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thens themselves. The belief of that future happiness had produced wonderful effects in the converts to Christianity, both in their constancy and even joy under the greatest sufferings, taken notice of by the Pagan writers themselves,* and in the purity and innocency of their lives and manners. To this Pliny gives a noble testimony, in his celebrated epistle to Trajan, who lived about the same time with Plutarch. The Christian apologists, in their public writings addressed to the emperors, frequently mention the virtuousness and regularity of their lives, as a thing that could not be denied even by their bitterest adversaries. Celsus himself, notwithstanding his strong prejudices against Christianity, yet owns that there were among Christians, temperate, modest, and understanding persons, καὶ μετρίες καί ἐπιείκεις, καὶ συνετές.† I do not there fore see any absurdity in supposing that, when Plutarch speaks of pious and just persons that expected such glorious and divine things after death, he might have a secret reference to the Christians, the purity of whose lives, and their being strongly animated by the hopes of a blessed immortality, was well known; and, if he thought them in an error, he might think them "felices errore suo," happy in their error, as Lucan expresseth it, and that their hope of future happiness had a good effect upon them, which was very proper to the purpose he had in view in that treatise; his never ex

* Epictetus and Marcus Antoninus, among others, represent the Christians as showing great fortitude, and a contempt of death, but attribute it to habit and obstinacy, though it was built on a much nobler foundation than Stoicism could pretend to. Epict. Dissert. book iv. chap. 7. sect. 2. and Anton. Medit. book xi. sect. 3. In the Glasgow translation of Antoninus, there is a note upon the passage now referred to, which deserves to be transcribed here. "It is well "known that the ardour of Christians for the glory of martyrdom was frequently "immoderate, and was censured by some even of the primitive fathers. This " is no dishonour to Christianity, that it did not quite extirpate all sorts of hu"man frailty. And there is something so noble in the steadfast lively faith, and "the stable persuasion of a future state, which must have supported that ardour, "that it makes a sufficient apology for this weakness, and gives the strongest " confirmation of the divine power accompanying the gospel."

† Orig. cont. Cels. lib. i. p. 22. edit. Spenser.

pressly mentioning the Christians in all his works, though man so curious as he was may well be supposed to have had some knowledge of them, as they were then very numerous both in Greece and Rome, and in several parts of the Lesser Asia, seems to be an affected silence: and it may possibly be owing to this, that as he did not think proper to give a favourable account of them, so on the other hand he had no mind to speak ill of them, and therefore chose not to speak of them at all.

CHAP. VII.

The belief of

A state of future rewards necessarily connotes future punishments. the former without the latter might be of pernicious consequence. The ancient philosophers and legislators were sensible of the importance and necessity of the doctrine of future punishments. Yet they generally rejected and discarded them, as vain and superstitious terrors. The maxim universally held by the philosophers, that the gods are never angry, and can do no hurt, considered.

THE doctrine of a future state comprehends both the rewards conferred upon good men, and the punishments which shall be inflicted upon the wicked in the world to come. The one of these cannot be rightly separated from the other. And the belief of the latter is at least as necessary as the former; and without which the consideration and belief of a future state will have no great influence on the moral state of mankind.

It is a good observation of M. de Montesquieu, that the idea of a place of future rewards necessarily imports that of a place or state of future punishments; and that when the people hope for the one without fearing the other, civil laws have no force.* It would probably, among other ill effects, encourage self-murder; which is said to be very common amongst the disciples of Fo in China, who hold the immortality of the soul.† Several passages might be produced to show, that the wisest of the heathens were sensible of the great importance and necessity of the doctrine of future punishments, as well as rewards, to the well-being of society. Accordingly this always made a part of the representations of a future state exhibited in the mysteries, which were under the direction of the civil magistrate. Zaleucus, in his excellent preface to his laws, represents it as a thing which

* L'Esprit des Loix, vol. II. liv. 24. chap. 14. p. 162. edit. Edinb.

