of their acceding to the terms of the god, than Love immediately lighted up new fmiles in his face, and appeared infinitely more engaging than before. Yet the more furprising change was wrought, upon Money, whole talons fell off like fcales from his fingers; his eyes loft all their former rapacious avidity; and the harsh lineaments of his countenance, at once foftened into all the fweetnefs of humanity. Love approached, and gently stroking the old man's bofom, tilled the hiffing of the ferpents, and affuaged the feverity of his pain. The conteft being thus amicably adjufted, Beauty next advanced, and, after many airs of affectation, put on a languithing look, and lifped out a mournful accufation against Money (as Love had done before) intimating alfo his ufurpation over her, and

the like. Scarcely had fhe uttered three fentences before there made toward her a grifly wight. His hair was covered with a hoar-froft, his face plowed with furrows, and from his eyes there diftilled a fcalding rheum. When the young lady thus faw age hobbling toward her, the appeared in all the agonies of thought, the rofes left her cheeks, and the funk down in a fwoon. Hymen underftanding the temper of the girl, that fhe was proud and imperious, fond of governing, but at the fame time incapable of ruling with propriety, diveited her of a large fhare of power, by difpofing of her frontier towns to Fancy; who now acts with unlimited authority, nor admits any perfon to pay his addreffes to the gay virgin, without a prior interview with her. felf.

jary: for it was the great maxim of Epictetus, that it is naturally impoffible for one man to be in falt, and another to be the fufferer. It is certainly very difficult to conceive what real virtue could refult from fuch maxims as thefe; maxims, which appear, on the contrary, to have had a very pernicious tendency.

The focial virtues are the moft obvious of all, and of the most acknowledged obligation. When any of the focial duties are neglected, fome of our fellow-creatures are. injured, and cannot refrain from complaining, or feeking fome method of redreis. Indeed, without a tolerable obfervance of the focial duties, fociety could not fubfilt. Public wrongs are always things of great notoriety, fo that mankind cannot but attend to them, and be convinced of their malignant and deftructive nature. Among all nations, therefore, we find a pretty juft notion of the diftinction between right and wrong; and the duties of fociety have always been the moft generally practifed. But even this branch of the fyftem of morals was very imperfect among the Greeks and Romans, and was far from being favourable to the fentiments of that generous, refined, and extenfive humanity, which confiders all mankind as brethren, the common offspring of one great and good Parent, and inftructs us to do to others as we would they should do

to us.

The Greeks, in general, do not appear to have had any higher object than the good of their respective ftates, or, at fartheft, that of the community of Greeks. Even Socrates, when he directs his hearers to confider all Greeks as brethren, fpeaks of the Barbarians, (by whom were meant all other nations), as their natural enemies; and he prefcribes fuch rules of conduct with refpect to them, as are not to be reconciled to the common rules of humanity. It is well known to have been a maxim at Sparta, that probity, and every other confideration, are to be facrificed to the

good of the state. The Spartans having conquered a neighbouring nation, the Helots, kept them, for feveral hundred years, in a ftate of the molt abject flavery, and, left they fhould grow too numerous, frequently butchered them in cold blood; and their youths were not only connived at, but applauded, when they killed them by furprise, in order to innure them to the bloody and deceitful businefs of war: for the Spartan youth were taught, that a victory gained by artifice was of double value.

In most of the heathen ftates, we find cuftoms utterly irreconcileable to humanity and virtue; particularly that of expofing fickly children to be devoured by wild beats. In Sparta, every child was examined by public infpectors, who determined whether it thould be brought up or expofed; and for this they are commended by Plutarch. Plato, in his book of laws, orders, that when perfons are paft the age of having ftrong children, they fhould employ means to prevent their being born alive, or kill them after they were born. Arittotle alfo fays, that there should be laws to prevent the education of weak children. In feveral ancient heathen nations, the aged and infirm were expofed. Among the Periians, this was done without any fcruple.

At Rome, it was the general cuftom to leave their old and fick flaves to perish on a certain island in the Tiber; and the favourite entertainment of the Roman people, for many ages, was the barbarous exhibition of gladiators, fome of whom fought with each other, and fome with wild beafts In this manner, many hundreds of flaves, carefully trained up for the purpofe, have been facrificed at one time. This was one of the horrid cultoms, the abolition of which was owing to the mild fpirit of Chriftianity.

It may be imagined, that compaf. fion for the di@reffed had been fo ftrongly rooted in the human heart, and had fo much the fanction of na

N 2

tural

tural confcience, that it could not be in the power of philofophy to exclude it from a fyftem of ethics; and yet thofe great moralifts, the Stoics, abfolutely profcribed it. Their wife man must have no paffions, and, confequently, no fympathy. Epictetus, indeed, allows a philofopher to condole with his common friends in words, if that will afford them any relief; but he bids him be very careful that, in reality, he feels nothing all the time. Some of the philofophers recommend the forgiven fs of injuries; but others praise a spirit of revenge, particularly Democritus; and when Plato introduces Socrates as recommending forgiveness, he speaks of it as contrary to the fentiments of the generality of the philofophers.

The obligation of truth feems to be equal, if not fuperior, to that of humanity and compaffion, on account of its obvious importance to fociety; and yet the maxims of fome of the philofophers tended to undermine it. The Stoics thought that lying was lawful, if it were profitable. and Plato fays, that that man may tell a lie who knows how to do it at a proper time.

