nature the most manifest of all.ὥσπερ γὰρ καὶ τὰ τῶν νυκτερίδων ὄμματα πρὸς τὸ φέγγος ἔχει τὸ καθ' ἡμέραν, ὅτως καὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας ψύχης ὁ νῆς πρὸς τὰ τῇ φύσει φανερώτατα The Stoics were, of all the philosophers, those who made the highest pretensions to certainty and evidence, and were the constant opposers of the Academics. They would not allow any doubtfulness of opinion in their wise man, but that he had a clear and certain comprehension of things: yet they could not help sometimes talking in a different strain. Marcus Antoninus, though a strict Stoic, observes that "the na"tures of things are so covered up from us, that, to many "philosophers, and those no mean ones, all things seem un"certain and incomprehensible." He adds that "the Stoics "themselves own it to be very difficult to comprehend any "thing certainly. All our judgments are fallible.” So it is in the Glasgow translation of Antoninus. In the original it runs thus, σε πᾶσα ἡ ἡμετέρα συγκατάθεσις μετάπτωτη;” which Gataker renders," omnis assensus noster est labilis et mutabilis."Every assent of ours is liable to mistake and change."+ Diodorus Siculus charges the Greek philosophy, in general, as leading men into perpetual doubts. He observes that they were continually innovating in the most considerable doctrines, and, by perpetually contradicting one another, made their disciples dubious; so that their minds, as long as they lived, were in suspense, neither could they firmly believe any thing. It may therefore be affirmed that philosophy, especially as it was managed among the Greeks, tended rather to unsettle men's notions in religion, and to unhinge some of the main principles conveyed by ancient tradition, than to set the people right, and rectify their errors, in the most important points of religious faith and practice. This observation shows how little the philosophers were to be depended upon: since * Arist. Metaphys. lib. ii. cap. 1. Marc. Anton. lib. v. s. 10. some of the greatest and best of them confessed, on several occasions, that they had not any thing certain to offer for the instruction of mankind, especially in things relating to religion and the Deity. But since at other times they highly extolled philosophy, as the best guide to lead men into the knowledge of things human and divine, it will be proper distinctly to examine the truth and justice of their pretensions. CHAP. XII. The fourth general consideration. The philosophers unfit to instruct the people in religion, because they themselves were, for the most part, very wrong in their own notions of the Divinity. They were the great corrupters of the ancient tradition relating to the one true God, and the creation of the world. Many of those who professed to search into the origin of the world, and the formation of things, endeavoured to account for it, without the interposition of a Deity. The opinions of those philosophers who were of a nobler kind considered. It is shown that they were chargeable with great defects, and no way proper to reclaim the nations from their idolatry and polytheism. THE considerations which have been already offered, tend to show how little was to be expected from the philosophers, for instructing the people in a right knowledge of God and religion. But this will still more convincingly appear, if we consider what wrong notions they themselves entertained of the Deity, and the confusion and absurdity of their opinions, even with respect to this most important article of all religion. Justin Martyr informs us that, when the Pagans were pressed with the fables of the poets concerning the gods, they were wont to allege their wise men and philosophers, and had recourse to them as a strong wall or bulwark; though he observes that the opinions of the philosophers were more ridiculous than even the theology of the poets. And indeed there were many of them to whom this censure might justly be applied. Cicero, than whom no man was better acquainted with the tenets of the ancient philosophers, or an abler judge of them, and who was himself, as appears from the passages above produced from him, a great admirer of philosophy, hath written a celebrated treatise concerning the nature of the gods. He begins with observing the great importance of the question, and that it was necessary to the right ordering of religion, "ad "moderandam religionem necessaria ;" and then immediately takes notice of the prodigious diversity of sentiments among the most learned philosophers on this subject, which, he says, were so many and various, that it was no easy matter to enumerate them. And the account he gives of them is such as we, who have had the advantage of clearer discoveries of the Deity by the light of divine revelation, cannot read without concern and astonishment. Nor can any thing, in my opinion, exhibit a more melancholy proof of the weakness of human reason, when left to itself, and trusting to its own force, in matters of religion. He gives a long list of the most celebrated names in the Pagan world, especially among the Greek philosophers, men who were most admired for the depth of their learning, or for the fineness of their genius.* I shall not enter into a detail of their sentiments, for which I refer to the book itself, which is generally known. He does not propose to speak of those who said there were no gods, as Diagoras Melius and Theodorus Cyrenaicus; or who doubted whether there were any, as Protagoras. All those whom he mentions professed to acknowledge a god or gods of one kind or another; but as to the nature of the deity or deities, there was a strange confusion and diversity in their notions. And almost all of them were such as every rational deist in our days, who declares himself an admirer of natural religion, will readily pronounce to be absurd and contrary to reason. The ancient philosophers may be distributed into two principal ranks or classes. The one is, of those who excluded a divine mind or understanding from any concern in the formation of the universe. The other is, of those who attributed the frame and order of things to a most wise, powerful, and benign Cause and Author. Among the former may be reckoned most of those who first applied themselves to the study of philosophy in Greece, and to search into the nature of things. Aristotle expressly tells * He mentions Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Alcmæon Crotoniates, Py. thagoras, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Diogenes Apolloniata, Antisthenes, Xenocrates, Heraclides Ponticus, Strato, Plato, Xenophon, Speusippus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Chrysippus. us, that most of those who first philosophized "rÑV TRŃTWV piλ0σε σοφήσαντων οἱ πλεῖστα seeing the substance of matter to remain "always the same, and that it was altered only in its qualities, "made matter to be the only principle, or the first cause of "all things that exist."* And the same opinion he charges upon those who first theologized, and whom he calls the most ancient of all, who made Ocean and Thetis to be the first authors or fathers of the generation of things. The tradition, that the world was formed by God out of a chaos, was of the highest antiquity, derived from the first ages, and was probably communicated by original revelation to the first parents of the human race. It is not only preserved in the writings of Moses, but, as was hinted before, had spread generally through the nations. The Pagan philosophers and theologues were among the first that corrupted and perverted this ancient tradition, by endeavouring to account for the origination of all things out of a chaos without any intelligent cause. Eusebius cites some passages out of a book of Plutarch, which he calls his Stromata, to show the various opinions of the ancient Greek philosophers, called Physici, or natural philosophers, concerning the origin and composition of the universe. He takes notice particularly of Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Metrodorus Chius, Empedocles, Democritus, Epicurus, Diogenes Apolloniata; and observes, that they who were accounted the most eminent of those whom the Greeks called natural philosophers, in their disquisitions concerning the constitution of things, and the cosmogonia, or ge neration and production of the world, did not suppose any wise author or architect of the whole; nor did they make the least mention of God in it. The most ancient philosophers were very fond of enquiring into the origin of the universe, and the first causes and principles of things; and trusting to *Arist. Metaphys. lib. i. cap. 3. Oper. tom. II. p. 842. Edit. Paris, 1629. Arist. Metaphys. ubi supra, p. 843. Euseb. Præpar. Evangel. lib. i. cap. 8. p. 22, et seq, |