† See a treatise of a Chinese philosopher, in Du Halde's History of China, vol. III. p. 272. English translation.

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ought to be believed, that the gods inflict punishments upon the wicked. And he concludes with taking notice of the happiness of the just, and the vengeance attending the wicked.* Future punishments are here plainly implied, though not directly mentioned. Timæus, the Pythagorean, at the latter end of his treatise of the soul of the world, praises the Ionian poet for recording from ancient tradition the endless or irremissible torments prepared for the unhappy dead. And he adds, that there is a necessity for inculcating the dread of these strange or foreign punishments. Plato, in his fourth book of Laws, takes notice of an ancient tradition concerning the justice of God as punishing the transgressors of "God, as ancient tradition teacheth, having, or holding in himself, the beginning, the end, the middle of "all things that are, pursues the right way, going about "according to nature, and justice always accompanies and "follows him, which is a punisher of those that fall short of "the divine law." This passage represents God as a just punisher of transgressors, but makes no express mention of the punishments of a future state. But in another passage in his seventh epistle, written to Dion's friends, which I had occasion to mention before, (see above, p. 236.) he says, "We "ought always to believe the ancient and sacred words, or "traditions, which show both that the soul is immortal, and "that it hath judges, and suffers the greatest punishments, "when it leaves the body." And on several other occasions, when speaking of a future state, he takes notice of the punishments which shall be inflicted upon the wicked, and describes them in a popular and poetical manner. In the conclusion of his Phædo, he introduces Socrates, in one of his most serious and solemn discourses just before his death,

* Apud. Stob. serm. 42.

† Ὁ μὲν δὴ θεὸς (ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ πάλαιος λόγος) ἀρχήν τε καὶ τελευτὴν, καὶ τὰ μέσα τῶν ὄντων ἁπάντων ἔχων, εὐθεῖαν περαίνει κατὰ φύσιν περιπορευόμενος· τῷ δὲ ἀεὶ ξυνέπεται δικὴ τῶν ἀπολειπομένων τε θεία νόμε τιμωρός. Plat. Oper. p. 600. G. edit. Ludg. Ibid. p. 716. A.

talking after the manner of the poets, of the judges after death, of Tartarus, Acheron, the Archerusian lake, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus; that some after having gone through various punishments, shall be purged and absolved, and after certain periods shall be freed from their punishments: "But "those who by reason of the greatness of their sins seem to "be incurable, who have committed many and great sacri"leges, or unjust and unlawful murders, and other crimes of "the like nature, shall have a fate suitable to them, being "thrown down into Tartarus, from whence they never shall

escape." The like representation is made at the latter end of Plato's tenth Republic, in the story of Erus Armenius. In his Gorgias also, he supposes the wicked, and those who were incurable, to be sent to Tartarus, where they shall be punished with endless torments, as an example to others; and he approves of Homer, for representing wicked kings who had tyrannized over mankind, among those who should be so punished.† There is another passage in his Phædo, which ought not to be omitted. He says, that "if death "were to be the dissolution of the whole, it would be good “ news to bad men when they die, ἔρμαιον ἢν τοῖς κάκοις ἀπο“Bavo, to have an end put to their body, and to their own 66 pravity, as well as to their souls; but that since the soul "appears to be immortal, there is no other way of escaping “evil, no other safety, but to become as good and as wise "as they can." Cicero, in his second book of Laws, showing the usefulness of religion to society, observes, that many have been reclaimed from wickedness by the fear of divine. punishment. "Quam multos divini supplicii metus à scelere "revocavit."§

Plutarch in his treatise, That it is not possible to live pleasurably according to the Doctrine of Epicurus, observes, that Epicurus himself says, there is no other way of restrain

* Plato Oper. p. 400. F.
Ibid. p. 397. H. p. 398. A.

+ Ibid. p. 313. E, F. edit. Lugd.
§ Cic. de Leg. lib. ii. cap. 7.

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