Having found the Greek philofophers fuch loose moralifts with refpect to the focial virtues here enumerated, we cannot expect from them any great ftrictness in regard to the commerce of the fexes. None of the philofophers ever reprefented fornication as a vice, although its tendency is fo pernicious to fociety, and the practice of it fo much depraves the heart. Cato even commended a young man for frequenting the public ftews. At Sparta, young women appeared naked in the public exercifes; and, when married women had no children, their hufbands were encouraged to lend them to other men; a cuítom, which Plutarch vindicates. This was alfo agreeable to the doctrine of the Stoics; and it is well known, that that rigid Stoic, Cato of Utica, lent his wife to his friend Hortenfius. Plato, in his book of laws, recommends a community of women; and he advifes, 5

that foldiers be not restrained, with refpect to any kind of fenfual indulgence, even the most unnatural species of it, when they are upon an expedition.

Incestuous marriages were common in fome of the Gentile nations, efpecially Egypt and Perfia; but they were condemned in Greece and Rome.

If men do not feel and acknowledge the obligation of focial virtue, it cannot be expected that they should think themselves under any restraint where the rights of others have no place. When the authority of God, and of the magiftrate, are both out of the queftion, the reafons for purity and decency of conduct, derived from nature only, cannot be fuppofed to weigh much against the bias of inclination. To provide for a man's happinefs in this life was the great object of all the philofophers of antiquity; and though fome of them confidered happiness as confifting in virtue only, and others in tranquillity of mind as well as body, Ariftippus, and the Alexandrian school, which was one of the last that was formed, made corporeal pleasure only to be the ultimate end of man.

The Stoics allowed a very great indulgence of the fenfes, and were generally great drinkers. Cato of Utica was remakably addicted to drinking, as was Zeno, the founder of the fect; and Chryfippus died, in confequence of drinking to excefs, at a facrifice.

The vice which is justly styled unnatural, had, what is fcarcely credible, too much of the fanction of fome legiflaters and philofophers, and was countenanced by the example of many of them. Xenophon informs us, that it was encouraged by the public laws of many of the ftates of Greece. It was especially fo among the Cretans, in order to prevent their having too many children. Solon, one of the feven wife men of Greece, and the celebrated law-giver of Athens, forbad this practice to flaves, which ne

ceffarily

ceffarily conveys the idea, that he thought it fit for free men only. According to Cicero, the Greek philo. fophers not only generally practifed, but even gloried in this vice; and Plutarch informs us, that many parents would not fuffer their children to keep the company of thofe philofophers, who pretended to be fond of them. Diogenes was remarkable for indulging himself in the most abominable practices openly, without any fenfe of fhame; affecting, according to the maxim of the Cynics, to live according to nature. These unnatural vices were increased in a very aftonishing degree, about the time of the promulgation of Chriftianity. Seneca fays, that, in his time, they were practifed openly, without fhame, at

Rome.

When pleasure was confidered as the great end of living, and when the authority of God and of confcience was disclaimed, it cannot be furprifing, that, whenever this end was defpaired of, life itself should be abandoned. We naturally expect, therefore, that felf-murder fhould be fecommended by the Epicureans, and other philofophers, whofe principles were fimilar to theirs, when life became a burthen; and in this we are not difappointed. But it was chiefly recommended and practifed by the Stoics, who pretended to renounce pleasure, as an act of heroin and magnanimity. The common faying of their graveft philofophers, on this fubject, was, If the house be fmoaky, the door is open, and you may walk out; and history informs us, that many of the most eminent Stoics died by their own hands; efpecially the famous Cato of Utica, and Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, who killed himfelf, when he was very old, after having broken a finger which proved to be very painful to him.

Sometimes, indeed, thefe philofophers talked in a different ftrain, and advifed perfons not to abandon life,

till God, who placed them in it, should give the fignal. But it is in vain to expect a perfect confiftency in any of the fyftems of the philofophers. They were perpetually charging cach other (and, indeed, very juftly) with inconfiftencies and abfurdities. Whatever the philofophers might think, or practife, in this refpect, the legiflators of antiquity, however, did not adopt the fame maxims; for, in feveral ancient ftates, we find self-murder branded by an ignominious treatment of the body, and other penalties.

Such having been the ftate of the heathen world, we may fee the propriety of thofe defcriptions of it which we find in many parts of the New Teftament, and which are fufpected, by many perfons, who have not a fufficient knowledge of the hiftory of the times, to be hyperbolical and exaggerated. For, although every corruption of genuine Chriftianity has tended to debafe its fpirit, and to defeat its great purpose, which was to reform the world, and to promote purity of morals, the corruption was never fo great, not even in the darkest ages of popery, but that the belief of it was more favourable to virtue than the belief of the prevailing doctrines of the heathens at the time of the promulgation of Chriflianity. We often complain, and very juftly, of the corruption of the times; and fuch complaints were never more particularly loud than in the period preceding the reformation. But the corruption was fill fhort of that, which (as we learn from the heathen writers themfelves) generally prevailed in the heathen world; and which irrefragably demonfirated, with other confiderations which I thall hereafter notice, not only the propriety and expediency, but the abfolute neceffity of a purer fyfem of religion and mo rals, or, in other words, of a DIVINĖ REVELATION.

The