D. edit. Xyl. Francof. 1620.

Another instance produced by Socrates of a universal unwritten law, observed in every region, after the same manner, is that of honouring our parents. And in this mankind have generally agreed: and yet they have differed in their observation of this law. In several nations, in ancient times, they were wont to expose or destroy their sick and aged parents, pretending that this was better for them than to wait for their natural deaths. The same custom is still observed

among some nations, particularly those that inhabit the countries near the Cape of Good Hope. Socrates also supposes it to be a part of the natural universal law, that parents should not have carnal commerce with their children, nor children with their parents. And yet it is well known, that there were some nations, particularly the Persians,* who, in other respects, had

* St. Jerome attributes the custom of incestuous marriages to the Medes, In

many good laws, among whom this was done without scruple. And the Persian Magi, who were esteemed very wise men and great philosophers, allowed and approved these and other incestuous mixtures.* So did some of the principal Stoics, as Sextus Empiricus and Plutarch inform us.†

That parents should love and nourish, and take care of their children, may be also justly regarded as a law of nature; and yet the practice of exposing and destroying their children was common, as I have shown, even among the most civilized nations, approved and even required by some of the most famous legislators and wisest philosophers.

Other instances might be mentioned, in relation to things which, one should be apt to think, are plain from the law of nature, concerning which yet some of the most eminent philosophers have passed very wrong judgments. This shows that even men of the greatest abilities, if left merely to their own unassisted reason, are apt to mistake in matters of great consequence in morality, and that their dictates and instructions could not furnish a complete rule of duty that might be safely depended upon. This will farther appear from the instances which shall be brought in the following chapter, of great errors which they have actually fallen into with regard to morals.

dians, Ethiopians, lib. ii. advers. Jovinian. Oper. tom. II. p. 75. edit. Basil. See Grot. de Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii. cap. 5. sect. 12. who observes that Euripides, in his Andromache, speaks of it as a custom general among the barbarians. See also Seldon de Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. v. cap. 11. And it appears from Levit. chap. xviii. that these practices were common among the Canaanites and other neighbouring nations; which shows the great propriety of prohibiting these things by an express divine law, enforced by the authority of God himself, and by powerful sanctions.

* Laërt. Procem. segm. 7.

+ Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. lib. iii. cap. 24. Plutarch. Stoic. Repugn. tom. II. p. 1044, 1045.

CHAP. VIII.

Epictetus' observation concerning the difficulty of applying general preconceptions to particular cases, verified in the ancient philosophers. They were generally wrong with respect to the duty and worship proper to be rendered to God, though they themselves acknowledged it to be a point of the highest importance. As to social duties, some eminent philosophers pleaded for revenge, and against forgiveness of injuries. But especially they were deficient in that part of moral duty which relates to the government of the sensual appetites and passions. Many of the philosophers countenanced by their principles and practice the most unnatural lusts and vices. Those of them that did not carry it so far, yet encouraged an impurity inconsistent with the strictness and dignity of virtue. Plato very culpable in this respect, so also were the Cynics and Stoics. Simple fornication generally allowed amongst them. Our modern deists very loose in their principles, with regard to sensual impurities.

It is an observation of that excellent philosopher Epictetus, that "the cause of all human evils is the not being able to "adapt general preconceptions to particular cases."* This he frequently repeats. By preconceptions, goλus, he understands general common notions, which the Stoics supposed to be originally and naturally implanted in the human mind. He instances in these, that good is eligible, and to be pursued; that justice is fair and becoming. In these and the like principles and maxims, men of all ages and nations agree. But in applying these general notions there is great difference and the best education consists in learning to do this properly. See the 22d chapter of the first book of his dissertations. This is also the subject of the 11th and 17th chapters of his second book, where having observed that we have natural ideas and preconceptions of good and just, he represents it as the proper business of philosophy, to instruct men how to apply such preconceptions in a right manner : and that it is not possible to do this as we ought, without having minutely distinguished them, and examined what is the proper subject to each. But it is no hard matter to show, that the philosophers themselves frequently erred in their ap

* Epict Dissert. book iv. chap. i. sect. 8.

plication of general notions and maxims,* and were wrong themselves, and led others wrong in matters of great consequence, with regard to the particulars of moral duty: which shows the great need they stood in of a superior authority and direction.

