was every where of an exceptionable charac ter. The eastern sovereigns aimed, with unbounded ambition, at the establishment and extension of despotic power; ruling, excepting in a few instances, with capricious ty ranny and licentious indulgence, while their prostrate subjects were degraded and trampled down like the mire in the streets, and rendered base, superstitious, and vile in manners and conduct. The Grecian states cherished a love of freedom, and a generous ardour for noble actions; but they manifested rarely a respect for justice in their contests with other nations, and little regard to the rights of humanity; while, in the internal regulations of their governments, they seldom adhered to the principles of moderation and equity. Their distinguished men excited jealousy and commotions by ambition; and the general classes of the community exhibited a spirit of base ingratitude towards their benefactors, an ungenerous suspicion of their most virtuous rulers, and an hatred of all, who were raised to distinction by pre-eminent qualities. They calumniated those, who were most entitled to praise, and banished men, whose talents did honour to the periods in which they lived, and who have transmitted the fame of their several countries to distant times, persecuting to expulsion and death those, whose justice and wisdom have excited the admiration of all succeeding ages. The Romans professed to oppose tyranny, and to spare those subjected to their power; but their object was universal dominion. They displayed the virtues of a stern and military people in rising to eminence, and particularly a noble patriotism and devotion to the public interest; but their lusts engendered unceasing wars, and their internal state was disturbed and agitated with contests for an agrarian equality which never could exist, and with tumults of factious men clamouring for freedom, while they promoted sedition, and aimed at exorbitant power. Dissention and civil wars at length subjected them to imperial authority, which soon degenerated into the despotism of men, raised by military caprice to a short-lived and precarious power, or brought forward by the chance of revolutions: while the empire was shaken by internal enemies, or sunk in its decline into feebleness and decay. It is the spirit of Christianity alone which moderating the views of sovereigns and states, and directing the measures of government to the legitimate objects of its institution-the promotion of the welfare of society, and the preservation of its moral interests, leads to an equitable consideration of the rights and independence of other nations, and to an unremitted regard to the well being of the community over which it presides. It is this spirit of just and reasonable policy, which inspire rulers with a desire of fulfilling the intentions of God, "who appointed them as a terror to evil "doers, and for the praise of them that do "well," teaching them to promote, upon general and permanent principles, the interests of every class of society, and to ground the confidence of power on the observance of the just claims of every depart ment. But not only was the spirit of public policy, which prevailed in the councils of Pagan nations, often directly in opposition to the maxims of justice and the laws of orality, but even legislators violated the inest dictates of nature, and neglected, he cular designs which they enter tertained, the manifest distinctions between. right and wrong. Infidelity and customs destructive of all modesty were countenanced by Plato The exposure of infants †, and the putting to death of children who were weak or imperfect in their form, was allowed by Lycur gus and by others. Theft was permitted in Egypt § and Sparta . The laws of nations were not established upon any foundation commensurate with the importance of their objects; they were ill defined and little respected. War, particularly in its earliest periods, was little better than pillage and piracy. A respect for heralds and ambassadors **, and for the claims of the vanquished, was often violated. The systems of philosophy also, framed under imperfect apprehensions of the attri * Euseb. præp. Evang. Plato. + Children were placed on the floor to see whether their fathers would take them up; hence " puerum sustulit" is applied to education. See Adams's Rom. Antiq. Tertul. c. 9. Terent. Hecyra. Diodor. Sicul. lib. i. Grot. lib. ii. c. 1-3. ¶ Homer, and Thucydides, lib. i. Scholiast and Jutin, lib. iv. c. 3. ** Herod. lib. vii. c. 133. butes of God, and of the real nature and condition of man, exhibited every where their defects, and illustrated every variety of error*. But while instruction was thus erroneous and defective, it would be unfair to examine the codes of Heathen morality without reference to the unenlightened state in which men lived; and it would be equally inconsistent with justice to decide upon the character of these codes, by detached passages and occasional sentences, without regard to the scope and object of their statements: we find Cicero sometimes considering revenge as a virtue ; and at other times declaring that nothing was more laudable than a placable disposition and clemency. A fundamental defect, however, necessarily existed, in the ground upon which every theory was raised from mistaken notions of the unimpaired dignity of man; from a want of just convictions on the subject of human nature, vitiated as it is in its propensities, and subject to temptations from an evil and apostate spirit. * See the learned work of Dr. Ireland, Paganism and Christianity compared. + Cicer. de Invent. 2. ad Anton. et Grot. |