Many of the philosophers were sensible in general of the great importance of the duties we owe to the Deity: that, as Hierocles speaks, piety is the mother of all virtues. Cicero, in his Offices, in representing the order of duties, places those relating to the gods in the first place, before those we owe to our country, and to our parents. Yet it is observable, that in that book, which is one of the most excellent moral treatises that was written by any of the philosophers, he very slightly passes over the duties relating to the Divinity. He sometimes, though seldom, makes mention of the gods, but takes no notice of the one supreme God. No where does he, in that treatise, draw any arguments or motives to enforce the practice of duty from the authority and command of God, but merely from the beauty and excellency of the honestum, and the evil and turpitude of vice. It is a just observation of Mr. Locke, that "the philosophers who spoke from rea❝son, make not much mention of the Deity, in their ethics.”+

Though Lord Bolingbroke frequently asserts the universal clearness of the law of nature, and, in a passage mentioned above, intimates that all men have an intuitive knowledge of it, from the first principles to the last conclusions, yet he elsewhere makes this acknowledgment, that "when we make particular applica"tions of the general laws of nature, we are liable to mistake." He adds, that "there are things fit and unfit, right and wrong, just and unjust, in the human "system, and discernible by human reason, as far as our natural imperfections 'admit, I acknowledge most readily. But from the difficulty we have to judge, " and from the uncertainty of our judgments in a multitude of cases which lie "within our bounds, I would demonstrate the folly of those who affect to have knowledge beyond them. They are unable, on many occasions, to deduct from "the constitution of their own system, and the laws of their own nature, with "precision and certainty, what these require of them, and what is right or "wrong, just or unjust, for them to do." Bolingbroke's Works, vol. V. p. 444. edit. 4to.

+ De Offic. lib. i. cap. ult. And to the same purpose, ibid. lib. ii. cap. 3. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity, in his Works, vol. II. p. 554. edit. 3d.

The Stoics, indeed, gave precepts of piety, which would have been excellent, if they had been directed, not to the gods, but to the one true God. But of these I shall treat distinctly afterwards. The philosophers generally acknowledged that God, or the gods, as they usually expressed it, were to be worshipped. But what kind of worship this should be, they were greatly at a loss to know. Some of them, under pretence of the most exalted thoughts of the Divinity, were only for worshipping inwardly in the mind, and were not for rendering any outward worship to the supreme Being, or him whom they called the highest God of all. Others, in accommodation to the imaginations of the people, were for worshipping the Divinity by images and gross corporeal representations. Many were for rendering religious worship to the things of nature and parts of the universe, under pretence of worshipping God in them, as being either parts and members of the Divinity, or animated by his powers and virtues. They all in general encouraged the worship of a multiplicity of deities; and with respect to the particular rites of worship, they referred the people to the decision of oracles, and to the laws of their respective countries; though some of those rites were no way fit to make a part of that worship which reasonable creatures should offer to a pure and perfect mind.*

1590.

* Plato, in his Euthyphro, says that holiness and piety is that part of justice which is conversant about the service and the worship of the gods: the other part of justice is that which relates to men. Plato. Opera, p. 52. F. edit. Lugd. As to the former, he does not in that dialogue give any directions what kind of worship and service is to be rendered to the gods. But in other parts of his works, he is for the people's worshipping the gods appointed by the laws of the state, and in the manner there prescribed. It is true, that the Platonists speak in high strains of what they call their divine virtue, as distinguished from that which is ethical and political: they also talk frequently of assimilation to God. Plato, in his Theætetus, seems to have placed this in holiness and justice, together with prudence. Plato, Opera, p. 128. G. But the most eminent of his followers, those especially that lived after Christianity had made some progress in the world, seem not to understand this of a piety or virtue which the people were supposed capable of attaining to: 'nor will they allow this to have been Plato's sense. They so explain their divine virtue, as to make it of little VOL. II.